Hi, I'm Gregory Brown.
My goal is to help software developers get better at what they do, whether they've been at it for five weeks or fifty years.
(he/him)
It's worth noting that if your goal is to get into developer advocacy, what you need to be able to show is the ability to spread ideas and grow an audience.
Blogging is one way to do that, but you've got all sorts of different options, and so it really depends on what your preferences are. For example, you could achieve the same goal with a newsletter, a podcast, a series of youtube videos, some interesting (publicly visible) coding projects, or just by showing up at a bunch of in-person events and being useful and helpful there.
These are all tactics though. What makes you excited about going into a developer advocacy role? What particular tools/technologies/products are you most intrigued by?
(If you reply w. some answers to the above questions, I may be able to offer more suggestions and ideas.)
Proof of work is important, but a sense of purpose usually needs to come first to get good results.
I was thinking the same thing at one point in time.
But when I started looking at jobs, just to get an idea of what they were asking for.
Most of them did asking for technical writing, documentation, etc.
There were some that actually stated that you would have to do like internal blogs.
So I am understanding now why this was recommended to me.
I guess the real question was, because of the workload that I already have on my plate.
How important is it for me to have a personal blog, or is it more, that I get and start writing.
I actually did not realize how hard that was either.
I have all these thoughts and ideas and they sound good in my head, but once I get them on the screen, I'm like BLAH :(.
Also, do people still have time to read blogs.
Between my full-time job, school, coding, slack, emails, medium, dev.to, and now writing the article.
I really do not have time to read blogs.
So I am just wondering if this is a common issue with others as well.
This was the biggest question.
Hi, I'm Gregory Brown.
My goal is to help software developers get better at what they do, whether they've been at it for five weeks or fifty years.
(he/him)
My best guess is that for most jobs which would involve writing as part of the job, they're looking for proof that you can do so effectively. And so it might not matter whether it's on your own website or elsewhere, as long as you can show that you're able to communicate well in written form and get others to engage with it.
For some places, having your own blog with its own distinct branding would certainly be something that would show your ability to solve that part of the problem too, but most businesses who have developer advocacy positions have the resources in place to take care of that part for you anyway.
Although I have approached time investment into online presence as a whole in various ways at various times in my career, these days I treat it as part of my job and set specific daily/weekly time investments that make sense for me and my goals.
You should select an approach that works for what time you have available. Even if that's 30 mins, two or three times per week, you can make it work, you'd just need to either really scale down your writing projects, or chip away at them little by little and only release larger works occasionally. Either way can work, but if in doubt, try the former as you'll likely learn more and sooner that way in terms of what works and what doesn't.
What kind of timeline are you looking at to transition into a new role? If you're in no hurry, you have a lot of options. The faster you're trying to get there, the more strategic you'll need to be about how you spend each and every moment of time, but that does not necessarily mean overworking yourself.
(By the way, it seems like you'd really benefit from reading the book Essentialism, if you have not seen it already. It's about general life strategies for developing focused effort on a particular small set of goals rather than feeling spread too thin all the time, and it's a great read.)
Hi, I'm Gregory Brown.
My goal is to help software developers get better at what they do, whether they've been at it for five weeks or fifty years.
(he/him)
Although there are plenty of ways to free up time, you still end up with a limited amount to go around, and so it just becomes a question of how you spend it.
A good next step would be to figure out how much time you can consistently spend on your writing work, and then scale your efforts down to the time you have available.
Even if you end up writing very short things that are more similar to daily posts once per week, a year will produce over 50 of those, and that'd still be a great outcome.
So if in doubt, don't stretch yourself thin, focus and think small. It will pay off in time.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
It's worth noting that if your goal is to get into developer advocacy, what you need to be able to show is the ability to spread ideas and grow an audience.
Blogging is one way to do that, but you've got all sorts of different options, and so it really depends on what your preferences are. For example, you could achieve the same goal with a newsletter, a podcast, a series of youtube videos, some interesting (publicly visible) coding projects, or just by showing up at a bunch of in-person events and being useful and helpful there.
These are all tactics though. What makes you excited about going into a developer advocacy role? What particular tools/technologies/products are you most intrigued by?
(If you reply w. some answers to the above questions, I may be able to offer more suggestions and ideas.)
Proof of work is important, but a sense of purpose usually needs to come first to get good results.
Thanks,
I was thinking the same thing at one point in time.
But when I started looking at jobs, just to get an idea of what they were asking for.
Most of them did asking for technical writing, documentation, etc.
There were some that actually stated that you would have to do like internal blogs.
So I am understanding now why this was recommended to me.
I guess the real question was, because of the workload that I already have on my plate.
How important is it for me to have a personal blog, or is it more, that I get and start writing.
I actually did not realize how hard that was either.
I have all these thoughts and ideas and they sound good in my head, but once I get them on the screen, I'm like BLAH :(.
Also, do people still have time to read blogs.
Between my full-time job, school, coding, slack, emails, medium, dev.to, and now writing the article.
I really do not have time to read blogs.
So I am just wondering if this is a common issue with others as well.
This was the biggest question.
Thanks for the response :)
My best guess is that for most jobs which would involve writing as part of the job, they're looking for proof that you can do so effectively. And so it might not matter whether it's on your own website or elsewhere, as long as you can show that you're able to communicate well in written form and get others to engage with it.
For some places, having your own blog with its own distinct branding would certainly be something that would show your ability to solve that part of the problem too, but most businesses who have developer advocacy positions have the resources in place to take care of that part for you anyway.
Although I have approached time investment into online presence as a whole in various ways at various times in my career, these days I treat it as part of my job and set specific daily/weekly time investments that make sense for me and my goals.
You should select an approach that works for what time you have available. Even if that's 30 mins, two or three times per week, you can make it work, you'd just need to either really scale down your writing projects, or chip away at them little by little and only release larger works occasionally. Either way can work, but if in doubt, try the former as you'll likely learn more and sooner that way in terms of what works and what doesn't.
What kind of timeline are you looking at to transition into a new role? If you're in no hurry, you have a lot of options. The faster you're trying to get there, the more strategic you'll need to be about how you spend each and every moment of time, but that does not necessarily mean overworking yourself.
(By the way, it seems like you'd really benefit from reading the book Essentialism, if you have not seen it already. It's about general life strategies for developing focused effort on a particular small set of goals rather than feeling spread too thin all the time, and it's a great read.)
@Practicing Developer
My goal is before the big 50 which is in November.
Thanks for the suggestion on the book read.
I got blessed with the
pragmatic programmerfor Christmas and I have not been able to find time to start it. :(I was thinking that setting a goal of writing an article once a week is attainable.
It's just finding the time to get it out there.
I have a lot to think about.
Thanks for the great advice :)
Although there are plenty of ways to free up time, you still end up with a limited amount to go around, and so it just becomes a question of how you spend it.
A good next step would be to figure out how much time you can consistently spend on your writing work, and then scale your efforts down to the time you have available.
Even if you end up writing very short things that are more similar to daily posts once per week, a year will produce over 50 of those, and that'd still be a great outcome.
So if in doubt, don't stretch yourself thin, focus and think small. It will pay off in time.