A few people have been asking me lately why they should start a blog. They say that in a world of real time updates, tweets, and other ways of interacting with friends that there is no need. They say that there is not enough time, too much noise, and no way to stand out in a sea of bloggers and writers who all spew their words onto the web without any chance anyone will read them.
To them, I point them here to my own blog and simply leave them with this notion; your blog will show up at any meeting, job interview, or other interaction before you step foot through the door.
This means that although you might be joining millions of blog posts every day. A certain subset of people will read it. Those who are your friends and family, and those strangers who find you via search. This is not something to be afraid of, but rather embraced.
One of the things that stands out to me the most during a pivotal second round interview I had at Union Square Ventures. I sat down with one of the partners Brad Burnham, and presented my resume. He told me to hang on to it and he just wanted to chat.
When I pressed him as to why, he responded with something I will never forget which went something like this; “You can work really hard on crafting a well written, organized, resume with bullet points of accomplishments – but you can’t fake 500 blog posts.”
I was struck by this because I had never thought of things this way before. He was more interested in how I viewed the world (and subsequently the companies in it) rather than my list of things I think went well. Furthermore, he had already done his own homework seeing my previous employment history on the web (on LinkedIn)
So to this day, I think of that meeting, and what someone will read before an encounter. This is not supposed to come across as self important – but rather at the time someone is searching for YOU in particular, craft something that helps understand your worldview. It will certainly provide a better context for your first conversation, and it might even help you get a job in the process as it did for me.
The other benefits of continued writing for me are numerous. I continue to get amazing comments and emails from people from posts that are now years old. It started with myself and friend Lee Jones being afraid to post at all – and has resulted in the both of us growing with the medium.
So the next time someone asks me “why write a blog at all?” I am going to point them to this post, and hope they are convinced.
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