Tag Archives: Writing

Content Creation Complications

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If you’ve noticed my regular blog posts have been a bit irregular as of late you’re not alone. I’m honestly working through a bit of writer’s block as of late. The irony is that I’m not running out of things to talk about. I’m actually running out of time to talk about them the way that I want.

Putting in the Work

By now you, my dear readers, know that I’m not going to put out a post of 200-300 words just to put something out during the week. I’d rather spend some time looking into a topic and creating something that informs or encourages discussion. That means having sources or doing research.

Research takes time. Ironically enough I’ve always had a much easier time writing things so long as I have the info to pull from in my head. One of the side effects of neurodivergence that I’ve learned about recently is that neurodivergent people tend to write their ‘first draft’ in their head throughout the creation process. Rather than writing and rewriting over and over again I pool all the information in my brain and work through it all to put down my final thoughts. That means what comes out is what I want to say.

However, the time it takes to make that content soup isn’t immediate. Sometimes I find myself doing a massive amount of research to learn about something that ultimately becomes two or three sentences. The rest of the information gets discarded or filed away for use later on in something that might be totally unrelated.

Lightning Bolts

Now you probably see the difficulty in the content creation process when it happens like that. When I’m motivated to write something the words are flowing as I create and edit on the fly. I have lots to say about things and I often change course in mid-stream to pivot into an entirely different idea.

However, when I’m not feeling it the content is a bit harder to create. I have starter ideas that need to germinate but just like growing a plant it takes time. Sometimes that happens when I listen to a podcast or get a spark. Other times I’m walking in circles in my backyard hoping for a bolt from the blue to hit me with inspiration. When that doesn’t happen I just find myself struggling to come up with anything that can develop into a few hundred words.

I’ve been told by many friends that this is how the creative process feels for them all the time. They have ideas but no way to gain the inspiration to write them down. I would hope that there are ways to create and inspire that kind of creative process frequently. I can honestly say that it sucks when you can’t create because the information is stuck in there and it wants to come out. I just can’t make it do the work!

Tom’s Take

The behind-the-scenes part of content creation isn’t easy. It’s also much less glamorous than you might imagine. Remember that when you wonder how you’re going to create something. Don’t worry about making it perfect but make sure to get it all down. Keep yourself to your schedules and make something happen. Otherwise you’re going to be wandering in circles until you do.

ChatGPT and Creating For Yourself

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I’m sure you’ve been inundated by posts about ChatGPT over the past couple of weeks. If you managed to avoid it the short version is that there is a new model from OpenAI that can write articles, create poetry, and basically answer your homework. Lots of people are testing it out for things as mundane as writing Amazon reviews or creating configurations for routers.

It’s not a universal hit though. Stack Overflow banned ChatGPT code answers because they’re almost always wrong. My own limited tests show that it can create a lot of words from a prompt that seem to sound correct but feel hollow. Many others have accused the algorithm of scraping content from others on the Internet and sampling it into answers to make it sound accurate but not the best answer to the question.

Are we ready for AI to do our writing for us? Is the era of the novelist or technical writer finished? Should we just hang up our keyboards and call it a day?

Byte-Sized Content

When I was deciding what I wanted to do with my life after college I took the GMAT to see if I could get into grad school for an MBA. I scored well on the exam but not quite to the magical level to get a scholarship. However, one area that I did do surprising well in for myself was the essay writing section. I bought a prep book that had advice for the major sections but spent a lot of time with the writing portion because it was relatively new at the time and many people were having issues with how to write an essay. The real secret is that the essay was graded by a computer, so you just had to follow a formula to succeed:

  1. Write an opening paragraph covering what you’re going to say with three points of discussion.
  2. Write a paragraph about point 1 and provide details to support it.
  3. Report for points 2 & 3
  4. Write a summary paragraph restating what you said in the opening.

That’s it. That’s the formula to win the GMAT writing portion. The computer isn’t looking for insightful poetry or groundbreaking sci-fi world building. It’s been trained to look for structure. Main idea statements, supporting evidence, and conclusions all tick boxes that provide points to pass the section.

If all that sounds terribly boring and formulaic you’re absolutely right. Passing a test of competence isn’t the same and pushing the boundaries of the craft. A poet like e e cummings would have failed because his work has no structure and contains capitalization errors compared to the standards of grammar. Yet no one would deny that he is a master of his craft. Likewise, always following the standards is only important when you want to create things that already exist.

Free Thinking

Tech writing is structured but often involves new ideas that aren’t commonplace. How can you train an algorithm to write about Zero Trust Network Architecture or VR surgery if no examples of that exist yet? Can you successfully tell ChatGPT to write about space exploration through augmented reality if no one has built it yet? Even if you asked would you know what sounded correct from the reply.

