Why writing helps

One of the things that I love about being a blogger is the encouragement it gives me to write.

Writing helps.

It’s fair to say, I think, that if you want to get good at something, then writing about it is a key part of the learning process.

You don’t even have to do it online, or even on a computer. Having a notebook you can put thoughts and reflections down in on a regular basis will do wonders for you in terms of thinking through problems and assessing what you are doing.

If you have an idea for something, making yourself write it down, think about the words you use and how you articulate it, will help you spot what’s good and what’s not so good about it.

As I said, you don’t have to do this on a blog. But there’s an advantage to sharing your writing online.

It adds another level of thinking critically about your writing. Knowing that other people could well be reading makes you think a bit more about each phrase and each sentence. It sanity checks your ideas – if you’re embarrassed to be blogging about it, maybe it’s not such a great solution to your problem.

This obviously works for individuals, but it works for teams too, and organisations. Share with people what you are thinking and what you are doing. Force yourself to articulate it in terms that will be clear to those that are reading them.

It will help improve your work and your understanding – even if nobody else ever reads it.

Blog academy

I’m running a day long workshop in London on the topic of blogging – might you be interested?

Here’s the skinny:

Join Dave Briggs for a day’s practical, hands-on workshop learning how to be a better blogger!

There are only 10 places available for this workshop, so sign up quickly!

It’s suitable for anyone who wants to start blogging, or who wants to improve their blogging to enable them to meet their goals. Equally, those who want to encourage blogging within their organisations will find this workshop helpful.

The day will cover:

  • Why blogging is a good idea and how it can be used
  • Choosing a platform
  • Setting up a new blog
  • How to write engaging content
  • Ideas for different types of blog posts
  • Using different types of media
  • Practice writing and publishing posts, with constructive critique
  • Post event support by email for those that need it

The event will take place in central London at a venue to be confirmed. Lunch and refreshments will be provided, as will laptops to enable practical work to be undertaken.

Interested? Sign up on Eventbrite. Register before the middle of June and you get a discount!

A few changes in these parts

Since work is now WorkSmart and I am retiring Kind of Digital as a professional thing, I thought it was time to sort out my blog.

After all, kindofdigital.com was once davepress.net and before that many incarnations over the years – going back to September 2004. Nearly ten years!

Anyway, the result of this is that business blogging will take place over at WorkSmart and this blog will transition to being about me me me. Well, it will probably end up still covering government and digital like it always did – because basically that’s all I think about these days.

I’ve also rehosted the whole blog at wordpress.com – mostly just to reduce the numbers of things  I have to think about. I’ll be playing around with themes and layouts for a bit I think, til I find something I’m remotely happy with.

Enough navel-gazing… carry on!

Link roundup

I find this stuff so you don’t have to: