But I blogged about that in detail a while back, shall I send you a link later?
Writing is a form of extended thinking. Or, at least it is for me. Which is why I think that blogging, either here on Thought Shrapnel, on my personal blog, on the WAO blog, or occasionally over at ambiguiti.es, is so useful.
Giles Thomas points out that a blog is the equivalent of showing your contributions to open source software via a GitHub profile. It’s a good analogy: by working openly and sharing your thinking, you create a link for every significant thought or connection you’ve made between ideas. That means, in my case at least, I can search for my name and the topic, and a bunch of things come up.
Although I haven’t included it in the quotation below, the original rationale for Thomas' post is whether it’s worth blogging in the age of AI. It’s an unequivocal YES for me, but then I’m the kind of person who donated my doctoral thesis to the public domain. Nobody “owns” ideas, so by blogging you’re helping contribute to the sum total of human knowledge.
I said that you will be vanishingly unlikely to make a name for yourself with blogging on its own. But that doesn’t mean it’s pointless from a career perspective. You’re building up a portfolio of writing about topics that interest you. Imagine you’re in a job interview and are asked about X. You reply with the details you know, and add “but I blogged about that in detail a while back, shall I send you a link later?” Or if you’re aiming to close a contract with a potential consulting client in a particular area – wouldn’t it be useful to send them a list of links showing your thoughts on aspects of exactly that topic?
Your GitHub profile shows your contributions to open source and lets people know how well you can code. But your blog shows your contributions to knowledge, and shows how well you can think. That’s valuable!
Source: Giles' blog
Image: Markus Winkler