
Why Every Professional Should Consider Blogging - acangiano
http://technicalblogging.com/why-every-professional-should-consider-blogging/
======
kalid
Great article, and very true in my experience. One of my favorite, unexpected
benefits of blogging is it's like a time-machine/memory dump for your brain.

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"

~~~
jseliger
_One of my favorite, unexpected benefits of blogging is it's like a time-
machine/memory dump for your brain._

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...](http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/000230.html)
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."

~~~
kalid
Really interesting. I use Notational Velocity to keep track of text snippets,
but it doesn't have the "see also" feature. I imagine it could be very useful.

------
petercooper
If I hadn't blogged personally 10 years ago, I'd not have been approached to
write a book for Apress. Without that book I wouldn't have launched the
professional blog that was my main source of income for several years (more
than the book was!). Without that professional blog, I wouldn't have got the
podcasting gigs or launched the weekly newsletter which has now turned into 5
profitable newsletters and has just helped me become co-chair of an O'Reilly
conference.

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.

~~~
acangiano
Absolutely. Funny that you mention "luck surface area". At some point in the
book I actually say as much:

> There is no magic wand that can make this happen, instead it’s all about
> increasing your luck surface area.

~~~
petercooper
Yeah, I was really just trying to confirm your message ;-) I probably
subconsciously stole that term from when I read your book actually(!)

------
nhangen
When I blogged, I was popular but felt like a scammer. When I stopped
blogging, I wasn't popular but made some pretty nifty stuff. I'm not saying
it's like that for everyone, but I'd rather be building stuff than become yet
another talking head on a soapbox.

~~~
techiferous
"I was popular but felt like a scammer"

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.

~~~
nhangen
I think the clear delineator for me in this space is:

"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%.

~~~
mattmanser
Joel Spolsky (I think) wrote a good article about why he adopts a stance in
his blogging even though he knows it's always got exceptions to it. Can't find
it for the life of me though.

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.

------
Detrus
I'm not so sure.

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.

------
stfu
As serial failed blogger (3-4 "dead" blogs) let me ask you "pro" bloggers
this:

\- 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)

~~~
acangiano
In the book I discuss at length about how to keep your blog up, but Joel's
advice is pretty spot on. It really comes down to treating blogging like a
business and scheduling time to write:

* 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.

~~~
darklajid
My biggest problem (coming from the same route as the gp, with multiple failed
attempts) is exactly

"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?

~~~
stdbrouw
"For all the interesting things on this planet the net has good resources." Do
you truly believe that?

~~~
darklajid
No, honestly (and I thought obviously, but the text medium is limiting) I
don't. But my interests are limited. My knowledge ('share'!) as well. If I
learn Clojure and there are tons of blogs about Clojure, using Clojure,
learning Clojure, Clojure in the real world.... why another one?

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).

------
HPBEggo
I find this article to be spot on, especially for professionals in very
technical careers.

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.

~~~
ilaksh
I've had blogs before, and having no readers is a little bit depressing for
me. It REALLY doesn't seem worthwhile when no one is reading it. The few times
I managed to get a link to stick on reddit's r/programming, the blog posts
were mostly ignored, then buried and on one I was flamed because people didn't
understand it.

~~~
HPBEggo
Having no readers is a bit of an over-statement. I have some friends who read
it occasionally and ask about specific topics, and a few random people who
probably glance at it once or twice a week.

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.

~~~
kd0amg
Might I recommend adding the link to your HN profile's "about" section? It may
be of interest to some folks here (at least, I don't think I've been able to
go very long without seeing people here talk about economics).

------
estacado
I tried blogging once, but what put me off was the amount work and time it
took to make it look good. You've got to format it so that it's readable to
persons other than yourself. You need to provide links to relevant/related
sites (which sometimes you have search for it because you didn't bookmark it,
which you didn't think you needed to because you didn't know you were going to
use it in your blog). Embedding stuff is such a pain in my experience. If it's
a video, you got to get the size right, the default is always either too big
or too small. And I have yet to find a hassle-free way to embed code,
especially from the free blogging sites. With images, you need to resize them
so that there's a small one inside the post itself, which links to the bigger
one when clicked. All that time spent on making it look good is better used to
actually do my work, in my opinion.

~~~
eric-hu
Good aesthetics has been on my mind too. I started one on a Wordpress site and
after a few posts, my interest fizzled because I wanted to make better looking
posts. When I spend all day trying to make some pages look good at work, I
don't really want to do the same thing at home.

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.

