I’m back from Techmentor Redmond 2015 which was my first public speaking talk ever. It went great. I met a ton of great people and really enjoyed myself. When speaking to IT pros one of the questions I typically ask them is “Are you blogging or sharing your knowledge?”. 9 times out of 10 I get a big, fat no. Why? It’s because they feel like they have nothing to share. They feel like no one would be interested in their ho-hum, mundane life as an IT guy. I always followup that comment with “How do you know?” which ultimately results in a shrug. You don’t know that your life isn’t interesting and can teach others something. Why are you making the decision for others? You’ve acquired lots of knowledge in your career. Don’t be stingy! Share it!
As a personal challenge to you, I have a copy of Don Jones’ and Jeff Hicks’ Learn PowerShell Toolmaking in a Month of Lunches book. If you don’t have a blog today, start one. If you do and haven’t blogged in awhile, dust it off and start writing again. The first one to contact me on my blog Adam, The Automator with a link to their blog with at least 5 good posts will win the book. Don’t try to sneak those piddly little one paragraph posts by me just to get a free book! Minimum post length is 500 words.
You have nothing to lose but perhaps a few hours of your time and some further opportunities in your career. Give back and you will be rewarded.
P.S. Did you know I used to blog about selling used books on Amazon? Talk about a niche topic. At it’s peak it was getting over 1,000 readers/day. Now, don’t you think IT is just a wee bit bigger than that? If I can blog about selling used books and get 1,000 readers/day you can spend just an hour a week writing a blog post about your IT experiences and you will help more people than you think.