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Funny thing that the title of the post on the HN frontpage above this one is titled "‘Show, Don’t Tell’ Almost Ruined Me as a Writer"

Lucky this person is not a writer. :)

>So don't print business cards. Well ok print them but that should not be your priority. I run a business and I failed to print business cards so far (too lazy).

Yeah, I have them but don't really use them.

The even more meta advice is that you need to do a lot of marketing--whatever particular form it takes. I'm biased towards writing things myself but writing, speaking, meetups, podcast, etc.

I want to write -- I love writing -- but what to write about?

Every time I want to write - I write about something that is pissing me off or something that is coming out angrily. My writing is ok and entertaining...but sure as hell does not show any "logical" thinking.

If I were to write about software...I would probably write about ideas, random ideas that catch my mind. Any pointers?

I have a programming blog, which I do cause of interest in writing and showing, but also being able to show potential employers about skills. For me, it's projects that came from random ideas in my mind. Like I have a golf background and wrote something up about scraping to get golf stats, and then analyzing the strokes gained. I also wrote something about how close Noodles and Qdoba seem to be to each other, compared to Noodles and Chipotle. I recently wrote about how to optimize an NBA DFS lineup which was a complex knapsack problem. All super interesting to me.

The key in all cases is to have actual code to show and actual results.

I bet if you take your random ideas and push forward to start writing you'll have something come up you'd be able to write about. I've found that ideas shift over time when investigating. What are some examples of the random ideas you've had?

Mostly related to cutting edge technologies & products.

I am not really passionate about "programming" per say, but I do enjoy coming up with unique & useful problems and designing solutions for them. I am not necessarily interested in the coding part.

I am a full time software engineer, but I would rather not be.

Would me talking about products, random new solutions & random new startup ideas get me anywhere? Without actually doing the coding for them?

I'd say it's definitely worth it to write about products and solutions because it shows who you are and what you like to talk and think about. That's the case for me, where I write what I like, and if people or employers find that interesting too, then having writing is a great place to begin a conversation.

Another note on this is don't feel bad if you don't think your writing is very good. I look back on my posts from 4 years ago and it's pretty clear that I wasn't very good at writing clearly, and also my programming skills really weren't that great. I learned by doing.

Not really worried about my writing.

My biggest problem is - if I am involved in a project, I want it to be profitable (i know, not very healthy).

But I get your point. The thing also would be figuring out how you want to market yourself? What do you want to be seen as?

It may not seduce employers, per se, but I'd rather read a technical blogs about what should be done vs how to do it, and I think big picture is more important that stuff that can be figured out as is, and I don't think I'm the only one. So there's definitely an audience even if it may not have a checkbook open.

> "I'm a reliable remote worker but I know that's going to put people off, how to alleviate concerns here?" > Show, Dont' Tell.

Isn't he just saying that he doesn't tend to slack off when he's working remote, like some people do? How is writing a blog going to show anyone you work just as hard remotely as in the office?

If in your spare time, you show that you are still trying to solve problems, or at least give them thought serious enough to warrant writing about, you're probably quite engaged in your field - which is a good thing.

Do you want the guy who doesn't do anything extra, or the guy who gets his jollies from analysing and optimising apis for some protocol, or whatever?

I want someone who focuses on getting work done and doesn't get their jollies from brand marketing.

Code beats blog posts.

Side projects are great when you can't find a rewarding day job. Why would I hire a consultant who doesn't find gigs that tax their expertise?

Remember this the next time you are learning something from a tech blog.

The title of his post is about becoming a Consultant. Being Remote is just another additional layer but the main issue is finding clients as a consultant. At least that is what I took from his post.