~~~
estacado
If it's only thought-recording, then it's fine. But the reason I wanted to
blog in the first place was to make a kind of online notebook where code
snippets, useful videos/audio, progress history etc. are online and easily
searchable. Kind of an personal online reference, but accessible by the
public. It's just too much work. It's a good idea for a startup though - User
friendly online notebook.

------
timsally
HNers including Patrick
([http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=by%3Apatio1...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=by%3Apatio11+\(blog+OR+blogging\)+AND+resume&start=0))
and Matt Might
([http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=by%3Amattmi...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=by%3Amattmight+\(blog+OR+blogging\)+AND+money&start=0))
have been talking about this for years now. There's a lot of benefit to be had
by carefully grepping through the comment archives of HN.

------
forrestthewoods
A good post but it misses the single biggest reason I blog - to share
knowledge. I want to share what I've learned and for others to do the same so
that we all can become improved.

~~~
acangiano
Thanks. I think you may have overlooked this part, "The number one reason to
blog for many people, is the desire to share their knowledge and teach
others."

~~~
forrestthewoods
Ah so I did. That's under the bullet point "Blogging can help you reach and
teach a wide audience" and I missed it. Now I have to be honest, by the end I
was reading the bold headlines and skimming the text. Oops. :)

------
lunarscape
Most of these benefits can be achieved from being a contributor to popular
forums or support sites (StackOverflow etc). I think blogs suffer way too much
fragmentation, are too difficult to find and require a lot of effort just to
keep people coming back. However if your contributions are in a popular, well
visited place they'll get more exposure and things like karma make it easier
for users to access how valuable your contributions are.

~~~
stdbrouw
Between RSS and Twitter, people generally find their way to interesting
material. You just can't expect every single thing you write to garner
attention. If you're writing for your own edification as much as for others,
that's not a big deal anyway.

~~~
lunarscape
>If you're writing for your own edification as much as for others

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.

------
sliverstorm
So how does this fit in with a job at a corporation that would not appreciate
public broadcasts of the details of what (or heck, even what) you are working
on?

~~~
acangiano
Check out HR to see if there is a business conduct guideline or
blogging/social media policy. As an IBMer I can't disclose too much
information on my blogs, either. But it does still leave me with plenty of
disclosable information to blog about.

------
Swizec
Personally, I blog because writing helps me think. But as it turns out it's
also a marvelous lead generation tool, and just generally a brilliant way to
put my name out there and make sure people remember me when they're thinking
"Hmm, where could I find a crazy coder right now?"

Not to mention the rush of adrenaline when a post sticks and starts raking in
traffic. Very addicting.

------
SonicSoul
i've been thinking about starting a blog for sometime. There seems to be a lot
of ways to achieve this.. I'm a developer but not sure if i want to
host/administer my own instance of word press.. aside from working 50-60
hours, i spend 10 hours a week on personal projects, so not a lot of spare
time.. what's a good streamlined way to start a blog quickly, but still have
good flexibility in it's appearance?

~~~
Reltair
I highly recommend going with hosting your own WordPress. The setup is
painless and allows you to quickly get your blog up and running. There are
tons of themes to choose from that you can use as a foundation to get the
appearance you desire. The plugin system also works great and allows you to
easily add various features to your blog.

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.

~~~
DCoder
If you're hosting your own WordPress (or any other solution, actually), you
really should be keeping an eye for any updates. WP is a popular hacker
target, even waiting a day after an announcement can be enough to get hacked.
Thanks to Muprhy's law, such an announcement will definitely come when you're
on vacation somewhere.

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.

~~~
Reltair
Definitely. If you log in to your WP blog at least once a day, it informs you
about any updates and lets you apply the update with the click of a button.

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).

