Why Every Professional Should Consider Blogging
technicalblogging.com
technicalblogging.com
Here's what I mean. When you're thinking about a problem, you struggle, and struggle, then find some insight. When you go to sleep that insight might be gone. So you write it down, ideally in the shortest, most vivid language that can recreate the idea in your head: I serialize my mental RAM into words, and at a later date, reload that information into my head.
If I wrote well, the deserialization is fast (few minutes) and my head is back into the mental state when I "got it". Then I can continue working, add some new insights, then serialize that new state back into words (a follow-up post, or adding to the original).
Over time, you develop some deep insights which are the result of several "me"s collaborating on the problem. I know that college-me understood class XYZ really well, and because he wrote down some insights, 10-years-after-college me can reload that memory very quickly, and maybe add something new. It's like having a perfect tutor (you, when you got it) jump into your head and bring you up to speed. I don't remember vector calculus very well, but I can deserialize my notes and in a few minutes be 80-90% up to speed.
This was a hugely unexpected benefit to blogging which I hadn't even considered. And incidentally, if you write in a way that deserializes well for you, it will likely be useful for many other people too.
tl;dr: create a standard library of thought snippets so you can #include "vectorcalculus.h"
I've had this experience too, albeit not in a coding sense. I will say, however, that I use Devonthink Pro according to Steven Berlin Johnson's scheme: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... to archive my own posts, as well as other quotes, writing, and so forth, and DTP's "see also" algorithms often find material I wrote years ago but that's relevant to what I'm doing now. It helps me get to this: "Over time, you develop some deep insights which are the result of several "me"s collaborating on the problem."
I do a very similar thing, although not to a blog. I have a file (notes.txt) in my home directory. Any problem or thought gets cat'ed to the file ( cat >> notes.txt ) and I type my thoughts along with a few keywords. A simple grep finds any of it.
It is extremely useful once you've built up a body of knowledge. Mine is almost 10,000 lines now.
N.B. If using bash or similar, "set -C" to prevent overwrites with a mistyped > instead of >> (which can be overridden with >| if you need to).
thoughts.txt - random musings about life
ideas.txt - startup ideas, etc.
quotes.txt - favorite quotes
feelgood.txt - events / activities I really enjoyed [good to see what makes you happy in the moment]This is not to brag but to show the "chains" that can happen by putting yourself out there. It's totally unpredictable but increasing your "luck surface area" has amazing outcomes. Also, consider Jeff Atwood, a similar chain arises.
> There is no magic wand that can make this happen, instead it’s all about increasing your luck surface area.
Rather cyclic not that I think about it.
I think I know what you mean. I titled my latest blog post "Stop Using Single Point Estimates" but almost immediately regretted it. The tone was too rigid and link-baity. What I really wanted to say was, "Hey, point estimates are fine, but do you realize that you may be missing an opportunity by not using range estimates?" Really I just wanted to show people a different way of thinking about something. But it can be easy to pander to the up-votes.
But mostly I stay true to myself and use my blog to educate, which is truly rewarding. My favorite post is "Roadmap for Learning Rails" because it genuinely helps people and that's a wonderful feeling.
So I think if you are blogging and start feeling like a "scammer", step back and re-examine your goals. Instead of viewing it as primarily for self-promotion or making money, view it as contributing to the community and participating in the joy of education and sharing. Also, I'm realizing that the blog posts I feel the best about aren't opinionated as much as informative and helpful.
"Am I writing to get on the front page of HN, or am I writing this because I think it needs to be said?"
I haven't had a piece on the front page here, but I could see how someone could get addicted to that.
I've often thought about writing one of those opinionated pieces as my entry back into blogging, but decided it wasn't worth writing.
So I agree with you 100%.
There is something to be said about presenting a clear message. It's easier to follow the flow and a critical reader should be able to take the point an author is making without blindly accepting the conclusion.
For instance, my recent post on optimising Django's SQL query generation was a collection of useful tools and approaches.
Seen in this light, a couple of the benefits are: the sharing of useful knowledge, and exploring things I encounter in daily development in more detail. As well as building things, it's nice to be able to work on my written communication.
BTW, worth linking it in your profile. It's well written, content is engaging too.
I'm a bit surprised that article didn't hit the front page tbh.
Maybe every professional should hone their writing skills, but blogging is not the ideal exercise. Typical pop blogs spew out thoughts with regularity, even when the writers haven't thought about the subject carefully, they write just to write, to make the blog look up to date. That's ok as a writing exercise but it's not in the interest of readers who's attention they'll inevitably try to attract.
You can blog out many quality posts if you have some big yet narrow theme to write about. But most people don't. If you want to keep a diary of thoughts, it will work much better as badly edited short braindumps, not writing exercises.
If enough professionals blogged, it wouldn't be a good way to improve your career and make professional connections, since there would be a multitude of terrible blogs and it would drag down the current reputation of blogging, which isn't so hot already.
That's why every professional should treat the separate aspects of blogging like writing exercises, attention whoring or leaving braindumps, as separate aspects.
- how do you stay motivated over time and don't get sidetracked
- how do you keep a focus on the blog i.e. that it doesn't turn into some random rantings about daily politics etc.
- how to you keep pushing for that blogging thing over other similar "productive" tasks (i.e. reading/writing articles, conference papers etc)
-Set a schedule. 2x a week. Pick a couple days. stick to it. it's like working out. set aside time for it and make it happen.
-Make a focus/theme for it. Don't make it "stfu's daily ramblings" - pick a theme, then try to write about it. You can still have a broad range of topics, but if you tie it back to a theme, you stay consistent.
