Self-promotion, bloviating, and pontificating
It wasn’t that long ago that we heard endless horror stories about employees fired for blogging. Now, the Boston Globe tells us that blogs are essential to a good career.
Employers regularly Google prospective employees to learn more about them. Blogging gives you a way to control what employers see, because Google’s system works in such a way that blogs that are heavily networked with others come up high in Google searches.
This resonated because one of the things that market intelligence firms have been saying for the last couple of years when advocating corporate blogging is basically the same thing: blogs rank high on Google because they tend to be link-heavy; therefore, you want the blogosphere talking positively about your company.
The thing is, there’s still a lingering taint surrounding blogs. Consider Sheri Graner Ray’s response to Chris Bateman’s proposal that she blog, that blogs are mostly used for pontificating. (Sheri is a friend, so I take no offense at her saying that about this blog!).
Many have characterized blogs as a big conversation, but in practice they are far less conversational than, say, forums are. There’s one privileged speaker (sometimes several), and there’s an audience. The presumption is that any given blog is merely one node in the conversation — to get the whole picture, you have to visit other blogs. It’s presumed that if you really want to make a point and a name for yourself, you’ll have to have your own blog.
The fact that blogs are essentially somewhat democratized broadcast media is evident in the ways in which they have developed: the frequency of link-log posts, for example, which is classic regurgitation in the same manner that television uses it; the endless obsession with measuring audience metrics; the ways in which ads are embedded into what we call a “feed” — not a serving, but a feed, which conjures up images for food you’ll eat whether you like it or not; the proliferation of “greatest hits” lists on sidebars; the push towards tight audience verticals, where eclectic blogs are punished; and lastly, of course, the celebritization of those who write them.
I am reminded of the big old hardback book compilation on great books of the Western World, which had as its opening a pair of books entitled “The Great Conversation.” As if going from Tristram Shandy to John Locke was involving the common man (I recently saw a statistic that the average American adult consumes more information in one day that a 17th century average person saw in a year).
And yet, there is something to be said for the Boston Globe’s point. Obviously, someone out there with a blog with nothing to say will fail as a broadcaster. Broadcasting is hard, after all, even if it is out of fashion in these user-contributed times (witness the foofoorah over whether there’s any editorial control over links on digg.com). Social network effects mean that people who are initially just participants in a conversation get promoted up to the status of commentator whether they want to be or not — something that we have seen over and over again in forums, for example (I’d specifically cite Darniaq’s evolution from thread participant to essayist as an example, or the trajectory of Abalieno/HRose, out of our little MMORPG community).
How does this apply to games, or even to this website? Well, I’ve certainly felt comfortable enough in various forms of authoritative media: games themselves are one such form despite their heavy dose of interactivity; writing is definitely one such; making use of the UO website to write those first “UO essays” such as A Story About a Tree was absolutely employing a broadcast technique — at the time, it felt very much like a fireside chat to me. And of course, all the talks I give are literally lecturing from a privileged stage down at an audience. This website, which has been around since 1997 or so in one form or another, started not as a conversation but as an archive for exactly what Sheri calls it: pontification. For many years, the only public comment present was actually the guestbook, which was spammed to hell and gone.
A long time ago, on a different website, there was a game developer asking folks how to advance in their career, when they were getting passed over in favor of less experienced and possibly less skilled people who happened to be “flashier” or more celebritized. Alas, the answer is to celebritize yourself. Find the circles that you want to move in, be sure you belong in them, and then start taking part. If you belong there, you will quickly know.
This sounds like callous self-promotion, but it’s more than that: it’s also a path towards actually feeling happy. Being in the wrong circles is a sure way to be miserable. You need to be with your tribe. If your tribe is the group of folks who like to pontificate on the web about game design, then you should join in.
The “taking part” bit is important, though. You see, there’s an interesting tug of war there between regarding one individual’s opinion freely offered as being either self-important bloviating or a contribution to public discourse. Anyone who gets up on any sort of stage or takes any sort of podium has some ideas about their self-importance. There’s no stones to throw here, because just about everybody wants their opinions to be valued. When you talk to broadcasters who haven’t lost their enthusiasm for the practice or entertainers who do it for the love of what they are doing, a common thread that emerges is that they do it for the audience, not (only) for themselves.
“Give away things of value” is the core lesson. That’s how you self-promote effectively, and earn a lasting positive reputation. It’s how you earn respect — even when you are pontificating merrily along offering up stuff you think is good only to be shown to be utterly incoherent or flat out wrong.
