One of the really cool things about participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge is that I receive daily ideas about topics on which I might want to blog. The challenge doesn’t require that I follow these suggestions at all, they’re just ideas.
Day 15’s suggestion was a particularly interesting one: Create an AMA, Ask Me Anything kind of post. The idea is simple: invite readers to use the comments area to ask questions and then I answer those questions as replies to the comments.
And so, in the interest of being brave and being open/curious to see where this might lead, you are invited to ask me anything. Have a question, but don’t want to ask it publicly? That’s perfectly fine, just ask your question via my contact form.
Remembering Formspring
This Ask Me Anything concept reminds me of a service that used to exist called Formspring. Formspring was a service that would allow people to ask questions anonymously. Answers to those questions would be posted, but would also be sent back to whomever asked the question. I had signed up with Formspring simply because I was curious about the service, not because I actually thought anyone would ask me anything. To my surprise, people did ask questions and the questions were not weird at all, OK some were, but most of them weren’t. The anonymity of the service made it possible for people to ask questions they might not otherwise feel comfortable asking: questions about blindness, questions about how I do certain things in daily life, questions about things I had been blogging about at the time. Unfortunately, the very anonymity that was so empowering, eventually helped lead to Formspring’s downfall. I found a great article answering the question of ‘What happened to Formspring?’ if anyone is curious. I’m sad that Formspring is gone because I never found a substitute quite as good.
So, if there’s anything you’d like to ask me, please feel free to do so either in the comments or via the contact form. I have no idea if this AMA concept will lead anywhere at all, but I’m definitely excited to see what happens and always willing to share.
There’s something called ask.fm but I haven’t used it in a while.
Wow, I will check to see if that’s still around, if it is, and if it’s accessible, I’ll definitely use it.
Hey, Steve, remember when you did your Internet show every week, that was sure fun! Hey, which do you think is better and why: Specialized blindness tech or mainstream equipment with a screen reader? How about the hybrid Braille displays out now? Which screen reader do you think is best and why? Thanks for doing this blog and the AMA today! Beth