Back from a Blogging Break

I’ve been authoring this blog for a couple of years now. The first 6 months I was just learning and didn’t post regularly but when I started consulting I saw this blog as a way for me to build an online resume and for the past year and a half I’ve been cranking out an average of 2 posts per week.

I recently gave up my consulting business to work for a company (more on that in another post) and decided to give myself a break from blogging for a few weeks to see how it felt and decide whether or not I should continue to invest in it now that it isn’t an integral part of my day to day work.

Here’s what I’ve learned after a month-long blogging break:

Blogging takes up a lot of my time – I never thought I spent that much time blogging until I stopped. About 3 times a week I found myself jotting down notes for potential blog posts but frankly the work involved in getting up to speed in a new job meant I didn’t have the time to craft a post that seemed meaty enough to publish.

Blogging helps me clarify things – Like talking to a friend about something you’ve been thinking about, the act of putting together a post, forces me to take things I’ve been working on and lay them together in a more structured way than I do at work. It’s helped me clarify my own thinking around complicated topics like positioning and messaging. That in turn, makes it easier for me to explain those concepts to folks that don’t have a marketing background (which as any marketer knows, is a big part of the job).

I’ve learned a lot from the folks that comment here – When you talk to your friend about something that you’ve been thinking about, sometimes she agrees with you and sometimes she says “What are you nuts!?” Similarly, I’ve learned a lot from the reactions and comments in this blog. Heck, even the lack of comments is instructional. I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t work when you are trying to describe certain marketing concepts and that has made me a better communicator.

So I’ve decided to keep going on this blog. I’ll likely do 1 post a week instead of 2 but will make those a bit meatier and more practical now that I’m back to being a hands-on VP Marketing rather than a marketer doling out advice. I’ve got a good post on metrics that I will publish tomorrow so please come back and read it and let me know what you think. And as always, if you have any other feedback, feel free to be yourself in the comments 🙂