The Difficult Balance in Writing a Career Blog
This blog you’re reading “Web Strategy by Jeremiah” is a career blog. It’s not a corporate blog (if there is such thing), it’s not a business blog, and it’s not a personal blog. It’s really a combination of all of the above.
Tonight at the August Capital (A popular VC firm on Sand Hill road) I approached a CEO (you’d know his website if I said it)who has read my blog, and left a comment here or there. I really respect his opinion. He hasn’t left a comment in a while, and asked him “Did I lose you? Did you unsubscribe, I haven’t seen comments from you in a while”. He replied, I haven’t lost him, but then he hesitated for a great deal of time before telling me honest feedback, which I insisted he give (and you too).
He told me my blog has improved recently, as I’ve become more of an “Independent Voice”. You see, part of why I’m hired in these positions is because of this blog, it helps further my personal brand and my employers. I don’t have a personal blog where I only talk about my side interests, it all comes together on one. So sometimes it’s really hard to be objective about my job (which often interests me) and not promote it on my blog. He was gentle in his communications, but he pretty much was suggesting I was pimping my employer too much.
[The Career Blog is a unique property, it’s a mixture of work, personal, yet all passion. It travels from one job to the next, and can be one of the attractions for clients, employers, and partners. Balancing the needs of those many constituents is a challenge.
Allen Stern, pointed out that there’s “A lot of advertising on my blog” and I’ll agree, he’s right. I’ve “pimped” (his words) all of my employers using this blog, and that’s the reality of it. I also give away a lot of how to information in my web strategy posts, and sometimes this could bother my employers.
What’s really going to be interesting, is that I’m the first blogger to become an analyst (that I know of). Traditionally, analyst firms keep knowledge close to them, and don’t share them in a public forum. In fact, some analyst firms restrict or limit analysts from blogging, or lock them up for paying clients. Don’t worry, I was hired for this next job because of my blog, and in my agreement, I will continue to blog, they are savvy.
It’s a hard line to balance, tipping between myself, readers, and employers, but I’ll get the hang of it.
Who do you think does a good job of writing a great career blog?
35 Comments so far
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I enjoy (and am inspired by) Chris Brogan’s (http://www.chrisbrogan.com), Brian Solis (http://www.briansolis.com), Geoff Livingston (http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/), Merlin Mann (43Folders.com) and Robert Scoble (Scobleizer.com). While I like Scoble’s link list, I like reading the comments on his posts (except when they are out of line). Yours of course. These are the posts that I send around to my company.
All men - I obviously need to find more women!
Daniela Barbosa, BlogHer ladies, and Charlene Li are good starts! There are many others too, there’s quite a few women readers on this blog too, Connie Benson, Tinu, and others.
2 other Forrester analysts that have different approaches to their blogs. Peter Kim’s is more of his own flavor:
http://www.beingpeterkim.com/
Bruce Temkin often refers to some of his research and includes select screengrabs from Forrester reports:
http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/
You’re joining a very smart group of people over there. You will most likely learn as much as you teach.
David thanks!
Peter, yes I know him, he and Charlene invited me to interview, he’s a smart guy, and writes a terrific blog.
I didn’t know about Bruce, thanks, I’ve added him to my Forrester folder in Google Reader.
David, I’ll be doing more learning than teaching, that’s for sure!
mmmm …. I am very familiar with Forrester for many years now. i also know your blog, and have subscribed for a while. I don’t get the career blog comment though. Let me explain, and please take at face value. I have way more problems in how I articulate my own blog.
Blogs are personal views on something … home life, job, interests, or a combination thereof. The operative word is personal. Your blog is highly informative, yet sometimes annoyingly ’superior’ in tone. So the content is dead on, yet I sense you will lose some with the tone thing.
My point is that a career blog is like a corporate blog …. a non starter, destined to fail. Stay personal, which you do enough to keep me; stay topical, and stay thoughtful … thats blogging.
Please feel free to delete me
Colin
I won’t delete your comment, this is great feedback, and direct info on how I can improve. I hear you about the tone thing, thanks.
