Episode 1: Intro & Interview With LinkedIn Pulse Star John White
In this first episode, Neil talks about his blogging journey on the LinkedIn Publishing platform and interviews John White who shares his experiences and success with blogging on LinkedIn. Show Notes Exactly 12 months ago today, I was given access to contribute my professional insights on the LinkedIn publishing platform that was being rolled out to its members. One Year later, I have published 83 blog posts that have reached nearly 1 million article views and somehow amassed over 7,000 followers along the way. The greatest reward I have received from writing on LinkedIn is developing real friendships with like-minded individuals on a similar journey. There is a long list of real friendships with fellow writers such as John White, Dustin McKissen and Paul Drury along with many others who inspire me to improve. On a recent holiday to New York, I even met with another LinkedIn friend and mentor Tom Ziegler at the White Horse Tavern where Dylan Thomas famously enjoyed his last whiskey. There are many discussions of how technology is separating us rather than uniting us all. However, my experience of the last 12 months has proved that engaging with your audience and genuine networking that is not used for some kind of cynical self-gain is the essence of how humans learn from each other and move forward. What Next? Now that my fear of hitting the publish on a blog post is a distant memory combined with the knowledge that engagement is about conversations rather than dialogue, a new idea was born. On average there are around 66,000 people reading my blog posts each month, rather than this remain a one-way conversation, I want to engage with every reader. The same fear of hitting publish has returned as my first Podcast became available oniTunes, RSS and Web, where I interview the prolific John White about his similar journey on LinkedIn long-form posting. Podcasting allows me to open up this new communications channel and broadcast your thoughts that I am hoping might even challenge my thought process too. My plan is to offer an open invite to anyone that would like to feature in an interview. You could even just message me from your phone with a recording of a few words with your view on of the latest tech trend posts that I publish here on LinkedIn. This idea was born out of a moment of madness and a genuine desire to connect with each and every one of my readers. Maybe, John Lennon said it best with the lyrics ‘You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us’.