Does Blogging Help or Hurt A Career?

Blogging Can Help – or Hurt – Your Career...blogging has become an impulsive contemporary art for careerists. Its a type of "Personal Branding". Should you develop your own blog or shouldn’t you? Will it help or hurt your career? Here are some excerpts from John O'Connor's article on blogging to present this canvas to you as a primer of sorts to think about this issue. John M. O'Connor, MFA, is the President of Career Pro of NC, Inc., a comprehensive career services organization specializing in Executive Outplacement, Corporate Outplacement, Federal/Military Career Transition and Consulting.

HOW BLOGS CAN HELP:
1. You have an audience. Keep it positive.
Blogging may add to the company’s brand and your position as an authority or subject matter expert within your company or your field.

2. Paint the right picture. Drive customer confidence.
As you site critical sources and make intelligent, important observations your personal blog augments your position within your company and promotes your company. You never bash your company. You can be yourself and be authentic.

3. Get a raise and a promotion. Defend the faith.
Blogging helps you document and publish your ideas while associating with great people.

HOW BLOGS CAN HURT:
1. One small step. Negative posts can be fatal.
Blogging can open you up for many legal, liability and employment questions, problems or crises.

2. Pictures tell a thousand stories.
Enough said.

3. Beautiful art can be destroyed.
Imagine you’re an artist like Michelangelo dipping brush to paint; a seemingly limitless creative well. You’re halfway done with your masterpiece, the signature of your worklife and rather spiritual mission. As you take your impossible position on the scaffold to paint more of the Sistine Chapel you have a thought. Imagine you could destroy your Sistine Chapel with one strike of the match. Like the great artist, blogging can help you take ownership of your career and worklife vision. Of course, it can also be just for fun too. But let’s also realize you, like the great artist, have the power to create or destroy your career future with just a few strokes or decisions.