Part of the issue comes from content consumption. We read things and assume they are correct. Words were written so they must have been researched and confirmed before being committed to the screen. Therefore we tend to read content in a passive form. We’re not reacting to what we’re seeing but instead internalizing it for future use. That’s fine if we’re reading for fun or not thinking critically about a subject. But for technical skills it is imperative that we’re constantly challenging what’s written to ensure that it’s accurate and useful.

If we only consumed content passively we’d never explore new ideas or create new ways to achieve outcomes. Likewise, if the only content we have is created by algorithm based on existing training and thought patterns we will never evolve past the point we are today. We can’t hope that a machine will have the insight to look beyond the limitations imposed upon it by the bounds of the program. I talked about this over six years ago where I said that machine learning would always give you great answers but true AI would be able to find them where they don’t exist.

That’s my real issue with ChatGPT. It’s great at producing content that is well within the standard deviation of what is expected. It can find answers. It can’t create them. If you ask it how to enter lunar orbit it can tell you. But if you ask it how to create a spacecraft to get to a moon in a different star system it’s going to be stumped. Because that hasn’t been created yet. It can only tell you what it’s seen. We won’t evolve as a species unless we remember that our machines are only as good as the programming we impart to them.

Tom’s Take

ChatGPT and programs like Stable Diffusion are fun. They show how far our technology has come. But they also illustrate the importance that we as creative beings can still have. Programs can only create within their bounds. Real intelligence can break out of the mold and go places that machines can’t dream of. We’ve spent billions of dollars and millions of hours trying to train software to think like a human and we’ve barely scratched the surface. What we need to realize is that while we can write software that can approximate how a human can think we can never replace the ability to create something from nothing.

Winning in 2021

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I’d jump in here and say something about 2020 being a crazy year but we all know it’s nothing we haven’t heard before. I’d also say that we’re going to look back at my big plans for the year however we also know that those got scrapped right after the end of February. I like looking back at a couple of things and then looking forward to what the next year will accomplish. Why? Because retrospectives are boring and putting your planning out there for the world to see is a much more interesting use of your time. The journey you’re taking changes greatly when you change your thinking about the destination.

2020 Good or Bad

2020 wasn’t all bad. I finally justified getting a new office chair! All kidding aside, 2020 was a year that challenged everyone greatly when it came to mental health, professional output, and even personal capability. My biggest focus for 2020 was to start putting blog posts out earlier in the week and focus on continuous improvement. I’d say the first was another miss due to the hectic workload, as a lot of my posts still came out on Fridays.

The second point was a bit more successful. I’ve been more diligent about getting stuff down and in a state when it can be improved. I’ve also added a lot of things to my repertoire over the year that I’m proud of. Here are some specifics:

  • Tomversations: I started a video series this year! I wanted to start coming up with monthly videos around topics that worked better as explorations instead of just simply spouting randomness. We put twelve episodes up last year starting around April. I was very happy with the way they turned out, especially toward the end when my process improved. Video is a great medium for some of the conversations I want to have.
  • The Rundown: Okay, this is a bit of stretch since I’ve been co-hosting the Rundown since it started. But this year my friend Rich Stroffolino headed off to future endeavors and I took over the production part on the back end. It’s been interesting skimming the news and putting it together each week to try and keep the sparkly magic going. It also means I’m much closer to the details behind the tech now.
  • Cooking: This was my big pandemic skill level up. My cooking skill has always been just shy of adequate. This year I pushed myself to get better about learning technique and saving recipes so I have something to pull from when I make food. The tastes have gotten way better and I feel more confident. I’d say the family is happier too since we have something other than Kraft Mac and Cheese all the time.
  • Running: This was my other pandemic level up. I fell off the exercise wagon at the end of 2019 and it showed. I was heavier than I had ever been. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of getting back in shape either. Once the pandemic set in and I knew I wasn’t going to be on the road for the foreseeable future I jumped back on the road to running. Since June 1, I have run or walked over 900 miles and lost almost 50 pounds. I feel better and I look forward to lacing up my shoes and running every morning.

2021 More Time

That’s where my energy went in 2020. Video and research and cooking meals to eat after I ran. What am I thinking about for 2021?

  • Bullet Journaling: This is an idea I got from my partner in crime Ben Gage. I need a better system for capturing info and logging tasks. I say this every year. And every year I find a way to fail at it somehow. This year I’m going with the less-structured approach. I’m keeping the journal digital in GoodNotes and using these templates from Robert Terekedis (@robterakedis) that I found in a search. I like the hint of organization with the freedom to do more when I want it done. Let’s hope this sticks!
  • More Video Content: Like I don’t spend enough time on camera? I’m going to explore the idea of doing more video content. I’m not going to do a daily log or anything but I’m going to try and figure out if creating more around some of my ideas but putting it on video will help me solidify it a little. I’ve found through Tomversations that my ability to riff on subjects and think through stuff when I’m staring at a camera lens feels much different than facing a computer keyboard. It’s not better or worse. It’s different and I’m curious about where that will lead.
  • Create Content that Resonates: My blog is ten years old now. There are posts from 2011 that don’t apply to anything any longer. Some of the posts that I’ve been putting out recently aren’t as technical and look more at work skills, soft skills, or even just life skills. Many of you have commented that my ideas around time management or organization are things you wanted or needed to hear. I’m going to explore those ideas a bit this year too. Don’t worry – The Networking with a Side of Snark isn’t going away any time soon. And I’m not going to turn into a productivity blogger overnight. Mostly because I don’t have enough productivity to make that happen! But I want people to enjoy reading my content for what it can help them with in the next twelve months of working with the challenges we will face.

