Good day everyone. If you like to draw letters on paper, or pixels on the screen, and especially when it adds up to some complete thoughts, you will come to the decision to share it with others around you. The reasons can be very different from the banal curiosity to professional interest. And if you are in addition to a graphomania like me, then you generally have no choice.

I went through all the stages from an anonymous blog to writing professional articles, and recently a cherry appeared on this layer cake. Now I can say with confidence that I have tried all the ways of self-expression that modern technologies provide. What I want to talk about.

Forums

The simplest and most initial stage. There is nothing easier than a mood to participate in any discussion on hundreds of pages. And the number of users and the administrative hierarchy add different tastes to this dish. You can choose any role from an expert on growing chrysanthemums to a zealous opponent of the forum administration.

My active participation in the public forums took place in the years 2000-2008. I even managed to become the administrator of the people in the forum of 100 thousand people, where the children of spree, intrigue, and all the orgy created by young people with unlimited access to a computer were going on. It got to the point that I had an animated avatar, although the rules that I lobbied, being appointed to admins, it was strictly forbidden.

Then I founded and for a long time admin a highly specialized forum, which is still alive today. I regret to say that the forums are dying. Life is warming in some specific areas where the forum is convenient, as a platform, but now there are no interesting forums of general orientation.

The forums are still a great sandbox to hone their skills. The forums give remarkable anonymity. In the end, the forum you can always throw, but the memory will remain for centuries, especially if you wrote something sensible.

Anonymous Personal Blog

Personal blog becomes the next stage. I opened my first blog in 2003 in LiveJournal, and kept another one on the forum. Looking back, it's hard to say why I needed two blogs. But that was, that was. Blogs are the next stage of socialization, here you have friends by interests. If you maintain proper digital hygiene, you can not be recognized all the time of use.

The problem lies precisely in anonymity, if you want fame, even in narrow circles - this is not your option. Sooner or later, de-anonymization will occur, which may have a negative impact on you, because you run an anonymous blog. The consequences of this can be very different. And, of course, the range of your topics will be extremely limited, for example, you can hardly write on professional topics. If this is what interests you, the next section will help you.

Admittedly, personal blogs on known platforms are dying , along with their platforms. Now there are practically no convenient social networks for periodic blogging. Yes, LJ fits perfectly, but he died. And Vkontakte with Facebook, yet somewhat for another.

Last year, after 15 years, I closed my anonymous blog.

Professional articles to order

If you are professional enough, sooner or later you will be asked to write an article on a given topic. This is a qualitative step forward. The problem is that you are strictly limited to the topic. And the editor who made the plan can understand your specifics very vaguely. Then you will write about employee tracking programs. But if your material is interesting or of high quality, you can be given some freedom in covering the topic .

Typically, such tasks arrive with extremely tight deadlines and specific volume requirements. For example, 9000 characters in 2 weeks. As you understand, they do not pay for it. But, if you want to follow the path of an evangelist in your area, a person who promotes and promotes certain areas, this will be a good start. Sooner or later you will be able to become a specialized PR manager and opinion leader . For example, in the field of information security, Alex Lukatsky passed this way.

If you feel strong, you can try.

Literary Negro

If in the articles to order you write on a given topic, then becoming a literary Negro, you also will receive money for it. Literary Negro writes under the name of another author, the customer works. This is usually impressive material in terms of volume, in my case it was a book on economic analysis (120 A4 pages)

Usually this phenomenon is common in the field of journalism, and other areas related to the word. In our IT field, this is all somewhat worse. Where and how you find a customer, there is a great mystery. I myself subscribed to this completely by chance, having heard the conversation in the corridor. Then money was paid normally - 2.5 of my salary. How now with this I do not know.

The direction is extremely specific, time goes on, there is not enough power to do this, the customer’s particular opinion must be taken into account. When I passed the source after 6 months, I felt like a mountain fell off my shoulders. I don’t even know the further fate of the manuscript, such as from a distance, and I was even co-sponsored.

Lesson of your choice.

Corporate training

At some point, you can be promoted to face-to-face training of your customers. You have created something, and now you have to train users to use it. I must say that this thing is quite burdensome. Because Often training takes place among people far from IT and IB. My first experience was to teach all Moscow schools the basics of personal data protection. Then I traveled all the districts, where 200-300 people gathered in the hall, and you have to tell them that now they will have to work more, and they will be paid the same amount. One time I was almost beaten in the North-East Administrative District.

If you can’t avoid learning, a good knowledge of the topic will help you. In case of any conflicts, you can always refer to the fact that you just performed the work ordered. And of course, you will be able to shake the skill of public speaking.

Probably the most controversial type of self-realization is that teachers or people with specialized education should teach.

Corporate presentations at conferences

This is the next step, when you do not just express your thoughts in writing or are in a loyal audience, as with learning, but convey what you need to a wide audience. This is a classic of public speaking, to go or not to go, in which everyone must decide independently. Usually the employer sends such speeches, less often the vendor.

Each speaker at the very beginning must solve the following tasks:

• An interesting topic (at least not banal);
• Slides This is a separate art, which you can talk about long and enthusiastically .
• Speech text. It is necessary to know it at least in general terms, so as not to read without notes.
• Timing The unpleasant fact that it is possible and not to have time in the allotted 10-15 minutes to bring the necessary thought, or vice versa quickly shoot back and the remaining time to wait for questions from the audience, which usually does not happen.
• Appearance. Public performances are quite demanding on appearance, although now there is a tendency to simplify, you can read even in a sweatshirt.

