Welcome to episode 122 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of our interview with Brianna Blacet in which Brianna shares tips for improving your writing, how we can use storytelling in the interview process, and how she keeps things fresh in her field.
Original Recording Date: 04-21-2021
Brianna Blacet is an Innovation Storyteller at VMware and happens to be a writer. Catch part 1 of our interview with her in Episode 121.
Topics – Improving Your Writing, Stories in the Interview Process, Career Advice
2:35 – Getting Better at Writing

* Nick mentioned people in the tech industry starting out with blog writing to show proof of work and gives the example of David Klee using blogs to launch a company.
* How do people decide what to write about if they want to blog?

* Think of what you write as a product. If you are a subject matter expert you are selling your expertise. Look at the market and the competition.
* When Brianna was paying her dues as a an upcoming writer, she was told what to write and had her work tweaked many times by editors.
* With the democratization of media, we all have the opportunity to tell our story directly to the world with no intermediary and no editor.
* For example, you can publish articles on LinkedIn directly. People want to see writing samples.

* Other ideas include writing short pieces on Twitter or gaining a following on Reddit.
* You could tell your story through video or audio if that is preferred.
* Getting noticed is a different story, but as far as telling your story, the world is your oyster!

* The length of the content…depends.

* If you are writing for social media, for example, the millennial generation has been raised with short form content.
* Sometimes people want to consume things in bite size pieces. But there are ways to format your content with subheadings to make it look like short form content.
* You can become well recognized on Twitter in 280 characters over time.

* How frequently should someone post their content?

* Consistency is key.
* Brianna is a podcaster and learned out of the gate that the number 1 determinant of podcast success is keeping up the cadence.
* This is the world of a news feed where things scroll by quickly. In a world of Instagram stories, you had better post all the time. Things are gone in a heartbeat.
* It helps to post multiple times per day.
* Look at what others do (your competition) and go do it better!
* You are competing for attention. There is so much information out there and only so much you can digest. You are competing for the attention span of someone.
* If you want to be a writer, you have to be faster, stronger, and better than the competition.

* Nick thinks back to reading Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath and how we learn through stories.
* At work,