People don’t have time to write (Exhibit 1, 2). The difference between, “We should really write a blog post about that,” and a blog post actually going live on the internet is, mostly, time. (Consider, how many drafts do you have sitting in your files vs. live on the internet?)
One solution is to shorten the time it takes for a person to write and publish a piece. For example, my studio developed a 5-step collaborative writing service that can turn writing a blog post from 20 hours to 3–5 hours for the person.
There are usually two rounds of reviews, which are essentially, because rewriting is thinking.
Our service is currently focused on technical writing and building engineering blogs. We’ve worked with dozens of CTOs, VPs of directors of engineering, and software engineers at companies like Shopify, Flipp, and Wealthsimple to write and release their blog posts.
We also offer editing and coaching as ancillary services to these blog posts: for example, when I worked a full-time assignment as editorial director at WorkOS, engineering leadership was blocked on shipping its Key Values page; the raw material was there, we just needed to take it to the finish line. This need had been outstanding for months, since before I joined the team. I did two one-hour live editing sessions with the engineering manager, and boom—that was that. We shipped it.
What this looks like:
- One example was a piece on security culture we did with Wealthsimple, effectively turning a conference talk into a blog post.
- Another was one we did with Flipp’s co-founder and former CTO, published at The Globe and Mail.
- In a more elaborate way, this looks like the publication we made with the City of Toronto; each story is a collaborative writing post. (More on the process here.)