What you can now expect as a reader from this blog

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Our summer is nearly over and we’re all slowly getting back to our normal daily routines, which include blogging for me and blog reading for you.

I have been reflecting over the summer on how this blog has been developing over the past year and where it’s going to go from now on: where is the best place for my interests, thoughts and writing to meet your interests, thoughts, reading and comments?

You can see I have already started to make lots of changes and so it’s fitting that the first post-summer post be about what you can expect if you keep reading this blog.

The last twelve months of blogging

The past year has seen many professional changes for me (including leaving the company I once created) and I think that has been evident in a certain lack of consistency in my blogging – both conceptually and practically.

At the same time, so much change has given me the opportunity to try out a few different ideas – more news-like posts, summary posts, live blogging and note-taking – as well as helping me to reflect on how blogging fits into my life in other ways (more on that below).

I also briefly tried blogging in Spanish about the UK for Spanish readers and in English about Spain for Anglo-Saxon types but I think that was as confusing for me as it was for you.

I attempted different posting frequencies to see where I could find the balance between what is practical and what is necessary and desirable in order to create a successful and enjoyable blog. Sometimes I posted two or three times a day and would then go for a couple of weeks without posting very much at all.

Summertime blog analysis

When normal business came to an end for the summer here in Murcia (towards the end of July) I decided to analyse my blogging, my business and my life and work out where it was all going. I have looked at four main areas:

1. my reading;
2. category structure;
3. use of languages;
4. type and frequency of posts.

1. My reading

You are what you read, and more so if you’re a blogger, because then you get to write about it too.

Instead of trying to fit my blog into a niche as all the experts recommend (Spanish translation blog, Spain in English, etc), I sat down and analysed more than 1500 delicious links that I had read and collected over the past three years.

It turns out collecting all of those links was a great idea.

Instead of a descriptive approach to the articles, I analysed them into categories related to what I was actually interested in and what I spent most of my time reading about anyway – the theory being that it will all be much easier and interesting for everyone if I blog about what I’m fascinated by anyway.

It worked. You can see the results in the category structure here on my blog. There are no longer niche categories like ‘Spanish translation‘ but much broader ones which better reflect what I’m interested in reading, thinking and blogging about.

2. This blog’s category structure

Before the summer, you could see a mish-mash of categories about ‘Spanish translation’ and ‘Spanish economy’ and other things which even morphed into named blog columns later on: ‘The Last Peseta’ and ‘The Big Chorizo’. I found that direction to be a little limiting and not very helpful for you in terms of describing what I write about and what you can expect to read next.

Following the delicious link analysis, I found to my great surprise that 99% of my posts fitted in to the same categories of article I had been reading about.

I had managed to uncover my underlying interests – what I really want to blog about. I don’t expect the category structure to change at all now.

I will still talk about Spain and the UK and translation and languages, but not as a rule and not every day. Expect a more international focus on current affairs and the ‘global conversation’.

3. Use of language

I’m a linguist, a translator and I teach a few students English and Spanish too. I wanted to balance the translation of my blog out more and think about how you could benefit from reading my blog and learning Spanish and English – whilst at the same time trying to do so without having to spend hours reformatting things everyday.

You can see I have been successful in this area. You can now read every single post on my blog in both English and Spanish. You can change between the English and Spanish versions by just clicking on the flags at the top of each post.

You will also, over time, be able to listen to the audio recording of every post so that you can listen to the words and phrases as you read along. I think it will take me a couple of months to finish all the recordings and keep up with my new-found blogging routine.

4. Type and frequency of posts

There are lots of different blog post types and a few different posting frequencies which seem to work. I have decided that for now I will try and stick to one new post every day.

I’m betting on a slower but higher quality posting rhythm for the near future. If I miss a day, I will do my homework and post twice the day after.

You will be reading three types of post, all based around current affairs:

1. my opinion, ideas and commentary;
2. interviews with interesting people;
3. summary link posts which will point you to high quality articles and videos related to a particular topic on other sites and blogs;

I have noticed that within each category I tend to enjoy following the development of a story so I will continue to do that and organise related posts into some kind of series-based navigation.

‘The war in Afghanistan‘ and ‘Spain’s recession‘ are two examples that you can expect to read more about over the next few months.

I’m going to translate and record the audio for all of the new posts each day too. Expect most of them to be shorter than 500 words – it shouldn’t take you more than ten minutes a day or so to read and leave your comments.

One thing I’m looking forward to in the same way as always is reading your comments and e-mails and developing our ideas about the different stories and ideas that we find along the way.