John Linton of writing a daily blog - despite fierce opposition from "'er indoors" as 'Arfer' might have commented.
Perhaps writing a daily blog for that length of time qualifies me to comment on the value/lack of value to a commercial organisation of having its CEO wite a blog - as that was the origin four years and a few days ago of me doing so. It was at a quiet lunch in London while Annette was attempting to test the limits of her credit cards in Oxford Street that I had a 'catch up' lunch with an old colleague from my IBM days at my favourite fish restaurant in London - Bentleys. I had never heard of "blogging" which he mentioned in the context of his CEO being convinced it would be a good idea for a CEO of a giant Japanese electronics company operating in the USA to do. That particular CEO made an attempt to write a daily blog but after struggling to post 4 'issues' over the first month abandoned the project.
My colleague cited the overwhelming beneficial reasons containeded in two articles from highly respected US business schools which set out the benefits of why senior executives should take the time (and effort) of writing a blog, possibly a daily one for best effect, and cited apparently sensible research to support the 'case'. (subsequently he sent me the links to the articles). It was a novel idea to me and one that seemed to be easy enough to do. So what with the pleasure of talking to an old friend, stunning food and far too much of the liquid that accompanies such food I accepted his bet that I couldn't write a regular blog over any length of time which became daily over a year - with some minor allowances for "days off" due to travel/lack of internet access.
I won that bet and subsequently continued to write this blog for another three years without ever missing a day (I don't get sick and internet access continues to become ever more ubiquitous). I long ago gave up keeping count of the seven different benefits that would accrue from this exercise but I can confirm that the writers of those articles were quite correct, in every respect, in citing the material benefits of a daily blog:
"Dramatically higher 'media' exposure of your company, lower pricing from current suppliers, new lower pricing from suppliers you have never dealt with, invitations to address 'associations' that would not otherwise have happened, greater 'regard' by your customers, a flood of suggestions and ideas from your blog's readers and a far better understanding of the company by your employees."
I haven't quoted those benefits verbatim (I lost the article links some time ago) but I think I have conveyed pretty much the exact 'sense' of what was cited. I can confirm that all of the cited benefits have accrued to Exetel in quality and quantity that I would not have (in fact did not) believe(d) before I wrote a word on my return to Australia a few days later.
I am often asked how it's possible to be able to write a blog every day. In my case the key to being able to do this is to set aside a time of the day that is easy to 'reserve' (in my case early morning after I have read the 'media' from around the world on line that relates to our industry) and while I have my light breakfast. When I am away from Australia that time changes to late at night but otherwise it is the way I start each day. Habit is easily inculcated in to any human and the key to daily blog writing, at least for me, is to use habit to optimise whatever amount of 'discipline' is required - no more than any other aspect of business life.
The second most common question is "how do you find things to write about every day?" Again, in my particular case, I read about our industry widely and there are seldom days when something in the daily media doesn't provide a topic or issue I think is worth commenting on. There are days when that isn't the case which is when I simply write about what is uppermost in my mind concerning Exetel's business operations or plans. I have no doubts at all that what I write is not either appreciated or of interest to many of the surprising number of people who have read my ramblings over the past four years but then it would be impossible to do that for someone of my abilities.
If you have a daily shower then writing a daily blog is no more onerous than that simple (and in the case of the shower - essential) habit.
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