⇥ Let the world see your opinions

Is the fear of what others might think about your opinion stopping you from sharing it online? Don’t be. We’re all idiots at something.

Blogging—or writing articles, or books, or presenting at conferences—can be an excruciating exercise in public humiliation. Placing your opinions out in the open for everyone to see is a bit like snorting black pepper: it often brings no particular pleasure, and you run the risk of sneezing all over yourself.

The reality is, most people will disagree with whatever opinion you put out there. On this blog, that has happened far more often than I care to remember—most memorably, when I mentioned what I really think about the GPL (an opinion that has not changed, incidentally). But, hey, at least I’m not advocating the systematic elimination of members of one gender from the IT world.

Far more frighteningly, however, is to discover that people actually value your opinion. The exit(0) column that has appeared on the pages of php|architect from the first issue was initially nothing more than a throwaway piece designed to round up our page count. Writing it is one the least-favourite thing on my list of least-favourite things to do: it takes a disproportionate amount of time to come up with one, it’s a monthly commitment from which I cannot easily get out of and, believe me, it’s not that easy to be insightful in exactly 800 words.

Still, I get tons of feedback on my exit(0) columns. Attendees at our conferences tell me that they read exit(0) religiously, people comment on them on Twitter—and they are probably the most popular pieces I write. That’s nothing short of scary, because I never thought much of them to start with, and now I find I am very self-conscious about writing one!

And that’s why your opinion counts

If you look at sharing your opinions as nothing more than a way to make a faux pas, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity: that of learning from the people around you. Those people who choose to share their thoughts through the Internet know that there is enormous value in doing so: not only can you promote yourself and your opinions—something which can be very profitable—but you also get the opportunity to discuss them with others and, if you are smart, learn from their particular experiences.

Of course, when I say “Internet,” I really refer to Internet-based systems that foster two-way (or multi-way) communication. That’s why I prefer writing on this blog or Twitter than in the magazine: there are many more possibilities to be had from throwing an idea out there and listening to what others have to say about it. That said, of course, the magazine articles look much better on a résumé, but there is nothing that prevents anyone from doing both—in fact, you can use one to promote the other.

So, if you don’t have one, start a blog. If you have one, write something on it as frequently as you can. If you have a Twitter account, use it to share your own thought instead of retweeting someone else’s. And, if you write something idiotic, don’t worry too much about it: as my high school math teacher used to say, if an idiot speaks in the middle of a deserted forest, nobody is there to set him straight.

Image credit: “Intercanvi d’opinions” by xcaballe.