Tom’s Take

2020 was a sucky year in general. Too much stress, too much uncertainty, and for those that tend to overanalyze everything it was a year of way too much introspection and questioning. I’m looking forward to the next 52 weeks to sort out what needs to be done and get it finished. I set good habits in 2020 that I want to carry forward. I’m going to keep improving just like last year and use the tools I can to make those changes a part of what I need to do to ensure that 2021 is filled with more winning than anything else. I may not be on a plane at all this year. However, I can win all I can from my house and help you all along with the way too. Let’s enjoy the coming 525,600 minutes and do something that makes us feel like winners.

A Decade of Blogging

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Today is a milestone for me. Ten years ago I picked up a virtual notepad for the first time and committed my first blog post to the ether. It’s been a wild ride ever since. It also marks the milestone of being the job that I’ve held the longest so far in my career.

Blogging has been a huge boon for me. I’ve become a better writer in the last decade. I’ve learned how to ask the right questions and get good material for a story instead of just putting out what someone wants me to say. I’ve learned that being a pseudo-journalist is a thing you can do and have fun with.

I’ve written a ton over the years. 751 posts, as a matter of fact (counting this one). I’ve always tried to hold myself to a standard of getting something out once a week. Aside from the few times when I’ve tried to push that to twice a week I’ve held up pretty well. Yeah, I’ve slipped and the day job has gotten in the way more than once. However, keeping myself to a strict schedule has ensured that my attention stays focused on this blog and that it doesn’t lapse into irrelevance any more than normal.

It’s also opened up a lot of doors for me. Blogging was how I got introduced to the Packet Pushers and raised my profile from “crazy nerd that writes” to “crazy nerd that is a podcast guest.” That got me involved with Tech Field Day and from there things went all the way to Mars. In fact, it was Tech Field Day that helped me understand the importance of writing and to rededicating myself to what I do. And to the job interviewer that considered my blogging to be a hobby, not unlike restoring cars or fishing, I think I can safely say it’s become way more than either of us could have imagined.

I’m still creating content all over the place. In addition to all the stuff I do for my day job at Tech Field Day, I write coverage from our events and the briefings I take at Gestalt IT. I have started making videos. I am part of a weekly podcast that covers IT news and lets me be a little snarky now and then. I’ve seen the shift of content moving from written words to spoken words to video and beyond. There’s no shortage of information being shared today, even if some of it is shared in formats that favor shorter attention spans.

What more is there to write about at this point? I go back and look at my early posts and laugh at how I originally wanted to get my thoughts down about structured troubleshooting. And then it morphed into CCIE studies. Then SDN. Or maybe engineering woes. All of it has been growth for me. I’ve learned how to argue and not assassinate character. I’ve seen how people can take different sides of the same argument. I’ve even seen how the things we have settled years before come back around for a new generation of networking pros to argue over again and again.

I love this place. It’s one of the reasons why I’m the only writer here. And trust me, the content mills are always emailing me to put up sponsored posts. But I keep turning them down because this is my place for my thoughts. I want those of you that still read along with me to enjoy what I think about something or know that what I’m saying isn’t a post that was compensated. Knowing where I’m coming from hopefully helps you all understand how the forces in the market and the community drive what we see, what we learn, and what we do with it all.

Tom’s Take

I’m glad I made it through my warm up period for blogging. The funny thing about writing is that you just keep getting better and better as you go along. Who I am hasn’t really changed. A few of the certifications are retired or expired. Twitter is still a thing that I do. But this is where I belong. It’s my home and my work and the place where I get to be me. I hope the next decade is as much fun and as meaningful for all of you as it has been for me!

The Hook Brings You Back

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If I asked you to summarize the great works of literature in a few paragraphs, how would you do it? Would you read over the whole thing and try to give a play-by-play of the book? Would it be more like Cliff’s Notes, summarizing the major themes but skipping over the details? Maybe you’d offer up the conclusion only and leave it as an exercise to the reader to find out? There are a lot of ways to do it and almost all of them seem insurmountable.

What if there was an easy way to jump right into starting to discuss a topic or summarize something? What if you could find a way to easily get people interested in your ideas? Believe or not, it’s not as hard as you might think. People usually freak out because they feel like there are too many places to start when they want to write something. They decide to try and figure out the perfect way to get going and, more often than not, they paralyze themselves with inaction.

So how do you get things moving? You have to find the hook.

