Blogging is a full-time endeavor for me. It is time-consuming and it is something that requires energy I may or may not consistently have. I am an HR blogger juggling a full-time day job, plus a part-time consulting business, along with motherhood and marriage etc.
I am constantly asked by colleagues how I manage to find time to blog and hold down the rest of my responsibilities. The answer is when you are passionate about something you don’t think twice about doing it. I have had stories, ideas, anecdotes and best practices bottled up and fermenting in my head for years. I had very limited outlets to share all of this knowledge and so it laid dormant with no voice.
Information hoarding is a burden. Knowledge transfer helps us all.
Blogging has provided me with an opportunity to free myself of the burden of carrying around all of these thoughts about HR, the world of work and business. It gives me the chance to share my point of view and receive immediate feedback on whether my thoughts are universal truths or subjective musings of a professional.
There is a lot of noise in this space. Some of it is due to the lovely clamor of beautifully-orchestrated music being made by the best and brightest thought leaders in HR. The rest of it is due to saturation. That is saturation of purposely meaningless thoughts about HR and the world of work. All of it is disruptive for different reasons. As such, I aim to be a “signal in the noise”. At the top of the year, I wrote about“being a signal in the noise” and what that means for me. Essentially, I said that I may not be the loudest sound now, but I will be that noise that will make you stop and wonder how you missed it the first time around.
Content is king. Classics are worth the wait.
Do you remember how you used to enjoy purchasing music back in the day? I remember pre-ordering and/or waiting outside the record store for the new Destiny’s Child or Nas CD to drop. It was a feeling of great anticipation. You had no idea what you were in for, but you knew what to expect from previous albums. The album could have been garbage once you bought it, but the momentum to get you up and out to the record store and spending money was all based on previous experience. More importantly, your favorite band or singer could have been on a 2-4 year hiatus where you heard nothing but old songs from previous albums, but you waited patiently and played those old records out until something new presented itself.
I blog to deliver not just good content but the best content. Being the “signal in the noise” means that however, infrequent or irregular I blog in years to come, people will still be waiting for me to drop that next article. There is something incredibly affirming about having something so personal be so vital to someone else whether it is career advice or a resonating anecdote that hits close to home. I have had an outpouring of people from all over the world thanking me for various articles I have written. It is a feeling that is hard to explain when you receive that feedback. For me, it simply makes me happy and eager to write even more content.
Blogging is allowing me to leave a social and professional footprint that I doubt would have happened as expediently without it. I have always believed in quality over quantity, classic over trendy, best over mediocre. These are the things that push me to write until 3am in the morning as I am doing at this very moment.
Of course, you can not diminish the incredible opportunities to meet extraordinary people in your profession that have the same drive and goals to impact the world of work. I have found that in Chris Fields and many other HR professionals that I have met through blogging.
To Chris, I say remain a classic and a notch above the rest and blog on my friend. Onward and upward always! Happy 2nd Year Blog Anniversary Cost of Work!