Category Archives: Blogging

Just. Write.

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Somewhere, someone is thinking about writing. They are confused where to start. Maybe they think they can’t write well at all? Perhaps they even think they’ll run out of things to say? Guess what?

Just. Write.

Why A Blog?

Social media has taken over as the primary form of communication for a great majority of the population. Status updates, wall posts, and picture montages are the way we tell everyone what we’re up to. But this kind of communication is fast and ephemeral. Can you recall tweets you made seven months ago? Unless you can remember a keyword, Twitter and Google do a horrible job of searching for anything past a few days old.

Blogs represent something different. They are the long form record of what we know. They expand beyond a status or point-in-time posting. Blogs can exist for months or years past their original post date. They can be indexed and shared and amplifed. Blogs are how we leave our mark on the world.

I’ve been fielding questions recently from a lot of people about how to get started in blogging. I’m a firm believer that everyone has at least one good blog post in them. One story about a network problem solved or a cautionary tale that they’ve run into and wish to save others from. Everyone knows one thing that few others do. Sharing that one thought is what sets you apart from others.

A lot of blogs start off as a collection of notes or repository of knowledge that is unique to the writer. This makes it easy to share that knowledge with others. As people find that knowledge, they want to share it with others. As they share it, you become more well known in the community. As people learn who you are, they want to share with you. That’s how a simple post can start an avalanche of opportunity to learn more and more.

How To Start

This is actually much easier than it appears. Almost everyone has a first “Starting A Blog” post. It’s a way to announce to the world that your site is more than a parking page. That post is easy to write. And it will hardly ever be read.

The next step is to tell the world your one thing. Create pictures if it helps. Craft a story. Lay out all the information. Make sure to break it up into sections. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just readable. Once you’ve gotten all the information out of your head and onto virtual paper, it’s time to tell the world about it.

Publicize your work through those social media channels. Link to your post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and anywhere else you can. The more eyeballs you get on your post, the more feedback you will get. You will also get people that share your post with others. That’s the amplication effect that helps you reach even further.

Now, Keep Going

Okay, you’ve gotten that out of your system. Guess what? You need to keep going. Momentum is a wonderful thing. Now that you’ve learned how to craft a post, you can write down more thoughts. Other stories you want to tell. Maybe you had a hard time configuring a switch or learning what a command does? Those are great posts to write and share. The key is to keep going.

You don’t need a set schedule. Some write every week to keep on track. Others write once a month to sum up things they are working on. The key is to find a schedule that works for you. Maybe you only do something interesting every two weeks? Maybe your job is so exicting that you can fill a whole week’s worth of posts?

The worst thing in the world is to have a rhythm going and then stop. Real life does get in the way more than you think. Jobs run long. Deadlines come and go. Missing a post becomes two. Two becomes three, and before you know it you haven’t posted for six months or more.

The way to fix the momentum problem is to keep writing things down. It doesn’t have to be a formal post. It can easily be bullet points in a draft. Maybe it’s a developing issue that you’re documenting? Just jot down the important things and when you’ve wrapped up all the hard work, you have all the beginnings of a great blog post. Every support case has notes that make for great blog subjects.

Tom’s Take

I still consider blogging to be one of the most important ways to share with people in our community. It’s very easy to write down tweets and status updates. It’s also very hard to find them again. Blogs are like living resumes for us. Everything we’ve done, everything we know is contained in several thousand characters of text that can be searched, indexed, and shared.

If you are sitting in a chair reading this thinking that you can’t blog, stop. Open a text editor and just start writing. Write about screwing up a VLAN config and how you learned not to do it again. Write down an interesting support case. Maybe it was a late-night migration gone wrong. Just write it down. When you finish telling your story, you’ve got the best start to blog you could possibly hope for. The key is to just write.

 

A Bright And Happy 2015 Ahead

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Welcome to a new year finally divisible by five! This is a year devoid of extra February days, Olympics, or anything else. It’s a chance for us to take a look at technology and make things better and easier for users and IT staff. It’s also probably going to be called the year of VDI, NFV, and SDN. Again.

Rather than writing a wrap up post for the end of 2014 like so many other sites, I like to look at what I said I was going to do 365 days ago and see if I followed through on them. It’s a way to keep myself honest and also to see how the year transformed around me and my goals.

