The Hurdles Of Blogging, Perspective Of A Female Tech Blogger

On January of 2007, when I first decided to create my own blog on Vox (link), I didn’t really know what I was getting into and I sure didn’t think of what that small decision would become, 2 and a half years later. What I knew, at the time, was that I was starting from all the wrong grounds:

• I didn’t have the background knowledge : my first and only S60 phone was the 3250 XpressMusic, which was already aging by the time I started blogging about it.
• I didn’t have the right context : I was a 4th year Pharmacy student which obviously has nothing to do with technology, and I was bound to Lebanon which made it almost impossible to get to any important conference or tech showroom or anything.
• And most importantly, I was a girl, a very daring girl in a boy’s world.

I quickly realized that these 3 issues would stand greatly in my way to build an identity online, especially the female part. I wasn’t a pioneer in the field, with Darla Mack having opened the grounds and established herself in the online community, so I took more than one lesson out of her book, but I understood that it would take me double if not triple the time and energy, compared to a guy, to “get there”.

I reckon that at the time, I didn’t know where “there” was, but I wanted to get to it. If you think back to 2007, that’s a time with no Twitter, only a handful of important and respected blogs, and almost no way to get your voice heard. You had to sit back and wish that someone somehow ends up on your site and enjoys what you wrote. You also had to wish that one of these someones ends up being an important writer on another site and finds it relevant to link back to you. Those were the days, yeah. But it definitely was a challenge to create one original content after the other, just preparing the blog for when the day comes that it’s famous.

I kept putting small goals to myself, month after month: my first link on an important blog, my first interview, my first review, my first interaction with other bloggers… Then I took the most important decision of my blogging career when I emailed Ricky Cadden asking him if he wanted a second writer on Symbian-Guru. Sitting now and thinking back to it, I believe I couldn’t have made a better choice of a blogging venue. After almost 2 years of working with Ricky, I know that we agree on the most important decisions and that we blog from the same perspective. We love technology, but only when it improves our real life and not when it interferes with it, and we write from a personal point of view. I don’t know if Ricky ever doubted his decision because of the fact that I was a girl, but I respect him a lot for making that choice and giving me a chance to show what I had.

32 months after I first launched Dotsisx on Vox, I look at the path taken and can’t deny being proud of what I’ve achieved. I’ve trialled a total of 17 phones (recently being able to land a prototype of the Sony Ericsson Satio), as well as numerous accessories. I’ve been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and I was invited on two trips recently, the first to visit the Carl Zeiss factory in Aalen, Germany and the second to the Nokia World 2009 event in Stuttgart, Germany. I believe I have a great relationship with representatives of Nokia in Lebanon, France, UK, USA and Finland. I also started writing on FoneArena almost a year ago and enjoy sharing my experience and knowledge with the editor, Varun Krishnan, recently being able to help him get an invitation to Nokia World 2009 for himself. Of course, I’m not stopping here and there is a new set of challenges to attack.

What pushed me to write this long tirade isn’t the pride of sharing my accomplishments, but the need to prove to everyone who is doubting themselves that it CAN be done. I don’t know what your problems are, but look, I had 3 and I came through it. I believe my strength came from the fact that I never hid those disadvantages, on the contrary, I shouted on the roof whenever I could that I was lebanese and a pharmacist, I also emphasized on my gender more times than I could remember. By acknowledging them, I was able to build an identity that is even more unique and more unforgettable than many others. 10 days ago, during Nokia World 2009, it became clear to me that I was now picking up the fruits of this strategy: when you’re the only girl in a room of 15 male bloggers, the impact is much easier to make, on everyone.

I’ve been around long enough to see many blogs and writers rise incredibly fast, and fall even faster. Plus, we’re now at a time where it takes one original article, a Twitter identity and a couple or retweets to become known. The success is much more easy than it has ever been, but don’t fool yourself. There are a thousand others who also have an original article, a Twitter identity and some retweets You have to find in yourself the will to continue despite the tough times, as well as the originality to differentiate yourself form what the others have to offer.

Tags: Blog, Female, Nokia, Technology