Blogging into Technial Writing

Recently at the Society for Technical Communication group on LinkedIn, a member asked:

Hello, I am considering starting my own blog in hopes of landing a job in Tech Com. Any suggestions on how I should go about that at no cost? For those who have a blog, how has it helped your career? Thanks

At first, this seemed to go against the grain of what I had been taught about both blogging and technical writing.  In Content Rules:  How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, ... , Handley and Chapman ask "Who are you?  What's unique about you?  What are your point of view and your perspective?"  (p. 21) when pointing the reader to defining himself or herself as a blogger.  Similarly, Macarthy suggests:

Solve Problems
One of the main reasons that people search the Internet is to find solutions to their problems, whether it be how to sew a button back on to their shirt, how to house train their dog, or how a guy makes himself irresistible to the opposite sex. Focusing on the solution to problems, especially for businesses, is a great way to come up with new ideas for blog posts and attract web traffic. Think about the problems that your customers want solving and use your expertise to tell them how they (or your business) can help. To go back to my dog example, a pet store owner might blog about the best way to stop your dog from barking, or how to teach it to sit or fetch. Think about how you can become an invaluable blogging resource for both your customers and those searching for solutions to their problems on the Internet.

Based on these quotes, it would seem that you would at least need to be an emerging expert on the topic before you started blogging.  Similarly, authors of technical writing textbooks have both sought to make technical communicators into experts on information delivery and have encouraged us to seek out the expertise of our subject matter experts (SMEs) (Rainey, Turner, Dayton 324).  Therefore, it does not seem that we should expect to turn both of these paradigms (that of blogging and of technical writing) on their heads.

The problem with this line of thought is that it assumes all bloggers are seeking a wide audience of people seeking our technical writing expertise.  However, the newbie blogger really is seeking to showcase his or her own technical writing skills to potential employers.  Rather than answering the questions of how to perform technical writing tasks, this blogger demonstrates how they have a mastery of the technical writing tool.

Therefore, it seems best to encourage all new and aspiring technical writers to blog.

References

Handley, A., & Chapman, C. C. (2012). Content rules: how to create killer blogs, podcasts, videos, ebooks, webinars (and more) that engage customers and ignite your business (Vol. 13). John Wiley & Sons.

Macarthy, A. (2012). 500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy for Business: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and More! Kindle Edition.

Rainey, K.T., Turner, R.K., & Dayton, D. (2005).  Do curricula correspond to managerial expectations: Core competencies for technical communicators. Technical Communication, 52, 323–352.