There are a lot of things
in life that just don't mix. Drinking and driving. Steak and marshmallow fluff.
Herding and cats.
The same could be said for the "do it yourself" mentality and a blogging platform. While DIY and your new bathroom sink may be a good thing, DIY and blogging software is bound to cause some heart burn and even lost opportunity. There are a few reasons why:
1. It’s gonna take time, a whole lotta precious time. Just like George Harrison said it would. And while you wait for your company’s IT department to build the blogging platform of your dreams, that’s precious time that could be spent blogging. Maybe time doesn’t seem like a big deal, but delaying your content creation and posting is going to delay your success. What, exactly do I mean by that? Content is what makes blogging so powerful. As Chris Baggott likes to say, “When was the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago.” It’s the same thing with content and blogging. When was the best time to start blogging? Yesterday. That’s because content, recency, frequency, and age all big factors that Google will take into consideration when determining how to rank your blogs within the search results.
2. It’s gonna take money, a whole lotta precious money. More wisdom from good old George. Time and money tend to go hand-in-hand, don’t they? The problem with DIY and a blogging platform is that the requirements can tend to get out of control. And more time is more money. At the same time, why would you ever want to recreate the wheel? There’s a reason why I don’t milk my own cows and build my own television set. If there are other people who are experts in their areas and are already offering what I need, it makes more sense to use their resources rather than coming up with my own.
3. You may get a station wagon rather than a Porsche. What I mean by that is that all cars aren’t created equally, and neither are all blogging solutions. While your IT department may be able to create a home-grown blogging solution that enables you to publish content, there are going to be other features that don’t get included in the mix. What about an administrative layer to keep your organization safe and secure? What about a compending process that maximizes your content for search engine exposure? (Note: this is the proprietary part of Compendium Blogware that makes our blogging platform so unique).
The bottom line is that there are countless things that you and your organization could do yourself. But the real question to ask yourself is: why would you want to?