Looking at 2014

Thankfully, my goals for 2014 were modest. I wanted to get more involved with the people in the IT industry. And I did that in a big way. I went to a ton of conferences and events through the year. Cisco Live, VMworld, and HP Discover Barcelona were all on my list this year, as well as all of the Tech Field Day events I took part in as an organizer. It was a grand opportunity to meets lots of people in the technology space. I got to interact with the old guard and see the rise of new stars. Jobs changed. People sought out new careers. And through it all I got a real sense that the people that are going to change the world in technology are passionate about what they do.

Passion is the key to making sense out of what we do. I’m not saying that you have to be so in love with your job that you are blinded to the world. What I mean is that you need to have passion about the things that matter to you. For me, it’s about seeing new technology and exposing people to it. I love Tech Field Day. It warms my heart when people come to me during and after the event and tell me that they were able to see so much more than they imagined. When a delegate tells me they finally had a chance to meet one of their tech idols or had a game changing conversation during the limo ride between presenters I genuinely smile. Those are the kinds of moments that make everything worth it for me.

What’s In Store For 2015?

For now, the major things aren’t going to change any time soon. My Bruce Wayne job is still going to be Tech Field Day. My Batman job is going to be writing on this blog. But I’m going to try a few new things and see how they work out.

Markdown

I’ve played around with the idea of writing in Markdown for a while now. It’s a simple language that turns thoughts into HTML with out needing to remember some of the more irritating code sections. I’ve never really committed to it before, looking at it more as a hobby or a thing I would eventually get to. Well, for 2015 I’m going to commit to writing all of my posts in Markdown. There’s no better way to learn than a trial by fire. I don’t think the regular posts are going to be a big deal, but the 2015 Cisco Live Twitter List could be fun.

If you’d like to see a great reference sheet for Markdown, check out Greg Ferro’s (@EtherealMind) page on Markdown Reference.

Blog Themes

I wanted to retheme my blog for 2015. I investigated several options and ultimately abandoned all of them because I could never find the right combination. I’m picky about many things I work with every day, including my blog theme, my backpack/messenger bag, and my computer desk. Since I’m hosted on WordPress.com, I can’t just install any theme I want or make modifications to it as I would like. I’m going to keep investigating some ideas and may try them out now and then. Just don’t be surprised if things look slightly different one day in the near future.

Cisco Live Managmement

One of the ideas that I’m going to float out here six months early for Cisco Live is a poll/form for picking the best time to take the Twitter photo. Every year for the last four years we’ve taken a huge photo with all the social media crew at Cisco Live. In the past couple of years we’ve had some issues getting everyone in the picture due to scheduling. This year, Jeff Fry (@FryGuy_PA) and I want to make sure that no one is left out that wants to be in the big photo because of their schedule. I’m going to put up a poll in the next couple of months to pick the best possible time for the photo. And we’ll make sure to publish the results and work with the Cisco Live Social Media staff to get the photographer for that time.

I’m also looking at creating some other spreadsheets to keep track of other information during the event, so if you get a random email from me about it keep in mind that I’m trying to keep myself sane this year.

Tom’s Take

I’m excited for 2015. There’s going be a lot of technology to write about. Tech Field Day will be in Austin, Boston, and Silicon Valley. We’re going to be talking about wireless, networking, storage, and event Big Data! I’m also looking forward to reconnecting with my friends and peers this year and meeting new and exciting people. Through it all, I’m going to be writing away here as well to put my thoughts down about trends and ideas in the industry. There may be the occasional technical piece now and then, since explanation of complex tech subjects is something I think there needs to be more of.

To my readers, thanks for helping me realize how important blogging is the community. Keep posting comments and sharing my thoughts with the world. And in 2015 we’ll have more fun that we’ve had in a long while.

Q And A Should Include The E

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The IT world is cyclical for sure. I’ve seen trends and topics repeating themselves over and over again in my relatively short time here. I find it interesting that we keep solving similar problems over and over again. I also find it fascinating that this particular issue leads to the reason why blogs are so important.

Any Questions?

Questions abound in IT. It’s the nature of the industry. However, it’s not just new questions that we create when technology leaps past us. We keep asking the same questions over and over again. This is the field of study that created the FAQ, remember?

In recent memory, I find the same questions being asked over and over again:

  • What is SDN?
  • How can SDN help me?
  • What makes this different from what we’ve done before?

