Write a blog to provoke, not to preach

I’m a discerning blog reader. I actively read many blogs (saved and new) and manage my blogs in Google Reader. Every so often a blog makes it into my “favorites” folder. Yesterday, I came across a new instant favorite – “A Smart Bear,” a blog by Jason Cohen.

I was immediately impressed not only with the quality of posts, but with the quality of the conversation following each post. Can I be friends with all of those people, PLEASE?

My own attempts at writing a blog have been highly intermittent, but I know it’s something I really want and need to do for myself. Since yesterday, I’ve found about 20 pieces of stimulating advice from Jason,  one of which is this:

“For me, the point of blogging is not to preach, but to provoke. I’m successful when I make you think — not when I get to you agree but when I cause you to reconsider and clarify your own position.”

This resonates with me. One of the main barriers to blogging for me has been my perceived need to write definitively and one-sidedly.  Refocusing on provoking and raising questions makes more sense to me and is inspiring.

This also relates to another post by Jason called Business Advice Plagued by Survivor Bias. In this post, Jason highlights that the difference between good and bad advice is that those who tell you definitevely what you need to do with your business are wrong. Even if they are experts, it’s unlikely that they know your business better than you. So a rule of thumb for entrepreneurs – if the advice you’re getting is definitive, run and don’t waste your time. The whole point of your starting a new company is precisely to do something new, not to repeat what some expert has seen succeed in the past. By contrast the kind of advice you need is the kind that focuses on getting you to think about important questions about your business and perhaps to help you weigh the pros and cons of the various answers to those questions.

I’m excited to develop this blog and to see what happens next. Happy Tuesday, everyone.