What You Can Do Starting Today

While the boss continues to hesitate, I'm suggesting to the sales and marketing people that they and their colleagues could do some work on their own until the boss is ready:

• Spend at least a few weeks finding and evaluating some existing business blogs; pick eight or ten that you find interesting and then read them a couple of times every week. See what they do and how they do it; see how they deal with breaking news and with company mistakes and problems and with idiots. They don’t have to be in your industry; they just have to writing about something you’re interested in for whatever reason. Learn from them.
• Identify three or four online news sources in your general area of expertise and read them regularly. They can be a great source of ideas for blog topics.
• Make sure that your list of blogs and news sources is handy: make an HTML page of links if you know how; or just make a Word document with site names and links. Put an easily visible link to that page on your desktop, and use it several times a day.
• Educate yourself. Buy and use the latest edition of Strunk and White, for example. After a few weeks of browsing through it several times a day (really!), you’ll be much more confident about your writing.
• Get your creative juices flowing. Increase your awareness of your professional surroundings if possible. Be a more attentive listener at work: be on the lookout for possible blog topics and for opinions and insights. Ask more questions, ask for your co-workers' opinions. Read some of your company’s old newsletters and press releases; see if you get some ideas. Have lunch with some of the oldtimers at your company, or even some retirees; ask them about their experiences and their ideas. Go to your competitors’ websites and see how they describe their products and services; read their press releases; see what they’re doing.
• Take notes on possible blog topics during all of the above. Keep a small notebook with you at all times (along with your copy of Strunk and White); record ideas in Word documents; just do whatever you’re most comfortable with. Draft a few sentences or a few paragraphs on a particular topic when you feel like it.
• Finally, practice writing, editing, and rewriting your own material, because good writing means re-writing. Be yourself: make it conversational, read what you’ve written out loud to see if it sounds normal and relaxed. And then follow Strunk’s principle: “Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences . . . .”

You can do it.