Why Blog?

Eighty percent of success is showing up. – Woody Allen

Seth Godin says:

Blogging is free. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it. What matters is the humility that comes from writing it. What matters is the meta-cognition of thinking about what you’re going to say. How do you explain yourself…How do you force yourself to describe, in three paragraphs, why you did something. How do you respond out loud.

If you’re good at it, some people are going to read it. If you’re not good at it, and you stick with it, you’ll get good at it…basically you’re doing it for yourself to force yourself to become part of the conversation, even if it’s just that big. And that posture change changes an enormous amount.

Now here’s what Tom Peters says about “The Brand Called You” and “Brand You Survival Kit“

What you want is a steady diet of more interesting, more challenging, more provocative projects….Think about great gigs. – Seth Godin

Who is searching for you? They meet you somewhere… they’re interested, perhaps want to work with you… can they find you? What do they search for? What do they find? Who has defined you? Does it represent you? Make sure you do that.

A static site is ok for your product, your brochure, but the Web has progressed, people want to see what you’re doing now, your activity, your expertise. Google rewards relevance, recency, and referrals, so be relevant, be recent, and be cool so that you’ll want to share yourself and so will everyone else.

What to do.

1. Start a blog. Start making a dynamic Web-presence for yourself, your organization, team, church, book group, photography, art, cause, hobby. Blogger is simple, all one page. WordPress a is powerful little CMS, easy, and user-friendly. Start telling a story. At the very least, fill our your Google profile.
2. Join a network. It doesn’t matter if it’s a list-serve, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Comment on a blog you read, share your videos on YouTube or pictures on Flickr, but find your people, engage, converse, help, define a community. At the very least set up a Google alert for something and monitor it. Fill out your Google profile.
3. Figure out who you are, what’s unique and valuable about you, and participate in the world by representing yourself, finding your people, contributing, sharing, and leading. This is how you get the good gigs.