Paradox of my career. Something that’s always bothered me. To be visible, influential on the web, but invisible, non-influential in companies. Never really understood why. Is the workplace really so different from the web? Could the same techniques apply?
Not a vanity thing. Consequences of lack of influence in the corp.
Informed at the last minute, if at all. Not kept in the loop of things.
No one knows much about your team – how to update content in the dev portal
No one really knows how to work with your team. Edit and publish, or write from scratch? What is the process?
Treated like a second-class citizen. Tech writers have been complaining about their value in the workplace since the profession began.
Purpose of a conference is to confer. I don’t have all the answers. This isn’t something I've figured out, not returning after years of experiment with a formula that is tried and true. More like I'm thinking about this and trying some things, would be nice to get feedback/input.
Overview of presentation:
Talk about dynamics of the web
See how they could apply inside corporate walls
The web has created a new dynamic. Content creators are poised to be the kings of influence.
Influencers don’t need special credentials, vetting, position, platform
Megaphone effect – anyone can shout into the megaphone
Emergence of influencers. Uncredentialed, someone who has good taste, who consumes experiences and relays them with honesty, transparency, who tells stories, not afraid of truth.
Influencer formula is simple on the surface. Pick a focus, generate lots of content, share that content, build up an audience. Sustain this momentum over years. You amass influence. Much easier to say than pull off, of course.
Not everyone who creates content builds an audience. You must also be likeable, interesting, engaging. Also problematic is finding the time to create all this content.
Metaphor of the handful of sand. Need to have an endless well of creativity and energy to create content over and over and over. Not enough to write a brilliant post every few months. You need to churn one out each week, as an extracurricular hobby.
Must enjoy creating content for its own sake. No other way to sustain the effort in the long term. I’ll get into this later too.
My hypothesis about influence. What if we were to use the same techniques on the web inside the corporation? Would the effects be the same? Could a tech writer have much more visibility and influence to increase awareness of tech comm with those all around him or her? There are a lot of details to work out, but for sure this is one angle to experiment with.
Spoiler alert. Experiment is new and ongoing. Not something to measure overnight. Might take a couple of years to even evaluate, and even then, hard to measure what could be considered influence or awareness.
