Madrona Venture Group has started a blog. My first reaction: What took so long?

There's been a dearth of voices among the Seattle venture capital community since blogging took off four or five years ago. I never really understood why, especially since excellent VC blogs have emerged elsewhere. (Fred Wilson's A VC and Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed come to mind.) There's a fantastic opportunity in the Seattle area for a venture capitalist or two to pull back the veil on the very private world of startups, sharing insights and thoughts about how things work.

Will Madrona make that leap? Well, the team is primarily made up of ex-lawyers, so while their insights would be fascinating they may take a cautious approach to anything they write. My advice: Toss that caution to the wind, remove any PR scrubbing of posts and just let it rip. Write with attitude and passion. Tell us how you really feel, not what you think the community wants to hear. And don't be afraid to upset the apple cart.

Those are tall tasks, I know.

But as an interested observer of the Seattle venture capital community, I would tune into that. As the UW's Hanson Hosein told me earlier this week, social media is really about the conversation and the relationship you establish with the community.

If done properly, Madrona could become the authoritative voice on startups and venture capital in the Pacific Northwest. And that authority would serve it well as it looks to uncover the hottest deals or partner with the top-tier venture firms. They seem to get the power of this, with Madrona's Elise Hebb telling me that the Seattle VC industry is a "bit of a black box to some local entrepreneurs."

Frankly, I don't know why other VCs haven't joined the conversation. Many of the Seattle area VCs who dabbled in blogs, gave up or rarely post anything that adds value to the conversation. That contrasts with the Seattle startup community, where a number of entrepreneurs are pushing the discussion forward.

For easy advice, Madrona could turn to Andy Liu at Inspired Startup or Glenn Kelman at the Redfin blog. Both write with a fresh and engaging style that gets people talking and thinking. (And both happen to run Madrona portfolio companies).

Of course, blogging is not easy. (Take it from someone who spends nearly every waking hour doing it.) It requires discipline and committment to crystalize thoughts in a manner that resonates with readers. But once you start rolling, it can be a hell of a lot of fun.

So, that's my final piece of advice. Have fun with it.