You’ve probably asked those very same questions. Perhaps you found the answers you were looking for. Perhaps you’re still trying to figure it out. The problem is that those questions are still being asked. The industry should have evolved to the point where the simple questions have been answered with simple answers. Complex questions, or those questions that need more in-depth discussion, should be treated as such. Yes, the question of what SDN really is would take more than a cursory paragraph on a blog, but we should be able to at least answer it with enough specificity to make the user not feel like they been slighted.

Questions will never stop coming in IT. But how should we handle them?

Any Answers?

Questions may abound in IT, but the answers drive IT. People make a career out of being the person with the answers. It’s in all the marketing jargon. It’s why we create blogs. Even though most of my writing in the last year has been focused on industry trends or non-technical focused posts, the top three posts on my blog are still answers to simple questions:

  1. When Is A Trunk Not A Trunk?
  2. Switchport Voice VLAN – What Does It Do?
  3. Why Is My SFP Not Working?

These posts are far and away the most popular. I even saw this a few months ago and it made me smile:

This would make it seem like people are in need of answers. Any blogger can look at the incoming search terms for their blog and see all the things that brought readers to them. People want answers and they will keep looking until they find them. But why?

Explain It

I never understood why people kept searching for answers until I thought about satisfaction. I think Randall Munroe summed up the satisfaction (or lack thereof) angle here:

Who are you, DenverCoder9?!? (Thanks XKCD)
Who are you, DenverCoder9?!? (Thanks XKCD)

People can find answers easily. But they won’t stop looking until they are satisfied with the answer. It’s easy to find people saying things like “That’s not supported” or “RTFM” when you’re looking for an answer to a particularly difficult problem. And if you’ve ever called a tech support line, you know how unfulfilling the unsupported answer can feel.

That’s when explanation comes into play for me. First, an admission: I’m a chronic explainer. If you’ve ever met me and had a conversation with me for more than three minutes, you know I explain things. I talk about comic books and movies and technical topics in more depth than I should. That’s because I want things explained to me. Explaining how OSPF area calculations are done is as important as explaining how Captain America ended up wielding Mjolnir.

Think about the following answers:

This is unsupported.

or

This is unsupported on that platform because the CPU doesn’t have enough horsepower to process the packets in real time. We tried cutting down on the processing time but it just overwhelmed the unit no matter how much we tried. So rather than dealing with poor performance, we marked it as unsupported.

Both answers are technically correct. But the second is much more satisfying because the explanation is there instead of just the distilled answer.

The IT world needs more explanation. We need to know why things work the way they do instead of just getting a response of a few words. The explanation has the keys to understanding the answer to the question in its totality. It prevents us from asking the same questions over and over again. It leaves us fulfilled and ready to seek out the next question that needs to be asked.

Write Like The Wind

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At the beginning of 2013, I looked at the amount of writing I had been doing.  I had been putting out a post or two a week for the last part of 2012.  Networking Field Day usually kept me busy.  Big news stories also generated a special post after they broke.  I asked myself, “Could I write two posts a week for a whole year?”

The idea is pretty sound.  I know several people that post very frequently.  I had lots of posts backlogged that I could put up to talk about subjects I never seemed to get around to discussing.  So, with a great deal of excitement, I made my decision.  Every Monday and Thursday of 2013 would have a blog post.  In all, 105 posts for the year (counting this one).

Let me be the first to tell you…writing is hard.  It’s easy enough to come up with something every once in a while.  I personally have set a goal of writing a post a week to make sure I stay on track with my blog.  If I don’t write something once a week, then I miss a week.  Then two.  Next thing you know, six months from now I’m writing that “Wow, I haven’t updated in a while…” post.  I hate those posts.

Reaping What You Sow

Not that my life didn’t get complicated along the way.  I changed jobs.  My primary source of material, Tech Field Day, now became my job and not something I could count on for inspiration.  Then, I took on extra work.  I wrote some posts for Aruba’s Airheads Community site.  I also picked up a side job halfway through the year writing for Network Computing.  I applied my usual efficiency to that work, so I was cranking out one post a week for them as well.

My best laid plans of two posts per week ended up being three.  I wrote a lot.  Sometimes, I had everything ready to go and knew exactly what I wanted to say.  Other times I was drafting something at the eleventh hour.  It was important to make sure that I hit my targets.  Some of my posts covered technology, but many more were about the things I do now: writing, blogging, and community relations.  I’m still a technical person, but now I spend the majority of my time writing blogs, editing white papers, and talking to people.

