It was a Father's Day treat. Yesterday afternoon before my official grill master duties was set to commence, I saddled up to my laptop with an hour of uninterrupted time to blog.
Log on to the network. Fire up a browser. Access Blogger. And then…absolutely nothing came to mind. I spent 15 minutes staring at a blinking cursor before deciding to catch a few minutes of the US Open on television.
This was a first for me as I pride myself on a willingness to wade into nearly any topic of relevance in public relations, social media marketing and entrepreneurship. Yet, I have come to appreciate the often uncomfortable silence that sweeps across a client or prospect meeting when I declare that “thought leaders have thoughts.”
What happens if you have nothing particular insightful or relevant to say?
Committed to filling the editorial pipeline of this blog, I signed back on after the kids went to bed last night and took three meaningful actions:
1. Hit Up My Google Reader: I subscribe to more than 50 industry and executive blogs, and spent a few minutes analyzing common themes and topics being dished about during the past few weeks.
2. Troll the Trades: There are a handful of informative PR and marketing-oriented publishers that report on the industry and its trends. In particular, I found this article about PR shop Golin Harris’ restructuring to be of interest.
3. Monitor the Chatter in Social Networks: My colleague and partner Chris Parente does an exceptional job of this. He’ll note a discussion that has garnered intense interest and debate, and then weigh in via a post on his “Work, Wine and Wheels” blog.
A mere thirty minutes later I had a collection of five new ideas for the blog, all of which address timely issues that have generated discussion in the industry.
Now I just need to find time to write.
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