That’s 100…
Today is, if I don’t miss my count, 100 days since I started the 100 day blogging challenge. I’ve updated the site every day since November 21st last year. It’s been a good exercise. Some days I don’t have a lot left in the tank after work, some days...
Making things vs. making the best things
Nice post I discovered on the Orange site today, “I don’t like making the best things.” Short summary, trying to make the “best” things gets in the way of doing things we enjoy. Specifically the author talks about blogging less often after they discovered they “only want to publish...
My first word processor
This week I took a little trip down memory lane when a friend posted a meme or something about Stephen King’s Wang word processor in the 1980s. That was early for me, but sometime in 1993 or 1994 I bought my first word processor. Not a general purpose computer...
Things they don’t teach, but should: Content review
Writing and editing are taught widely in schools and professional programs, but content review is a neglected and unloved (and rare) skill that I’ve never seen taught or even acknowledged – but it’s widely required in jobs throughout the tech industry. If you’re a product manager, product marketer, comms...
A cardinal sin of content marketing: Writing what you want the audience to have read
No matter who your audience1 may be – admins, developers, decision makers, or anyone else – they’re not obligated to read your content. It’s all about “what’s in it for me?” If you need to communicate something to an audience, you have to write what they want to read...
20 blogging and article prompts for tech bloggers
Stumped for ideas what to blog about? Not sure what people would want to read that would be worth writing about? Here’s 20 prompts to get you started (some tweaking may be required). Yesterday I wrote about the 100 days of blogging challenge. A friend of mine asked if...
Shakespeare, yea or nay?
Is Shakespeare mandatory for a well-rounded secondary education? After more than 400 years, it’s reasonable to ask whether the canon is due for an overhaul, or to be chucked out of the window entirely....
A plea to people making howto and informational videos: Give us a transcript!
Video content is here to stay. As a text-based person with a face for radio, I’ve come to grips with it. But that doesn’t mean video alone gets it done. If you’re producing video content, please also share a transcript of the video. I realize some people love video,...
Three sentences in a trench coat pretending to be a coherent thought
At least once a week when I’m reading, or editing, copy related to work I’ll skim over something and realize that what I just read makes no sense. Sure, the words are used properly. The paragraph is composed of sentences that seem grammatically correct. But if you stop to...
3 ways to reduce technical debt in content: Avoid bare URLs, events and analyst content
Infrastructure and code aren’t the only things in your organization that incur technical debt. Content marketing on blogs is a major offender. Here’s just three things to cut down on technical debt in your content marketing on blogs. Content marketing practice to avoid: Bare URLs/URIs in content Be kind...