I often get asked about the methodology behind my blogging. (Though I have written a few posts about it already.) 

Most people seem to assume that I sit down on the weekends. Draft a content calendar. Write a bunch of posts. And then queue them up for the coming weeks. 

I don’t do any of that (besides sit down).

Instead, I get up every morning and I write something. Sometimes I wake up with an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head and sometimes I wake up with no idea what I’m going to write about. 

In the latter case I just start reading the internet over breakfast until something interesting catches my attention. But in both cases, what you are reading about is what I am thinking about at that moment in time. 

Because in addition to a blog about cities, this blog is about a discipline and a habit. It is about taking time every day to step away from tasks, sort through my thoughts, and write something. It’s one thing to think about something; it’s another thing to write about it.

And so as much as I hope you all get value out of this blog, it also very much about the personal benefits I receive from doing this same thing over and over and over again.

Now, in terms of the content, the focus is obviously on city building. But I’m more specifically interested in the following 3 areas and their overlap:

If you’re a regular reader you know this.

I didn’t set out to focus in this way, but it just happened over time. This is what I’m passionate about and so I naturally started applying it to our discussion on cities and city building.

And finally, in terms of writing style, I’ve found myself adopting a particular structure.

I often start with a personal note – almost as if this were purely a personal blog. Then I dig into a particular city building issue and try to uncover one particular way of looking at it. And then I end with a decisive position. I’ve seen this format on other blogs and I really like it.

Obviously I don’t always follow this structure. For example, sometimes I haven’t made up my mind on a particular issue. But I try to. I lean towards the belief that a decisive wrong answer is better than a wishy washy right answer. So I push myself to take stances and have an opinion. 

But in the end, the goal of every post is simply to present one idea for all of us to think about and then discuss. I’d like to believe that it keeps us all sharp. Hopefully it’s working for you.

The internet has created an interesting dialogue between personal identities and corporate brands.

In the pre-internet and pre-blogging days, it was harder for individuals to establish a strong brand and public identity for themselves, unless of course they were somebody famous. The cost of doing so was simply prohibitive. To promote meant print, TV, radio, billboards, and so on.

But now promoting can mean anything from tweets to writing a blog like this one. And that has opened up the opportunity for anyone to put themselves out there.

The dialogue, or tension in some cases, is that it becomes a balancing act: what should I be putting out there? Myself, some faceless brand, or a mixture of the two? Brandon Donnelly or Architect This City?

If you a run a company, you’re probably debating this. Do I create a personal social media account, one for my company, or both? And how do I go about managing both?

To be clear, this blog is a personal blog. It’s not a business. 

Some people have suggested I start to allow multiple authors and turn it into more of a platform. But I thought about that and that’s not what I want to do. Which is why I continue to write at brandondonnelly.com (i.e. myname.com). I like that I can send this URL to anyone and they’re able to quickly understand who I am and what I’m about.

Because what I write about are things that I’m passionate about: cities, design, real estate, technology, and so on. But I also mix in personal things so that I feel as if I’m writing a public journal. There are many benefits to keeping a journal (my 4th grade English teacher Mr. Hoad-Reddick told me so). And that’s really how this whole blog phenomenon started – they were personal places.

I often get asked about the methodology behind my blogging. (Though I have written a few posts about it already.) 

Most people seem to assume that I sit down on the weekends. Draft a content calendar. Write a bunch of posts. And then queue them up for the coming weeks. 

I don’t do any of that (besides sit down).

Instead, I get up every morning and I write something. Sometimes I wake up with an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head and sometimes I wake up with no idea what I’m going to write about. 

In the latter case I just start reading the internet over breakfast until something interesting catches my attention. But in both cases, what you are reading about is what I am thinking about at that moment in time. 

Because in addition to a blog about cities, this blog is about a discipline and a habit. It is about taking time every day to step away from tasks, sort through my thoughts, and write something. It’s one thing to think about something; it’s another thing to write about it.

And so as much as I hope you all get value out of this blog, it also very much about the personal benefits I receive from doing this same thing over and over and over again.

Now, in terms of the content, the focus is obviously on city building. But I’m more specifically interested in the following 3 areas and their overlap:

If you’re a regular reader you know this.

I didn’t set out to focus in this way, but it just happened over time. This is what I’m passionate about and so I naturally started applying it to our discussion on cities and city building.

And finally, in terms of writing style, I’ve found myself adopting a particular structure.

I often start with a personal note – almost as if this were purely a personal blog. Then I dig into a particular city building issue and try to uncover one particular way of looking at it. And then I end with a decisive position. I’ve seen this format on other blogs and I really like it.

Obviously I don’t always follow this structure. For example, sometimes I haven’t made up my mind on a particular issue. But I try to. I lean towards the belief that a decisive wrong answer is better than a wishy washy right answer. So I push myself to take stances and have an opinion. 

But in the end, the goal of every post is simply to present one idea for all of us to think about and then discuss. I’d like to believe that it keeps us all sharp. Hopefully it’s working for you.

The internet has created an interesting dialogue between personal identities and corporate brands.

In the pre-internet and pre-blogging days, it was harder for individuals to establish a strong brand and public identity for themselves, unless of course they were somebody famous. The cost of doing so was simply prohibitive. To promote meant print, TV, radio, billboards, and so on.

But now promoting can mean anything from tweets to writing a blog like this one. And that has opened up the opportunity for anyone to put themselves out there.

The dialogue, or tension in some cases, is that it becomes a balancing act: what should I be putting out there? Myself, some faceless brand, or a mixture of the two? Brandon Donnelly or Architect This City?

If you a run a company, you’re probably debating this. Do I create a personal social media account, one for my company, or both? And how do I go about managing both?

To be clear, this blog is a personal blog. It’s not a business. 

Some people have suggested I start to allow multiple authors and turn it into more of a platform. But I thought about that and that’s not what I want to do. Which is why I continue to write at brandondonnelly.com (i.e. myname.com). I like that I can send this URL to anyone and they’re able to quickly understand who I am and what I’m about.

Because what I write about are things that I’m passionate about: cities, design, real estate, technology, and so on. But I also mix in personal things so that I feel as if I’m writing a public journal. There are many benefits to keeping a journal (my 4th grade English teacher Mr. Hoad-Reddick told me so). And that’s really how this whole blog phenomenon started – they were personal places.