More Than A Blog: A Personal Outlet & Resume
Being online is easy. You have millions of social networks and outlets where you can register for free. If you want, there are even some that can give you something extra if you pay something extra. But almost since the dawn of the Internet, the best representation of our (inner) selves were blogs. There you can not only express yourself in words, pictures, music and video, but you can design the place from the scratch if you know how. Or you can have somebody to help you with that. In any case, Ken is doing all sorts of right things with this bog Lahikmajoe.me.
Who Exactly?
Ken was raised in Texas, studied music in Cincinnati, moved here from Colorado and now is based in Munich, Bavaria for more than a decade. You can find him online under Ken Macbeth Knowles, which is quite fitting because in addition to tea drinking, he writes about anything tangentially related to it, whether it be music, media and/or culture. He is a freelance writer for many years that is fascinated with new media, but you can still find him engrossed daily in a print newspaper.
Like most writers, it looks like that Ken likes to work from backstage and leaves spotlight to others. At least that is what we got from the subtitle of the blog: “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. Hist posts vary from bar hopping in a sportive season, Eurovision song contest, questions about Club of the Polish losers, attending Augmented Reality events and of course, Oktoberfest. There are even posts about serious topics, like Scottish referendum or Ferguson, so don’t be surprised with the variety of topics.
Where It Counts
However, Ken made his blog with another thing in mind. It serves him, not only as a creative outlet and diary of daily observations, it also serves him as a job application and portfolio. There are many steps and elements and it is easy to screw them up. Although quite easy to read and often informal, there are blog posts that are talking about more serious stuff like mix of cake and online presence, what social media strategies not to use or straight up shameless self promotion. What is also important, he is updating his blog very frequently.
But what really counts is the structure of the elements. Long or outsourced posts are shortened and linked, so you can read them on anew page. You can browse through the archive by months or categories that are sorted out alphabetically. Besides having a .ME domain, another big advantage is using WordPress as his platform. It is easy to use for beginners and customisable enough for advanced users. But the crucial part is the Hire Me page. It will take a few minutes to answer the few questions and then he’ll set up an online meeting or phone call to discuss your job offer further.
It is easy to screw up your online presence, but that is not the case with Ken’s Lahikmajoe.me blog. It is interesting read and aschool example of a good blog. You may like this particular American in Munich or not, but you can’t dispute that he’s doing this right. So don’t be shy and follow his example and make your own (.ME) blog!
