Comments on: What’s Better Self-Promotion: Speaking or Blogging?

By: Jeff Atwood

Jeff Atwood — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:03:57 +0000

> As a point of comparison, in 11 hours I could have written 1-2 long-form articles or 5-10 blog posts that would have been read by 12,000-50,000 people (depending on the post’s popularity). In terms of people influenced, blogging is going to be more effective for me due to the massive up-front time investment I’ve made over the past three years (my “sunk costs”).

I struggled with this as well, and it’s one of the primary reasons I quit my job to take on stackoverflow.com and blogging full time.

That said, I do think limited amounts of speaking, networking, and in-person engagements can make good sense to complement and enhance your wide audience online work. There’s a lot to be said for showing different dimensions of yourself. Simply being a writer, even a very good one — which you clearly are — offers an incomplete and sometimes inaccurate picture of who you are and what you can do.

By: Alan Stevens

Alan Stevens — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:38:19 +0000

I think blogging and speaking create a virtuous cycle that increases your exposure and learning. I would include Twitter as an activity of equivalent value. See my blog post about this here: http://netcave.org/HowIFoundMyTribeOnTwitter.aspx.

Personally, I lean toward speaking because I get so much out of interacting with people directly. While I’m sure speaking has benefited my professional stature, it is satisfying on it’s own merits for the new relationships I build.

++Alan

By: Arjan`s World » LINKBLOG for May 31, 2008

Arjan`s World » LINKBLOG for May 31, 2008 — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:24:13 +0000

[...] What’s Better Self-Promotion: Speaking or Blogging? – Rob Walling ‘ Like many software developers I’m afflicted with ‘What’s Next?’ Syndrome. It’s a disease whereby you’re never content with your situation, no matter how cool it is(..) ‘ [...]

By: Nothing to see here : An Experiment in Scotch

Nothing to see here : An Experiment in Scotch — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:58:11 +0000

[...] Rob Walling writes that he figures it’s taken him “hundreds of hours” to develop the blogging acumen he currently has. Hundreds of hours is exactly the kind of dedication jazz musicians and top programmers put in. Of course, when you put hundreds of hours into something, you’re taking those hours from somewhere else. I think that’s my main problem (but not point, I clearly don’t have one of those today), I have a hard time deciding that I want to spend hours on one thing over another thing. [...]

By: Chris Mullins

Chris Mullins — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:38:52 +0000

I think the clear answer is that you need to blog about your speaking engagements.

From a self-serving point of view, I’ve personally found high-profile speaking engagements to be as beneficial as blogging. If you can present at Tech-Ed, VS-Live, PDC, etc, then increased developer rates seem to follow shortly thereafter…

If you’re talking about speaking at local user groups, the only real payoff is that you’re “an expert” to local companies who may see you there. These are companies likley to hire you when they need something..

By: Mark Freedman

Mark Freedman — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:40:13 +0000

Fascinating. I never realized that was your first speaking event. Again, I apologize for the technical difficulties before your session. I’m sure it made the first time unnecessarily more difficult. We’re also going to expand the session lengths at this November’s code camp.

I’ve been thinking a lot about putting together a session myself that I could present, starting with the FF/WW UG. One of the reasons I helped start the UG was because of the rut I’ve been in at work. I wanted to get more involved with the community and remind myself what excited me about the field to begin with.

I’ve been blogging on and off for a while, but due to the very generalist role I’ve been working in, it’s still missing a focus. Perhaps preparing a presentation would help reacquaint myself with a couple of topics I used to specialize in.

I think blogging and speaking together would exponentially increase your exposure and impact. It’s more a product of the two than the sum of the two.

Mark Freedman
Co-Chair, Fairfield / Westchester .NET User Group

By: Sean Tierney

Sean Tierney — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:22:38 +0000

Rob,
this is another situation where i don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. There’s a network effect achieved for writing a blog and doing public speaking simultaneously. Like you say, the face to face interaction has more staying power but you can cover more surface area with a blog. You meet core people at events who then sub your blog and stay in touch with you via that. You pick up random friends via blog/podcast authorship who you later meet in person.

IMHO Blogs are different than traditional web sites in that I would rather have 10 key people reading my blog and responding thoughtfully than 10,000 digg-monkeys reading it and forgetting it in the next breath. The conversation that occurs at both the events and in the comment thread is where it’s at.

sean

By: Michael Eaton

Michael Eaton — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:34:47 +0000

I agree with your conclusion. Some combination of things you enjoy (speaking, blogging, training) is the way to go.

I’ve recently started speaking at developer events – 5 Code Camps / Days of .NET in the last 2 months with one more scheduled in June. It’s been a great experience and has dramatically increased the size of my network (along with twitter). It’s also helped the quality of my blogging.