Why Blog?
Posted Sunday January 15, 2006
One of the questions I am most often asked when people find my writing online is: why do you blog? I blog for specific reasons, and I write this blog for specific reasons. So, why? Because:
Writing is Important
As businesspeople, we must all communicate throughout the day and throughout our careers using written media. Memos, RFPs, contracts, reports, and now e-mails - all of these are written methods of communicating information that we use continuously and that we must use well. At the same time, very few businesspeople spend time practicing their writing or endeavoring to improve their writing as a craft.
Writing is very much a craft. Anybody can do it, but it’s obvious when someone’s writing well. Writing takes tools and observation and, even, some apprenticeship to get it right. And, like most crafts, writing, above all, takes practice.
Blogging is a wonderful, self-directed, self-motivated way to practice the clear, concise writing that we all must master as businesspeople. I write a blog because it gives me the opportunity to think about roughly one topic of interest a week, gather my thoughts, put those thoughts on paper in the best way I can, and then return to that written product a day or two later and edit it, learning what mistakes I make and learning how I can fix and avoid them.
We Must All Market Ourselves
I am not a commodity. You (hopefully) are not a commodity. We are all unique individuals with unique skills and something special to bring to the table. But how do we stand out from the crowd?
Marketing cannot be a bad word; we needn’t be used car salesmen or late-night TV hucksters just to market ourselves. Marketing can provide value to the consumer by providing education. This is no less true with ourselves as we seek jobs and opportunities - others seek to learn about us, for their own benefit, so why not help them for ours? It’s a win-win scenario.
And remember, thanks to the Internet, you’re already being marketed. Google my name - you’ll learn a lot. Google yours - same thing. Are you out there, controlling the message sent about you? Why not? Why do you let others speak for you in ways you can’t predict or influence? A blog is a great way to actively teach others about you and to present information in the way you think is most accurate and useful.
We Profit From Building and Joining Communities
Just a few years ago, the most meaningful communities you could be involved in, professionally, were those closest to you geographically. Now, thanks to the Internet, we all have access to communities that share our interests and goals and challenges and philosophy. Why not connect with somebody who works in the same job as me, and has the same interests, but who also lives in Schenectady or Springfield or Des Moines? To me, this person is potentially at least as good a friend and colleague as my neighbor who shares a region but not an interest with me.
But how do we find these people from whom we can learn and with whom we can grow? A big part of the answer to that question is simply to talk about what we care about in a place that other people can find it. Blogging gives us the chance to bring up our goals and our dreams and our fascinations in a Google-able way (and, of course, once the content is out there, it can be publicized in more active ways). If we participate in communities online, blogging also gives us the chance to create an online calling-card that people who are interested in us can visit to learn more. And, once we’re in communities, blogging gives us the chance to provide meaningful, useful content to those communities.
Is Blogging Unprofessional?
The other major question I get is “don’t you think it’s unprofessional to blog?” Blogs are a medium of communication; they can be no more inherently unprofessional than can memos, or RFPs, or TV, or movies, or e-mail. Sure, anybody can use these media to say inappropriate things, but the media are themselves neither appropriate nor inappropriate.
Blogging is professional and appropriate to a particular extent: the blog medium is new and growing in both use and influence. What could be more professional than endeavoring to understand a mode of communications that will be important in the future?
Why This Blog?
So that’s why I blog. But why this blog? Fundamentally, I believe I have interesting things to say on a few specific topics, topics that have to do with business and technology and entrepreneurship and with just getting work done every day. If you find my articles interesting, then that’s great for both of us - we might even build a little bit of community and get to know each other through shared interest. If not, then at least I’ve practiced my writing and controlled the message about me online (granted, that message may be “I’m boring!”). Seems like a win-win to me.
Hope you enjoy it!