It’s been an interesting few months on PlanetLotus.
We’ve had Design Partners telling us that Notes is dead, crazy ASW blog titles just to attain short-lived ‘Hot Blog’ status, explosions! of! exclamation! marks! and rather too much community infighting for anyone’s good.  I’m not saying that I’m innocent either, there have been times when I’ve been sucked into posting articles too quickly to get ahead of other bloggers, or else where the impulse to use an overly-dramatic title for a post has been too much to ignore.
That’s not to criticise the PlanetLotus site or its owner, Yancy, at all. Technically, it is a brilliant aggregation solution.  However, as with many internet sites, its harder to predict how behaviours are going to change as a result of the new opportunities for interaction and content consumption.  Whilst PlanetLotus has arguably raised my own profile and that of the community as a whole, I’m not convinced that the way the site is used currently is positive for us all.  Personally, I feel that my own attention is drawn away from producing and consuming useful content toward a more personality-based ‘Hey aren’t I great’ type of blogging.
After much thought and deliberation, I have therefore decided to pull my blogs from PlanetLotus, and have requested that Yancy delete references to the blogs on the site as soon as he can. Â My co-bloggers and I will still be creating the best content we can to be consumed directly via a browser, via RSS Feeds and via links shared on Twitter and Facebook.
I will also endeavour to return to the way I participated prior to the launch of PlanetLotus – choosing my own set of blogs to follow via a feed reader, through Google Alerts, and through my own personal preferences.
If you wish to still follow the content, here are the details:
| Blog | URL | RSS | |
| Collaboration Matters | blog.collaborationmatters.com | feeds.feedburner.com/collaborationmatters | collabmatters |
| Connections Blog | lotusconnectionsblog.com | feeds.feedburner.com/theconnectionsblog | connectionsblog |
| LotusLive Blog | lotusliveblog.com | feeds.feedburner.com/lotusliveblog | lotusliveblog |
| Quickr Blog | quickrblog.com | feeds.feedburner.com/quickrblog | quickrblog |
| Symphony Blog | lotussymphonyblog.com | feeds.feedburner.com/symphonyblog | symphonyblog |
| All Collaboration Matters blog posts | feeds.feedburner.com/collaborationmattersblogs |
Does this mean I’m withdrawing from the Lotus community (either online or in person)? Â
Emphatically not!  I’m still as committed as ever, just feeling that life will be better outside the PlanetLotus bubble.
See you on the other side!
[P.S. If you’d prefer to follow PL bloggers via an RSS Reader too, Chris Miller has provided a useful OPML file to import]
