Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Tom Peters Says Blogging Changed His Life. And That's Not All.

It would seem Tom Peters had scaled the heights when he went In Search of Excellence back in 1982. No doubt he became famous. Peters has written 15 books, so we'd assume this man knows how to write. But in the Amex/Open session in July, Tom Peters said writing a blog – yes blogging – has changed his life. In Peters' words:

"I will simply say my first post was in August 2004. No single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important to my life than blogging. It has changed my life, it has changed my perspective, it has changed my intellectual outlook, it's changed my emotional outlook-- parentheses, it is the best damn marketing tool by an order of magnitude than I’ve ever had and it’s free."

Seth Godin, who appeared at the Entrepreneurial Mind Series with Peters, says it doesn’t matter if anybody reads your blog. "What matters is the metacognition of thinking about what you’re going to say. How do you explain yourself? How do you force yourself to describe in three paragraphs why you did something? How do you respond out loud? If you’re good at it, some people will read it; if you’re not good at it and you stick with it, you’ll get good at it … Basically you’re doing it for yourself to force yourself to become part of the conversation.”

My colleagues who blog seriously cite at least eight benefits (none of which have to do with making money):
• you learn stuff you never expected to learn
• blogging forces you to examine your own viewpoints
• blogging teaches you to justify and support your opinions
• the wisdom you impart is nothing compared to the wisdom you gain
• as you blog, your writing gets better and better: sharper, less wordy, more energetic
• over time, you learn to speak more forcefully
• blogging promotes discipline and structure
• blogging is big fun.

Bonus Point: Check out the entire AmEx Open Forum video series here.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

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