Jeff Hester

Poking around the intersection of KM and Social Media

writing

29 Posts in 29 Days

29 Posts in 29 Days

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Click for the original Olibac image on Flickr
Photo credit: Olibac

On January 5, 2011,  I committed to writing a post a day for 365 days. After 29 days, I’m happy to report that I’m on track with 29 posts in 29 days. All it took was a little nudge from Scott Berkun and the other good folks at WordPress.

Just about one month into the routine, I’ve made a few observations that might be of use to anyone else considering a similar challenge.

  1. Writing a post a day takes discipline. In hindsight, I realized that I implied a post a day on this blog. That alone is a commitment (I already have a full-time career). And I promised “no fluff” — I want to write posts of the same quality that I like to read. Compounding the commitment are my work commitments and other websites, and you quickly see how a post a day is just the tip of the iceberg.
  2. Planning is essential, as I noted in post #17/365. I’m using the draft status to collect ideas and thoughts on articles I want to write, or to align publication with related events. I collect my thoughts over days and weeks, and this has greatly simplified the process of sitting down to actually write the finished article.
  3. Brainstorming helps, too! I tap into resources from Facebook and Twitter. I gain a lot of ideas from scanning my feeds on Flipboard or reading sites like The Daily Post which share topics and ideas for writing.
  4. Most of all, the support of the community helps keep you going! I have the good fortune to have a great girlfriend who inspires me (check out her blog), and a number of friends in the local WordPress and social media community here in Orange County who keep me challenged. Many thanks go out to Darin McClure, Holly Schwartz, Suki Beasla and Matthew Gallizzi. We all meet at SMMOC several times a month, and all have taking up the call to write one post a day. And we use Twitter every day, encouraging and challenging each other to keep up the cause.

The icing on the cake? I’m having fun! I have a lot to write about — much more than I have time to write. So far there is absolutely zero chance that the well will run dry. That may be either a blessing or a curse depending on your opinion of my stuff, but I’m having a good time, and more than a few people are taking the journey with me.

It’s ironic. I kicked off this year with a photo project called Project 365, where I shoot at least one photo a day for the entire year. I had heard of this before from a friend, but decided to jump in and give it a shot. There has been a synergistic relationship between the two projects. Sometimes my photo of the day will spawn an idea that I simply must write about, and sometimes the article will inspire a creative photo.

How about you? Are you taking on a post- or photo-a-day challenge? Maybe you have in the past? What has your experience been?

Project 365 – A Post a Day

Project 365 – A Post a Day

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Creating content on a regular basis can be challenging. Some so-called blogging experts suggest that you need to post regularly to build your audience. That may be true if that aligns with your goals, but I agree with Scott Stratton’s theory. I heard him speak a couple months ago at a Linked OC event, and he reiterated what he says in his book UnMarketing (affiliate link): that quality is far more important than quantity. If you don’t have something that you simply must share, then it probably isn’t worth sharing.

Or as Scott puts it, people don’t share “meh.” People share emotion. People share what moves them. People share awesome.

On the other side of that coin is the view that as with anything, practice makes perfect. If you want to become a better guitarist, photographer or writer, you need to do that, and do so with some degree of frequency.

That, in part, is one of the ideas behind Project 365, a photography meme popular on Flickr and beyond. The idea is simple. Take one photo every day for one year, and share it online.

I first learned about Project 365 when my friend Ed took on the challenge, and I saw his photography improve by leaps and bounds. And so I decided on January 1st, it was my time to embark on that journey. I’ve started my first Project 365, and I’m looking forward to seeing the results this time next year.

So then yesterday I read on Mashable that the folks at WordPress had issued a similar challenge to the blogging world: write a post a day for a year.  They’ve even created a website titled The Daily Post with ideas for writing.

Now those who have followed this blog on and off over the years know that I have been anything but regular about writing. I tend to write in frenzied spurts. But the idea of such a disciplined approach to writing was seductive, and I took the bait.

Yes, I realize I’m not starting this project on January 1st. There are no rules except for those I create, and those are subject to change. But from here on, I’m going to give it a shot… a quality post a day for the next 365 days.

One down, 364 to go.