But I won’t be able to deviate from this career blog, this is the mission and my passion. Believe me there is so much personal content I want to publish but I hold back for a variety of reasons.
Colin, your feedback noted, thanks for contributing.
Jeremiah - I hadn’t thought of the term “career blog” before, but it’s appropriate in some ways to what you and others do. Including myself where I promote my own startup activities and other projects I’m working on, but also (hopefully!) spend time providing knowledge and experience gained from that work and those projects.
For me, it still boils down to a Personal Brand blog. You may change jobs, shift careers, add and remove projects, but the blog will remain. It’s the constant that represents you: Jeremiah Owyang (or anyone else.) And for a reader to truly understand and value what you’re writing, they should appreciate the job-related, promotional material as well.
I haven’t heard the term ‘career blog’ before either. I agree with Ben that I really like the term. I have always thought about my blogging as a Personal Brand blog, but I think that a ‘career blog’ is more appropriate.
I do enjoy your blog as a career blog, and I like Robert’s also. I will have to review some of the suggestions from the other commenters for a better idea.
[…] to write his insightful blog posts - take a break, man). Today he had an interesting post on the concept of a “Career Blog”, an idea which he communicated to me when he evangelized blogging to me. As he moves into his role […]
Hi Jeremiah. I like the career blog definition. I’d suggest it correctly labels more blogs than you might expect, but I don’t think I’ve seen a better definition of the category. You know … once you have a “name”, suddenly everything snaps into place.
I’ve talked about “living your professional life online” before - which just goes to show who is a better wordsmith;-) - but hadn’t hit on the distinction between a passive career “journal”, and something that is proactively promoting your personal career “brand”. Which is I think what you are getting at?
Congratulations on the new job btw, but if you are familiar with the guys at Redmonk, they may be able to claim the title for “blogger becomes analyst” … although possibly disqualifed for not being your typical analyst firm: taking an “open source” approach to analysis!
Ben, sounds like you’ve figured out the strategy that works for you, cool.
Thomas, My blog is a little different that Robert’s. He provides way more personal info than most people at his level do, it’s great, as people really feel they know him, and he builds trust. Most were amazed when he put his email and cell phone on his blog, esp when being an evangelist at MS.
Paul, I’m trying to catch up with James Govenor and the Monks, I agree, they are very interesting. Ah an Oracle blogger, very cool.
Interesting, Mario Sundar, who’s since become LinkedIn’s blogger in chief chimes in.
http://mariosundar.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/was-this-a-blog-sabbatical/
Here’s a secret of mine, I blog heavy, and blog hard, as I like, no LOVE the interaction with others. It’s true, it fuels me.
I think it’s important to note that your brand is directly connected to your blog. Even though you have a “career blog”, you must use real life examples from your life to really captivate your audience.
See, I still comment ;>
I’ll be interested to see if your new position as industry analyst will force you to be more critical of who you promote and why. Perhaps ‘more critical’ isn’t the right term, maybe I should say less quick to pimp ;>
Best success with the new position. I’m sure you’ll do great things.
Ted
Thanks, good to see you. Yes, this blog is undergoing evolution, it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
[…] yesterday from Podtech’s (and soon a Forrester analyst, congrats!) Jeremiah Owyang about “career blogging.” “The Career Blog is a unique property, it’s a mixture of work, personal, yet all […]
Jeremiah - I’m not sure I’ve quite figured it out. I dabble a bit too much in areas that I shouldn’t. Bits of news, for example, reviews…There are reasons to write that sort of content, but I’m not sure they further much for me as a “personal brand” or “career” blogger.
I think you do a better job… *chuckle*
Ben
It’s your blog, so you can do what you want! Thanks!
Jeremiah:
Welcome to the Forrester team.
I don’t see blogging as a conflict with our role as analysts. It just puts the pressure on us (analysts) to make sure that our clients get a ton of value in our published research.
And anything that raises the bar on our research is a good thing for clients.
