I started this blog with means to make my life as a student in communications, as a job hunter and as a copywriter transparent to anyone interested. The effect would be that I would reflect constantly on my progress, that possible employers could follow my process and perhaps to inspire others in a related situation. I remembered a post that Björn Jeffrey at the Swedish Internet strategy bureau Good Old wrote on his blog about the same issue. His problems with the wished transparency on his blog is that he writes a corporate blog, where every word is in the company’s name and he points out a couple of other relevant issues. One, is that clients doesn’t wish for their business to be transparent.
I found out when writing the first 9 posts of this blog that I am very restricted in what I write and it’s easy to end up with: “I did X for X and X said X.” The transparency is clogged. Do the agency where I had my placement appreciate if I mention them, can I write anything about what I did there? Those experiences are vital for my process, alas the reason for writing. When I write about school, can I be critical at all? Will it perhaps affect a teacher in anyway, will it affect my grades or could I upset fellow classmates? If I am critical, do I undermine the education and because of that; put myself in an unnecessary bad light?
In Björn’s case:
Or say that we were in financial trouble. No money left to pay our salaries at the end of the month. What could we possibly gain from telling the world about that? If I was a client and read my consultants blog and saw that they hardly had a dime left in their bank account – I’d get worried. I can’t really justify transparency if it risks disturbing the relationship we have with our clients.
Björn points out the benefits of transparency of ideas and this is where this blog’s purpose lies. My ideas, my thoughts and my views on whatever relevant subject is my capital, that’s what I have to offer. In the beginning of a career I can’t expect the value of my capital to be especially high since I lack experience. So, by making my capital and not my process transparent I might achieve exactly what was my original goal.