I found out that I like writing.  Quite a bit, in fact.  I like thinking about a given situation or technology and analyzing the different aspects.  I like taking an orthogonal approach to a topic everyone is discussing.  Sometimes, that means I get to play the devil’s advocate.  Other times I make a stand against something I don’t like.  In fact, I created an entire Activism category for blog posts solely because I’ve spent a lot of time discussing issues that I think need to be addressed.

The Next Chapter

Now, all that being said, I’m going to look forward to writing in the future.  I’m probably going to throttle back just a bit on the “two posts per week” target.  With Network Computing going strong, I don’t want to compromise on either front.  That means I’ll probably cut back a post or two here to make sure all my posts are of good quality.  More than once this year I was told, “You write way more than you need to.”  In many ways, that’s because there’s a lot going on in my brain.  This blog serves as a way for me to get it all out and in a form that I can digest and analyze.  I’m just pleased that others find it interesting as well.

Tech Field Day is going to keep me busy in the coming year.  It’s going to give me a lot of exposure to topics I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten to be involved in.  Hopefully that means I’m going to spend more time writing technical things alongside my discussions of social media, writing, and the occasional humorous list.

I’m not out of ideas.  Not by a long shot.  But, I think that some of my ideas are going to need some time to percolate as opposed to just throwing them out there half baked.  Technology is changing every day.  It’s important to be a part of what’s going on and how it can best be used to affect change in a world that hasn’t seen much upheaval in the last decade.  I hope that some of the things I write in the coming months will help in some small part to move the needle.

Is The Blog Dead?

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I couldn’t help but notice an article that kept getting tweeted about and linked all over the place last week.  It was a piece by Jason Kottke titled “R.I.P. The Blog, 1997-2013“.  It’s actually a bit of commentary on a longer piece he wrote for the Nieman Journalism Lab called “The Blog Is Dead, Long Live The Blog“.  Kottke talks about how people today are more likely to turn to the various social media channels to spread their message rather than the tried-and-true arena of the blog.

Kottke admits in both pieces that blogging isn’t going away.  He even admits that blogging is going to be his go-to written form for a long time to come.  But the fact that the article spread around like wildfire got me to thinking about why blogging is so important to me.  I didn’t start out as a blogger.  My foray into the greater online world first came through Facebook.  Later, as I decided to make it more professional I turned to Twitter to interact with people.  Blogging wasn’t even the first thing on my mind.  As I started writing though, I realized how important it is to the greater community.  The reason?  Blogging is thought without restriction.

Automatic Filtration

Social media is wonderful for interaction.  It allows you to talk to friends and followers around the world.  I’m still amazed when I have conversations in real time with Aussies and Belgians.  However, social media facilitates these conversations through an immense filtering system.  Sometimes, we aren’t aware of the filters and restrictions placed on our communications.

twitter02_color_128x128Twitter forces users to think in 140-ish characters.  Ideas must be small enough to digest and easily recirculate.  I’ve even caught myself cutting down on thoughts in order to hit the smaller target of being about to put “RT: @networkingnerd” at the begging for tweet attribution.  Part of the reason I started a blog was because I had thoughts that were more than 140 characters long.  The words just flow for some ideas.  There’s no way I could really express myself if I had to make ten or more tweets to express what I was thinking on a subject.  Not to mention that most people on Twitter are conditioned to unfollow prolific tweeters when they start firing off tweet after tweet in rapid succession.

facebook_color02_128x128Facebook is better for longer discussion, but they are worse from the filtering department. The changes to their news feed algorithm this year weren’t the first time that Facebook has tweaked the way that users view their firehose of updates.  They believe in curating a given users feed to display what they think is relevant.  At best this smacks of arrogance.  Why does Facebook think they know what’s more important to me that I do?  Why must my Facebook app always default to Most Important rather than my preferred Most Recent?  Facebook has been searching for a way to monetize their product even before their rocky IPO.  By offering advertisers a prime spot in a user’s news feed, they can guarantee that the ad will be viewed thanks to the heavy handed way that they curate the feed.  As much reach as Facebook has, I can’t trust them to put my posts and articles where they belong for people that want to read what I have to say.

