31-3.2 A daily thrashing with the 500 word stick

So, here’s a question. Why am I putting myself through the horror of trying to write something substantive for this blog every single day in March?

Leaving aside the possibility of an unexplored masochistic streak, the fundamental reason is because I want to. I like blogging. I love it, in fact. It’s been nearly 13 years since I discovered it as a medium and it shifted my world around completely. I’m a busy man, though, trapped between a hectic four-day-a-week consultancy career (long may that “hectic” last) and the demands of being 50% of the available parenting resource for a little girl who has hit the toddler years fast and hard, and is accelerating towards the terrible twos as quickly as she possibly can.

The 40s are a problem for modern couples:

The modern 40s are so busy it’s hard to assess them. Researchers describe the new “rush hour of life,” when career and child-rearing peaks collide.

Sell, Sell, Self

This blog has got pushed to the sidelines repeatedly since I became a free agent and a Dad, and the closest thing I have to a New Year resolution this year is to rectify that. There are prosaic, financial reasons behind that: my blog remains my showcase, the source of much of my work, and without it I’m essentially doing very little marketing right now (my workload is leaving little room for the round of coffees and lunches that make up my self-promotion). The busy period will end – and I need something there to keep me in people’s minds.

However, it’s also the place where I crystallise my ideas about the subjects I follow. Some of that “writing myself into existence” has transferred into my lecturing and training, where I’ve been forced into developing a new language around some of my areas of expertise just so I can communicate them effectively – and that’s a subject I intent to return to this month – but my blog still remains the most compelling way of doing so. Why? Well, because I can expose my ideas to the criticism of my peers – and that’s incredibly useful in making sure I’m talking something that approximates to sense.

Blogito Ergo Sum.

The Inspiration

Also, some people have been doing something similar, and that lodged the idea in my head. MG Siegler kicked off the year doing something like this. The Man Mayfield pushed me into subscribing to Dan Hon’s current experiment in daily mailings (leading to his probable nervous breakdown given the volume he produces) has been a daily(ish) prod to my own conscience.

Besides, a couple of recent posts which have garnered good engagement (and I feel dirty using that word) have reminded me that it’s the personal stuff that makes a blog fly. Be it photos from the US, or an insight into an advert I ended up appearing in, that kind of material makes a blog engaging and human in the way some links and commentary doesn’t.

I seem to need to relearn – or, at least, reinforce in myself – these kinds of lessons every few years. That’s no bad thing, because it also forces me to check and re-evaluate what I know in the light of changes that have happened over that period. After over a decade’s blogging, it would be horribly easy to get into a rut – and I don’t want to do that.

The Rebellion

Somehow, over the last six months, I’ve slipped into being predominantly a trainer. The majority (but not the entirety) of my work has been teaching other people stuff. That’s great, as far as it goes. It pays well – very well, at times – and is something I seem to be good at. There’s also a pretty evident gap in the market for someone with my particular skill set, which works well for me.

I don’t want too walk too far down that path, though. I enjoy both the strategic consulting and the content creation aspects of my work, too, and I’m going to be putting some more effort into landing that kind of work in the coming months. In the meantime, though, it’s important to do as well as teach. And this blog is the place where I can do whatever the hell I want – even a stupid writing project when I’m far too busy already.

This is the second in a series of one-a-day substantive posts I’m going to try to write through March.