Karl Albrecht
Make sure you have something worthwhile to say.
It's tempting, especially in this age of cheap and easy media, to just pump out blogs, comments, and ebooks, hoping to gain attention.
But we've come to a point of saturation - where just about anybody can speak his or her mind, whether there's anything in it or not.
When I see blog posts and comments that do nothing more than cite links to other sources; that rattle off "7 Steps to Success," or "The 5 Secrets of Leadership" - "listicles," as some people call them - I grieve for the would-be writer who's shoveling them out. In my opinion, all the would-be writer does in such a case is demonstrate that he or she has little or nothing valuable to say.
The first imperative, in my view, is to become especially good at something, knowledgeable about something, or expert at something. Have a "product" that stands above the average of the other stuff that's out there, and then learn to express it in an engaging, compelling way.
The famous psychologist B.F. Skinner said that he came out of college convinced he wanted to be a writer. After trying his hand at it for nearly a year, he "concluded that I had nothing to say." Years later, only after he had become a leading authority on operant psychology, did he write his famous book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity."
It's tempting, especially in this age of cheap and easy media, to just pump out blogs, comments, and ebooks, hoping to gain attention.
But we've come to a point of saturation - where just about anybody can speak his or her mind, whether there's anything in it or not.
When I see blog posts and comments that do nothing more than cite links to other sources; that rattle off "7 Steps to Success," or "The 5 Secrets of Leadership" - "listicles," as some people call them - I grieve for the would-be writer who's shoveling them out. In my opinion, all the would-be writer does in such a case is demonstrate that he or she has little or nothing valuable to say.
The first imperative, in my view, is to become especially good at something, knowledgeable about something, or expert at something. Have a "product" that stands above the average of the other stuff that's out there, and then learn to express it in an engaging, compelling way.
The famous psychologist B.F. Skinner said that he came out of college convinced he wanted to be a writer. After trying his hand at it for nearly a year, he "concluded that I had nothing to say." Years later, only after he had become a leading authority on operant psychology, did he write his famous book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity."
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