Photo by ^riza^.

I had one of those days today where a few things coalesce to make you think about a particular topic. First was listening to John Gruber (DaringFireball.net) and Merlin Mann’s (43folders) SxSW talk on blogging. There are a lot of good tips buried in the talk if you don’t mind the two personalities, particularly on focusing on an obsession, adding value and differentiating your content. Most interestingly for me, they discussed the concept of an ‘ideal reader’ (which I’ve previously talked about as a ‘target audience’, but I like their term better!) This ideal reader is the person you would most want to enjoy your work. It could be another blogger you highly respect and admire, a friend, or another version of yourself. The key is that you’re crafting your work based around who you would most like to read it.

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