Speaking Of Barriers To Creating Content…

This post from podcasting guru Jason Van Orden leaped out and grabbed me by the eyeballs.

If you look at the date of this post…and the date of my last one, I think the reason will be obvious.

Podfading, or postfading, or whatever you choose to call it, are very real issues for medpros. In MEDicine, the tendency is to be hyper diligent, and as a PROfessional, you want your output to be polished, and assume that your audience expects the same.

Add that all up, and you can get some pretty long gaps between your posts. And your show can disappear entirely, if you’re not careful.

Rambo Was Right

Jason — and the relatively large number of people who commented on his post — touched on a perennial danger for both bloggers and podcasters.

Being your own worst nightmare when it comes to posting consistently.

I consider my own writing and editing skills to be above average, especially for my sister site, The EMR/EHR Show, which is based entirely on written text blog posts. And besides Jason Van Orden, I take some cues from another Internet maven, Brian Clark of Copyblogger fame, who has long advocated Quality over Quantity. Better in his opinion (and it’s backed up by some pretty darned good readership stats) to take your time and put out thoughtful, high-value content, than to put out reams of schlock.

I couldn’t have agreed more. But of course I wouldn’t — I’m a medpro.

Quality takes precedence over quantity, no question. But Brian’s advice was aimed more at folks who blog for a living, or at least intend to as a primary endeavor. If you podcast or blog professionally, or with enough frequency to call yourself an inspired amateur, then re-focusing on quality carries specific meaning. It addresses a weak spot you can easily develop, cranking out reams of material on a regular basis.

Medpros don’t have that problem.

We’re healthcare providers first and last. And our blogging — or podcasting — complements that primary activity.

I Have Been Waiting For You, Obi-Wan

For me to put out a “quality” blog post on The EMR Show takes about 3 hours, minimum. That doesn’t include time spent percolating the idea out of the subconscious and coffee grounds of life experience. Writing, mulling, re-writing, then adding paragraph breaks, titles for sections, formatting, and then the jpeg image for the main title…sometimes the prettifying process takes longer than the actual writing.

As it should, if you’re crafting for the ultimate, professional effect. (Ask me sometime, about the proper balance between R&D and Marketing in business.)

But the proof is in the pudding — as a medpro, I sincerely hope you share that value with me.

And if you’re not putting out material with sufficient regularity to keep your audience educated, entertained, and confident that you’ll be around on a reliable basis, then you’ve got to re-examine your creative process.

This is even more critical for the podcasting, which even in theory takes longer than blogging. And let’s not even get started on the additional time needed for editing and posting video.

“Quality” can sink your ship, if you’re not careful as a medpro. Or at least make it dead in the water.

So What Can You Do?

Remember what Churchill said: “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

Remember what every single writing teacher ever told you, when you took those summer classes hoping to become the next Tolkien or Michael Crichton: Whatever you do, keep writing.

Take a tip from the New Agers, and keep the following tips from Jason Van Orden’s post in mind:

• Set a cooking timer to a predetermined amount. When it goes off, it’s done. Good enough is good enough.
• Realize that leaving something out of or even making a mistake in your content is conducive to conversation. It gives people a chance to chime in and share their point-of-view.
• Don’t be afraid to show your “human” side. People connect with that and in the end connecting with your audience is more important than impressing them.

Those last two ring some bells with me, from my early podcasting days, as well as fishing with the so-called “do nothing”method. Often, the most interesting things happen when you just keep it simple, throw it out there, and reel it back in slow, with a minimum of drama.