Other social platforms suffer from artificial restriction.  Pinterest is great for those that post with picture and captions or comments.  It’s not the best for me to write long pieces, especially when they aren’t about a craft or a wish list for gifts.  Tumblr is more suited for blogging, but the comment system is geared toward sharing and not constructive discussion.  Add in the fact that Tumblr is blocked in many enterprise networks due to questionable content and you can see how limiting the reach of a single person can be when it comes to corporate policy.  I had to fight this battle in my old job more than once in order to read some very smart people that blogged on Tumblr.

Blogging for me is about unrestricted freedom to pour out my thoughts.  I don’t want to worry about who will see it or how it will be read.  I want people to digest my thoughts and words and have a reaction.  Whether they choose to share it via numerous social media channels or leave a comment makes no difference to me.  I like seeing people share what I’ve committed to virtual paper.  A blog gives me an avenue to write and write without worry.  Sometimes that means it’s just a few paragraphs about something humorous.  Other times it’s an activist rant about something I find abhorrent.  The key is that those thoughts can co-exist without fear of being pigeonholed or categorized by an algorithm or other artificial filter.

Tom’s Take

Sometimes, people make sensationalist posts to call attention to things.  I’ve done it before and will likely do it again in the future.  The key is to read what’s offered and make your own conclusion.  For some, that will be via retweeting or liking.  For others, it will be adding a +1 or a heart.  For me, it’s about collecting my thoughts and pouring them out via a well-worn keyboard on WordPress.  It’s about sharing everything rattling around in my head and offering up analysis and opinion for all to see.  That part isn’t going away any time soon, despite what others might say about blogging in general.  So long as we continue to express ourselves without restriction, the blog will never really die no matter how we choose to share it.

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Don’t Just Curate, Cultivate

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Sprout

Content curation is all the rage.  The rank and file folks online tend to get overwhelmed by the amount of information spewing from the firehose.  For the most part, they don’t want to know every little detail about everything.  They want salient points about a topic or how an article fits into the bigger picture.  This is the calling card of a content curator.  They organize the chaos and attempt to attach meaning and context to things.  It does work well for some applications.

Hall of Books

One of the biggest issues that I have with curation is that it lends itself to collection only.  I picture curated content like a giant library or study full of old books.  All that information has been amassed and cataloged somehow.  The curator has probably read each of those books once or perhaps twice before.  They can recall the important points when prompted.  But why does all that information need to be stored in a building the size of a warehouse?  Why do we feel the need to collect all that data and then leave it at rest, whether it be in a library or in a list of blogs or sources?

Content curation feels lazy.  I can create a list of bloggers that I want you to follow.  I want you to know that I read these blogs and think the writers make excellent points.  But how often should you go back and look at those lists again?  One of the greatest tragedies of blogging is the number of dead, dying, or abandoned blogs out there.  Part of my job is to evaluate potential delegates for Tech Field Day based on a number of factors.  One of my yardsticks is blogging.

Seeing a blog that has very infrequent posts makes me a bit sad.  That person obviously had something to say at some point.  As time wore on, the amount of things to say drifted away.  Maybe real life got in the way.  Perhaps a new shiny object caught their attention.  The worst is a blog that has only had two posts in the last year that both start with, “I know I haven’t blogged here in a while, but that’s going to change…”

Reaping What You Sow

I think the key to keeping that from happening is to avoid static collection of content.  We need to cultivate that content just like a farmer would cultivate a field.  Care and feeding of writers and bloggers is very important.  Writers can be encouraged by leaving comments or by sharing articles that they have written.  Engaging them in discussion to feed new ideas is also a great way to keep the fire of inspiration burning.

One of the other important ways to keep content creators from getting stale is to look at your blogrolls and lists of followed blogs and move things around from time to time.  I know for a fact that many people don’t scroll very far down the list to find blogs to read.  The further up the list you are, the more likely people are to take the time to read what you have to say.  The key for those wanting to share great writers is to put them up higher on the list.  Too often a blog will be buried toward the bottom of a list and not get the kind of attention the writer needs to keep going.  More likely is a blog at the top of a list that hasn’t posted in weeks or months.

Everyone should do their part to cultivate content creators.  Don’t just settle for putting them on a list and calling it a day.  Revisit those lists frequently to be sure that the people on them are still producing.  For some it will be easy.  There are people like Ivan Pepelnjak and Greg Ferro that are born writers.  Others might need some encouragement.  If you see a good writer than has fallen off in the posting department lately, all it might take is a new comment on a recent post or a mention on Twitter/Facebook/Google+ asking how the writing is coming along.  Just putting the thought in their mind is often enough to get the creative juices flowing again.

