Blog Inflection Point, Please!

I had occasion to give some career advice to a recent college graduate today.  Said graduate, who has a 4.0 from a pretty prestigious university, was looking to become yet another Blog Expert, making her living with missives about the impact the technology is having on business and culture, this despite not having experience or a background in any related field.  Now, clearly there are paying customers for this line of work, and it's a good job if you can get it, but here's what I said:

"How long do you think it will be before you are working at the sandwich shop down the street?

Unless you reeeeeally have something interesting to say, or unless it's your true passion, you might want to write this 1,000 timeson a squeaky chalkboard:

I will not blog about blogging.
I will not blog about blogging.
I will not blog about blogging.
(only 997 times to go)"

I will not blog about blogging.
I will not blog about blogging.
I will not blog about blogging.
(only 994 times to go)"

This is an entirely different thing from saying, I will not blog for a living.  At current corporate adoption rates, we can expect a near-majority of us will be blogging-for-business sometime in the next decade.  But there will be only so many experts on this phenomenon.  At some point, the blog conversation is going to turn to things other-than-blogging.

Let that day come, and right quick.

Anyone know where I can get a good chalkboard?

Comments

[Sher Taton]

Can I count on you to get me a job in the sandwich shop down the street then? Maybe I am not subject to that forecast of my future because you did make the disclaimer that "unless it it your passion". For the moment, I do say that figuring out corporate blogging strategy is my passion, therefor blogging about it and sharing thoughts on that subject with other bloggers is my passion. Although my interest really goes beyond blogging... you know me pretty well and it is really about figuring out new marketing strategies and mediums for companies and today that happens to be in the realm of blogging. So, do you still think my future is in the sandwich shop?

All of that really to say... welcome and congratulations on your new blog. Maybe I can get you to help me on some programming and design on my blog. :-D

[Boz]

Oh, I suppose that I was just giving some career advice to a 20-something, recent college graduate who went to my beloved alma mater as opposed to, er, a 25-ish corporate marketing expert with loads of experience and a high profile at the 3rd-most-valuable-brand-in-the-world.

Look for the next wave, employment counselors and surfers say, rather than thinking about the wave you just missed. I am convinced that corporate blogging is the next wave for corporate communicators -- and let's face it, in an economy that is 75 percent services, most of us are corporate communicators -- but there are already some pretty experienced experts and surf instructors already paddling hard. No way a wannabe competes with the Big Kahuna. (The Big Kahuna wore Blue, right?).

[B.L. Ochman]

Amen, I think.

Just this morning I was interviewed for a major print publication by a reporter who didn't really know what a blog is.

And my corporate clients really still are in the very early stages of understanding what they still think of as either a geeky phenomenon or a dairy for teenage girls.

Those of us who have been blogging for years are still "early adopters" in the grand scheme of things. We may be sick of hearing about blogging, but there's a whole universe out there that still doesn't know what blogs are all about.