Good luck!
Bruce
Thank you, I appreciate this perspective, looking forward to meeting you, and I’m subscribed to your blog http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/
How do write a blog that follows you in your legal career?…
Lawyers move. They do not stay at the same firm all their lives. At the same time, a lawyer’s value in the market place is determined by their reputation as a trusted and reliable authority in their field. A professional……
I hadn’t thought of the label “career” blog but your definition makes me think of a “professional development or personal professional blog” where you write about your industry or field to learn and reflect and deepened your knowledge.
I think Avinash K’s blog is a great example.
Ah yes, the blog is the new resume
I definitely put quite a bit of personal content into my “career blog”. I used it as a tool in my recent job change. I’ll blog about my daughter sometimes because she’s a huge part of what I am and I want any prospective employers to see the big picture of what I’m about and what’s important to me.
Soon, i’m sure i’ll start pimping my company more than i do. We’ll have our first product out abd if i’m going to blog about something it might as well be the thing I work on umpteen hours a day.
[…] is apace decent the directive method of boost enhancing your reputation. But, scheme strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, points discover that creating a journal that follows you isn’t ever easy. The Career Blog is […]
Jeremiah,
Beth Kanter’s blog pointed me to this post, which I found REALLY helpful. As I commented on her blog as well, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to best position and also market my new blog, i.e. how “corporate” should I be, how personal etc. It’s a really important question because, as you know position effects tone, contect, etc.
Thanks for the insight. BTW, my favorite career blog is www.nonprofitmarketingblog.org. Katya rocks!
[…] is apace decent the directive method of boost enhancing your reputation. But, scheme strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, points discover that creating a journal that follows you isn’t ever easy. The Career Blog is […]
LOTD: 9/7/07…
Jaffe is announcing some changes at crayon, including the exiting of CC Chapman, and the agency’s refocusing on being more of a consultancy, pushing for thought leadership and vision definition for its clients. (CT) AOL has made official the rumors……
Tristan Louis, at TNL.net (http://www.tnl.net/blog), used to do an interesting job but his output has gone down to a trickle, with no updates in recent memory. I don’t know why he gave up but a lot of the stuff he wrote seems to still hold the test of time.
[…] is apace decent the directive method of boost enhancing your reputation. But, scheme strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, points discover that creating a journal that follows you isn’t ever easy. The Career Blog is […]
[…] is apace decent the directive method of boost enhancing your reputation. But, scheme strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, points discover that creating a journal that follows you isn’t ever easy. The Career Blog is […]
[…] Finding balance while blogging about your career from Jeremiah at Web Strategy […]
[…] this as my career blog. What’s a career blog? Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst at Forrester, talks about it here, and I wrote a post about it here. Someone commented to me over e-mail that this blog could very […]
Jeremiah -
I save your blog posts for when I have some time to think and digest (similar to what my sunday newspaper time was years ago, prior to the internet).
You have become a trusted voice simply b/c you’re not automatically inflammatory, and clearly are passionate about your subject.
I show your blog as a model when people tell me they want to start blogging; unless it can be somewhat like yours, it’s not worth it. I think that’s what Colin was trying to say; passion is the key thing; and you’re passionate about your career. Without that passion, this blog wouldnt work; it’d be too superior, and feel like an elongated ad.
I also show this blog to the people who go on rants about a loss of privacy w/ facebook et al, and the fact that the posted ‘drunk pics’ are a sacred territory - personal, private, career - to the people that know you, you’re defined by the combination of all these - why should it be any different on the internet?
I don’t see anything wrong with your advertising in your blog. If you believe in something, you have the liberty to pimp it out. Getting some moolah for such pimping is just bonus.
Nice blog, by the way. It’s my first time to visit this site. I’ve bookmarked it
- Shereyll Pineda
[…] Over the past months I’ve seen Jeremiah Owyang periodically mention how he branded the term ‘web strategist’. I didn’t feel a need to brand a term, but I needed to brand my name. As a librarian, I become […]