Privacy vs Publicity

I have a friend who recently took down his longtime blog.  Deleted everything and dropped the domain.  He said he did this because he was worried what people might think of him and his older posts. He is a strong believer in privacy; he thinks the more privacy you have, the better.

On the other hand you have me and my blog.  I believe the opposite: I think privacy is only good for child molesters. The more people know about you and understand you, the more sympathy they will have for you and the closer they will be to you.

Over the years I have had many people I should take down my blog for a number of reasons. Some believe that embarrassing posts from four or five years ago make me look bad.  Some believe that those same posts might hurt my business. Others are offended at the mere thought of sharing private thoughts publicly.

So why do I continue to blog? Why don’t I at least delete my old embarrassing posts?

I strongly believe that the more you understand someone, generally the more you will like them (or at least not hate them).  My blog is a slice of who I am shared publicly.  It’s historical in that you can get a better understanding of where I come from and how I have evolved over time.  It allows people who may have only seen one facet of my personality before to see others.  It helps me to communicate with many people at once.  It has been a strong boon to my business. I wouldn’t give it up or delete it for the world.

 

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Joel Gross

Joel Gross is the CEO of Coalition Technologies.