Archive for December 22nd, 2009

Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Steve Boese about HRHappyHour and 2.0 trends. I also attended a webinar with Jenny DeVaughn about using Facebook for social recruiting.  I promised to write pieces about both events this week. 

I have drafts. I have drafts for drafts, and that’s what writing is.  Writing is a recursive process, as my freshman English Professor would say.  If you aren’t writing, re-writing, and editing, you are typing—not writing.

Which leads me to tonight’s topic: what do you do when you have two unfinished drafts that you aren’t happy with, and how do you bring them to print?

1. Quit writing, save the document and let it cool over night
2. Quietly ask a few colleagues to read it to see if it makes sense. What looks good to you at midnight might look differently in the light of day, to you and countless others.
3. Take your colleagues advice. If they say it’s not ready for print-it’s not ready for print: EDIT.
4. Let it simmer for another day, look at it again, and re-write.
5. Once you have the blog post looking and feeling just the way you want it-publish

I learned this lesson painfully my first few blog posts.  I was so anxious to post something daily, I’d crank out the material with barely a glance.  Then I failed to spell the names of my colleagues correctly. I misquoted a colleague, and gave the wrong company name of a corporate sponsor #FAIL.

What I love about making errors, is learning from them.  Since that time, I ask friends and colleague to proof my post–unless I’m absolutely certain– I love the post exactly as it is.  This goes against common wisdom which suggests we bloggers should post everyday. 

I say, only post everyday if you have something important to say.  Otherwise, you are at risk of losing your credibility.  My motto as a writer, and as an HR Professional is just do it, carefully look before you leap. 

Take a deep breath and keep writing, write daily. Writing daily helps prevent writers block.   Even if you don’t publish a post daily, practice writing, because that is what writing is. Sometimes writing when I have writers block is a good exercise in discipline.  It also forces me to think. Even if I’m writing gibberish—writing soothes my soul.

My posts are never perfect, neither are human beings.  Humble, and flawed people who admit their errors ,and learn from them are lovable, approachable, and helpful.  The point of this post is to share that as much as I wanted to go to press with my post about what goes on on the back channel of #HRHappyHour, I decided it’s best to wait until the appropriate time.  I also wrote about post of my interview with Steve Boese.  I may not release that piece until after the first of the year. 

Jenny Vaughn is my social media role model.  I admire and respect her so much.  That is why I’m holding off on publishing my post from her webinar, because I want to add my own thumb print to it—and not have it be a cheesy rehash of what she said, so I’m doing additional research.

It is you, my loyal readers who I love.  Thanks for liking me even though I am flawed, and imperfect.  I do my best to educated and entertain.  I value our relationship.

Sincerely-your twitter pal,

@HRMargo Margo Rose

P.S. I published this without the extra pair of eyes on it, because I wanted to connect with you.

Bookmark It