Why I Blog

http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2013/03/31/why-i-blog/

by thinkbohemian • 13 years ago

38 16 13 years ago

craigkerstiens.com

ExpiredLink• 13 years ago

I'm going to write a blog post entitled "Why I don't read blog posts that start with 'Why I'.

jonathanwallace• 13 years ago

I don't plan on reading it.

RegEx• 13 years ago

I much prefer "Why I" over "Why you should" or "Why everything you're doing is wrong".

lbarrow• 13 years ago

I don't think these are very good reasons to blog. He's assuming he'll definitely get a lot of readership, specifically from his coworkers. That's not really a reasonable assumption.

Steve Yegge wrote a great essay on why people should write blogs (https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/you-should-write-b...) that hits on many of my own thoughts on the topic. His basic argument is:

* Writing blogs clarifies your thinking and improves you writing skills

* All the reasons people usually give to not write blogs are bad

What more needs to be said?

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

>He's assuming he'll definitely get a lot of readership, specifically from his coworkers. That's not really a reasonable assumption.

IMO coworkers asking one another questions about various topics regarding general programming stuff happens pretty frequently (especially regarding gotchas), so I think his justification is pretty reasonable. (you often end up having to write emails explaining these sorts of things anyways, so you might as well just have a blog post you can point to).

jseliger2• 13 years ago

Right. I'd also add that many of my own blog posts start from e-mails or random conversations. In the case of e-mail, it's often a fairly straightforward transition to a post.

hkmurakami2• 13 years ago

I really like to reasoning, and it doesn't have to be limited to programming.

I'm often asked for resume help especially from friends who live abroad who are applying to US companies or US schools and have explained things multiple times to them. I really should write a "how to" on boilerplate resume writing, provide templates, etc!

sergiotapia3• 13 years ago

Right on!

The reason I write blog posts on my website is because it has measurably impacted the amount of freelance work I am offered and it's also a way for me to write down something I learned in a clear, succinct manner.

Six months down the road when I forgot how to do something, I can just read my blog post and Sergio-from-the-past will be more than willing to hold my hand and explain things to me.

If other people find it useful then excellent!

jiggy20112• 13 years ago

I'm interested to hear you say that your blog got you measurably more freelance work.

I considered blog writing to increase visibility for freelance work , but in the end I just concluded that the only people who would be interested in reading it would be HN types who are good enough programmers that they wouldn't need to hire me anyway.

Do you find success from writing technical blog posts, or do you focus on other aspects such as business etc to try and get a more diverse set of readers?

sergiotapia3• 13 years ago

I write 100% technical blog posts, and I also guest write for a prominent [$programming-laguage] blog. People search the common problem, I provide well written solutions.

I guess that proves to potential clients that:

A) I can speak English at a native level. B) I'm a good engineer with an interest in my field. C) The most important one: I'm a good communicator.

In a team environment you want someone you can communicate with, first and foremost.

jseliger2• 13 years ago

I'm interested to hear you say that your blog got you measurably more freelance work.

I can't speak to programming specifically, but I'm a consultant and contribute to my company's blog, Grant Writing Confidential (http://blog.seliger.com). For us, the most useful part of the blog from a marketing standpoint is search engine traffic.

We're not exactly Perez Hilton—I'm sure people posting celebrity nudes get a lot more hits—but people searching for terms specific to our work often find us, which they seldom do through generic searches ("grant writer" or "grant writing.")

The secondary benefit is that we demonstrate that we know what we're talking about; if you think we're full of shit, you can read as much of the blog as you want, and decide for yourself whether we are.

kalid• 13 years ago

Be really careful about drawing conclusions from thought experiments. Would you assume that people searching for "Toyota Camry" were interested in repairing one or buying one? And why would it be exclusively one group or another?

I have a blog post about http caching that a CEO of a networking company enjoyed. I do occasional freelance writing for them now.

mgoforth• 13 years ago

I highly recommend companies to setup an internal wiki for many of the same reasons. A culture of knowledge sharing makes for a great work environment especially if the information is easily searchable.

Why I Blog

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