Tom’s Take

I’m going to do my part as well.  I’m going to try to keep up with my blogroll a bit more often.  I’m going to make sure people are writing and showing everyone just how great they are.  Perhaps it’s a bit selfish on my part.  The more writers and creators there are the more choices I have to pick from when it’s time to pick new Field Day delegates.  Deep down inside, I just want more writers.  I want to spend as much time as possible every morning reading great articles and adding to the greater body of knowledge.  If that means  I need to spend more time looking after those same writers, then I guess it’s time for me to be a writer farmer.

Vendorpendent

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May you live in interesting times. – Purported Ancient Chinese Curse

Life is never boring for the independent blogger.  Especially when the vendors come calling.  In recent months, Sean Rynearson (@SRynearson) and Rocky Gregory (@BionicRocky) have taken up residence at Aruba Networks.  Gurusimran Khalsa (@gurusimran) has headed over to VMware.  Most recently, Ryan Adzima (@RAdzima) has joined the ranks of the wireless elite at AirTight Networks.  There’s still more to come if my guesses are right.  In many of those cases, I’ve been asked what I think about so many independent influencers heading for vendors.  My response is always the same: It’s a great thing.

A Cog In The Machine

So many independent people being hired by vendors shows the value of their thinking and analysis.  It’s much easier to interview for a job when your entire resume is online in the form of a blog full of deep thoughts and impressive research.  If the employer can Google your name and find not only your commentary but the commentary of people that have discussed things with you then the actual interview process is a formality.  I personally like it that way because I’m horrible at telling people about myself.  I’d much rather let my words do the talking for me.

Vendors know that having an independent thinker on staff is a huge asset.  If the independent is detached for the existing process, they can point out weaknesses or quickly adjust strengths to make things better for the vendor.  A dispassionate third party view is useful when determining if marketing efforts are working correctly or if a product line needs to be refreshed or removed entirely.  Sometimes you can’t get the objectivity needed from someone that’s been entrenched at a vendor for too long.

Independents worry about working for vendors.  They are afraid they will lose their objectivity.  They want to be sure that their opinions are their own and don’t reflect the views of their employers.  I’ve been asked on more than one occasion by those folks if it’s even possible.  My response: Yes, but it’s hard.

It’s Not Easy Being Free

You have to be vigilant when you want to make sure you are independent.  Your thoughts and ideas should never be suppressed because someone doesn’t like them or because they don’t fit a marketing campaign.  The value in having an independent on your payroll is the objectivity that person brings to the table.  Hiding that objectivity for the sake of a few dollars on the bottom line is the road to ruin.

Likewise, you as the independent need to be sure you don’t cross the line when it comes to reducing your own independence.  I’ve seen more than one person go to work for vendor and slowly transform themselves from an independent thinker to a corporate mouthpiece.  When you put the leash on yourself and impinge you own credibility you’ve done a disservice to your employer as well as yourself.  Attacking a competitor via blog posts or social media serves no real purpose.  Debating salient issues is a better use of time for everyone.  Don’t let yourself be dragged into the fray.  Rise above and keep the discussions focused on technology and not on the logo on the device.

Tom’s Take

I’ve stayed independent because of my own stubbornness.  I feel that my views are better voiced outside the vendor community.  That doesn’t mean that vendors are evil and should be avoided.  On the contrary, vendors are a great fit for a great number of bloggers.  Any time someone comes to me and tells me they’ve taken a position with a vendor I applaud their choice.  It ultimately comes down to the person making the choice.  If you feel you can stay independent inside the greater organization then a vendor is a great fit.  Just remember to be vigilant and stay true to who you are.  Not the logo on your shirt.

Under the Influencers

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DominoFinger

I’ve never really been one for titles or labels.  Pejorative terms like geek or nerd never bothered me growing up.  I never really quibbled over being called a technician or an engineer (or rock star).  And when the time came to define what it was that I did in my spare time in front of a monitor and keyboard I just settled on blogger because that was the most specific term that described what I did.  All that changed this year.

When I went to VMware Partner Exchange, I spent a lot of time hanging out with Amy Lewis (@CommsNinja) from Cisco.  Part of this was due to my filming of an IPv6-focused episode of Engineers Unplugged.  Afterwards, I spent a lot of time as a fly on the wall listening to conversations among the assembled folks.  I saw how they interacted with each other.  I took copious notes and tried to stay out of the way as much as possible.  Not that Amy made that easy at all.  She went out of her way to pull me out of the shadows and introduce me to people that mattered and made decisions on a much grander scale than I was used to.  What struck me is not that she did that.  What made me think was how she introduced me.  Not as a nerd or an engineer or even as a blogger.  She used a very specific word.