-Blogging helps me articulate what i'm thinking. I've tried journaling, but it doesn't work as well for me. Blogging has been one of the most productive things I've done in my own life and has helped me to go out and create different things that I wouldn't have if I weren't blogging.
* 2-4 hours a week need to be booked for this marketing activity.
* Use the pomodoro technique during those hours to help keep you focused and more productive.
* Give your blog a clear focus and "reason for being", whether it's a niche blog (e.g., CoffeScript Inside) or a more general one (e.g., stfu's adventures in web development). Answer the question "why should readers care?".
* Keep a list of headlines you intend to write about in the future in an ideas.txt file or Google Docs.
* Get your blog popular (and perhaps profitable). Part of the reason why I focus so much on getting bloggers to attract traffic (and then benefit from it) in my book, is because when you start seeing traffic spikes and perhaps even getting some extra benefits (money, freebies, etc), you'll get addicted to that feeling and you'll be more inclined to keep up with blogging.
I do this and it helps immensely. Whenever I come across some time for blogging, I never have to come up with a topic; I already have dozens waiting for me.
It also helps me filter the good ideas from the bad. I don't normally blog on an idea right away; I add it to this list. Some article ideas sound really good at the time but after a few weeks I realize they aren't so good.
"Keep a list of headlines you intend to write about in the future in an ideas.txt file or Google Docs."
I consider myself able to express my thoughts in a manner that is 'good enough'. I actually like writing. But why oh why should I (seeing it as a business is hard at the start for me. It's like I'd imagine bootstrapping a startup is, on the smallest of scales)? And - well - what about?
For all the interesting things on this planet the net has good resources. Talking about my own tiny life seems like a bigger version of twittering 'Just went to the toilet'. Who cares if I tried and failed to solve problem NN of Project Euler in Clojure?
Why would I blog, instead of (if we're taking the benefits of writing as a given) doing a journal for me alone?
I work with C#/.Net in my day-time. There's probably _nothing_ tech related to that stuff that isn't covered better by reading a very limited number of blogs and following people like Eric Lippert on SO (yes, this time I'm serious).
I guess this distills down to the feeling of having nothing of global value to contribute, at which point I don't see why it should be published at all (vs. journal). A good part of my thoughts might be related to rules in society for me. In my world, shouting out chit-chat/smalltalk and whatever comes to ones mind is not clever and certainly not well-received. But - that's exactly my feeling towards writing a blog (no offense intended - I'm talking about my own issues starting my own blog. Works for you? Great).
If you don't feel like blogging then absolutely don't. (Forcing it results in crap articles)
Don't go setting any schedule or minimum number of posts per month or anything, that will just make it feel like a chore.
I would try and let the focus develop over time, it will probably mirror the way your general interests in life focus over time. And don't worry if you write a post every now and then that doesn't rigidly fit that focus.
Don't push for it. My employer gives me 8 hours per day to do productive stuff, and my family demands a chunk of my free time. In fact I don't put blogging in that same category as "things I have to do". For me it is an alternative to drinking or watching tv. A chance to wind down, unload some thoughts etc.
Ahh I see you use reading and writing articles and conference papers as alternatives. I think if doing those things were part of my life I wouldn't feel like blogging nearly as much. Why blog if you already have an audience for the same thing through other channels? How would you feel about giving up those other channels, and putting all that content on your blog instead? (I am not suggesting that, but the question might make you think about whether blogging is for you, or whether you could maybe divide the content up into the different channels). Actually, blogging is a lot less formal. When I was a student I had to write papers on the same topics I now blog about, but all the formality made it a drag, finding references, worrying about unwittingly plagiarizing something, making sure it is of "academic quality" (i.e. only facts, no opinions) just really messed up my flow, and made it a total drag. Blogs can be quite liberating from that.
Specifically, the bit about improving your writing skills is very pertinent. Most technical professionals would benefit quite a bit by learning how to communicate with those outside of their profession, i.e. a large portion of the people who might read your blog.
I, for one, keep writing a blog with essentially no readers for more or less this reason.
Point is, blog's are useful even if only a few people are reading it, because it's just important as a tool for you as for other people.
I've been trying to think of ways around this, and one might just be to embrace minimalism more. Keep it simple so as to keep creating content. That is what's of value, right?
Going further down the timeline, I want to try to improve that minimalist site, but this desire can't eclipse the desire to keep recording the meaningful thoughts I've had.
Maybe "actually doing work" by blogging is more of a skillset increasing (and caree advancing) exercise than it seems at first...
Big (busily not following my own advice...)
Agreed. I know a few people who do this but the article focused on professionals. There's little point spending time writing stuff which doesn't get attention if your sole motivation is professional advancement.
Not to mention the rush of adrenaline when a post sticks and starts raking in traffic. Very addicting.
I have used WordPress for a non-technical blog for over 3 years now without any issues. I've also been thinking about starting a technical blog and have been looking into using Drupal for it.
That's, of course, assuming that such an announcement is made in the first place. Last year the timthumb bug was being exploited and not all theme download sites bothered to alert the users that the themes were vulnerable.
Ah, I remember reading about the timthumb bug at work and checking right away when I got home if my site was vulnerable to it (which it wasn't).
Tumblr makes it very easy to jump right in. There are hundreds of themes, I found a decent enough one within a few minutes.
I recommend going the Tumblr way first, mainly to get over the inertia of setting a blog up. This is the biggest hurdle that stops you. Get into the habit of writing a blog first, then later you can choose another tool that you prefer once you have developed your own blogging style and you know your likes and dislikes a bit better.