Blogging workshop

Convened by @camassey

Sample of where participants are at

• Been posting on company blog for a while, and while that gets a pretty good reception, he don’t find it very fulfilling – just feels like writing documentation. Would like to find his own personal voice and traction (defined as being able to write about something consistently, and engage his readers) – blogging consistently (most recently a few reviews for kids’ books). Thinks his blogging workflow is poor, and that he burns out too soon (both in terms of ideas and energy).
• Started his blog 10 years ago, had trouble finding his voice and topics, wrote about topics that he found interesting but others didn’t like it or didn’t find it interesting. Created a mailing list ‘super coders’ 40-50 programmers – sends out what would have been a blog post or a set of “interesting finds” links.
• Blogs a bit but doesn’t enjoy it, and not looking to improve his technique - Just here for ideas.
• Blogs but not sure if he wants to continue. Started with a specific topic centred around a table-top game, 20 – 30 posts over 6-9 months – decent amount of engagement. Not sure where to go next – branch out onto a related topic? Cover completely different subjects?
• Doesn’t blog, just here to see what others say. Ideas etc.
• Writes blog posts (most recently a mobile development topic) but either doesn’t post or posts and then deletes it. Worries that he hasn’t got anything interesting or valuable to say.
• 1 blog, 1 post from 7 years ago. Wants to know how to take ideas and form them into content where you can ‘keep the ball rolling’.
• Has a blog but last post was a year ago. Just gets lots of spam content. Doesn’t know what to write next but does want to share his topic of interest.
• Finds it hard to scope his material so it doesn’t end up being a book. Has lots of ideas but finds it hard to get it down into a manageable amount of blogging.
• Doesn’t have a blog, but wants to. The blog exists (for a startup, I believe) but hasn’t been pushed out yet. The purpose for it is mainly for SEO. startup is his idea. Would like to have all employees blogging.

5 big lies of blogging

1. It’s Easy (Thinking through ideas & formatting your thoughts takes effort)
2. It’s hard (it’s not, it’s just words on the internet)
3. I’ve got nothing interesting to say (you have! – pair up and share what you’re working on)
4. What’s the point? What am I going to get out of it? (SEO, company blogs, do you want an audience?)
5. I can’t write (you all write emails, and you’re writing for other developers – you’re all in the same brain space).

3 questions for blogging

1. What am I saying?
2. Why am I saying it?
3. Who am I saying it too?

Points 2 and 3 help you scope.

Notes and thoughts on Why and How to improve your blogging

• Some people write for ‘future self’ (primarily about note-taking) – if that's the case, then don’t get het up about readership. You could also be writing for feedback/help.

• Cadence and discipline are important because you need to build up a habit. Be honest with yourself about what you think you can achieve and stick to it e.g. "I will post once every 2 weeks".

• If you have lots of ideas, block time out in your calendar to either write notes and form those ideas into something coherent, or block out time to just write whatever is in your head and post it. It won't be perfect first time, but you'll get better the more you do it.

• Equally, if you're trying to get ideas, write down everything that seems vaguely interesting - it'll help you spot trends and bigger themes in your ideas. *Let the audience tell you want they want, if they don’t tell you – carry on going on where you want to go. There's no point trying to pre-empt what people want to read about, so just write for your own benefit until you get feedback.

• Until you can answer the 3 questions, you're going to struggle because you're basically just casting around without direction.

• You don’t need to have a whole set of posts lined up all the time or before you start. It helps to have a bit of a pipeline of ideas, but just try stuff out when it comes time to write.

• Maybe you just enjoy the act of blogging and want to get better at it – that's absolutely fine! If you hasn’t thought about the 'why' but feel guilty that you don't do it more, you need to either stop stressing (because you might be doing it for yourself), or answer the 3 questions.

• If you're concerned about balancing audience and playing around with ideas, you could always have separate blogs: 1 for random thoughts, 1 for the targeted ideas.

• Write about stuff you really care about, it’s much easier.

• Some people are worried about burning themselves out by blogging on technical topics, so thinking of trying personal blogging instead. This is a valid concern - sometimes you DO just get sick of blogging - take a break rather than try and push on through. If you don't enjoy or care about what you're doing, it's going to suck, and it's going to show.

• There’s a difference between criticizing and critiquing. This is true when you give feedback AND when you receive it, so try and work out what people are trying to do - put you down, or just tell you where they think you could be stronger? You can always turn off comments or try to take comments with a pinch of salt.

• Be wary of Bike-Shedding! People will argue endlessly about trivial details and miss the big issue - it's not a comment on your writing, it's just people.

• Figure out what people are getting upset about and respond reasonably. Pick out what is meaningful and what isn’t. Not all engagement is created equal.

• **For every person that disagrees with you, 10 people agree with you but didn't want to clutter up your comment feed with "+1" and "I agree.". That one person is not representative. **

• If you're worried / frustrated about people neg-ing on your posts, you could include a barrier so people have to say who they are (e.g. Disqus)

• Frame your thoughts. Phrase your post as a ‘sharing of ideas’ or ‘opinion post’ – encourage the discussion rather than a statement, and that way people are more likely to engage in discussion than disagree with your opinion.

• Remember you can always edit it afterwards. Having it not out there but perfect isn’t as good as having it out there and not perfect.

• Some people also don’t contribute to open source projects because they're worried about their code being judged. The fastest way to learn is be public about the things you're trying to get better at and get input from the people who are more experienced. The developer community - overall - loves and supports people who are visibly trying to make themselves better.

• Frame your context. It’s a good idea to be upfront and start your posts with something like ‘I’m a junior dev’ so that people are aware that you're still learning. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge it.

• There’s no such thing as a perfect blog post – you will never feel completely satisfied. Acknowledge the fear and do it anyway. Easy to say, harder to internalise, but necessary. *Having the intention to blog puts you ahead of the game already.

• Other people post about the topic but remember no one has the same perspective as you. People will come to your blog because they can relate to you and because they like your tone or view point.

• Even if there is someone else out there covering the same topic, don’t be put off. You’re never going to be one deep in any given topic, so add to the knowledge of the pool.

• Just because the title of the blog is the same as someone elses, it doesn’t mean the blog itself is the same.

• Don’t underestimate yourself.