An example of the difference between an “ok” blog post and a brilliant posting crossed my reader yesterday and it was too canonical not to comment on.
Scott Hanselman wrote about his wish (shared by so many of us) for a way to signal to tech support that we’re clued in, without sounding obnoxious.
In short, his suggestion is that you say a magic word (“fizzbin”) as a signal that you know what you are talking about thus saving everyone a lot of time.
My point however, is that his article can be used as an object lesson in what makes a good post great, and, fortuitously, you can see the difference in this case by drawing a line where a competent blogger might have stopped writing. Had he done so, Scott woud have had a perfectly respectable posting, but by adding a short dialog, his posting went from “ok” to instant classsic. Here is a brief excerpt:
(This image is cropped and the red was added by me)
Click here for the full postin.
I believe that it is the dialog, and especially the geek-familiarity Scott implies with the final line (“sweet!”) that really nails it.
Great post.
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