I advise everyone to try at least once, after that you
You will know for sure whether to continue developing or abandon this business.

Conference Interview

Perform, albeit under the record, maybe the majority. But suddenly you are caught by a journalist hired by the organizers who wants to take a flash interview.

Here is one of my first attempts:

Everything was terrible here. Adrenaline beats over the edge, paralyzing the brain. After 5 years, everything happened not much better.

The main problem of the interview is that you most often are completely unprepared for them. Imagine the situation, you just spilled out all the energy, and each performance is stressful, unless, of course, you have already done hundreds of performances, and here you are taken by surprise, you need to urgently concentrate, because you are being shot and exactly this will be shown somewhere. Interviews remain for me the most difficult test.

Expert opinions to the news

When you become quite famous in a journalist, you will occasionally receive requests for comments. I do not know how this happens, maybe they exchange contacts. But I received requests for comments on current topics for another couple of years, as I quit.

It happens so, the journalist wants to highlight the latest news, and to increase the effect he wants to gather expert opinions. As you understand this is quite a difficult task, the expert may be busy, on vacation, do not understand anything in the news topic. Yes, it is also desirable that the experts were different.

The expert is also not sugar. News can be 2 hours of life, and you should already not only know the essence, but also cover adjacent areas, often make a forecast, and all this in 30-40 minutes, because material time to publish. And of course, it is desirable that your opinion was still original. Once I sat in the car in Pushkino for 30 minutes, writing my extremely “competent” opinion through SMS.

It looks like this.

And there is such a cool thing as "an expert who decides to remain anonymous." This is when an opinion is necessary, but you cannot personalize it for some reason. On the hottest topics of 2014-16, you can find the most unexpected opinions, especially if you know who "wished to remain anonymous."

Professional articles with a free topic

Actually - this is the development of articles with a given topic. If you have proven themselves well, give high-quality content, you can be given a blank check to fill in the empty bands. Actually, this is the pinnacle of written professional creativity.

If you have reached this point - congratulations, I have reached it, until I got to it.

Personal presentations at conferences

And this, as the name implies, the top - personal appearances. When you are happy to see at any conference to listen to you. And can pay for flights, accommodation and entertainment. In the field of information security, such, for example, is Rustem Khayretdinov, whom you can listen to always and everywhere, so that he does not want to tell.

Personal professional blog

The most overvalued category, unlike the anonymous one, is that you can write on your professional subject. And you will begin to be perceived as an expert. The problem with professional blogs is that the topics are running out . And if in IT, there is still some development, then in IB you will throw at any informational reason, at any draft government decree, and your colleagues will do the same. Decay and hopelessness.

If you still dare, then you need to be an expert in a given field and give an unexpected look at the current situation to not be like everyone else.

Personal semi-professional blog

I put a semi-professional blog above professional because of the wider scope of topics. Agree, it is interesting to write about new vulnerability scanners easier than about scanners and about the underlying topics. That is why I moved my blog from direct information security rails to more general topics.

As you understand, in this case you are public - there is no place further. And a lot of what you said will be used against you in the most unexpected places and forms. For example, some Corefeis still cringe about Doshirakov , although it was just a job.

If you are not afraid, then this is the best option to meet your needs for graphomania.

Audio podcasts

Audio podcasts haven't taken off so much. Yet most people are visuals, i.e. perceive the picture with the eyes. Therefore, the most convenient way to use podcasts is to listen in the car or in the transport in headphones.

By themselves, podcasts have increased requirements for the topic and performance, but it is easier to implement, you can record them even in shorts. A big plus is the presence of a host and other guests with whom you can start a dialogue and improve the quality of the content.

Steep format, always gladly participated, but the problem of use is in all fields.

TV debates

The same podcasts, but with a picture. And, therefore, the requirements are added here, as well as to the performance in public - the topic, slides, performance, etc. I managed to participate in the first season of Cyberbataly from Infowatch . Where, by some miracle, I won the audience award. But it was extremely difficult. I would not recommend to participate if you have not tried most of the previous points.

I myself do not appreciate my speech, now I would have done everything differently.

news

It took me 19 years to go through all the previous stages, since the first forums and blogs. And, here, by some miracle, I was approved to read corporate news. A pleasant surprise was quickly replaced by a slight alarm in preparation - the news had to be memorized. These are not rhymed poems, these are press releases, and now I can utter the word “hyperconvergent” without hesitation (and I must say, we recorded this news the fastest).

But Hell itself began on record. Interview dust versus news. It turned out the camera is sticking out all the flaws that you have. Both visual and linguistic. The first issue we recorded was 3 hours, it was 3 hours standing on our feet with a torn meniscus (shortly before that, I was hit by a car). By that time my language did not obey me at all, and I was ready to give up everything and run away, and never to get involved with it again. All the same, I never studied as an announcer, and I’d hardly ever be able to start from the middle of my life.

If you do decide, be prepared for the fact that even though you are a talking head on the screen, there’s a lot of work behind it. And they will make certain demands to you, it is often not easy. It may seem to you that you did a super, but your director will press on you until he achieves an excellent result.

I hope you were interested to swim on the waves of my memory. As you have noticed, I didn’t touch the reasons for this or that activity at all. You may want to promote a personal brand, as it is now fashionable to say, or to share experience - it doesn't matter. But this is a topic for another big conversation.

And that's it for today. Until new meetings.

The article is a cross-post from a personal blog .