Hi folks.
I want to write a little bit about writing a professional blog.
Early steps
Let’s first talk about what you understand about professional blog. It’s either a semi professional one, that mixes life with professionalism, like chess, programming, testing, painting, drawing, engineering whatever your profession is. Or it can be a purely professional one without your life getting involved in it.
Either way you have to decide at the beginning. Why? Because that’s the kind of people you will attract. If you want to attract people from your profession then you have to decide that you will write plenty of your profession into your blog. If you want to attract hobbists more then you write about your profession AND daily life or other situations that are essentially irrelevant. Of course you can get both in both versions but the numbers will be different.
Commiting
A professional blog is a commitment. Start one only when you know you can “finish” it. It is a constant commitment that you HAVE to do even if you are sick, lazy, don’t have time etc, etc.
I know the excuses because I made them myself a couple of times too, like: I don’t have time. I write only when I want to. I write for myself, I don’t care about people. I don’t have an idea right now. I have better things to do. I don’t feel like writing.
And so on and so fort. Truth is people. These are usually bull.
1. You have time. Whenever you TRULY want to write you will make the 20 minutes to at least write a small post. Why? Because this is a professional blog. You WANT to get noticed. You WANT to help people. You started it because you wanted to make a difference. You wanted people to know you to praise you to acknowledge you. Guess what. If you are not writing anything, it wont happen. There are people out there with 4 children and a wife and he DOES find the time to write a blog.
2. That would be true if you wouldn’t be committed to your blog. Don’t forget, this is a professional blog. This is something that you are writing to make people recognize you. Blogging is about discipline. You have to set aside some time, like 30 minutes / 1 hour to write something in your blog. Why 1 hour? Because of the research that you have to do before hand. I talk about that later. Anyways. This is a commitment. If you don’t take it seriously, then don’t write it. But then don’t wait for people getting to know you, because they wont.
3. This is just plain bull. If you write for yourself make your blog private and be done with it. ’nough said.
4. Now this is something that we all face. In programming, in engineering in whatever your profession is, you will have a point in life, several actually, in which you don’t know what to write about. That is true. It’s common and it’s called writers block. There are several ways of over coming that you can Google it. But don’t forget this is a professional blog. Try to read a couple of others. Try to merit from real life, try to sit down and think quietly for a couple of minutes. Meditate, try to see connections where you didn’t look before. Like building a robot for helping you quit smoking. How? Easy. Smoke detector. When he detects smoke comes out and sprinkles you with water. Or, since this is a testing blog, if you ran out of ideas what you want to write about testing, try this: Read a few magazines about programming, about real life scenarios, about hostage situations, about catastrophes, about hardware failures, about how your neighbor failed to pay his rent. These ALL are great sources for identifying testing opportunities and drawing connections with the software world. What I really found to be a good practice is going around having a notebook in your pocket and the moment I’m hit with an idea I will write it into that notebook. I don’t like using a phone, or other kind of electronic device for that. Why? Because the action of taking out my book, getting my pencil and actually writing something down physically makes me remember it better. But hey. Whatever suits you best. Just do it.
I could go on and on to from where to merit ideas for a blog, it could even be a whole separate post but I will leave somethings to figure out for yourself.
5. This correlates to directly to line 1 and line 6. If you have a writers block or you are just plain lazy or you don’t want to write at all, you will say lines like these.
6. See 5.
Conclusion
Writing a professional blog is about commitment and discipline. Like chess, like drawing, like your own profession it needs time, it needs nourishment it needs petting, and nurturing and loving and hating and practicing. You started this blog to reach something. You started it for yourself so you could track your progress and knowledge. You started it because writing down ideas makes you remember them better or it will make more sense to you. You started because you want to get acknowledged. You started because you want to share your experience with beginners. You started because you want all of the above.
Then do it. Don’t look for excuses. Writing a GOOD professional blog is hard. It will teach you much. It will make you more disciplined. It will increase your will power. It will increase your understanding of your craft. It will help other beginners who seek advice. It will help to make a name for yourself. It will help in an interview. It will generally be useful when ever you want to record a major even or idea in your life.
Also don’t forget. You are having fun while you are doing it. You love it, and you know you love it, because if you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t really start in the first place.
Oh and by the way. Not every single one of your posts must be a small book sized one. You ARE allowed to write smaller pieces in a hurry if you just wanted to share a general idea.
Hope you liked this and I hope it could help you get started or to keep you on track.
Have a nice day,
Gergely.