

On writing: Why entrepreneurs should write - adamhowell
http://spencerfry.com/on-writing

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patio11
I think oral and written communication is probably the most overlooked skill
for engineers. Write. It gets easier with practice. As you get better at it,
it will come more naturally and you will be more confident. Quality, fluency,
and confidence all make people much more likely to believe what you are saying
and act favorably towards your suggestions.

At a practical level, you can write your way into jobs (or investment), and if
you do it right writing does not rot, so you can continue to reap benefits
from things you've written long before. That lets you store time in a bottle,
which has really nice implications for time-strapped entrepreneurs.

(This also implies that you'd probably be better doing public writing than
writing which winds up in the email archives of BigCorp or behind a logistical
and cultural wall almost nobody will pierce at your institution of higher
learning.)

~~~
pasbesoin
This is a bit tongue in cheek, but I'll argue that _reading_ is the other half
of an overlooked set of skills. I'll write up a clear problem description --
including a structured format, not just detail -- to find myself subsequently
repeatedly correcting the recipient. Conversing quickly determines that they
haven't actually read what I've written; sometimes they're honest about this,
sometimes not so much. But it's apparent, either way.

I try to make myself briefer -- my writing condensed -- in the hope that the
shortness of the message will avoid invoking avoidance based purely on the
volume of content. And I try to communicate less often, collecting
observations into a few well-composed summaries rather than a rapid fire
flurry of messages -- particularly when I know the recipient will not be
addressing the topic immediately in any event.

But then I get accused, typically by some less technical manager, of "not
communicating enough".

All by way of saying, I guess, that I find skill in writing very important.
But there's a certain point where the problem becomes your audience's (or,
depending on mood, leave off the apostrophe s ;-).

P.S. I note now your use also of the term "oral". There, too, there is the
problem of the other half. Meetings that largely reiterate previous meetings,
because the attendees apparently didn't make an effort to retain the
information. This... syndrome can become self-perpetuating. People come to
expect that anything important will be repeated at them, potentially ad
infinitum. The repetition becomes expected and depended upon, making it in
turn necessary.

People sometimes wonder why I take so many notes. But a month or two later, I
can tell you what happened in that meeting. And if my work depends upon that
information, I've executed accordingly.

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powrtoch
"Information is meant to be consumed. It's meant to be free. It's meant to
reach as many people as humanly possible, shared, and discussed."

Let's be fair. Different information is "meant" for different things. My email
password is not meant to be free. And I think if Calacanis has decided that
his writing is now meant for a different level of freedom, that's his call. If
others aren't jumping ship with him, they probably just have different
needs/goals (and these may change). Thoughtful and open writing really does
have a great power for networking/community-building, but there are trade-
offs.

A good essay on the whole, I just don't think we should appeal to the moral
aspirations of raw information. The current state of the internet seems to
show that the world wants (often demands) free information, but we're still
reeling (economically and otherwise) from this movement, and waiting to see
where it ultimately will lead.

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limaya
As a technologist at feel at times that web entrepreneurship _is_ all about
writing: most entrepreneurs I have met outsource coding to someone else and
all they do is write: blog posts, tweets, emails to investors, answering
support forum questions...

It's common to hear stories that begin with "Sergey and Larry..." but I doubt
those guys spent any time blogging and tweeting about how awesome Google was
going to be. Just one more reason to be more like S&G, that's all :)

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mattlanger
Another reason to write more is that there tends to be a positive correlation
between Writing More and Sucking Less [At Writing], and in the business world
there's really something to be said for Sucking Less [At Writing] because
regardless of how smart you are or how great your product is if you can't
string together a coherent sentence on your blog you run the serious risk of
making yourself and your colleagues look dumber than you all probably are (at
least in the eyes of people who care about Sucking Less [At Writing]).

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hazmattron
_Almost anything paragraph size can be squeezed down to 140 characters._

While I agree with the article at large, I disagree with this. There is
definitely value in writing things between 140 characters and essay-length, if
only to jot down complete ideas without grooming them into a lengthy piece of
essay quality.

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jonpaul
I completely agree... I would also add that it allows you to get feedback on
your ideas. I wrote about this a couple months ago:
[http://techneur.com/post/524363996/the-best-exercise-any-
ent...](http://techneur.com/post/524363996/the-best-exercise-any-entrepreneur-
can-do) I truly believe it's the best thing for a business that every
entrepreneur should do.

