At a recent conference, I co-present- ed with the head of a corporate
engineering group for a major global
manufacturer on the subject of use of
social media among process manufac-
turers. The other speaker referenced a
You Tube video1 from two great thinkers
on business management strategy—
Seth Godin and Tom Peters. In the
video, Tom Peters emphatically states,
“No single thing in the last 15 years
professionally has been more important
to my life than blogging.”
As author of the Emerson Process
Experts2 blog, I wholeheartedly agree
with Tom’s statement. I had an opportu-
nity to speak at the Valve Manufactur-
ers Association and Valve Repair Coun-
cil annual meeting last fall and to write
this column. Neither would have hap-
pened if I didn’t blog.
So, should you blog? My answer is
an emphatic yes. Most of your wisdom
is trapped in the inboxes of other
people, never to be seen by a wider
circle. This wider circle not only
benefits others, it can benefit you
personally because it builds your
thought leadership.
ESTABLISHING YOUR
LEADERSHIP
How many times have you searched for a
solution to a problem and landed on
someone’s blog? It could have been a
“how-to” post providing a step-by-step
solution to the same problem you have or
a similar issue. Now imagine someone
searching and finding your expertise as
their solution. This makes you the
44 | Valve MAGAZINE
To Blog or Not to Blog
DETERMINING CONTENT
Once you’ve successfully navigated a
path for either an external or internal
blog, you’ll need to determine what you
should you write about. My recommendation is to address issues about projects you’ve done and problems you’ve
solved in your line of business. Start a
post with a problem you encountered
and what you did to overcome it. Keep
it conversational to reflect your personality and make it interesting to read.
When others are searching for answers,
they usually start their search with
questions about the problem they
encountered. If you look through your
email “Sent Items” folder, you probably have many such questions that
should give you a nice backlog of blog
post ideas to get you going and build
momentum.
What about posting frequency? This
is a function of how much time you
have. Most people say they have
absolutely no time for tasks like this,
but you have to consider that you’ll gain
time if you’re currently answering the
same questions over and over again.
Posts can be done daily, a few each
week, weekly or even monthly. What’s
most important is persistence. Whatev-
