By Nikki Viljoen – Viljoen Consulting (Pty) Ltd
I know that I seem to be harping on about this, but every day I encounter people who seem quite keen to start a blog, but who have no idea what to write about.
It is sometimes extremely frustrating for me when this happens because as I talk to them and ascertain exactly what they do and what their passion is, it is abundantly clear that they have a huge amount of knowledge on their subject or specialty and that there is a copious amount of material that they could write about. Even ‘every day’ things that occur could become a source of inspiration.
Whilst we were on holiday over one Christmas period, my friend Jacques and I were taking photos. We took photos of everything that moved (and many things that didn’t) and I jokingly said to Jacques “we should start a blog on Things I Saw Today or Things I Did Today!” The look that he gave me clearly stated that I had lost the plot – again! I had a good laugh, you see Jacques is a gardener. He works with many communities, showing them how to grow their own food and then how to turn the surplus into sustainable income and I realized that he was thinking how a photo of a clump of bobbing seaweed (being what we saw that day) could be turned into an article that would have any impact on the work that he does.
So I started to ask the questions (and happily I did know the answers because the tour guide had told us):
q. What does the bobbing seaweed tell us?
a. That there is no perlemoen (abalone) in the area because that is what they feed on – the poachers have harvested everything.
q. So would you harvest the seaweed?
a. Yes I would if I had, or wanted to start a perlemoen farm.
q. So what would the benefits be of starting a perlemoen farm?
a. Well it would replenish the stocks that have been depleted through poaching and it is a healthy organic source of food and if properly managed is extremely sustainable and . . . .
All of that because of a clump of seaweed bobbing in the ocean – a whole bunch of stuff to write about (not to mention a whole host of opportunities for someone)!
We all have these kinds of experiences during our day – things that we see, encounters with people who we deal with and people who tell us their stories. Each and every one of them has the propensity to become a blog article that highlights something in our businesses. We just have to be open to the possibilities.
Personally, I think that the biggest challenge that most people think they have, when they want to write a blog, is the ‘how to write’ it and not the ‘what to write’! As always my advice here is – write it exactly the way you would if you were telling someone the story, as if you were engaged in a discussion with someone and you were telling them what happened.
So now – who thinks that they don’t have anything to put into a blog?
Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za
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