In our own little circle of MMORPG fans, we have seen that people who might otherwise have been obscure have gained celebrity thanks to their open sharing of their thoughts. We have seen people hired on the strength of their thinking processes. We have even seen, in miniature, concerns over biased reporting. Just yesterday, I was drawn in, briefly, into the simmering controversy over whether or not danah boyd is truly an authority on Wikipedia… which strikes as almost metafictional, actually. Is the PhD student researcher on social software authoritative over the user contributed encyclopedia’s practices, or is the user-contributed encyclopedia entry authoritative over the career of the researcher? Paging Escher.
FWIW, I see this site as being much like reading my notes taken during class aloud to a bunch of folks who missed class that day; I’m usually only one day ahead of everyone else, and only because I was the only one not stricken with the flu. All errors in transcription and understanding are mine, and boy, will there be sone doozies — don’t expect to ace the test. But hey, we’re all in this class together, and we’re all really interested in the subject matter, and the classroom debates are often really good, even if the professor seems rather distracted by big money over in the private sector. Besides — any status I might have as an authority is strictly temporary. I had a doctor’s appointment the day that the class took over Eve, for example. We’re all students with megaphones.
So, bloviate away. If your notes suck, we won’t borrow them, and no one was hurt. But if they’re good, then maybe you’ll get recognized, hired, promoted, celebritized… and then you get to the hard part, which is doing actual good work. 🙂
9 Responses to “Self-promotion, bloviating, and pontificating”
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Wow, what timing. I’m just now creating my first blog.
Overall, I’d like to think that blogs are a sign of a larger change we’re seeing in the technical world, where individuals are viewed as more than just the sum of their technical skills and previous accomplishments. Blogs seem to be a good way to measure the more organic things about a person that are otherwise hard to see.
The question I have is where to draw the line. A blog is a personal space where a person can express themselves (and also exercise their writing skills). If I have to worry about what I say, it some how feels like it defeats the original purpose.
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The problem is twofold: many smart people have learned that being too outspoken can get you into trouble. I know I mouthed off once or twice to a teacher in school that was wrong, but I quickly learned that authority figures have their own ways of asserting authority (read: poor marks). So, some people learn that they should keep their heads down and just do their work. Therefore, self-promotion comes hard.
I think the other major issue is a misunderstanding about what blogs are. Most people see them as a place where emo kids can whine about how unfair life is. I’ll admit, that’s what kept me from starting up my own blog for a while. Finally I realized that after reading Damion and Scott’s blogs for a while that you can have intelligent conversations on a blog, so I started my own. I usually refer to my own blog as a “professional blog” to distinguish it from the masses of personal blogs out there. I usually keep personal posts on my blog to a minimum in order to avoid confusion.
Why do I blog? Because for online game developers it’s important to talk to the community. There have been numerous community sites that we’ve spoken on in the past, starting with the infamous Lum the Mad site. Now that the sites have splintered and fractured and there are so many of them, I found myself posting the same thing over and over again. Better to focus that attention in one area to get the message out and interact with the community. And, sure, it also serves as a great tool for self-promotion. Maybe it is a bit of hubris to think that I have something important to say, but perhaps I’m guilty as charged. I’d like to think my screeds have helped to change opinions in the past.
Anyway, some people are always going to be “behind the times”. I read a reply from Ernest Adams on the first link you posted. I remember Ernest writing in 1997 that any real game designer should have a library card, because the Internet isn’t a good replacement for a trip to the library. Of course, that notion is pretty laughable these days. Nothing against Ernest personally, but it seems he doesn’t embrace change as fast as some of the rest of us. Just as long as we can still get the info we want the old fashioned way, things are fine. I just hope that these people aren’t surprised when the bloggers take their stuff and discuss it outside of their control (and possibly even outside their notice).
Excellent post Raph. I really enjoyed finding that link. This comment really defines why I blog:
“Friendly Debate: the ancient Greek philosophers could gather around a fountain and discuss all manner of topics with like minded people, but where do we in the modern world have the same option?”
Where I live, everyone assumes that I am the authority when it comes to gaming. Not just on what games to buy, but the issues within gaming itself (Hot Coffee, etc.) I’m comfortable with that, because I’m nothing more than a big fish in a very small pond. Truth is, I barely scratch the surface of what there is to know. GO is about me having a place to encourage conversation about gaming (which is why there isn’t just one author) so I can learn from the people around me.