Influencer

It took some time before the enormity of what Amy was doing sank in.  Influencers are more than just a blog or a Facebook page or a Twitter handle.  They take all of those things and wrap them into a package that is greater than the sum of its parts.  They say things that other people listen to and consider.  The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

I think of influencers as people like Stephen Foskett (@SFoskett), Greg Ferro (@etherealmind), or Ivan Pepelnjak (@IOSHints).  When those guys speak, people listen.  When the publish a podcast or write a product review that turns heads.  Every field has influencers.  Wizened people that have been there and done just about everything.  Those people then spend their time educating the greater whole to avoid making the same mistakes all over again or to help those with ability to find the vision needed to do great things.  They don’t hold that knowledge to themselves and use it as capital to fight political battles or profit from those that don’t know any better.  Being a blogger or technical person on the various social media outlets invovles a bit of give and take.  It requires a selfless type of attitude.  Too many analyst firms live by the maxim “Don’t give away the farm” when it comes to social media interaction.  Those firms don’t want their people giving away advice that could be locked into a report and assigned a price.  In my mind, true influencers are the exact opposite.

It struck me funny when Amy referred to me in the same way that thought of others in the industry.  What had I done to earn that moniker?  Who in their right mind would listen to me?  I’m some kid with a keyboard and a WordPress account.  However, the truth of things was a little beyond what I was initially thinking.  It didn’t really hit me until my trip to Cisco Live.

Everyone is an influencer.

Influencers aren’t just luminaries in the industry.  They aren’t the wise old owls that dispense advice like a fortune cookie.  Instead, influencers are people that offer knowledge without reservation for the sole purpose of making the world better off than it was.  You don’t have to have a blog or a Twitter handle to be an influencer.  Those things just make it easy to identify the chatty types.  To really be an influencer, you only need have the desire to speak up when someone asks a question that you have insight into.  If two people are having a conversation about the “best” way to configure something, an influencer will share their opinion freely without reservation.  It might not be much.  A simple caution about a technology or an opinion about where the industry is headed.  But the influence comes because those people take what you’ve said and incorporate it into their thinking.

I’ve been trying to champion people when it comes to writing and speaking out on social media.  I want more bloggers and Tweeters and Facebookers.  I’ve taken to collectively calling them influencers because of what that term really represents.  I want more influencers in the world.  I want intelligent people giving freely of themselves to advance the industry.  I want to recognize them and tell others to listen what these people are saying.  Sure, having a blog or a Twitter handle makes it easier to point them out.  But I’m not above telling someone “Go talk to Bob.  He knows a lot about what’s troubling you”.

Tom’s Take

It doesn’t take a lot to be an influencer.  Helping someone decide between detergent at the grocery store makes you an influencer.  What’s important is taking the next step to make it bigger and better.  Make your opinions and analysis heard.  Be public.  Sure, you’re going to be wrong sometimes.  But when you’re right people will start to listen.  Not just people wanting to know the difference between Tide and Gain.  People that have C-level titles.  Product managers.  People that want to know what the industry is thinking.  When you see that something you’ve said or done has a a real impact on a tangible thing, like a website or a product look, you can rest easy at night knowing that you have influence.

Nobody Cares

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Writing a blog can be very fun and rewarding.  I’ve learned a lot from the things I’ve written.  I’ve had a blast with some of the more humorous posts that I’ve put up.  I’ve even managed to be anointed at the Hater of NAT.  After everything though, I’ve learned something very important about writing.  For the most part, nobody cares.

Now, before you run to your keyboard and respond that you do indeed care, allow me to expound on that idea just a bit.  I’ve written lots of different kinds of posts.  I’ve talked about educational stuff, funny lists, and even activist posts trying to get unpopular policies changed.  What I’ve found is that I can never count on something being popular.  There are days when I sit down in front of my computer and start furiously typing away as if I’m going to change the world with the words that I’m putting out.  When I hit the publish button, it’s as if I’m launching those paragraphs into a black hole.  I’m faced with a reality that maybe things weren’t as important as I thought.

