How to blog during vacations

I dunno, Steve, I've been enjoying your conversational posts of late and responding to your questions. Why not play it by ear? You feel like blogging but don't feel like work, yet you don't want to step outside the theme of this blog too much. You're right in that these are issues many are calling into question right now, but keep in mind that you, the person, are as much part of this blog's theme and personality as the on topic work oriented posts you may write. Alan Gutierrez brought this up in a post titled Corporate Persona http://engrm.com/blogometer/2005/12/22/corporate-persona/
Taking a leaf from his book, why not talk about the stuff you would to coworkers at lunchhour or in the evening?

You have to really LOVE the topic -- and live it. I really enjoy the subject of personal finances, so I never run out of ideas. In fact, my problem is exactly the opposite. I have TOO MUCH to cover. There's just so much good stuff to cover -- including a lot from Business Week. You all do a great job on the personal finance side.

As for vacation times, I simply write my posts early and use Typepad to future date them. Then the posts keep coming and I can enjoy my vacation (assuming Typepad works properly). ;-)

If you have any sidebars or leftover information that didn't run in your articles, those could make for interesting reading. Problogger's idea about an open mike might work for you, if you can think of some provocative questions to post, since your readers don't seem to be as comment-phobic as mine are.

I tend to look for evergreen items/resources/links throughout the year that I can advance post for when I'm on vacation (and I tell readers that's what I'm doing, so they don't think I'm a complete idiot if something big breaks while I'm gone and I don't mention until 10 days later). This seems to work out for my content area, but maybe not so much for yours.

What do other bloggers do?

the more i read, the more raw material i find for blogging...
when there seems to be nothing much to blog about, even i resort to linking articles, or just talking about significant 'technical' conversations i've had with friends and colleagues...
...or sometimes, i simply pose those questions that are running in the back of my mind which I haven't had the time to introspect on but know that responses may trigger off some intelligent conversations...
also, i have a word document wherein i just keep making notes of topics that intrigue/interest me and take it one at a time. sometimes, the list lasts a couple of weeks...
finally, silence helps at times :)

Blogging about a topic whilst on vacation implies that it is genuinely worth "working on" as opposed to doing something else. So the threshold of what to blog about goes up - on or off topic.

My 2 cents.

You and Heather seem to post frequently (as called for) throughout the day. Just limit it to once a day: With your morning coffee or tea, at the end of the work day, or in the evening.
Just once-a-day blogging. Get it done. Then be done and unwind.
Just a thought.
Mike

I'm taking off this week from blogging, email and work while I celebrate 25 years of successful self-employment. Halelulah!

But wait! I'm reading YOUR blog. Uh oh!

Steve,

Great question! I was just on vacation and the rest of my family thinks I ought to really get a life. Like leave the blogging and podcasting and the whole thing behind! My son brought his laptop along and the hotel we were in had wireless access. I found myself crabby when he wanted to sit on the computer and check sports scores. He didn't understand about that monkey on my back, my blog.

Images of people coming buy and visiting and nothing new to offer them. What kind of hospitality was that? I could see my hits dropping, my sitemeter sitting idle, and I was in a definite panic. Went totally through withdrawal. Luckily, my son understood what a geek I had become and let me use the laptop late in the evening.

So vacation?

I guess you become a clandestine blogger, pecking away at the keys after the rest of the family is sleeping.

Bob

Write a bunch of short posts and schedule them to be posted two or three times a day with a little creative blog automation.

Don't get too carried away with the automation.
Keep tight controls in place to prevent abuse.
Look at what happened to Wal-Mart. They had to disable functionality they paid to enable in the first place. Don't start working backwards or you could end up working at or like Wal-Mart, all of which is fine if that's what you want to do.