Darniaq is money. I’ve always been blown away with his analytical skils in essay. Reading the RK and Psycho blogs is a mandatory thing for me not just because I like you guys, but because you take me places I’d never find on my own – and I learn while I’m there.
That’s the real power of blogs for me: having that group conversation, being exposed to people and ideas I’d never find IRL or on my own, and finding more and more excuses to buy the first round of drinks at the next gathering. Blogs won’t change journalism in the long term, but they will (and already have) changed the communication of ideas.
[…] I was reading Raph’s entry today on self-promotion, bloviating, and pontificating and I realized that I, for a long time, have been in good practice in all three areas of skill — though woefully behind the times in my application of said skills. And though I have graduated to the grand title of software curmudgeon (I prefer the second defintion: irascible and cantankerous suite me much better than ill-tempered), the one thing I have learned in this software world of out-sourcing, in-sourcing, innovation, bubbles, bursts, paradigms, and fads is that one must keep oneself relevant. […]
Great post. I have had a website and/or “blog” of some sort since about 1994, despite might constant feelings of “who cares??” with regard to personal web pages.
I really don’t expect anyone to ever find my personal blog (let alone read it) outside of friends and family, and I often even HOPE that nobody does! So why do it? I enjoy this type of musing, and I like the blog format better than forums from the very respect that it does kind of make it YOUR “radio show” … with listener calls (comments) if you choose.
For me, at a point in life where many friends have moved to remote corners of the planet, it’s a convenient way to have a conversation amongst us all. But I’m also inspired when mere acquaintances, and sometimes even strangers, chime in and leave a comment.
It really is more about the audience moreso than having a platform from which I can vomit my genius onto the starving masses below.
I started blogging because I was reading so much stuff that some of ity was leaking out again. I simply found that I had to write out my ideas, and reiterate what I had read, purely for comprehension. The more I put out, the better I understand what I’m tlaking about. Excatly why I took notes in school. I don’t really need them, but they help me understand better what I’m trying to learn.
Why put it online? Because if there is even a small expectation that someone else will read it, then I’ll actually put effor into it. There’s a feedback loop created even if no actual feedback is ever generated. It works purely on expectations. And it’s provided a way to start and hold conversations with other bloggers.
Ideas in, ideas out. I’m signed up for class and eager to learn.
I was encouraged to start my (much neglected) dev blog by another game dev blogger, but I find that I vastly prefer commenting on other game dev blogs over writing my own. Interestingly, I have, in some cases, gained attention beneficial to my career simply for my comments on sundry mailing lists and blogs. I have even been asked, during an interview, what mailing lists I was on. Our field seems to be one, in particular, where one’s online persona carries a great deal of weight.
Alas, this is true. Luckily, the internet lends us certain advantages that we lacked in the brutal arena of high school social politics. Ideas are more important than beauty. How often do you get that sort of chance? How often do we get to set all the terms with our writing? We’re back in the world before television. Abraham Lincoln can be president again. I can get old, without losing my ticket. That is some seriously powerful juice, my friends.
From “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”: “The assumption that someone is watching is vital to everything we do. To have that taken away would mean death.” If you’ve ever stood on a stage, and been caught up in the feedback loop of audience appreciation, you understand this intuitively. You perform better with an audience. They become a part of the performance, in a very real sense.
You know, I’m glad I didn’t announce that I was looking for a job in any forum where anyone might actually rapidly glean contact information for me, because, good heavens, as it was, I still ended up with more interviews than I scheduled. And I’m not even a celebrity. My peak of glory was a profile in a magazine for teenage girls in Australia, and the theme of that month’s issue was “Fake fake fake: Why celebrity is so faux.” While I am certainly not going to complain about being held up as an example of a woman classier than Paris Hilton, really, who isn’t?
Seriously, I can’t stress this enough, if you have the skills, there are jobs. If you really want to break in, LEARN TO TO DO THIS WORK. And I mean WORK. This isn’t a game. Sure, it’s better than writing billing software, but what isn’t? Part of why I love this work is because it’s challenging. I was a Senior Programmer for years before I became a game programmer. Where do you go from Senior Programmer? Geriatric Programmer? If you’re like me, you’re hungry for something deliciously difficult and cross-disciplinary. Forget believing three impossible things before breakfast. If you can DO three impossible things before breakfast, this is good work for you.
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