Blogging = Good For You!
9Mar2005 Filed under: Geek OutAssuming one exercises discretion, I agree with everything listed here: Ten Reasons Why Blogging is Good For Your Career.
Not only has my blog helped attract the eyes of many past employers and freelance clients, it’s playing a big role in my current contract. I’m going to be transitioning into a permanent position with my current employer, and one of the big reasons is the experience I’ve acquired in my almost five years of blogging. Part of this is just timing (the Forbes cover helped a lot of old brick ‘n’ mortar businesses fully “get” that blogging is interesting), but the 10 points Tim Bray outlines have a huge amount of truth behind them.
The mass media’s current obsession about how you can get fired for blogging is typical fear mongering. The newest monster that may come and snatch your job away: your website! Be afraid! Be very afraid!
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4 Responses to “Blogging = Good For You!”
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Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, was published last year.
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Katherine
March 9th, 2005 at 6:07 pm
. . I totally agree with you - about the current fear mongering around blogging - but especially about how great blogging is for a person on so many levels . . . Since I put my name and work info on my site like you do, I get work, get contacted by past friends and work people, and I’ve noticed that it also keeps me honest on a lot of levels - keeps me from stretching the truth toooooooo much
and also keeps me out of the black nihilistic hole of bitching 
Yay for bloggging . . . it’s fabulous 
leblanc
March 10th, 2005 at 10:34 am
i totally agree. i’ve gotten a lot of referrals and side work, not to mention totally awesome community information and event work, because of my blog. and, the tech skills i’ve developed creating my blog has already gotten me work; in fact, i’m billable at my job as a webmistress now. and, i’ve had a lot of people say being able to see my blog and my personality before interviewing me was very helpful. and yes, discretion is key.
adsfasd
March 14th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
I’ve noticed a subtle shift in your blog, perhpas in response to the issues raised in this article. Your blog is less fun and spontaneous. It’s sounding very writerly, rather than casual. I feel like it is more of a springboard for you, rather than seeing what’s going on in one girl’s life who has funny, interesting stuff to say.
Ariel
March 14th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
adsfasd, first: why the anonymity? Without getting too creepy, I’ll just say that thanks to Movable Type, Sitemeter, and my stats packages, you might as well just post with your name. It makes you look less snipey, and I pretty much already see who you are anyway.
But! Aside from the fact that you felt the need to post anonymously, your comment is correct — although it’s strange to me that you’re noticing shift now, many years after I clamped down on revealing much personal stuff on my blog.
When I first started blogging five years ago, I revealed things that make me cringe now (posts that have looong since been deleted). I realized some time in late 2001 that doing so was stupid — a blog is public, and much of my life isn’t fit for public consumption.
The “real life” friends who read Elish are keenly aware that the blog is a pasteurized version of what’s going on my life. Electrolicious has been this way for a long long time, and while it mildly sucks that I can’t dish about all my dirty sexual affairs, illegal exploits, and scandalous vomiting, I see it as self-preservation and saving these pieces of myself for the people I trust. The real dirt ain’t free, and it ain’t posted where my boss can read it.
That said: if you want to come out from behind the cloak of your (cowardly) anonymity, I might share my secret journal location with you.