I have bandied around the idea of a blog for a few months, and I have had two issues with it that have stopped me to this point. First, I want to find a topic in my sector (nonprofit) that is not being over done, or beaten to death, but I haven’t found that or my niche yet. Second, I wonder if I will have the time to do a blog and still work and job hunt. I have a need for balance, and part of that means not being in front of the computer all day and night long.

I do appreciate your candor, your encouragement, and your belief in the power and branding of a blog. I also know I “should” do one for the good of my next opportunity, and I appreciate all the information you have shared with me for other blogs to look at. It is helping to not only find other blogs to follow, it is also helping to push me to start mine!

Thank you,

Bret Payne

@ Janet – and you said I was funny! You can have over 20% of my blog readers, how’s that? :p I can’t really comment on Twitter (I’m not sold on it) but here’s a GREAT post (take the 2 minutes to read this, and the comments) called If Jesus Twittered

@ Robert – proof you are funnier me and Janet put together

@ Wendy – thanks for this – I didn’t say that you can edit your public profile so that you have your name (or whatever) in the URL. Good thoughts (although I don’t think LinkedIn allows you to put images – that’s where JibberJobber comes in )

@ John – excellent advice – keep your comments clean and intelligent and maybe years down the road you won’t regret them.

@ Anita – good thoughts and resources. I try hard to spel gude but sometimes it just doesn’t wourkout. Do you think any less off me? (jk – I agree)

@ Blake & Francie – I agree that you can’t blog without blogging, but the title was catchier (and smaller) than “how to participate in blogs” or “how to whet your whistle with blogs without committing” or something like that. I agree with you both, and am a huge advocate of having a blog to quantify your personal brand… but I have readers that aren’t quite there yet And, I like the devils advocate thing because I still think this strategy is second-rate to having your own blog! (BTW, Blake is a veteran blogger, one of the first I read when I was studying out blog stuff – we’ve yet to meet in person even though we are about an hour away from one another).

@ Bengt – one of my big messages/themes is to market yourself (I have a category on the left called “personal branding” … and I think having a blog is one of the best ways to quantify a personal brand. So this post is all about how to develop, extend and quantify your personal brand online – and is just a technique – one of many. But of course, I agree with you, you can’t blog without blogging (well, with the exception of what I posted). That’s like saying I’m walking without walking. Cool title though, eh?