An experiment of sorts: 2020 marked the year my two kids came home to stay (they were with in-laws previously). Looking at my writing output on edonn.com, mostly long-form writing, it's markedly down. Short-form writing, on the other hand, on LinkedIn and Workplace has gone up. Play to your strengths, eh?
How do you start a blog?
I was asked by a colleague how she could start a blog. Wasn't too sure. "I suppose," I said, "you just write." "Write about what?" she asked. "I don't know. About anything you want to write about, I guess." Then she asked, "where can you write?" I told her she could try some free sites.... Continue Reading →
A decision to write
I've got nothing to say; nothing to write about today. So this day passes without a word being written. Same thing tomorrow. And the day after. Before you know it, the year is over, and not a word is put down. No. That year's not this year. Just 10 minutes ago I thought: today I... Continue Reading →
The Attention Asset
There's a post on Seth Godin's blog today called Do we value attention properly? In it, he argues that we need to be careful not to discount the attention we get from our audience, i.e. anyone who pauses to listen to us, because attention is valuable. He makes a good point: attention if leveraged properly... Continue Reading →
Are you what you write? (or, Machiavelli the playwright)
I just watched a documentary on Niccolò Machiavelli. You may know him as that scheming, deceitful, and generally rotten guy who wrote the political bible The Prince. So infamous is he that his name has become an adjective synonymous with evil. Just see what Merriam-Webster has to stay about being "Machiavellian": suggesting the principles of conduct laid... Continue Reading →
Please let me know if you have any questions
"Please let me know if you have any questions," wrote I in an email I was drafting. It has long been my signature email sign-off, but this time I was feeling a little reflective and reconsidered writing that line. What did it really mean? But try as I might I couldn't quite put my finger on... Continue Reading →
The number of books one reads is not as important as the number of times one reads a book
The last time I wrote I mentioned that I was reading the book Dedication – The Huawei Philosophy of Human Resource Management, by Huang Weiwei. Well, I've finished, and I must say that it was great. Just thought I'd pen down one more of the passages that I thought made great sense and felt extremely relevant... Continue Reading →
On Blogging and Slogging
Ah, it's been a while since I last published anything here. Feel a little guilty, but thankfully not too much. Crazy work commitments in the months prior (man, I've been busy) followed by a two week holiday (to America!) meant I couldn't devote as much time as I'd have liked to writing here. Which reminds... Continue Reading →
Trashing the first draft
He looked at my screen, saw the first draft of an e-mail I'd been penning, and shook his head. It wasn't pretty. It didn't read well. The message that should have been communicated within the first line was placed below another eight lines of filler. And to think I'd been working on this for the... Continue Reading →
How to write shorter, better e-mails
Each time I complete writing a lengthy e-mail, I save it in my drafts and let it sit there for a while (sometimes, just a minute or two would do). Then, returning to it, I look at it through the eyes of my recipient, and imagine how I’d read it if I had only ten... Continue Reading →