I’m going to have to admit that it’s been 15 years since I was in the dating game but I spend a lot of time traveling and most of that time is spent sitting in bars throughout the country where I spend an unusually large amount of time meeting women. Sometimes I look at single friends of mine and am stunned at how bad they do at meeting girls, since it’s actually just like blogging.

Now the Internet is an amazing place, it’s enabled us to communicate effectively with millions of people everyday and yet most of us don’t take the time to understand who (or why) we’re communicating. So my first rule is …

Know who you’re talking with

This is the best dating advice I can ever offer and for that reason, it’s also the best blogging advice. Know who you’re talking to and understand why they’re listening. When you walk into a pub and look around there are a lot of pretty girls, my advice is instead of talking to any of them spend some time sitting at the bar and talk to the bartender. This allows you to catch a bit of the game, make small talk with a dozen people and find out which people in the pub are people whom you can talk with.

Blogging is the same, I write a lot of content here on my website but what many of you don’t see is that I also talk by email, telephone or even in person with dozens of my readers. In order to be an effective blogger, I need to understand who I’m talking to and what motivates the reader to take the time to come back and read more.

Know why you’re talking with them

A great sales buddy of mine who I used to travel with was always amazed to see me talking to pretty girls at the pub, he thought I must have known some great secret but it was actually the easiest thing in the world, once I knew why I was talking to them. The problem, in my opinion is that most men talk to women for the wrong reason, especially when they’re traveling on business.

In my case, sometimes I spend more time on the road than I do at home and my family is in a completely different time zone most of the time so when I get “home” from work, the hotel is a pretty lonely place but the hotel lobby or bar is great, you can meet people from all over the world and hear the most fascinating stories from the most interesting people. So my motivation for talking to people is to learn from them and in turn, to entertain them.

I think operating a blog is much the same. I don’t always get a chance to respond to every comment here on the site, but I read every one of them and comment as often as work allows. To me, blogging is about both passing wisdom to others and learning from others. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been corrected by posters and as a result, become a better technology evangelist.

By knowing why I’m talking and who I’m talking to, I’m able to be a better communicator.

Know what you’re talking about

Wow, if there was a way to turn back time and tell myself this 20 years ago I’d have been a much better person. When it comes to blogging or dating, knowing what you’re talking about is an extremely good idea. Actually, I can’t stress how good an idea this is in both cases … 

When it comes to my blog, I’ve been corrected and called out publicly. I’ve had some posters be very critical, and I’ve had some people help me learn, but in the end what I try to do in each post is present the most honest breakdown of technology as I understand it, in an interesting way. Which brings me to my final point …

Be interesting

The secret to meeting pretty girls in bars is a simple one, be interesting.

The same works for blogging. Now, unfortunately I can’t promise that every post will be interesting but what I can promise is that each post is personal and written to ensure that you’re better off after reading it and that’s the secret to both blogging and dating … ensure that people who you’re talking to are people that you understand and ensure they’re better off after they’re done spending a little bit of time with you.