In this week’s edition of her Blogging Insights series, Dr. Tanya wants to find out about our tech cred. She wants to know…
How technically savvy are you?
Back in the day I used to consider myself to be reasonably savvy when it came to computer hardware and software. I was able to work magic with MS-DOS and master all kinds of DOS-based PC software. And then Windows was introduced and my level of tech savvyness became the ability to simultaneously hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot the damn computer.
These days, my iPhone is my primary device for most of my computing, communications, and blogging needs and if I run into technology issues, I usually just turn my iPhone off and then back on again and whatever the problem was is miraculously addressed.
Did you launch and set up your blog on your own or did you need help with it?
I did it on my own, but it’s pretty easy to do that with WordPress.
Do you feel that it is more important to have a flair for writing or to have good computer skills to be a successful blogger?
I’m not sure I know what being a “successful blogger” actually is, since each of us has our own way of defining blogging success. That said, by definition, blogging requires the use of technology. Thus, I think you need at least some basic computer (or smartphone) skills to be a blogger. But having the ability to write posts that are articulate, interesting, informative, engaging, and witty is the key to being an effective blogger. And, in my humble opinion, having decent skills in grammar, spelling, word usage, and punctuation helps a lot.
This, That, and the Other 
I consider you to be a very successful blogger, but I know that you work very hard all the time on your posts.
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Thanks, Jim.
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I agree with you. I do think that being a successful blogger is mostly about what you write but the way you present it is important too. If it is hard to read people will get tired of trying. So yes, good spelling and grammar and also at least some some basic computer skills. WordPress does make it easy to set up a blog. I actually found it harder with the most recent ones my sister and I set up than when I started. I think it does help if you are tech savvy enough to ensure that your blog does not have fonts that are too tiny to read or colours that don’t show up against the background and it certainlly helps if you know enough to insert photos and links to add interest to your writing.
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Yep, those “tech” skills are important and creating a pleasant, easy to read and to navigate blog is important.
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You are for certain a successful blogger. You have many wonderful prompts for others to respond to. That is a great success.
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Thank you, Lauren. I appreciate your comment.
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I think this says it all :
“I think you need at least some basic computer (or smartphone) skills to be a blogger. But having the ability to write posts that are articulate, interesting, informative, engaging, and witty is the key to being an effective blogger”
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Having a good grip of language and writing skills is the deal clincher.
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I like your perspective and the use of the terms “effective blogger.” You said it well. Kudos! 🙂
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Thanks, Melanie.
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You’re one of my top faves! But that has to do with the quality of your writing as opposed to techy stuff 🙂
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Aw thanks, Paula. Right back at you!
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I definitely consider you a successful blogger. Always find them engaging. I am not so regular in blogging, and in past two years, most of the time what I could manage to write with my 15hr job were on your flash fictio n or one word challenge. Thank you
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Thank you, Amber. That’s very kind of you to say. I must admit, if I were working a 15-hour-a-day job, I probably would be doing much blogging either.
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Having been VERY tech savvy in my working years to basically rebooting the computing and if necessary, rolling back to an earlier point before the last “update” did weird things, it’s very useful to have technical savvy, but being a good writer/photographer/artist beats our tech savviness 10 to one. Even before I developed a relatively fancy-ish format, I had a lot of followers — and very quickly. So did you. A good writer or photographer or artist will find an audience, no matter how clunky the format may be, but a crappy writer with no artistic skills will probably never find an audience.
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You’re right. As they say, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. I think that saying is relevant to your point, right?
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Funny I should run across this while my computer reboots after a control, alt, delete. Good answers!
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Success is what and how you define it yourself, getting followers is the most difficult thing of blogging your content can be good there’s 50million other accounts
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