Almostgotit.com

I was wrong. It is really important to know the color of your parachute, especially when you are looking for a job! And advice isn’t always a bad thing, either. Also, normally?  It is probably not a good idea to tell other people to shut up.

This is still an experiment. Viral communication is the next big thing, as Seth Godin and others have convinced me, and blogs are at the vanguard. The good news is that the threshold is very low, so it’s very easy to get started. Keeping on, though, is a lot harder than it looks.

My sister once ran a marathon with Joan Benoit. In what other sport can beginning athletes compete with Olympic gold medallists? Blogging is like that. It’s definitely a mixed bag, drawing the exhibitionists and bores right along with the experts and professionals. I have to admit my own first impressions of blogs were pretty dismissive. But as I’ve immersed myself further in the past month, I’ve been floored by the quality of writing, the gorgeous immediacy of the medium, and all the emergent possibilities for its use. Like any other kind of writing, it’s very easy to put words on a (web) page, but very difficult to do it well.

I’d like to do it well. It’s very helpful to read what many successful bloggers have written about the process.

Sort of like, oh, I don’t know, finding a new job?

Both take a lot of time, particularly at the front end, and it usually takes a while to establish the right tone (= parachute) and audience (= employer). Most of the best blogs, like careers, are those which have been heavily and repeatedly reworked, even to the point of starting over. Have you seen all the orphan blogs out there? There’s a reason for that.