Together, I Can

Writing a blog is five jobs: producer, writer, editor, promoter, and webmaster. It’s strange how something that takes 3 minutes to read takes so much effort.

I find that understanding the five jobs helps me to stay positive and motivated. I’ve found that, for myself, the effectiveness of saying “Oh, just do it!” is not very high; I don’t get much done. I find that a clearer concept of what I’m actually doing, that is, the tasks of what, in the real world, are done by multiple people, helps to truly put myself in the focus mode of each position so that I adequately perform all of the duties necessary to run a successful blog.

These roles, presented in order of appearance, are:

Producer

I function as a producer in being the one who motivates the project and makes it happen. Without the producer in me saying, “Hey, get going! Put your computer in your bag; get down to the library because you know that you can’t get much done in your house most of the time. Look, I’ll put gas in the car if you’re low; it’s fine, stop freaking out. Look, I know that you have ideas, and you really feel that you want to write them down, which is why I’ve set everything up to make it all easier. You can do it. Now, go!” Then, after the writer and the editor have done their job, the producer comes back and says to the editor, ok, now… post it! What are you waiting for? It’s never going to be perfect. Give it to the webmaster! (see below).

Writer

When a person writes a blog, it’s the ideas that get the most attention; it’s the creativity and the delivery that get the attention. I write stuff from my head, my heart, and my guts (if I have enough to say what I truly want to say), and then cross my fingers and pass it along to the…

Editor

The editor does the job that doesn’t get the credit when all goes well; it’s a very thankless position. Yet, without the editor, many people will stop reading a blog or a newspaper. There are even people who won’t read content that isn’t edited effectively. (I admit that there is a Royals blog that I don’t read because, sometimes, the content has bad grammar or is just plain negative-sounding.)

Webmaster

The webmaster receives the content from the editor, previews what it’ll look like on the blog, and posts it. He might also look at the content again after publishing it, perhaps, if necessary, saying, hey, maybe you should look at this again, Mr. Editor.

Promoter

This guy has the work that requires nothing but the excitability of a lottery winner. He simply looks at the content, assumes that it’s cool, gets all stoked, and tries to think of a catchy way to get people to get people’s attention so that they’ll read the blog. On my blog, acting as the promoter, I tweet a tantalizing teaser (hopefully it’s tantalizing!) and then post the address of my blog. I’ve got my Twitter account linked to my Facebook account so that my friends know when I’ve posted. The promoter knows that it’s going to take a while for readership to increase; the promoter simply says to the other 4 guys… I’ll keep getting it out there, you just make sure that what I’ve got to post is good stuff!