Thoughts on Linking Back

I would like to extend a big THANK YOU to those of you who have linked back to Counting Coconuts within your own posts. With the extremely large (and ever growing) number of blogs out here, I think it's so very important that we support one another and give credit where credit is due. And a very special thank you to those of you who create lists full of links just for the sake of spreading the word about the good ideas you've seen on other blogs! You're the Good Samaritans of the blogworld! :)

I feel extremely lucky to be surrounded by so many clever and creative women and men. I speak for myself when I say I know it's some times hard to come up with uniquely creative ideas what with so many amazing ones already out there. It's not too often that I actually come up with an entirely new idea, so one thing I've tried hard to do is to make sure when I use someone else's idea, I put my own personal spin on it. Of course that's not always possible, but in any case I do my very best to make sure I provide a link back to the original idea. (Please let me know if I've missed you somewhere along the line!)

We're all busy people and I'll admit it's time consuming to add links in, but I consider it an unwritten rule for the blog community, don't you? Even if there's an idea that's been all over the blogworld, I say pick a place where you've seen it and share some linky love! :)

This is just something I've been thinking about for a while now and I recently had the motivation to finally write about it. Thanks for reading and again THANK YOU for linking back to my blog when necessary.

UPDATED TO ADD: You guys are awesome! Thank you for your input and feedback regarding linking back. You made some excellent points and I just wanted to include them in the actual post for those that don't read through comments...

Re forgetting where you got an idea: With so many fantastic blogs out there it's super easy to click from link to link to link, all the while seeing wonderful ideas, but not remembering which of the links they come from. When I first started blogging I kept all of the ideas in a notebook devoted to just 'blog ideas'. Then I moved that over into an Excel spreadsheet. THEN I switched over to Google Reader and now I just star an idea when I see it. The beauty of Google Reader is that you can search entire blogs for key words. As a last resort I've found myself hunting through my 'History' tab to find certain blogs. I know it sounds like "extra" work, but as I mentioned above, I just think it's really important.

Re having similar ideas: no doubt about it, great minds think alike! Especially with so many creative individuals out there! To me this is where we simply enjoy the fact that we've met a like-minded person! I have a few "bloggy twins" out here in the blogworld and I adore their blogs because we have so much in common. With regard to Montessori works like spooning, pouring, etc. - obviously these kids of ideas are well known and just a part of Montessori. I don't usually link back for these kinds of things, but I will if I've learned about a unique way to display the work (e.g. tweezing spiders for Halloween). I guess the point here is that you know whether or not you truly came up with this idea or if you have, in fact, seen it somewhere else.

~Thank you for your comments!~