By Hook or Crook

What’s the hook? Most people think it’s like a fish hook. Something you set to reel someone in. And that’s not far from the truth. The hook, when talking about writing or even music, is a section that is designed to catch your attention and keep it. The hook is what’s responsible for those catchy choruses you can’t get out of your head once you hear them.

But the hook is also the way you can get into a heady topic. The hook is the way you get things start. You find the attention-catching part of the story or the topic that you want to talk about and you grab it. Set the hook. That’s the first step. Figuring out what you want to talk about and setting that hook.

The key is to avoid getting overwhelmed. Don’t try to say too much. The hook doesn’t work if it’s too big. It doesn’t work if it’s too complicated. You have to find something small and relatable if you want people to bite. You need a single idea. A single topic of some kind. Make it easy and your audience will surely bite on it.

Reeling Them In

Okay, so you’ve successfully set the hook. Now what? Do you just tug and tug on it until you get what you’re after? Every fisherman knows that’s a bad idea. You have to gently pull and convince your quarry to come. You have to build something that leads people to where you want them to be.

Writing is no different. You have your hook but you have to support it with facts and evidence. You have to come back to your main idea and reinforce it over and over. That’s how the hook gets into the reader’s mind. You have to make sure they aren’t going to forget it. The hook is the takeaway from the piece you’re writing.

When your reader finishes you want them to have that idea ringing in their ears and in their head. You want them to think of your idea like a chorus from a song. Resonating and repeating. Not in the insidious ear worm kind of way. But in the way of your favorite movie scenes or favorite songs. Something that they enjoy and want to keep coming back to.

Fishing In Practice

Okay, so this is all well and good when you’re trying to sit down and write something. But what about when you’re listening to a presentation? How can this help you with your pre-writing?

The biggest thing to do is to start looking for hooks early. Most good presenters will tee up an idea or a theme and run with it. They’ll do most of the hard work for you. All you have to do it pick up on it. Find the theme running through everything and start taking notes about it. Using things like mind maps are great for this style of note taking because you’re going to try and pull all your details back to that main hook.

But what if there isn’t a hook? What if the main idea is scattered or the presentation isn’t built in such a way as to present something that has a clear, definitive theme? Well, that’s where the creative part comes into play. You’re going to have to do a little fishing of your own. You need to look at the media you’re given and try to find your hook. You may have to try a few things out first to get something worth talking about. But once you find the hook in the information you’re given you’re going to want to run with it. That’s how you know you’ve found something good.

Tom’s Take

A lot of my briefings and other coverage writing on Gestalt IT uses this kind of style now. I try to find the hook to pull people in to read about what I’m discussing. It’s not always mean or nefarious. Instead I want to engage people and show them how I look at things. Hopefully it gives them a new perspective and helps them understand deep technical topics. And maybe it’s enough to bring them back for more along the way.

Creating Conspicuously Compelling Content

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It’s funny how little things change in the middle of big, world changing experiences. I’ve noticed that my daily blog viewership has gone down, as have many other folks I’ve talked to. The number of people reading has been reduced for some reason. However the number of video views of content on other platforms like Youtube has gone up dramatically. It’s almost like the people that were reading because they wanted to get a quick digest now have the free time to watch a whole video on a topic.

I got on the bandwagon too, recently publishing my first episode of Tomversations this week. I’ve also talked to several friends that are either starting or restarting a podcast. The gold mine for content creation has opened for business. However, I still hear the same refrains about content that I’ve heard for years when I talk about writing:

  • “I don’t have anything to say!”
  • “It’s hard to write things down!”
  • “Isn’t it easier to just talk about stuff?”

These are all valid questions, no matter what medium you’re developing for. But let me give you a roadmap to take those objections, turn them on their heads, and be able to create any kind of content you want to produce. And yes, because you’re reading this instead of watching it, be prepared to write just a little. I promise it will pay off.

Writer’s Clearinghouse

You can’t create without ideas, right? You need some way to jot down all the things you think about. Photographers have a saying that the best camera is the one you have with you. I would say that the best note taking device you own is the one you have with you that you use. I know a lot of people that carry pens and little notebooks, like my favorite ones from Field Notes. They think that having a few pieces of paper in their pocket is enough to get their ideas to spring forth from their forehead like an ethereal Athena. Sadly, that’s not the case. If you don’t use your note taking device often you won’t build a habit of using it when you get an idea.

For example, I take notes in a variety of places. One of them is a program called Drafts. I’ve recently started using it to corral all my random ideas. Thoughts about posts. Story outlines. Scripts for videos. You name it. If it think it, it goes in a draft somewhere. It’s like my digital version of The Jones Grail Diary. It’s not organized, but it doesn’t have to be. Just enough reference for me to remember what I was talking about and the main idea. Sometimes I’ll pull out my phone during conversations to take notes. Those drafts are then synced back to my laptop for perusal and consolidation. Whatever tool your using, make sure you use it as soon as you get the idea. If that poor thought escapes into the nether realm of your brain it’s no good to anyone.

