Have you got any benefits from writing tech articles or having a tech blog?

Cool job opportunities? New customers? Valuable Connections? Or just a waste of time?

Comments

[James]

I've written a fairly small number of articles. Anything that gets above 50 views is a roaring success. I haven't made stacks of cash, nobody has approached me to write a book or work for their awesome company, and I'm currently at the massive high of 129 twitter followers, so it hasn't brought me much in the way of e-fame, either.

What it has done:

• Made me a better writer. This is an obvious yet somehow unexpected benefit. I wish someone had told me that writing is a good way to get good at writing!
• Reinforced my tech skills. If I'm writing about something, I want to be pretty darn sure that I'm not publishing something where the basic details are incorrect. People would laugh at me in the streets. Even if you're just regurgitating beginner level docs into tutorial form, reformatting raw information in a way that other people can understand is a good way to solidify it in your mind and make sure that you actually get it.

I think there are enough benefits to writing tech articles that it's worth doing now and then even if you're the only one who sees it.

I'm still holding out for the cash, fame and accolades, mind.

[Ben Halpern]

I honestly feel like it's been responsible for almost all my opportunities and connections. I've never actually maintained my own blog, but writing on the internet in various forms has made me a better developer and led me to cross paths with a lot of really great people.

[Jamie]

I've written, rather extensively, about .NET Core over at dotnetcore.gaprogman.com/ for the past two years. I don't publish new articles there (as I'm focusing on a podcast on .NET Core at the moment).

But during it's height, I was seeing 1000+ pages views per week and I know for a fact that some of the folks I work with were using it a reference material for their day-to-day work.

I've guest posted on a number of amazing blogs, had folks guest post on my blog, was picked up Microsoft link aggregators once or twice, and have even seen my articles used as references in Chinese language blogs. I've even been asked to speak at meetups and conferences - I'm speaking at Ubmbraco Festival UK in early November.

(I haven't kept it up to date, but I do have an As seen on page).

On the back of the blog alone, I've had offers to write technical books and have met a whole bunch of amazing people. I turned down the book offers (from my point of view, the pay off isn't worth the effort. Unless you focus on "is a published author" as the pay off).

I wouldn't have even dared to start a podcast without having created the blog first, as it gave me the freedom to figure out a technical voice for myself.

And that's just one of my blogs (I currently have three).

If you're willing to put the effort in, have a schedule and (most importantly) stick to it, then it can be incredibly rewarding.