Why Blog ?
A few weeks back, I asked a few friends to check out my blog posts here. And shamelessly asked them to hit Recommend. One of them posed a question — why do I blog, since I am not a content writer but a developer. So, I decided to answer that question right here.
Why do I, being a tech person, blog ?
Clarity of thought
There are bound to be incoherent threads of thought floating around in your mind about something. When you finally decide to sit down and write about it in your blog, you would need to sort through that mess and bring forth a clear picture. It takes some practice to do this perfectly. But once you master this, it will help you in many other situations like in meetings and intellectual conversations.
Writing skills
When you blog, you are essentially becoming a writer. The more you do it, the better writer you become. Practice makes perfect. Your writing skills will improve dramatically, irrespective of what you blog about. If you blog about technical things, you gain technical writing skills, which will help in your professional life. Or a casual blog about less serious topics makes you better at casual writing.
Research skills
When you decide to blog about some topic, you are bound to do some research. Without which you risk saying something inaccurate or stupid. This would make you better at doing research and assimilating the information you find. Once you are done, you would find you have acquired much more knowledge on the subject than you had when you set out.
Sharing knowledge
In tech, we face quite a few problems, most of which others have already encountered and solved. If they share their experience through a blog, it would help someone else later. You are essentially putting out that little bit of knowledge and experience you gained to help someone else later. And those poor souls will bless you when they come across your blog post while in a similar situation. I am still a beginner with a long way to go. But I share my experiences in the hope that someone else who is just starting out would benefit from them.
Building online identity
In today’s world, an online identity is as important as real world identity. People tend to Google your name and form an opinion about you. When your blog turns up in those results, it improves your standing in the minds of those people. The topics you blog about will tell them what your interests are and what you are good at. Tech blogs also enhance your reputation in the community. Responses to your blog could get you some connections to build a network of like-minded people.
Its a cool thing to do
Having a blog is something I consider pretty cool. Which is what made me do a blog post in the first place. Have a blog? You are a much cooler person in my mind already. Just kidding.