And don’t be afraid to jot down the craziest things. No idea is wasted if it’s on paper somewhere. You never know when you’ll create BGP on napkins. Just make sure you have all those papers or drafts in a place where you check them. If not writing something down is bad, writing it down and forgetting to check in on it is just a little bit better, but still bad.

Outline Everything

People think that when they start a conversation or join a podcast recording that magic is just going to happen. The ideas are going to flow and we’re going to have compelling content. The real world couldn’t get any further from the truth. Ideas spring from nowhere, but they grow very slowly. In order to really build around them, you need to nurture then along with some help. And that help usually takes the form of an outline.

Outlines help you plan out your ideas and support them. Remember how we were all taught to write paragraphs in elementary school? Main ideas followed by two or three supporting sentences. It’s basically and reads like formula written by a fourth grader. Guess what? That’s a perfect outline. When I started writing this post in my head, I started with the main ideas and then wrote down supporting ideas. Now that you’re out of high school grammar class you can build around your paragraphs with more than just a detail or two. You can add anecdotes or data or even pictures. And that makes your content nice and supported.

Outlines also help the thinking process. When I record podcasts I have an outline. The Gestalt IT Rundown happens because Rich researches the stories that we riff on. I can make jokes because I know the stories ahead of time. We work on where to put stories because some are better fodder for jokes than others. That’s the outline process. Podcasts are no different no matter how many guests you have. Maybe it’s a one-on-one episode. There’s an outline of the flow of the episode. It may be very detailed to hit all the points. If it’s a community show or discussion, there may be a loose outline designed to give some guardrails to the content. Even a one-sentence main idea for the topic can be and outline if you keep referring your discussion and arguments back to it.

Savage Writing

I know far too many people that treat their first draft like some kind of sacred relic. This is the best thing I’ve ever produced and it can never change from this form. I will pour my effort into it and that’s all I need.

That’s crap.

First drafts are one step removed from outlines and notes. They’re tying things together. Treat them like sketches and not paintings. Don’t be afraid to rearrange, delete, or outright destroy them. There have been many drafts that have been deleted or radically changed by the time I got to the end of the last paragraph. Likewise, there are times when I realize halfway through a conversation that we need to take things in a different direction. The value of being able to change your mind is that you do it when you need to.

Drafts should be massaged and built up to get to a final product. But don’t be afraid to put them on the shelf and let them sit until the time is right. I have dozens of drafts in my archives waiting for more attention, more research, or better timing to be effective. The ideas are sound. The outlines are good. They just need more than I can give right now. Or maybe the topic isn’t quite ready to be discussed at length. What’s important is that the work I’ve done is already waiting for me when I want to come back to it.

Coming back to your work after the fact is an important thing to try if you feel stuck. I’ve been known to walk away from a draft post or script because I need to get my head out of the wagon rut thinking I was in. Forcing myself to do something else or talk to someone to change my way of thinking has done wonders. Coming back to something with fresh eyes and brain cells often makes a huge difference. You can catch little mistakes or realize there’s a better way to state your argument. The time it takes to change your mind for a few minutes probably would have been wasted on doing nothing anyway.

Just Record.

Okay, you’ve jotted down ideas, built your outline, and written a script or a first draft. What do you do now? Well, like my other famous advice, you need to record your thoughts. Just. Record.

Don’t get caught up in things like perfect lighting or audio balance. Don’t freak out if you stammer or someone drives a garbage truck past your recording studio. Just get the thoughts down. Get a feel for how the flow works. Often, you’ll find that you think of changes on the fly. New ways to word things. New supporting ideas that work better for your discussion. I’ve been known to come up with some really great analogies halfway through an explanation that I would never have been able to think of otherwise. You have to get the content down somewhere.

You can always record again. You can always edit mistakes. You can record the intro last and the ending first. You can fix just about anything in post-production after you get the hang of it. The key is that you’re capturing content. Just like writing or outlining or note taking. It’s happening and the content is being created.

Tom’s Take

Content may not be perfect the first time, but neither was the electric light bulb. It’s only through the process of forming things that we can refine them to something that works. Every creative endeavor is rough around the edges. As time goes on, the wear is less apparent as you focus on the good instead of the bad. The errors are less conspicuous than the content you want to share.

Meeting Your Deadlines Is Never Easy

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2018 has been a busy year. There’s been a lot going on in the networking world and the pace of things keeps accelerating. I’ve been inundated with things this last month, including endless requests for my 2019 predictions and where I think the market is going. Since I’m not a prediction kind of person, I wanted to take just a couple of moments to talk more about something that I did find interesting from 2018 – deadlines.

Getting It Out The Door

Long-time readers of this blog may remember that I’ve always had a goal set for myself of trying to get one post published every week. It’s a deadline I set for myself to make sure that I didn’t let my blog start decaying into something that is barely updated. I try to hold fast to my word and get something new out every week. Sometimes it’s simple, like reflections on one of the various Tech Field Day events that I’m working on that week. But there’s always something.

