Mission Statement Review

After last week’s burst of activity in writing two guest columns and starting another blog, I was a bit exhausted. This will never be a blog where I can whip out 200 words of commentary on other people’s blogs or report on some random news story every day. And it is not going to be a focused and consistent examination of economic development issues. It’s Dave Writes…I’m Dave and I write.

I wrote a “Mission Statement” a few months back:

The purpose of this blog is to connect topics in economic development, community development, and new media technology and identify practical actions readers can take to make a difference in improving our society.

That is the focus to which I remind myself to return. But the purpose of the writing and this exercise itself is uncertain; I am finding my way. When I started about a year and a half ago, I felt that my job at the time was not a part of the career I wanted and that fundamentally, I wanted to be a writer. But I was not going to quit my job and start freelancing…or embark on writing some great book…I had no platform and no experience.

The blog has given me an excuse to write about ideas I care about with at least a modicum of discipline because I know a few people will read it. It is exciting when people comment on what I write or link to me. It is fun to develop connections with other bloggers. When people compliment my writing, it makes my day.

I should be writing something substantive tonight–I need to come up with a guest column for ypcommons.org tomorrow and since I read The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America, I am itching to connect it up with the Creative Class ideas in Richard Florida’s inspiring Creative Compact. Florida gets a lot of criticism for promoting some kind of nouveau yuppie view of the world, but I think those critics fail to see the practical, progressive, optimistic vision driving his urbanism. But I should stop writing about writing and just start writing! Tomorrow morning.