

You Should Write Blogs (2005) - luu
https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/you-should-write-blogs

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lkrubner
I just had an interesting experience interacting with a CTO who writes a blog.
(If he is okay with it, I'll post his name later.)

I was between jobs, and I asked myself, "Where do I want to take my career
next?" and I decided that I wanted to move in the direction of Big Data and
Analytics. I already knew of an analytics company that was doing cutting edge
stuff with Kafka and Storm, so I sent the CTO an email (I had briefly met him
once before at a Meetup). He said "Yes, let's talk" and we scheduled a talk
for 1 week in the future. I had that week mostly free, so I decided to spend
that time studying the company. And I was amazed and how much I could learn
about the company, because this is pretty much the first company I have ever
applied at where the CTO writes long, thoughtful posts on his personal blog.

I have worked at WineSpectator.com and Timeout.com and ShermansTravel.com, and
even though all of those are publishing firms, none of them have any public
information about their technology (this is changing, slightly, in the case of
Timeout.com). With each of those companies, I basically went in blind, with no
idea of what they were doing.

In contrast, the analytics company was transparent: they had released some
important software to Github, so I was able to review the code, and read the
issues that other developers had raised. They had also started a mailist on
Google Groups, so I was able to read over dozens of public conversations
regarding the strengths and weaknesses of their technology. And the CTO posts
2 or 3 posts each month, to his personal blog, most of the posts being long
and in-depth. I read everything he had written during the last year, and so I
was able to get a good sense of why he had made the decisions that he had made
(why use Kafka and Storm) and where he'd like to evolve the company's
technology stack.

Because of all that, I felt like we were able to have a high-quality
conversation (via both Skype and email). I didn't need to ask stupid beginner
questions like "So, uh, what do you guys do?"

The argument against blogging is similar to the (now largely discredited)
argument that used to be made against open-sourcing one's own technology: if
you give away the company's secrets, then your company has no unique
advantages. I can recall, during the 1990s, people would look at you like you
were crazy if you suggested you were going to give away part of your
technology. But over the last 20 years, the whole tech industry has become
much more comfortable with the idea of open-sourcing some of a company's
technology.

Having a public blog is a bit like having a public open-source project: it
raises your exposure, and perhaps even facilitates the process whereby others
can help you. And the limits of both strategies are the same: I think it is
rare for a company to open-source 100% of its technology, and I think it would
be rare for a CTO or CEO to share 100% of their thinking on a blog. But
sharing part of the technology, or part of one's thinking, can clearly have
benefits.

------
zck
I want to blog, but I never really am able to come up with topics I think are
interesting enough. It's related to the problem Ira Glass points out
([http://zenpencils.com/comic/90-ira-glass-advice-for-
beginner...](http://zenpencils.com/comic/90-ira-glass-advice-for-beginners/)),
where you don't like what you're creating for a period when you're starting
out -- but I don't even really like the ideas I'm having.

The few entries I have on my site are things I don't think are especially
interesting, but I had reasons to share them outside of "hey, a blog post", so
I wrote them.

This is closely related to the problem of coming up with ideas for a startup.
But none of that advice has really helped me. For example, "what should my
software do" is restated as "find a problem". Similarly, pg says "An essay
doesn't begin with a statement, but with a question." But I don't really come
up with questions that seem approachable.^1

So I don't write. Any suggestions for getting over the hump and finding things
to write about?

[1] Actually starting things is something I think is incredibly undervalued in
society, especially for children. Growing up, I didn't even enter my mind that
I could create things. I read a lot, but never wrote. Throwing off this
blanket is an _extremely_ hard process I've just started doing.

~~~
Spearchucker
There must be _something_ in life that _really_ floats your boat. Blog about
that. If that something is new to you, then blog about your experiences. My
blog is usually a way for me to record experiences [1], ideas, techniques and
even resources [2] I find useful. I don't rate my writing skills that highly
but do reference posts heavily in my resume, which gets positive results. It
amazes me how quickly I built mine up. And it doesn't get read. Even today,
two years after I wrote it, my experience activating a phone is the most
popular post [3] (it's the only post that gets more than 10 hits a month -
every other post that even gets a hit gets no more than one).

[1] [http://bit.ly/1tgHUcD](http://bit.ly/1tgHUcD)

[2] [http://bit.ly/1tNqWmF](http://bit.ly/1tNqWmF)

[3] [http://bit.ly/1EmJopn](http://bit.ly/1EmJopn)

In closing, the part of my site that gets 1000's of hits a month is just plain
text with some crappy design that I threw together in 1998, about off-road
driving and vehicle recovery techniques. That's not even part of my blog.

~~~
zck
That doesn't seem boring to you? My experiences seem to be among a few lines:

1\. "This person said this, and I agree". Note how much my earlier post is
this category.

2\. Huh, this thing isn't great, or is confusing, but I have no real
solutions.

I wouldn't read anything at all like this. Maybe it's something I do need to
push through, but it's rough when I don't know what I'm aiming for _and_ don't
like what I'm making.

~~~
Spearchucker
Not boring. In fact quite the opposite. I go back to my posts often,
especially when I'm doing something for work (documentation, for example), and
need ideas.

~~~
arvinsim
I guess if you are a software developer, you can make a blog about hard issues
that you want to remember.

I am not sure if this will cause problems with NDAs though.

------
wernerb
I'd love to write and have people read my ramblings: But putting things in the
public record is my #1 concern. No-one knows what kind of 1984/'your past is
all you are' backlash you might expect in the future.

I see ways for my future health insurance provider to investigate my blogging
for risk-taking overtones. They might even do it automatically.. The tendency
for people to agree with "people who smoke should pay more for health
insurance" is also scary. What's next?

Anyway.. Blogging behind a pseudonym is also not really an option. I could be
tracked down eventually. Even Satoshi will be outed, and he's a cryptographic
genius. Also, I might lapse and let my 'nuanced opinions' go wild by accident
only to be more at risk after discovery. Just look at those Youtube commenters
go..

~~~
grecy
If you let fear stop you from doing something as benign as blogging, I think
you need to re-evaluate your risk vs. reward assessments.

------
lmg643
I'm trying to reconcile this with the Keith Rabois statement: “I don’t know of
a single successful CEO or entrepreneur who blogs regularly.”

[http://blog.asmartbear.com/ceo-blogging.html](http://blog.asmartbear.com/ceo-
blogging.html)

~~~
NhanH
The mention of Bill Gates probably wasn't fair, since he wasn't blogging at
the time of being CEO. But several people come to mind: Joel Spolsky, Coding
Horror. And how about ... Paul Graham and Sam Altman?

------
james_hague
I started blogging into the void almost exactly seven years ago. No promotion.
No trying to be controversial. No plan. What I didn't expect was the effect
that reddit, Hacker News, and eventually Twitter would have. They're
essentially content discovery services, and I am grateful that all three
exist.

------
netrus
Please add [2005] to the title.

