The Art of Blogging / a belated mid-year resolution.
Since leaving Phase One I have submitted 1x very short blog post. This is significantly less than the recommended minimum of one/month.
Meanwhile the client’s representative on my project has no issue filling my inbox with updates from site, which, to be clear, is currently a hardstanding awaiting the delivery of some site offices.
How can they produce so much content from so little?
The updates are short and sweet but make a point. A geo-tagged photo with the comment: “Hoarding sign has come away. Stronger cable ties required.”
Clearly, a balance needs to be struck between aimless waffle and a blog to assist in the Professional Development of the collective but my question to the floor is have we gone too far the other way?
Do we all just view the blog as a chore at the end of a long day / yet another thing you need to research and produce? Would a quick update about something you thought was interesting, sent direct from your mobile, increase the frequency of Blog posts and allow us to know more about each other’s experience?
I don’t know the answer but will try and blog a bit more in the 2nd half of the year… So long as TMR 2, Thesis Form B, TMR 3, AER 3 and Thesis Form C don’t get in the way. 😉
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
James – agree to an extent that sometimes unnecessarily long-winded blogs can defy the original purpose which is to share experiences for the benefit of the collective. The counter-argument of course is that some recalled experiences require a lot of background and explanation to make any sense to those of us that otherwise are uninformed!
Might I suggest that a compromise could be borrowed from Reddit of all places. Blog posters could start with a TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) summary for those that would prefer just flavour of everybody’s experiences. If we wanted to be military about it, I suppose we could call it a BLUF?
James, as the originator of the Blog back in 2012, it is interesting to see your perspective on the “right”content for posts. The truth is, back in the day, I didn’t really have any firm convictions about what was too much or not enough. I just wanted people to share and if it was a quick photo of some idiot hanging off a ladder (or a crane hanging off a building as happened in Oz), or a detailed essay setting out something that enhanced the teaching during phase one, or a simply cry for help, all seemed to be relevant to me. The one thing that I wanted them all to have in common though was that there was a lesson to be shared. Short and pithy or drawn out and involved, all posts have a value if they contain some form of learning for others to share in. I never wanted people to feel that they were being judged, or that the Blog should be some form of public AER. Check out Chris Warner’s first ever post on the Blog (a photo) if you want to see how relaxed I was about the content at its inception. I personally remain just as relaxed and simply want people to share. I appreciate that other platforms like WhatsApp have subsequently come on the scene that allow this to occur more easily than you can do with the Blog, but these platforms preclude longer pieces from those that want to submit them. I wanted the students to take the Blog and make it their own and this still remains my aim. Post what you want (within reason), but remember that each post should contain some form of learning to meet with my original aims.
If it helps, one of the questions often asked by newly graduated engineers interested in working towards CEng is how long do you have to have been an engineer for before you can Charter. The answer is that it depends upon many things and one of those is your experience. A common reckoning was anywhere from three years upwards with the norm being to be ready within six years if not sooner. If you accept that you individually clock up three quarters of a year you can see that sharing experience with seven colleagues quickly increases your exposure to site to something approaching reasonable. Professional review is akin to telling war stories, the more you have up your sleeve on different topics the easier it is.