Transparency

Had an interesting conversation with Mike O'Brien and Nick Jimenez at climber.com a few days ago and when I asked them how I can improve my blog, they said 'transparency'.  They wanted to know why I blog -- so here it is:

Why do I blog?

• My primary motivation is that our DiversityJobs.com customers are job boards and I believe that it's better in the long run to develop an audience than pay for advertising.  Later this year, we will also launch a new similar project. However, if reaching potential customers were the only benefit, I probably would not blog because nothing is quite so effective as telesales.

• But blogging is also a useful way for me to organize, process and share important information with my team.

• It also helps me build relationships in the job board industry. I missed the train a couple times in my Internet career which I attribute to working like a hermit. So I am also compensating for earlier mistakes.

• I experiment here with search engine optimization. Don't think I have learned much other than 'it's not easy' but I keep trying.

• If I ever want to teach a class or write a book, the raw material is waiting for me here.

• Someday, I hope a reader passionate about job boards will want to work for my company.  It's also useful information, when I am interviewing a candidate to know if they have found my blog or not.

• And then there is this:

All paths are the same, they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. "Does this path have a heart?" One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

The trouble is nobody asks the question: and when a person finally realizes that they have taken a path without heart, the path is ready to kill them. At that point very few people stop to deliberate and leave the path.

A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.

For my part there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length.

And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly.

-Carlos Castaneda

I'm on a path with a heart and enjoy talking about it.