Hey there! This week, we’re going to take a step back, and just talk about the blog a bit. We’ll go over some changes that I want to make, as well as how I’m thinking about my goals here on Software and Synapses.
So my last post, the beginning of the “All About Agents” series, was one of my favorites to write thus far. However, some of you may have noticed that the post came out a couple of days late. In fact, many of my posts have been going out a bit late lately. The reason for this is simple, I wanted to dedicate more time, and so I took that time to make finishing touches. I’ve been fairly happy with the results of working more on individual posts, which led to a bit of thinking on my end.
One post per week was the original value proposition of this publication. However, another value proposition is quality over quantity. So I’ll cut to the chase:
I’m planning to switch the blog from a weekly, to a bi-weekly posting schedule. Each post will have two weeks of time dedicated, rather than just one.
As much as I love writing here, it’s not my full-time job (yet?), and sometimes it’s hard to find time to write. Still, I’m extremely committed to consistently delivering valuable pieces of writing to all of my subscribers. It’s honestly still a bit crazy to me that people care to read my thoughts and ideas, enough to let me email them multiple times a month.
The goal with this change isn’t to reduce my workload, although it might help a bit there as well. Rather, the goal is to increase the quality of the content that I send my subscribers by spending more time on fewer posts. With that said, this is a publication which strongly values feedback, so if you have issues with this change, please feel free to reach out.
In the meantime, we’ll consider this an experimental change. We’ll see how it goes for a while, and if it’s going well, we’ll keep at it, and if not, we’ll go back to how things were before.
When I first started, I wanted to focus on regularity and consistency. Quality over quantity was preferred, but frankly, as a new writer, I needed to focus on the logistics of it all. Getting posts out consistently was difficult, and I had to adjust my schedule to that, but now I’ve largely made that adjustment. Throughout the last few months, I’ve also fine-tuned my production methods, and learned how to make posts that I’m actually happy with.
With that, the goal of the publication has shifted a bit. The value proposition of the publication, I hope, is to be an archive of content which is appealing and interesting to new and old subscribers alike. This value proposition compounds over time, as with each new post, the overall quality of the archive (hopefully) increases. So it follows that focusing on the quality of individual posts may be preferred to the frequency of them.
There’s also a difference between regularity and consistency. Regularity is helpful in building systems and habits, allowing the system to flow almost automatically. BUT, in my opinion, regularity doesn’t matter as much as consistency. In other words, if I post on a different day each week, but still post every week, then that’s favorable I think. With that said, I do still plan to post on Mondays. Every other Monday, to be precise.
As far as the content of the publication, one of the big things I want to focus on in this next phase of Software and Synapses, is the integration of real projects. I’ve spent a decent amount of time working on side projects for various purposes and across various interests. I’d like to spend a bit of time doing exploratory essays, diving into some of the problems that occur with those.
Agents are a very interesting topic to me, and so I’ve started this new series, “All About Agents”, to talk about them. Not every post will be “All About Agents”, and they might not be in order, but it’ll be an ongoing series. I plan to make more series like that in the future, and this approach, along with the new posting schedule, will allow us to go further in-depth than we’ve gone before.
So, frankly, I’m quite excited to see how things go :)
That’s it for the content updates this time, so if you’re just here for the logistics and such, then that’s all! I’ll see you on Monday for the next installment of the “All About Agents” series. Thank you for reading, and goodbye. :)
If, however, you want to stay and chat, I have exciting news. My wife and I are expecting a baby boy in January! Of course, given the due date this isn’t entirely news to us, however I’m still coming to terms with the idea that I’m going to be a dad! This obviously doesn’t really impact the blog (although I will likely be very sleepy in January and the following months). However, I’m just really excited, and figured I’d share.
What else, what else. OH! The finer details of this haven’t really been worked out yet, so I wouldn’t consider this set in stone, but I’m hoping to do a couple of video essays in the coming months. I’ve never done something like a video essay before, so we’ll see how things go. But I think that video essays are super fun, and I’m hoping to put them both here and potentially on a dedicated Software and Synapses YouTube channel. Again, not super set in stone, but kind of on the horizon.
With that in mind, I’m also planning to do some paid-only content in the coming months. This will be on top of the current stuff, so don’t worry, there won’t be some rug pull. The current stuff is the baseline, but if someone’s willing to give money, I want to make it worth their while. The exact nature of this content isn’t worked out much, either, but I’ll keep you all updated.
Ok, that’s really everything this time. I hope that you all have a great rest of your week, and I’ll see you next time. Goodbye for real!