That is, until Cisco Live this year. I somehow got so wrapped up in things that I missed a post for the first time in eight years! Granted, this was the collection of several things going on at once:

  1. I was running Tech Field Day Extra during Cisco Live. So I was working my tail off the entire time.
  2. I was at Cisco Live, which is always a hugely busy time for me. Even when I’m not doing something specific to the event it’s social hour every hour.
  3. I normally write posts on Thursday afternoon to publish Friday this year. Guess what happened on Thursday at Cisco Live after we all said goodbye? I went on vacation with my family to Disney World. So I kind of forgot that I didn’t publish anything until Sunday afternoon.

The perfect confluence of factors led to me missing a deadline. Now, I’ve missed it again once more this year and totally forgotten to write something until the Monday following my deadline. And it’s even more frustrating when it’s something I totally could have controlled but didn’t.

Why the fuss? I mean, it’s not like all my readers are going to magically run away if I don’t put something out today or tomorrow. While that is very true, it’s more for me that I don’t want to forget to put content out. More than any other thing, scheduling your content is the key to keeping your readers around.

Think about network television. For years, they advertised their timeslots as much as they advertised their shows. Must-See Thursday. TGIF. Each of these may conjure images of friendly shows or of full houses. But you remember the day as much as you remember the shows, right? That’s because the schedule became important. If you don’t think that matters, imagine the shows that are up against big events or keep getting bumped because of sporting events. There’s a reason why Sunday evening isn’t a good time for a television show. Or why no one tries to put something up against the Super Bowl.

Likewise, schedules are important for blogging. I used to just hit publish on my posts whenever I finished them. That meant sending them out at 9pm on a Tuesday some times. Not the best time for people to want to dive into a technical post. Instead, I started publishing them in the mornings after I wrote them. That means more eyeballs and more time to have people reflect on them. I’ve always played around with the daily schedule of when to publish, but in 2018 it got pushed to Friday out of necessity. I kept running out of time. Instead of focusing on the writing, I would often wake up Friday morning with writer’s block and just churn something out to hit my deadline.

Writing because you have to is not fun. Wracking your brain to come up with some topic of conversation is stressful. Lee Badman has been posting questions every weekday morning to the wireless community for a long while and he’s decided that it’s run its course. I applaud Lee for stepping away from something like that before it became a chore. It’s not easy to leave something behind that has meant a lot to you.

Write Like The Wind

For me, blogging is still fun. I still very much enjoy sitting down in front of a computer keyboard and getting some great thoughts out there. I find my time at Tech Field Day events has energized my writing to a large degree because there is so much good content out there that needs to be discussed and indexed. I still enjoy pouring my thoughts out onto a piece of digital paper for everyone to read.

Could I cut back to simple reaction posts? Sure. But that’s not my style. I started blogging because I like the long-form of text. I’ve written some quick sub-500 word pieces because I needed to get something out. But those are the exceptions to the rule. I’d rather keep things thoughtful and encourage people to spend more time focusing on words.

I think the biggest thing that I need to change in the posting dates. I need to move back from Friday to give myself some headroom to post. I also need to use Friday as my last-ditch day to get things published. That may mean putting more thought to my posts earlier in the week for sure. It may also mean having two posts on weeks that big news breaks. But that’s the life of a writer, isn’t it?

Home Away From Home

The third biggest challenge for deadlines is all the other writing that I’m doing. I spend a lot of time taking briefings and such for Gestalt IT, which I affectionately refer to as my “Bruce Wayne” job. I get to hear a lot of fun stories and see a lot of great companies just starting out in the world. I write a lot over there because it’s how I keep up with the industry. Remember that year that I went crazy and wrote two posts every week for an entire year? Yeah, good times. Guess what? It’s going to be like that again!

Gestalt IT is going to be my writing source for most of my briefings and coverage of companies. It’s going to have a much different tone that this blog does. Here is when I’m going to spend more time pontificating and looking at big trends in technology. Or perhaps it will be stirring the pot. But I still plan on getting out one post a week about some topic. And I won’t be posting it on Friday unless I absolutely have to.

Tom’s Take

It’s no stretch to say that writing is something I do better than anything else. It’s also something I love to do. I want to do my best to keep bringing good content to everyone out there that likes to read my blog. I’m going to spend some time exploring new workflows and trying to keep the hits coming along as 2019 rolls around. I’ll have more to say on that in my usual January 1 post to kick off the new year!

Writing Is Hard

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Writing isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do. There are a lot of times that people sit down to pour out their thoughts onto virtual paper and nothing happens. Or they spend hours and hours researching a topic only to put something together that falls apart because of assumptions about a key point that aren’t true.

