Why do I do this blog solo?

A random person emailed the following question:

I'm an avid reader and always will.  But I have a question:  Why do you do your blog solo?  It would appear to me if you had more guest bloggers, if you did more interviews, your blog would be more credible.  I'm not saying your blog is not credible, but I am saying it would be better.  What do you think?

This is kind of an interesting question, but a good friend of mine, a friend I will not name, asked me a similar question:  "Why do you do your blog solo?  Why don't you have more guests writers on your blog?"

I do have guest writers on this blog.  At one time I tried to get a bunch of respiratory therapists to submit posts on a regular basis on this blog.  Yet then I decided this is my blog. People come here because they want to know what I think.

So I decided I'm no longer going to allow guest writers on my blog unless something I think is important and beyond the scope of my knowledge needs to be written about.  Yet more often than not, I make myself an expert on such topics.  I report on it and give my opinion.  That's what people want in a blog: an opinion.  More often, they want an opinion they agree with.

Generally, this blog is a marketplace where ignorance is reported on.  I write about all the myths of the medical industry as they pertain to respiratory therapy.  If I simply came on here and championed for breathing treatments and justified all of them based on breathing treatments are good for all lung ailments, my blog would have few readers. I'd simply be rehashing the myths most doctors and nurses and RT bosses already believe.

The reason I go solo is because I'm the world's foremost authority on respiratory therapy. I read all the studies, I read all the peer reviewed material (and I think my blog is peer reviewed), and then I tell you what you think about it.  If it's good material I say that.  If it's poppycock I say that.  Generally, I don't write anything new.  

What I don't know I research until I am an expert.  I never guess.  I never make stuff up. I never write an opinion because that's the safe opinion, or because it's the accepted opinion.  I never or rarely tell you what a doctor will tell you, because doctors have to play it safe due to liabilities.  Because I'm a writer not a doctor, I can write the truth.  I can tell you a breathing treatment is a waste of time for pneumonia, while a doctor has to order it because that's what they were taught in medical school.  For liability reasons, they have to do what everyone else does; what's accepted practice.  

I do read and listen to information that pours in every day.  Yet when it comes to my opinions, I ask nobody what they think.  I'm not big on interviews because I don't care what anybody else thinks.  That's why I don't have guests.  Really.  Why pussyfoot around that.  People have asked me oftentimes, "Why don't you have guests on your blog?"  Well, there's a whole bunch of format  reasons.  One is, everybody else does.  There's no way to be different.  But, secondly, I'd rather find out myself and become the expert rather than turn it over to people plugging this and plugging that.  

You know, behave and conduct a blog according to formula.  And then I finally one day, in a shocking realization, I admitted to myself, I don't care what anybody else thinks.  It's not gonna change my mind.

It's work to sit here and ask people questions that I don't care about.  I'm not much for small talk.  I'm not gonna subject myself to that.  That turns this into a job.  But I'm gonna make a departure from that this week.  This week I asked you a question, let you write the blog post.  I want to know what you think of.  You can email me by clicking on the "contact me" icon in the right hand column.

You must be prepared to give a short -- and you can say you have no idea.  That's fine, too.  You can say you don't know.  You can say what you hope.  No, I know what you hope.  So don't give me that.  I know what you're saying.  I know what you're thinking, "What are you asking us for, Rick? You are the master at reading the tea leaves.

No I'm not the master of anything.  I'm not even a good respiratory therapist.  I know respiratory therapy better than most people, but that doesn't mean I'm good at it.  I might be, but I can't judge myself.  I can only judge other people, and I don't even like to do that.  I don't like small talk.  I don't like to talk.

So how the heck do I come up with ideas to blog about?  Well, I do that by observing and by thinking.  I do it the same way my readers come up with the same ideas I've already written about.  In this way we are all smart if we think outside the box instead of inside it.  If we think inside the box we're just going to continue making the same mistakes over and over again.  And I know my readers know what I mean when I say that.

The best opinions come from thinking outside the box, and that's what I want from you.  So email me with your opinions.  Let me know what you think.  Be honest.  The topic this week is healthcare reform.  I know most of you are hot on this topic, and you know what I mean by that to.  So you don't have to be an activist to email me, all you have to do is care.


Facebook
Twitter