Don't Wait to Start Blogging

I'm borrowing the title from Brian Kelley, who wrote a post by the same name. The essence of his post is that you need to start blogging if you want to blog. If you want to make this part of your brand, or part of your career, you just need to start. Don't wait for the perfect ideas, or the perfect formatting or blog software, or anything else. As Nike says....

Just Do It.

I think that's the best advice, and you ought to start. As I wrote last week, you can get started quickly, in 5 minutes, and then go from there.

One last thing I'd say again is to get feedback on your writing early. Maybe privately, maybe by pointing some people at your entries, but get someone to help you learn to write better. Learn to convey your thoughts in a way that is clear to other people. It's not that hard, but there are lots of rookie mistakes that you make early on. Getting feedback will help you fix most of those small errors and allow you to write in a way that is clear to your readers over time.

The Five Minute Guide to Starting a Blog

I was asked recently for some advice on starting a blog, so here’s a five minute guide:

1. Download Live Writer from Microsoft for authoring your posts.
2. Set a reminder in your calendar once a week to write for 30 minutes.
3. Get Evernote, a moleskin, or use Live Writer to make notes when you come upon a problem you have solved, or you’ve learned something new. This can be a link, a paragraph, or maybe a sentence. Get in the habit of making notes.
4. Save your posts as drafts. When you get ten complete posts, which means proofed and checked (preferably by a friend or spouse), note how long it took you to write ten posts.
5. Set up a blog at Wordpress, Blogger, or Typepad. Any of them will do.
6. Schedule your posts out at the pace it took to write them. If you wrote 10 in 10 weeks, schedule one a week. If you wrote 10 in 20 weeks. schedule one every other week.
7. Keep writing, and keep publishing.

That’s it, and it’s simple, but it won’t build a good blog. You have to do that work yourself, but pace yourself and build a blog that you can sustain.

Why Bother with the Effort?

Is it worth your time to build a better brand, and allow yourself the chance for more opportunities in life? After all, that's what this brand building stuff is about. It's not here to ensure you make a million dollars or ensure you are famous. My goal with this blog and the presentation is to give you ideas and ways to make yourself stand out slightly from the rest of the people in your industry and help you to get the interview at the place you want to work. A better brand should give you more opportunities, hopefully in the areas in which you want to work.

I think it's definitely worth it, and this image says it all:

You want to have the best life for you, which is a very personal, yet elusive thing. A better brand in your industry will help you with this.

The important thing is to make sure that you don't spend too much time on career, branding, or work and make sure you enjoy life.

The Test

When I was starting out in my career, I had a friend that was a bit of a mentor and helped me to make fewer mistakes in my career. He gave me this one piece of advice, and it has served me well over the years.

He told me that before I sent an email, or wrote a memo, or posted something publicly, I should give it the "Washington Post test". This was back in the days of newspapers in my native Virginia. The test was this: if what I had written appeared in the Washington Post the next day, would I have a problem with that?

Today I use a modified version of the test, where I think about what my Mom or my kids would think about what I posted, or wrote. or even said. It doesn't work quite as well for speaking, but it does work for writing. If there is something you blog, or post, or write, inside of work or outside of it, stop and review it. If you have any doubt that what you wrote might make a poor impression, then don't post it.

It's simple. If you have any doubts, don't to it.

Or get it reviewed. Have a friend, your wife, your boss, or someone else look over your work before you post it. Get their opinion and revise your work.

Show People What You’ve Done

This is a good article worth reading: Why the New Guy Can’t Code. It’s a little heavy handed, but it makes sense and there’s one great quote: don’t interview anyone who hasn’t accomplished anything. Ever.

I think we are starting to see this, with all the research that hiring managers and HR people can do online about applicants. If you don’t have some body of work, some evidence that you have the skills needed for the job, why bother with the interview?

Blogging, building a project, having some volunteer projects or applications you’ve built on the side can bring some depth and color to your application, and it gives you the chance to let the interviewer know about your accomplishments when they are considering calling you.

It removes some level of doubt that you might not be a good fit, and it gives you the chance to make a positive first impression early. That’s half the battle of finding your dream job.

Better Writing from Hemingway

These are five rules for writing from Ernest Hemingway, which I like and recommend for use in your communications. Definitely try to incorporate them into your writing, especially being short and positive.

Soft skills are important to MBAs

Business schools are starting to understand that those soft skills are important to succeed in business. It’s a response to various companies interviewing and hiring based on strong soft skills, which seem to become more important all the time.

Work on your soft skills if you want to advance in management at all. It might be more important than an MBA.