What Changed My Mind? Cultural Change and a Time-Management Tip

Why now?

For years, I emphatically wagged my head and elongated my enunciation while insisting I wouldn't blog. "Nnnoooooooooooooooooooo."

My change of heart came during a free webinar by @hubspot aka http://www.hubspot.com/. Coming across as relaxed, practical and sincere, webinar leader Rick Burnes suggested that when someone asks you a question and you are going to reply by e-mail, instead write a blog post and send the person a link. That way you help more people at once.

That appealed to me because it's time-efficient.

I hadn't wanted to blog because I thought it would be time-consuming. Plus, I wasn't vain enough to imagine I'd have a following. What would I say? I felt vindicated as I heard about people quitting their blogs, saying they'd never imagined it would be so much work. (I was a news reporter for 10 years before becoming a business writing coach in 2000, so I know very well that research, interviewing, writing and editing aren't easy.)

The world has since changed around me. At A&R Edelman (my employer), the corporate culture shifted. We're now encouraged to add our individual voices to the world's chorus. And Twitter's emergence as a news tip service gives readers a way to find me. I don't need a regular following because Tweets and re-Tweets direct the right people to the right topics at the right times. A sporadic following will do.

Someone asked me, "What if you make a mistake? Won't it take a long time to proofread to be absolutely sure you haven't let a grammar or punctuation error slip through?" Well, I'm sure that *will* happen. I fully claim to be human. Even editors need editors. So when someone kindly checks me, I'll thank them and make the correction.

Finally, this blog isn't about me. It's about you.