I was pleased and honored today when Dan McCarthy posted an interview with me on his blog Great Leadership. Dan writes a fantastic blog, which is why it is one of five I am having my MBA students subscribe to this semester.
Blogging is one of the best things I have done for myself in my career. Anyone can do it and in my opinion everyone should strongly consider blogging.
Your personal brand is all about assuming responsibility for identifying and communicating how you add value, either as an employee or as a business owner. What is it you do that merits compensation? Why YOU, and why NOW? Blogging can bring clarity, consistency, challenge, community, and commitment to your brand.
- Clarity: Blogging forces you to think about what you think. The process of documenting and publishing your thoughts on a topic or issue helps you see even more clearly the careful thought you may have put into it over time.
- Consistency: Blogging about your value platform gives you the opportunity to weave some common core themes through your purpose. Blogging allows me to document, develop, and communicate the systematic philosophy on leadership that I have espoused for many years.
- Challenge: Blogging gives you the opportunity to challenge conventional wisdom in your field or profession. You can bypass the powerful gatekeepers with a vested interest in the status quo and offer your suggestions about how and why things can and should be done differently.
- Community: Eventually, a few people will read your blog and comment on what you have written. Your response to comments brings further clarity and consistency to your value platform and encourages continued conversation. You will in turn read and comment on blogs that others write. Over time, you become part of a diverse and highly dispersed community of people with shared interests and passions. As Seth Godin points out, blogging allows you to become part of the conversation.
- Commitment: Blogging allows you to make a strong commitment to your value platform. You can be transparent and authentic about who you are, what you do, why you do it, how you do it, and why people should partner with you now if they are in the market for your value platform. If anyone ever wants to know about me and how I might be able to help them, I just point them to my blog – it is all there.
And you get all this and more for FREE!
Blogging does take time, and many view that time as a cost. I view the time I spend blogging as an investment in myself and my constituents – an investment that produces residual rewards.
You should follow me on twitter here.
Bret;
When I saw the title “MBA 2.0, Trading Textbooks for Blogs” on Dan’s blog this morning, I immediately knew he was speaking of you. Kudos on your morning in the sun, you deserve the attention you are getting. Being a current student of yours, I must admit that before your class began, I had zero experience with blogging. Now, I find myself reading 5 to 10 every morning, ranging from Athletes to Professors.
Blogging is, and will continue to be an important part of our society. As it continues to evolve, I believe blogging will become a key component to how people both receive, and report news. Many breaking stories over the last year have been broken not by CNN, or Fox News, but rather by blogs.
How do you see your classes evolving? Is blogging something you plan to stick with for a while, or do you see yourself taking this online component to the next level?
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 17th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Zach, thanks for the comment. Glad you are reading the Dan’s and other blogs! You ask a good question, one that Dan’s blog had me thinking about just recently. It is going to take another 6-12 months, but once I get enough content built on my blog I may be able to abandon the textbook altogether. My blog and other sites would be come the text. That would save students a lot of money and I don’t think I would sacrifice much on quality if/when I drop the text. I do have some ideas about doing more with blogging and I am going to talk to some folks about it.
If you like blogging, consider my class in Entrepreneurial Psychology, MGT 491/691 this wintermester. I hope to offer it again next summer as well. I’m talking with UNR Extended Studies about a community based offering as well. This is something that would be a natural for an online course, so I might look into that also.
Thanks! Bret
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Bret,
I wish I was your student in that MBA class. As a blogger myself, I loved the idea of taking blogs into classes and making it a part of MBA curriculum. It was fantastic to read your interview at Great Leadership blog and I really appreciate your work in marrying social media with serious education.
I also loved the phrase “You can’t talk to textbooks”. Indeed!
Keep up the GREAT work!
Best,
Tanmay
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 17th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Very kind of you, Tanmay. The line about talking to textbooks was actually Dan’s. He did a great job on the article. Thanks! Bret
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Textbook authors beware! Time to adapt or disappear.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 18th, 2009 at 9:52 am
I’m working on that, Ellie
thanks! Bret
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Bret
I have heard so much about blogging and twitter. I have tried twitter personally and gave it up because I did not have the time during my work day to follow the conversations, and by the time I was free, it was after 8p Pacific time, which was pretty quiet.
My question about the importance of the blog, is it really for everyone? As a middle level manager/analyst in a small private company, would this really help me professionally? Back in 2000 when I did my MBA work, on-line classes were cutting edge! I am struggling to keep pace with acceptable new forms of communication and not be left behind, but wonder just because everyone is doing it, should I?
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Welcome, Audra! You ask a very fair question. Your experience with Twitter is VERY common. I too had the same experience. But once I started watching what others were doing, the light bulb went off. for my community, Twitter is a platform where valuable information and insight is exchanged between experts on a daily basis. that’s powerful.
Twitter is what made me realize that I needed a blog. To be part of the community, I needed to contribute my own value. If you had asked me the question about the value of blogging 18 months ago, I would have scoffed. But now, since I blog, I can tell you without reservation that if you would blog, you would become a better person and a more valuable employee. That is good for both your life and your career. Blogging forces you to make a commitment, and that brings clarity and ultimately build community. It is NOT easy, which is why MOST people will never do it. But for those that do and are willing to learn how to improve, the results are worth the investment.
Thanks! Bret
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