Our first colleague contributions! Woo hoo! Scroll around and discover what's here!
Bob Sutton of Stanford University has been blogging since June 2006. Bob’s blog, Work Matters, is easily my favorite and I have been following it and sharing it with my students for several years. There is a link on Bob’s site to the Asshole Rating Self-Exam. Within the first 15 minutes of the first day of every new class I teach, I tell my students I have taken this exam and can assure them that I am NOT a certified asshole. They love it.
I started blogging in March 2009. My first post was entitled “Why do people do the things they do?” It was awful! My original site was also pretty ugly. But none of that mattered to me because I was determined to learn how and why people use this medium, and I figured the only way to do that was to jump in and start doing it.
I can assure you that only about 7 people were following what I was doing at my blog. But for those 7 people, I did my best to create articles that might in some way add value to what they were doing. Blogging was also creating tremendous value for me, because it was my way of building what I call my “systematic philosophy” about what I believe and profess. I also found other blogs that I liked in addition to Bob Sutton’s, and when these blogs had an article I liked, I tried to leave a comment that would add some value to the author’s post.
On June 23, 2009, I launched my new website, www.bretlsimmons.com. There are a number of things I want to accomplish through this website, and I firmly believe that blogging is going to help me tremendously. On July 15, 2009, Bob Sutton posted an article to his blog encouraging his readers to check out my blog. I was honored and delighted, and as a result of his support more people are now aware of what I am doing.
I still don’t have a lot of readers, but I am having a blast focusing on what I can do to help them with my blog. My blog enables me to reach an entirely different audience than I do with teaching and publishing in research journals, and I find that invigorating. Blogging requires that I deliver different content with a different process, but I think that will only serve to ultimately improve my teaching and research.
On Friday, August 7, I will post a short video clip to my website with Seth Godin and Tom Peters discussing why they blog and why YOU should blog. It is exceptional and I strongly encourage you to take a few minutes to watch it. Pay special attention to what Seth Godin has to say.
I hope to see many of you in the blog-sphere in the near future! We need you to be part of this critical conversation.
Bret
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That’s a great video clip! Thank you for sharing it with our growing circle of readers here at Insights to Actions, Bret. And thank you for contributing as a writer!