100 not out

I've now done 100 blog posts.  This is a reflective piece on how the blog has developed since it started.

Technically its 101 posts - this one being 101st - but as I only realised after I'd published the 100th, tough.  Noticing I'd passed my century made me look back at the start of the blog and reflect on how far it has come since those early days.

I started it for a few reasons.  I'd had it in mind for a long time, and had actually started work on a blog site a couple of years earlier but got nowhere with it.  What prompted me to get it up and running was a big change in my ex-organisation, and me moving jobs within it.  I realised I didn't want to be in that place (on many levels) any more, and a blog could help raise my visibility and profile within the profession and help me determine my next steps.  I also had loads of (what I thought) were great ideas about HR that my ex-organisation didn't seem to want, so I wanted to share these with a wider audience and help to develop my own thinking and see what happened.

I kept it going for other reasons.  I discovered that people read, and interacted with my thoughts. It helped me to develop them further but helped me make new contacts, new friends, and through all of this become a more rounded professional and human being (or so I hope).

It has attracted some negative feedback at times.  There haven't been many online debates about the content of the blog, but a few times people have come to me offline and in person and asked questions about it.  When I first started it, someone in my ex organisation who was on maternity leave read it and got in touch with her own manager to ask a question about my blog.  At that point it was a new thing, and no-one else in that organisation had come across it.  Suddenly, news of my blog spread like wildfire across the organisation and I was duly hauled in to explain myself.  And yet I'd done nothing wrong, other than perhaps not let the organisation know I was starting a blog and what it would contain.  So I got into trouble and to be honest that helped me move on in lots of ways.

But there's been overwhelming positive feedback, both on and offline, to things I write.  Some very kind and talented people have said some really kind and honest things about what I have written, that has made me realise I might be doing some good and might actually be a reasonable writer too.  Its for those people and others like them that I keep going.  I learn a lot from all the comments I get and enjoy entering into debate with people about my thoughts, as its only through debate that I learn and develop.

Blogging has led onto lots of other things, which I have listed HERE.  These are all great things and I'm really proud of all of them, and there's a bit of a snowball effect as one thing tends to lead onto another.  I'm immensely excited when a conference organiser gets in touch and wants me to speak on a topic because they've read a blog post I've done - or when a journalist gets in touch for a comment because they've done likewise.  I've a massive ego as many know, but it is nice to know people are reading it.

It also surprises me when people I don't expect to say that they read it.  Lots of people in my ex-organisation who I bump into from time to time tell me that they read every post, which amuses and pleases me, even people I didn't expect to bother.  I have found close friends who have admitted to reading it and I also know that my mum reads it (hello, mum).  Quite why, I'll never know - it is aimed squarely at HR professionals and yet it does seem to appeal beyond that.

Here's the posts that have proved the most popular in terms of numbers of reads:

1. #connectinghrmcr - published October 2015, this detailed my first foray into the #connectinghrmcr world and how I, as an introvert, coped with networking
2. Tail wagging the dog - published July 2016, this looked at how performance management was changing and what I was thinking at the time about it
3. The Professionals - published January 2017, this shared my thoughts on the development of the CIPD's new principles
4. Ignite! - published June 2016, this was a lead in to a talk I was giving at #CIPDNAP16 and hinted at what was to come...
5. Let's get flexible - published April 2016, this was my views on flexible working and why some organisations struggle with it
6. The Spark - published May 2016, this covered my developing thoughts on employee engagement and what happens when it is lost
7. Rhyme Time - published June 2016, this covered the reaction to my rhyming Ignite at #CIPDNAP16 and shared the backstory of it
8. Moving on - published January 2016, this shared why I was leaving one organisation to join another, and what that felt like
9. Wedding bells - published August 2016, this was a personal post talking about my imminent wedding to Katie in Cyprus
10. Bazuka that VUCA...part 1 of 2 - published October 2016, this was an expansion of thoughts I'd shared in a CIPD webinar on the future of HR

I enjoy blogging.  There's no grand plan about when or how I blog, or on what subjects.  I enjoy writing - it helps me organise my thoughts and provides me with a record of them and how they've developed. It enables me to interact with my Personal Learning Network (PLN) and to generate debate and learning via them.  I've learnt loads about HR and leadership by blogging, as it forces me to research and to expose myself to new ideas, and I'm definitely a better HR professional for having started this blog over two years ago.

Of course I'm not new to blogging per se, having had a wildly popular anonymous blog detailing my single man dating exploits 5-6 years ago, and that one really did have a life of its own, but in this blog I'm me - nothing more, nothing less - and its all that's needed.

I'm not sure where the blog is going, other than it will keep going - as long as it keeps getting read and responded to, as it needs that kind of fuel to survive.  Right now I'm enjoying it.

And I hope you are too.

Thanks for sticking with me for 100 posts, and a really big well done if you have read even a third of them over that time.  Thanks for all the shares, retweets, comments, and debates.  Thanks to you for being part of my PLN and helping me more than you know.

Till next time...

Gary

PS in other news, I'm taking part in the Winning Mindset online coaching programme delivered by Jeremy Snape (The Sporting Edge). Its a nice complement to my personal training journey and also how I see HR operating within businesses in terms of organisational effectiveness, so watch out for some blogs sharing some of this content and reflecting on its use.