| I found out that someone did their 4th year honours project focused solely on one of my blog posts: http://extremelearning.com.au/unreasonable-effectiveness-of-... This discovery was quite surreal as I only found out months later, because neither the student nor the lecturer contacted me at the time. Also, despite being a math/IT guy working for many years in government, my blog posts have mainly got the attention of graphical computing people in the private sector (eg animation, game studios, digital imaging, etc). This has meant that my work has made some (small) impact in industries beyond those I have worked in or been formally trained in. This has been a nice surprise. It has also markedly increased the breadth of my professional network to now include practitioners and experts from a diverse set of industries. Finally (like many technical people), although writing is a crucial skill in mid-level management roles as well as consultancy, for most of my career I have had a mental aversion to writing reports, and has been the cause of much work stress. However, after writing intermittently for many months on topics that I have personally chosen, and on topics that I have some knowledge on, I have found that this has had noticeable effects on both my confidence and capacity to write reports in my day job. I can now write reports faster -- and with considerably less anxiety. And thus, between all these points, I believe that I can genuinely attribute much of my recent career successes and opportunities to writing my blog. ;) |