I’ve been on LinkedIn since it debuted. In that time, despite all the lavish praise the business social media site has garnered, it’s done nothing for me. And it’s not for my trying.
Still some people swear by it.
The prevailing wisdom bandied about on LinkedIn is that writing a blog is one of the best things you can do for your career and for yourself as a growing, actualized, with-it person.
Really? A blog? How 1999!
I thought social media sites and microblogging drove a stake through the heart of bloggers everywhere. I thought blogs were the tools of wizened tech fiends who still program in COBOL and prefer to send their résumés not to Apple but to Xerox PARC. You know, anachronisms. Fogeys. People who wear polyester and tighten their belts above their navels.
Well, I was wrong; mark the calendar. Blogs are hotter than Hades.
So, because LinkedIn says you need one, you better be writing a blog.
As a blogger since 2001, I have some advice. It’s pretty simple, and it will spare you a lot of grief.
Find a theme for your blog. Something that will appeal to everyone. Like recipes for fattening foods made with organic ingredients that make them sound healthier than they are. Everyone likes to eat.
Go to Pinterest. Find what women about 60 years old like. Or since 60 is the new 50, what 50-year-old women like. Write about that. Quilting and knitting are safe so long as you avoid quilting and knitting controversies, such as which needles are best.
If you’re a man, talk about cars. Just don’t get too opinionated about any one make or marque.
In fact, if you’re going to write a blog, never get controversial. Write about stuff that is status quo that everyone can agree on. Or, if you want to seem cutting edge, write blog posts that concur with “thought leaders,” since nothing is better than ideas that seem radical on the surface but are really just warmed-over oatmeal that everyone can stomach.
Stay away from any topic that might get you writing about ideas that actually change society for the better. In fact, never put any opinions in your blog that might offend anyone. This is hard, since people are so easily offended by anything nowadays. Should you decide to write a recipe blog, don’t even get into the butter versus margarine versus lard battle. You never know when you’ll run into a lard hater out there. Those folks are vicious, plus they have long memories—probably because their cerebral arteries aren’t clogged with lard.
Oh, since LinkedIn is the site giving the advice on how it is in your best interest to have a blog so that the business world knows you are a serious person with serious ideas, better offer some business insights too. Just stay away from insights that challenge the state of current business ethics, the “loyalty” businesses have toward their employees, equitable pay or a living wage, and how meeting shareholder demands often means a company resorts to short-term thinking that hurts other people in the long run. For heaven’s sake, never mention anything like that.
And whatever you do, avoid the religion thing like the plague. You mention Jesus at your own peril. Too controversial. Not good for your blog or your career. Opposition to abortion or same-sex marriage? What are you, nuts? Not blog topics. Ever.
Even if you are a Christian blogger, never, ever, ever suggest that the Church can improve. Or that the Church has issues that need improving. Nor should you offer ideas on how the Church might improve. Didn’t you read this paragraph’s first two sentences? You’re not skimming this, are you?
Remember, everyone is walking on eggshells. Help them by not breaking any eggs. Because decisionmakers will Google your blog, and people who break eggs don’t get work, which, according to LinkedIn, is the sole reason for existence.
In fact, if you are going to write a blog, it may be best to write one that focuses on recipes intended for kittens. Or for puppies. Because you don’t want to show a preference for cats over dogs. Better add recipes meant for mice and rats, too, because mice and rat lovers are out there. Yes, they are weird. Oops, I didn’t just write that, did I? Just don’t include pictures of rats on your blog, because rats bother some people. And you NEVER want to bother anyone with your blog posts. Never, ever, ever.
So, in short, write a blog. Just be as innocuous as hell. Heaven knows hell doesn’t like to be challenged.
Hi Dan,
We’re being muzzled in our day and in our times. Right now it’s social pressure put on people. Eventually, I believe, expressing thoughts and speaking out will be against the law and subject to penalty.
Anybody who dared to confess that they believed that Jesus was the Christ (in his day) was thrown out of the synagogue. In essence disowned by the Jews.
I just read yesterday that in South America, somewhere, about 2 million people demonstrated over the raising of bus fares in their country. This is how the demonstrations got started. Now, the complaints are more about injustice, the way money is being spent by government, etc. The military used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds. It was a peaceful demonstration in the whole and a knee jerk reaction by the government.
One of the criteria of the new world order is that countries have to control their people. Some countries have tried to cut off news and communication from the ‘outside’ in order to do this.
One thing that I have noticed lately in North America is the immediate promise of money and support by government after disaster strikes. Where is this money coming from? It’s flowing like water, like it’s nothing more than a bunch of paper with some printing on it, and that there’s an open-ended supply of it available.
I often find myself wanting to go off about various businesses in my area. But one of the first of the second thoughts I have is: What if I need a job from this company? So I have been complaining less about my customer service issues.
Remember, people, everything you blog, everything you post on Facebook or wherever, all of it will siphoned up by the government and tucked away in a enormous data mine, where it can be queried and analyzed and used to create a dossier about you when needed. And when the time comes to round up the “politically aberrant”, or the “bigoted”, or the “extremists”, the process can be expedited efficiently, and quietly so as not to cause undo alarm which would necessitate telling the public to “shelter in place”.
Remember, it doesn’t take much to get yourself in trouble. Paula Deen slipped up just one time, and look what happened to her. She should consider herself fortunate that things didn’t get worse for her.
So follow Dan’s advice. Blog about puppies and kittens. That picture of the puppy and kitten is a celebration of diversity. Celebrate diversity.
Hi Dan,
There’s a scripture in the Bible. “All who are godly will suffer persecution” (something like that). We’re not even going to have to try in the days ahead. Just the fact that we exist is going to be more than the world can tolerate. Darkness hates light, and darkness is beginning to sense and be able to discern ‘light'(God’s people) more and more in our day.
With Jesus, darkness recognized him right away. ‘What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God’.
We feel this in the church as well. It’s because there is darkness there. If God’s people are not accepted in the church, then there is a MAJOR problem. Why aren’t they being accepted there? Darkness. That’s why.
We’re going to feel it (persecution) in the workplace too. We don’t even have to be doing anything at all. Just being there. We need to be careful about our confession, and maintain our status as ‘one of God’s’. We do not want to be found as one who begins to deny Christ in order to keep working. This is a major pressure and a major issue for the Believer. This is what occurred in Jerusalem in the time after Jesus’ death and ressurection to those who confessed Jesus as the Christ.
There’s still some wiggle room for God’s people right now in our work world and society. We may start to feel the squeeze sooner than we had expected.
We have to set our minds to stay faithful to God. Faithful to our confession. Like the 3 Hebrew children said. “God is able to deliver us, and if not, we will not bow down to another”. They went into the furnace. But… we see something amazing. A Glory was revealed. And I think that is what the scripture is hinting at and really probably ‘yelling’. The faithful in Christ have a Glory ahead of them.