A prime example is the original intent for my blog.  I wanted to write a book about teaching people structured troubleshooting.  I figured if I could get a few of those chapters down as blog posts, it would go a long way to helping me get everything sorted out in my mind.  Now, almost three years later, the two least read posts on my site are those two troubleshooting posts.  There are images on my site that have more hits than those two posts combined.  If I were strictly worried about page views, I’d probably have given up by now.

In contrast, some of the most popular posts are the ones I never put a second thought into.  How about my most popular article about the differences between HP and Cisco trunking?  I just fired that off as a way to keep it straight in my head.  Or how about my post about a throwaway line in a Star Trek movie that exploded on Reddit?  I never dreamed that those articles would be as big as they have ended up being.  I’m continually surprised by the things that end up being popular.

What does this mean for your blogging career?  It means that writing is the most important thing you can do.  You should invest time in creating good quality content.  But don’t get disappointed when people don’t find your post as fascinating as you.  Just get right back on your blogging horse and keep turning out the content.  Eventually, you’re going to find an unintentional gem that people are going to go wild about.

Despite the old adage, lightning does indeed strike twice.  The Empire State Building is hit about 100 times per year.  However, you never know when those strikes are going to hit.  Unless you are living in Hill Valley, California you can never know exactly when that bolt from the blue is going to come crashing down.  In much the same way, you shouldn’t second guess yourself when it comes to posting.  Just keep firing them out there until one hits it big.  Whether it be from endless retweets or a chance encounter with the front page of a news aggregator you just need to put virtual pen to virtual paper and hope for the best.

The Arse First Method of Technical Blogging – Review

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When you tell people that you are a blogger, you tend to get a couple of generic responses.  The first is laughter or dismissal.  Some people just don’t understand how you can write all the time.  The second response if curiosity.  Usually, this is expressed as a torrent of questions about how to blog.  What do I write about?  How much should I write? How often should I post? And on and on.  For those of us that have been blogging long enough, it’s almost a wrote recitation of our standards and practices for blogging.  Some people have even been smart enough to turn that standard reply into a blog post.  For Greg Ferro, it was time to turn that blog post into an e-book:

ArseFirstCover

Cheeky, isn’t it? Weighing in at a svelte 37 pages, this little how-to guide details many of Greg’s secrets for writing blog posts over his career.  He talks about tools for screen captures and knowledge archiving.  He also discusses hosting options and content creation.  To the novice blogger, it’s a step-by-step guide in how to get started in blogging.  I would highly recommend picking it up if you aren’t sure how to get started in technical blogging, which is remarkably different than blogging about food or pictures or any other non-technical thing.

The Catch

The funny thing about this book is that, while reading more and more of it, I realized that I violate almost every one of Greg’s recommendations for writing a technical blog.  My opening paragraphs are more like story hooks.  I don’t use a lot of bullet points.  I like putting pictures in my posts.  There are many others that I ignore on a pretty regular basis as well.  But don’t think that means that I don’t appreciate what Greg is trying to do with his book.

Greg writes like he speaks in real life.  He doesn’t mince words.  He’s not in love with the sound of his voice.  He’s going to give it to you straight when you ask him a question.  His blogging style is totally reflective of his speaking style.  On the other hand, my blogging style is indicative of my speaking style as well.  I like telling stories and relating things back to universal images through metaphors.  I tend to expound on subjects and give more details to support my arguments rather than restricting that to a simple bulleted statement. People that read Greg’s blog posts and my blog posts would likely be able to pick out which of us authored a particular post.  That’s because we have our own voices.

Greg’s book is a great way to get started with technical blogging.  After you get your first couple of posts down, it’s important to think about finding your voice.  You may like using lots of pictures or video.  You may prefer to keep it short and sweet with the occasional code example.  The key is find a style that works for you and stick with it.  Once you find a comfortable writing style you’ll find yourself writing more often and about more complex subjects.  When you aren’t worried about getting the words down on paper you’re free to dive right into things that are going to take a lot of thought.

The recommended price of this book is $4.99.  If that scares you off, you can pick it up for just $2.99.  For the price of a candy bar and a 20oz soda, you can learn a little more about blogging and using tools to amplify your writing ability.  If nothing else, you can read through it so you know how Greg thinks when he’s writing down information about things.  You can purchase The Arse First Method of Technical Blogging at https://leanpub.com/Technical-Blogging-Writing-Arse-First.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.