• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Social/Public Media

Learning the Power of the Blog

December 12, 2009 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: 2 minutes

To start, this is how I came to see the power of the blog:

In 2006 when writing Colic Solved I read somewhere that every author needed a blog. Blogs, I was told, were particularly important for authors who weren’t famous. I wasn’t famous. So I ran to the bookstore and bought Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s Naked Conversations, the essential book for understanding blogs.  Then I began my first blog, Parenting Solved, with the shallow intent of selling books.

But just a few months after starting Parenting Solved I posted on an infant product company with my take on a merger they were undertaking and what it meant for parents. The post was picked up on a feed for one of the foreign stock exchanges and I enjoyed a nice spike in traffic.  The following day a call came from the company’s headquarters in Europe to my chief who happened to be a consultant to the company. They wanted to know my story.

Until then I had no idea that anyone was listening. Until then I didn’t care that anyone was listening.  I just wanted to move books. But at that point I realized blogging wasn’t a marketing gimmick but instead a real tool for positioning myself and my ideas.

You could say I started shortsighted and ended up global.

I continued posting to Parenting Solved until early 2009. But burnt out with my ‘reassuring voice of authority’ (which I still dispense liberally in person) I felt it was time to focus on something else.

I started 33 Charts in April 2009 when I saw room for physician commentary at the intersection of social media and health care. I thought it would be a great place to experiment and shape my ideas.

That’s how I started and wound up here. And so far it’s been a blast. I can see the power of the blog. Look for me to stop when it isn’t.

If you like this post you might check out the 33 charts Blogging Archives. It’s everything written here on blogging. And every post here contains hand curated tags that help you find related writing on the site. Happy surfing!

Related Articles

  • A Blog Without Comments is Still a Blog
  • The 911 Blog Disclaimer
  • Social Health, Silos and Blog World Expo

Tagged With: Blogging

Related Articles

  • A Blog Without Comments is Still a Blog
  • The 911 Blog Disclaimer
  • Social Health, Silos and Blog World Expo

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

Context Collapse and the Public Physician

The Case for New Physician Literacies in the Digital Age

Yes, Doctor

Will the Future Need Doctors?

Reactive and Creative Spaces

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy