I was just reading a post on ColdFusion Muse on what Mark Kruger's motivations for blogging are, and it got me thinking. Why did I really start blogging? Sure I have noble intentions of sharing the knowledge and experience I have accumulated over the many years I have been developing with other ColdFusion developers. Sure I may find myself referring back to my blog entries to remember how I did something from time to time. And it may even bring me a little bit of business once people start to recognize who I am. All those things are reasons why I wanted to start blogging years ago, but they never really pushed me over the edge and motivated me to write my first blog entry.

I started blogging because of what happened to me at Adobe Max this year. I have been to technical conferences in the past, but I have always gone with a co-worker or two. This year I went to Adobe Max all by myself and I realized that I don't really know anyone in the ColdFusion community. Sure there were one or two people that I had known from the past that I ran into, but no one I knew well enough to go have a few drinks with or hang out with for a few hours during the after hours parties.

So I ended up mostly standing around by myself wishing I was good at making new friends and wishing that I was not afraid of talking to strangers. Then I see guys whose blogs I have read, with lines of people waiting to shake hands with them. Then I said to myself, that is what I need to do. I need to start actually participating in the ColdFusion blog community so that people already know who I am.

I am basically hoping that next year in San Francisco, at Adobe Max 2008, people will see me standing there by myself with a free beer in my hand and say "Hey Scott! I love your blog!" and then I'll have someone to talk to. I'm actually pretty good at conversing with people once the ice is broken, I just have slight aversion to starting a conversation with a complete stranger.

So that's it. I blog because I'm socially disabled, and I want you to do all the hard work. So look for me at Adobe Max in november, and then get in line to talk to me. I expect my line next year to be longer than Ben Forta's and Ray Camden's combined!