One of my tasks at my company is to create blog entries, both on internal and external blogs. (See some of my other posts for links to what I've written.) I've noticed an interesting difference between writing for myself and writing for my company:
When I write for myself, my output is determined by when I get an idea that I want to share. Results are created by inspiration.
When I write for my company, my output is determined by our schedule. If I don't have an idea, I get one from our marcom organization, and I work at it until it makes sense, even if I personally don't see a lot of value in the content. Conversely, if I have an idea which is burning inside my head, I have to fight to get it included in our publishing schedule, with the occasional exception as a special post.
There are good reasons for scheduled output: when trying to generate a follower base, predictable frequency makes it easier for readers to know when something new will go up. It also means that, for infrequent readers, there will almost always be something new to read.
However, it's hard to train my brain to get inspired on demand. A lot of us know this feeling, and there's a fabulous write-up about it from The Oatmeal. In short, content on a schedule leads to inconsistency of output quality.
It's tempting to put together a bogus formula which asserts that quality ideas are a non-linear, which can lead either to inconsistent output frequency or to inconsistent output quality. I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.
However, I'll also point out that there's a disconnect in perceived quality between the information producer vs the information consumer. Neil Gaiman expressed this eloquently in his Make Good Art speech. This also appears to be a common experience: I write something that I think is awful, and other people love it, and vice-versa.
Given this disconnect, I feel comfortable for now working with a content production frequency schedule. My internal discomfort at writing can spur me to produce output that's much better than I'd anticipated. It's also useful to get ideas for technical blog posts from people who have a different understanding of technology that I do, because it triggers the instinct to correct the misinformation - which leads to output on a schedule.
That being said, I still don't like the process, but I'm okay with the results.
P.S. Some readers of this post will notice that the title of this post is a question. When I started writing, I had a completely different title, but I changed it part-way through, with the implication that it's an either-or. Now, I look at it and realize that I'm compliant with Betteridge's Law, and the answer to the question is in fact "No".
