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9 Nov 2006

You probably think this blog is about you, don't you

filed under: journal  :: blogging  :: clients  :: privacy

The classic song by Carly Simon, "You're so vain", has this chorus:

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

It often comes to mind when I am trying to write things. I find that a surprising number of people in my life read my online writing, including clients. Once before, I ran into some trouble with one when I wrote something that the client took to be a dig at them (I won't specify which post that was). I assured them that it wasn't, but the whole incident did make me a bit wary about just writing what was on my mind without a lot of thought about it.

I never intend to criticize any single entity, be it person or company. There are many things that pop up that are sort of universal situations though, which may be informative or funny or something.

There are a lot of things that I would love to write about, pertaining to my work, that might interest people working in similar areas, or not. The best writing comes from real experience, but the fact that someone may just think 'she's writing about me' makes me sit on things far more than I'd like to.

I've never chosen to blog anonymously, but sometimes I think if I want to be really open that I need to. Or, write things as fictionalized stories maybe. Or both.

Anyway, most of the time I am not really writing about any single person, but a conglomeration of people I encounter, so if you happen to read this please don't think it's about you. It probably isn't. :)

(I probably agonize this about a lot more than I should. I wrote about it from a somewhat different angle before, I just noticed.)

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