The world is becoming more and more enamored with other forms of media. We like listening to podcasts instead of reading. We prefer short videos instead of long articles. Visual aids beat a wall of text any day. Even though each of these content types has a script it still feels better having a conversation. Informal chat beats formal prose every day.

Written Wringers

I got into blogging because my typing fingers are way more eloquent than the thoughts running through my brain. I had tons of ideas that I needed to put down on paper and the best way to do that was to build a simple blog and get to it. It’s been eight years of posting and I still feel like I have a ton to say. But it’s not easy to make the words flow all the time.

I find that my blogging issues boil down into two categories. The first is when there is nothing to write about. That’s how most people feel. They see the same problems over and over and there’s nothing to really discuss. The second issue is when a topic has been absolutely beaten to a pulp. SD-WAN is a great example. I’ve written a lot about SD-WAN in a bunch of places. And as exciting as the technology is for people implementing it for the first time, I feel like I’ve said everything there is to say about SD-WAN. I know that because it feels like the articles are all starting to sound the same.

There are some exciting new technologies on the horizon. 802.11ax is one of them. So too is the new crop of super fast Ethernet. We even have crazy stuff like silicon photonics and machine learning and AI invading everything we do. There’s a lot of great stuff just a little ways out there. But it’s all going to take research and time. And learning. And investment. And that takes time to suss everything out. Which means a lot of fodder for blog posts as people go through the learning process.

Paper Trail

The reason why blogging is still so exciting for me is because of all the searches that I get that land in my neighborhood. Thinks like fixing missing SFPs or sending calls directly to voicemail. These are real problems that people have that need to be solved.

As great as podcasts and video series are, they aren’t searchable. Sure, the show notes can be posted that discuss some of the topics in general. But those show notes are basically a blog post without prose. They’re a bullet point list of reference material and discussion points. That’s where blogs are still very important. They are the sum total of knowledge that we have in a form that people can see.

If you look at Egyptian hieroglyphs or even Ancient Greek writings you can see what their society is like. You get a feel for who they were. And you can read it because it was preserved over time. The daily conversations didn’t stand the test of time unless they were committed to memory somehow. Sure, podcasts and videos are a version of this as well, but they’re also very difficult to maintain.

Think back to all the video that you have that was recorded before YouTube existed. Think about all the recordings that exist on VHS, Super8, or even reel-to-reel tape. One of the biggest achievements of humanity was the manned landing on the moon in 1969. Now, just 50 years later we don’t have access to the video records of that landing. A few grainy copies of the records exist, but not the original media. However, the newspaper articles are still preserved in both printed and archive form. And those archives are searchable for all manner of information.

Tom’s Take

Written words are important. Because they will outlast us. As much as we’d like to believe that our videos are going to be our breakthrough and those funny podcasts are going to live forever, the truth is that people are going to forget our voices and faces long after we’re gone. Our words will live forever though. Because of archiving and searchability future generations will be able to read our thoughts just like we read those of philosophers and thinkers from years past. But in order to do that, we have to write.

Why Do You Still Blog?

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After recording an excellent session on social media at Cisco Live with The Network Collective (@NetCollectivePC), I started thinking about blogging and where it stands in the grand scheme of information sharing. With the rise of podcasting and video blogging now in full swing, I was even asked by my friend Michael Stump “Do you see blogging as a dying form of content?” For obvious reasons, I said “no”, but I wanted to explain two major reasons why.

Needle In A Haystack

One of the major reasons why I still blog through written form is searchability. When I started blogging almost seven years ago I wanted to create a place where I could put down my thoughts about topics and share them with everyone. More by accident than design, many of those thoughts became popular topics of conversation. Even today, some of my posts are being used to help people figure out problems and address issues that aren’t well documented in other places.

But why? How can posts many years old still be relevant to audiences today? Because of searching. Use of Google, DuckDuckGo, and even Bing allow people to search for specific error messages or topics and find things that I’ve written down. That’s because text on posts is easily indexed by web crawlers. Even when my posts are excerpted on other sites it just drives more people back to my blog to find my content. The power of being able to find something can’t be understated.

But what about audio and video content? How can it be searched? Sure, you can write down show notes. But show notes are like network and systems documentation. At first, they’re very detailed and useful. But after time passes, they are essentially the bare minimum necessary to be able to move on. That makes it difficult to search for specific content inside of an episode. In fact, the show notes from most podcast episodes would be content for two blogs!

Additionally, the banter and discussion during the episode are hard to capture in text format. If the show notes mention that the guests spend 3-4 minutes talking about some topic, realize that most people speak in conversation at around 125 words per minute (wpm). With two guests debating the topic for 4 minutes, that’s 500 words or more on a topic! How can you capture the essence of the discussion in a single line show note with perhaps one or two links to outside material? Blogs allow all of that to be tracked, indexed, and referenced at a later date without needed to scrub through the audio to find out exactly what was said.

Can I Have Your Attention, Please?

