It made rounds in the professional circles I traveled in and established myself as, while not necessarily a leader, someone at least very fluent in a particular process.
This was also in 2010 though, so the social landscape Was quite different
It has also been somewhat useful in projects where a concern with documentation has been expressed because the writing is a better example of my ability to document things than having worked on a lot of projects where you may be able to go see what we shipped but not be able to see anything of the documentation.
I think of the writing as the equivalent of a side project:
* it allows me to focus on something I want to learn
* it helps to make what I learn stick in my head
* it gives me a deadline and people who will send me emails to say how's it going with that
* it works as documentation for what I've learned
* it gives me a trivial amount of money for having taken the time to learn something. Basically the last article I wrote is paying for an annual Dropbox account, and a couple days worth of food for my family. It was way too much work for that to be worthwhile, but I did learn some things that will help with later stuff.