The Realpolitik of Technical Pre-Sales
My most recent post on Packet Pushers, using the patented Greg Ferro Arse-First method (or at least the bits of it I liked and wasn’t already doing). I love writing for Packet Pushers but I struggle somewhat to produce articles of value. Definitely another lab-type piece due at some point
Well I’ve just finished Greg’s book on blogging, in short it’s very good. Certainly it gave me insight into why some things have worked better than others. It provides a great intro to the subject and lots of more intermediate/advanced advice. Without giving too much away, It’s validated my decision to use an off-the-shelf blogging package (Posterus and now WordPress) and made me think harder about some aspects of my writing, i.e. intros, titling etc, and not to worry about things like SEO. The biggest insight came with the development of ideas; a couple of things I have done recently I now realise I’ve tried to express three or four different ideas in the space of 500 words and I need to cut that down to one or two.
The point is made several times that there is more than one way of doing things; if you follow the recipe in the book to closely IMO you’ll end up with a lot of very similar and not that interesting to read posts. My “Free-form Jazz” style of writing is perhaps the other end of the scale. I’m aware that I still need a lot of work on my writing discipline (which in moderation, is a good thing) and this book has/will definitely help.
In short a good read and the advice is definitely worth the asking price, as if you had to ask.
Once again you can find the book on Lean Pub, “The Arse First method of Technical Blogging” by Greg Ferro
I’ve now completed my trilogy on the Juniper MAG boxes and the final part is now on Packet Pushers. As I’d hinted previously it was a bit of doozy, not least of all because of a ran into a rare hardware issue which fortunatly I was able to solve without violating any warranty stickers..
This will be last PP post for a little while as I need to focus on other commitments but will be back soon, I’ve a training course booked in a couple of weeks and I’m bound to have something to say about that 🙂
Have a read and let me know what you think
http://packetpushers.net/what%e2%80%99s-new-amp-unboxing-of-juniper-junos-mag…
The second part of my unboxing of the new Juniper appliances is on line, it talks about the initial conosle setup of both the IVE and Junos parts. Taking into account some feedback (thanks) I recieved on Part I, I’ve started on Part III in anger. However, after running into some interesting issues perhaps unique to chassis based equipment I’ve probably got enough for a part four. I’m going to write it all up and see how it goes, but there is part of me that would relish a “Part IV of III”. The ultimate goal of course would be a “trilogy of five” posts.
You can find part II here on Packet Pushers, as ever would appreciate your feedback!
Given that I can’t sing, dance, do impressions (except perhaps “Consuela“) or have the actual talent to invent anything from scratch, then my options for global mega-stardom are pretty limited..So as per usual I’ve stumbled into blogging for anyone who’ll ask. So far that’s Juniper Networks and now, home of the uber-nerds at Packet Pushers. It was an honour to be asked for both and I hope to be able to contribute for both on a reasonably regular basis. Juniper is one of the major vendors I work with on a daily basis and blogging for them is very different from blogging for myself (posterous) and and Packetpushers. Juniper (and particularly @Zoesands) have been very encouraging in developing my style and writing more or less what I want, corporate blogging is actualy a bit easier than writing for PP. The spotlight is greater on J-Net, and it pushes me to be the best communicator I can be. Blogging for PP (again, still early days) is tougher as in a smaller group, the eyes are fixed upon it more clearly. If I published a blog on J-Net that was unspeakable drivel, it’d be deleted in a nano-second and forgotten about even quicker. PP is stuffed full of CCIEs; whilst I question the sanity of their marketing tactics of late; you have to respect their training program and anyone who has sat and passed the labs. I doubt that you’ll ever see a bad blog post from me on PP, I’m not sure that I’d dare submit one..
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