If you’ve been reading along to this point so far, you know that I prefer writing my thoughts out. That is, if you’ve been paying attention. I also prefer reading words instead of podcasts for the most part. Why? Well, that has to do with my full and undivided attention.

When I’m reading something, I’m using my active reading skills. I’m focused the content in front of me. I use my attention to absorb the words and concepts. It does take a lot of concentration to do this. Since part of my job is reading blogs it’s easy for me to set aside time to do this task. But it does take away from other things that I’m doing. I often find myself shutting out other conversation or ignoring things going on around me while I try to digest new topics or evaluate someone’s opinion on a subject.

Conversely, when is the last time you actively listened to a podcast? I mean, you sat down with a pair of headphones and really listened to it? Not just put it on in the background and casually listened to the discussion while you went on with work or something else. I’d bet the answer is that you frequently find yourself splitting your attention. I know I do it. I even split my focus when I’m recording podcasts if they aren’t on video. It’s very easy to lose track of what’s going on without a visual focus point.

Podcasts are active. They project the conversation you. Likewise, the consumers of podcasts are passive. They aren’t seeking knowledge. They are being fed knowledge via an audio (or video) stream. But written words aren’t that aggressive. They require someone to consume them actively. You don’t accidentally click on a link and find yourself full of knowledge ten minutes later without having put in the effort to read what was on the page. You can’t read blog posts without paying attention. If you do, you find yourself missing the point and reading them all over again to find out what you missed in the first place.

Tom’s Take

I love to write. I never did when I was in school or when I was first starting out in technology, but as time has worn on, I find myself growing to love using a keyboard to share what’s in my brain. I’ve recorded podcasts and videos as well, but I keep coming back to the written word. I like the ability to have other people find my content useful years after the fact via a search or a referral. I also enjoy the idea that people are focused on what I’m saying and ingesting it actively instead of having it fed to them via a speaker or headphones. Maybe it’s because I use other media, like TV and music, to provide background noise to focus as I write and do other things. At the end of the day, I blog because it’s the method of communication I most prefer to consume.

Blogging By The Refrigerator’s Light

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Blogging isn’t starting off to a good 2017 so far. Ev Williams announced that Medium is cutting back and trying to find new ways to engage readers. The platform of blogging is scaling back as clickbait headlines and other new forms of media capture the collective attention for the next six seconds. How does that all relate to the humble tech blogger?

Mindshare, Not Eyeshare

One of the reasons why things have gotten so crazy is the drive for page views. Clickbait headlines serve the singular purpose of getting someone to click on an article to register a page view. Ever clicked on some Top Ten article only to find that it’s actually a series of 10 pages in a slideshow format? Page views. I’ve even gone so far as to see an article of top 7 somethings broken down into 33(!) pages, each with 19 ads and about 14 words.

Writers competing for eyeballs are always going to lose in the end. Because the attention span of the average human doesn’t dally long enough to make a difference. Think of yourself in a crowded room. Your eyes dart back and forth and all around trying to find something in the crowd. You may not even know what you’re looking for. But you’ll know it when you see it. Your attention wanders as you scan through the crowd.

Blogging, on the other hand, is like finding a good conversation in the crowd. It engages the mind. It causes deeper thinking and engagement that leads to lasting results. The best blog posts don’t have thousands of views in the first week followed by little to nothing for the rest of eternity. They have active commenters. They have response pieces. They have page views and search results that get traffic years after publication.

The 3am Ah Ha Moments

Good blogs shouldn’t just be about “going viral”. Good blogs should have something called Fridge Brilliance. Simply put, the best blogs hit you out of the blue a day after you read it standing in front of your fridge door. BANG. Now you get it! You run off to see how it applies to what you’re doing or even to give your perspective on things.

The mark of a truly successful blog is creating something that lasts and is memorable in the minds of readers. Even if all you’re really known for is “that one post” or a series of great articles, you’ve made an impression. And, as I’ve said before, you can never tell which post is going to hit it big. So the key is to keep writing what you write and making sure you’re engaging your audience at a deeper level than their corneas.

That’s not to say that you can’t have fun with blog posts now and then or post silly things here and there. But if you really want to be known as an authoritative source of content, you have to stay consistent. One of the things that Dave Henry (@DaveMHenry) saw in his 2016 wrap-up was that his most viewed posts were all about product announcements. Those tend to get lots of headlines, but for an independent blog it’s just as much about the perspective the writer lends as it is for the news itself. That’s how you can continue to engage people beyond the eyeball and into the brain.

Tom’s Take

I’ve noticed that people still like to write. They want to share thoughts. But they pick the wrong platforms. They want eyeballs instead of minds. They don’t want deep thoughts. They just want an audience. That’s the wrong way to look at it. You want engagement. You want disagreement and argument and 4,000 word response posts about why you’re completely wrong. Because that’s how you know you’ve hooked the reader. You’re a splinter in their mind that won’t go away. That’s the real draw. Keep your page views. I’d rather have memories and fridge brilliance instead.