Working in Public.

As I gain more clarity on what type of work I want to pursue, the need to write and publish more frequently is clear.

The need to write comes from the necessity to process or synthesize the abundant information that I consume on a regular basis. In the numerous stories about successful people and their habits, writing or journaling is a pervasive theme. I’ve come to learn that I think differently than most people do and I have the ability to see connections and correlations that others do not. I generate these ideas all the time, but fail in documenting them. That’s a problem that has to change and thankfully something I can fix easily.

Publishing is important to me because it’s why I got into the Internet in the first place. Thanks to the Sentiers member community I’ve learned about people who maintain integrated thinking environments and “Working in Public.” Defined by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, “Working in public means sharing your process and challenges, rather than just the final product.”

Sharing your work in public is a great way to connect with people who are interested in a similar space. It may result in finding a mentor, or even lead to partnerships. All of the partnerships, sponsorships, and consultancy work I’ve had were all inbound. People read my blog, reach out, and we figure out how we want to work together. I strongly believe this would not be possible if I was conducting my research and building products without sharing my progress on a weekly basis.

I’m enthused about the idea of thinking-out-loud. I did it before in the early days of this publication, but the thoughts were so random. And as I got older, I placed more emphasis on publishing only ideas that were buttoned up—processed for what I deemed ready for public consumption. It’s good to press on the writing skills, but I’ve over-indexed.

Writing without publishing is an opaque outcome. It’s a form of hiding and I don’t think that’s healthy. Anyone who has been in conversation with me knows that I’m an open book, so why am I acting differently with writing? The world could use more honesty through transparency, and I’m ready to do my part.

Having said that, this website is a bit long in the tooth, and it doesn’t work like I’d like to work. Publish like how I’d like to publish. While I like a good blog post with an H1 title, I’m also bored with the format of everything having to follow the same structure. Thinking out loud here, I think I’m going to use a combination of Ghost and mmm, a fantastic web tool that I don’t see nearly enough folks using.