Finding Your Audience

Arguably, one of the challenges of writing – particularly technical writing – is deciding who your audience will be. Are you writing to a very high level that will help PhD candidates conduct their research, or are you keeping it simple enough to help a newbie or perhaps the casual layperson who doesn’t know a lot about technology?

My intent with this blog is evolving. Originally, I waxed poetically that perhaps I would be able to build something to “take it to the next level”. I’m beginning to see, however, that the best value for this blog may lie in helping out people who are perhaps not so technical.

Years ago I started an MSN group to act as an online study group for college students taking their first VB.NET programming course. The group has since taken on a life of its own (admittedly, I rarely even have to look in on it anymore), but I’m quite pleased that it has helped a tremendous number of people along the way. There just don’t seem to be enough resources to help people who lack a fundamental baseline in programming.

My parents read my blog. There – I said it. Although I doubt Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Sergey Brin could boast such personal success, it does create some unique challenges. First, my mom continues to proof-read my work. I can get away with just about any technical error, but damn it, those words had better be spelled correctly, and word choice is up for evaluation (my mom's comments on my latest blog posts relative to my choice of the word “indeed”: You have to now retire your favorite word for at least a month or six. Indeed, it is inappropriate to use "indeed" in every blog. People who read you will think this is your personal crutch that replaces "uhhhh", or "ya know?"). Indeed, I see her logic.

Back to the topic at hand, I still need to decide who my audience is. While this is a work in progress and is apt to change over time, I’ve decided to write to the appropriate level of the topic I’m discussing (e.g. if I’m blogging on multi-threading, I’ll be writing for an audience I assume is somewhat familiar with the terms), but I’ll try to include more links to explain technical terms and concepts.

A few thoughts I have on upcoming blog posts:

• The programmer psyche and lack of architectural direction
• The hype around Service Orientation and contract-first development