A couple of years ago, I had written about my blogging system. “At any time, I have a list of topics that I can write on. And that is good enough to get started. Once I start writing, the ideas flow. Some of the writing is original, while at other times I will aggregate what others have written in a single place. This reading and collating also helps me learn new topics. At times, I find myself going back to my earlier writings to refresh my own thinking.”
I have now settled into a routine. Most of my blogging happens in the early mornings on weekends. Sitting at my home desktop, I write for about 2-3 hours in a flow. (On weekdays, it’s either gym or walk so I don’t get that kind of contiguous time.) I will typically have thought through the essay theme, the sub-topics, and the opening sentences by the previous night. This way, I can begin writing without wasting precious time thinking about what to write.
Much of my recent writing has been around new ideas in marketing. Since I write for myself, there is no pressure to be perfect. Each essay moves my thinking forward. Even as I have a broad structure in mind, as I write the story takes its own course. This is what I like the most: the process of writing itself begets more writing. For example, during the process of thinking about how AI will impact marketing, many sub-themes came up: large customer models, co-marketer, and digital twins. I then also explore synthetic data and vector search, both of which were new to me. In email too, a similar process has followed. Writing about AMP led me to Email 2.0, 3.0 and eventually Action Ads and Epps (Email Apps). What I like most is naming the ideas. Velvet Rope Marketing, Generative Journeys, Co-Marketer, Inbox Commerce, Segment Twins, Singular Twins, Profipoly, Action Ads, Epps – these are all words and phrases I have come up with.
In the past year or so, one big change in my writing has been the use of AIs. I use a combination of ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to help with several tasks: exploring ideas, summarising my past writings, expanding and improving on briefs, helping write stories from my ideas, and preparing briefs to encourage others to read what I have written, critiquing what I have written, and adding new ideas to what I have written. Working with AIs has been the biggest change in my blogging process, and one that has helped make the process faster and better. It is almost as if I am working with a co-blogger: one who understands my thinking and works interactively with me. More than my specific voice (which is of course always there), what I want is to ensure a proper and full exploration of the ideas I am writing about. This is where the AIs excel.
The key to getting the most from the AIs is of course prompting. This is where my past writings and briefs come in. It is not just about “Write an essay about email apps” but more like “Here is all that I have written so far. Improve and expand on it.” To borrow a phrase from Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Klarna and the Sun”, the AIs have become my “Artificial Friend”. I have used the AIs to improve my titles and help me with naming (“Give me a better phrase for Singleton Twin starting with the letter “S” – and it came up with Singular Twin). I talk to it as if it’s a person working alongside me.
For me, blogging has become a way of life, an integral part of me. It frees my imagination, fuels ideas, and births innovations. The words I wrote four years ago still ring true: “I think every entrepreneur should write a blog. Not just tweets or pithy LinkedIn posts. But write about one’s ideas and aspirations in real-time. Give people a glimpse into the world that you see. Because that is what you are really doing – creating a future ahead of others. And blogging is a great way to accelerate that future.”
