I’ve always said that this blog is my way of giving back to the SQL Server community but there is also another reason I write, to learn.

I was chatting with a friend the other day who was thinking about start to write a blog and he was asking me how I find topics to write about. The technical posts that I blog generally fall into two categories; stuff I’ve been working on and stuff that I want to learn about.

I have to admit, when I first started this blog I was writing one post a month and still finding it difficult to pick a topic. I thought that I wasn’t doing anything new, there must be hundreds of blogs on SQL Server so how could I add any value?

It was only after a blog from Steve Jones that talked about that even though, yes, there are a lot of blogs out there you bring something unique to yours…yourself! No matter how much a subject has been covered you will have approached it in your own way.

I think some of the best blogs are the ones that talk about a common problem and what was done to resolve it. Everyone has their own take and there’s some novel solutions out there.

Anyway, back onto the subject of this post. Blogging to learn. We’re really fortunate as bloggers at the moment. There’s a whole host of new SQL Server features out there at the moment so take your pick!

Being the type of DBA that I am I’m generally picking new features of the database engine to investigate but there’s new features everywhere. Blogging about a new feature means you have to read the online documentation, deploy and then test that feature so it really is one of the best ways to learn.

So to anyone out there who’s thinking about starting to blog, pick a platform, pick a feature and, get writing!

Have a good week!