Why Is Blogging Hard?
It doesn’t take more than a quick look at this blog’s archive to see that bogging can seem to be hard. I don’t publish as regularly as I would like, ideas go unwritten daily - and I am not the busiest person around. Sure, I work 16 hours some days, and 12 others, and some Saturdays I hardly work at all. Yet I still don’t manage to get most of my daily ideas in to the blog. And even worse, I still don’t get many of my specifically project related ideas out to my reports. Sure, there are some short emails with a “think about this” theme, but too much gets left unsaid.
This is why I really like this post from Rachel Happe of The Social Organization titled “Executive Blogs Don’t Need to be Difficult.” Talk about a simple way to foster communication from the executive level - just a few sentences based on day to day conversations can do! (I wonder how powerful Twitter could be if it could live behind the firewall in large organizations - I imagine there would be a huge benefit to both executives and mid level employees)
The truth is, there are a lot of kinds of blogs, based on intended (or allowed) audiences - but it is still a format that offers benefits to the publishers and (potential) readers regardless of the context. It is no longer the format or the reach that is important - it is the fact that the tools are so readily available and so easy to use there is no excuse not to blog, at least for specific audience. For executives, there is no reason not to share a few thoughts each day - it can be a release, it can solicit help from unexpected sources, it can tell you who is tuned in and interested, and who is engaged enough to promote.
When it comes down to it, if you are an executive, you should blog (even if only available to an internal audience, though there are benefits to having an external blog too). And as Happe’s article points out, it doesn’t need to be a polished, marketing approved, 6,000 word dissertation - it should be short, real, and ask questions (and of course within the bounds of ethics and SEC regulations) - but it may be surprising the positive reactions and thoughts that come out of the regular posting of what may seem mundane.