Where are all the IT blogs?

I think it's safe to say that blogging is no longer limited to the techie realm. There are now blogs about anything and everything. Technorati is currently tracking more than 57 million blogs, 100,000 new blogs per day. Amazing numbers!

Yet I find myself struggling to find blogs about IT that are written by IT folks. To be sure, there are many blogs about IT, written by vendors, analysts, consultants, etc. but very few blogs by the people who are in the field. I've gone through the blogrolls, searched google, technorati etc. and found only a handful blogs (granted it may be my search skills). Not only that there aren't many blogs by IT people, the participation in the existing blogs via comments, etc. is also quite low. Why is that?

As I reflected on before, blogging as a communications tool is invaluable for us, but I think blogging as a means to connect with others would be even more valuable for the people in the trenches. Share experiences, exchange stories, learn from one another, find out what works and what does not, etc.

Potential benefits of connecting with others are massive, so why is this not happening? I don't have an answer only some guesses. Here are some potential reasons I can think of:

• Alternatives. Mailing lists and newsgroups have been the established means to exchange information with other especially on technical matters for quite some time. Since IT folks are technical and have been using these mechanisms, the need for a better platform such as blogging may not be considered a burning need.
• Organization culture and the policies. Given that writing about IT involves writing about what's happening in an organization, it may be that people are wary about how it may be received within the organization and what the impact on them would be.
• Vendor relations. The outrageous (and unwise) non-disclosure agreements forced on to customers to silence them may be a factor? IT folks may be hesitant to write about the products they use, etc. not to damage the relationship they have with the vendors.
• Insufficient ROI.. The perception may be that the benefits of maintaining blog is not worth the effort. After all, IT folks are not natural born writers (I can relate!) , therefore writing takes time, and the benefits may not be apparent (although they should be!)

So if you know blogs by IT folks, please let us know, we'd love to read them and link to them. If you work on IT operations, please do start a blog :). And if the subjects written about on this blog is off interest to you and you have something to say but don't feel like maintaining a blog all the time, we'd be happy to have you as a guest blogger. Join the party!