Hi friends, this will be my last post on WordPress. I’ve moved my daily writing and my domain (brandondonnelly.com) over to Paragraph. Here’s why.
Tag: daily blog
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10 years of daily blogging
This week marks the 10 year anniversary of this daily blog. In some ways it’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade and in other ways it’s hard to imagine a time when I didn’t write/post something every day. What a habit this has become.
A lot has changed since 2013.
Back then, I was still trying to find my way in real estate development. Instagram was only 3 years old. TikTok hadn’t been created yet. And the idea of writing a daily blog didn’t feel as antiquated as it does today. I probably should be vlogging at this point.
But here’s what hasn’t changed:
– I enjoy writing, and I think it’s personally beneficial — even if I don’t derive any direct benefits (such as money)
– I like having my own little corner of the internet that I control — instead of relying exclusively on centralized platforms like Instagram or X
Today this corner is brandondonnelly.com, but I suspect that brandondonnelly.eth will become just as important over the next decade. The world is heading toward more decentralization. And if/when that does happen, I’ll be sure to write about it on this daily blog.
Thanks for reading everyone. As usual, I’ll see you tomorrow.
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The evolution of unions
Today is Labo(u)r Day in Canada and the United States.
It is the official end of summer for a lot of people, which is always a bit sad. (Unlike a lot of people I know, I’m not a huge fan of fall.) But primarily, today is a day to celebrate the labor union movement.
Fred Wilson wrote an excellent post on his blog this morning about this topic. I agree with him and he put it far better than I could this morning. So here are a few snippets:
When one looks back over the history of the development of the modern economy from the agricultural age, to the industrial age, to the information age, the development of a strong labor movement has to be one of the signature events. Capitalism, taken to its excesses, does not allocate economic value fairly to all participants in the economic system.
I am a fan of the idea that labor needs a mechanism to obtain market power as a counterbalance to the excesses of markets and capitalism. I think we can look back and see all the good that has come from a strong labor movement in the US over the past 150 years.
However, like all bureaucratic institutions, the “Union” mechanism appears anachronistic sitting here in the second decade of the 21st century. We are witnessing the sustained unwinding of 19th and 20th century institutions that were built at a time when transaction and communications costs were high and the overhead of bureaucracy and institutional inertia were costs that were unavoidable.
Click here for the full post.
On that note, I am in the market for new – ideally daily – blogs to read. Blogs such as this one, which generally focus on a particular topic but are written by one person and are a bit personal in nature. I find those are where the best online communities develop.
If you know of any, please leave the link in the comment section below. A lot of readers have also asked me for similar recommendations, so I am sure they would appreciate the suggestions.
Happy long weekend 🙂
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2 years of Architect This City
On Wednesday, August 28th, 2013 at 8:33am, I wrote and posted this.
And that started a 2 year tradition of writing something on this blog, every, single, day, no matter how long or short it might be and no matter how insightful or not insightful it might be. It kick started a discipline.
For the most part, I tend to write about city building and everything that feeds into that, whether it be design, planning, transportation, technology, or real estate. But I also write personal posts, especially when I go snowboarding. And the longer I write this blog, the more comfortable I feel writing those sorts of posts.
Sometimes I feel guilty about those posts though, since I assume most of you are here to learn and talk about city building things. I assume you don’t want to hear about me. But at the end of the day, ATC is a personal blog. It’s not a business or corporate blog, and I like to think that the personal touches help make the content more engaging over time.
Regardless, a big thank you to everyone who reads, subscribes, and follows Architect This City. There are few things more gratifying than hearing someone say they love this blog and that they read it every morning when they wake up.
That’s a huge commitment on their/your part and I am grateful for that. Because my commitment (writing this blog) wouldn’t be nearly as fun if you weren’t all around to engage with and learn from. And in the early days of writing this blog, there truly was nobody around.
So for today’s 2 year anniversary post, I thought I would share some readership stats. Last Friday I posted a map of all of this blog’s email subscribers (in anticipation of today’s post). But today we’re going to get into some hard numbers (from Google Analytics).
Here are the high level stats from the past year.
Here are the number of visitors (users) over the last year. It feels great to see it increasing. The spikes are posts that, for whatever reason, really took off.
Here’s how people discovered this blog. Almost half of the visitors to this blog are just searching around online and stumble upon it.
And finally, here are the demographics. I only turned this feature on a few weeks ago, so the data set isn’t as large as above. Still, it’s probably pretty accurate. I need to work on correcting the gender imbalance here.
And there you have it. Thanks again for reading. If you have any suggestions for the third year of Architect This City, I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below. Here’s to another year!
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Why I write something every single day, even if it’s garbage
I was out for brunch last weekend with a few close friends from high school. It’s a “monthly reunion” that happens nowhere close to every month. But the hope is certainly there.
During brunch the topic of my blog came up. And one of my friends asked me how I got started and how the hell I keep up with one blog post every single day. (I get that second question all the time.)
I’ve written about this before, but I think it’s worth revisiting.
Earlier this week venture capitalist Fred Wilson wrote a post on his blog called The Blank Screen. And I really liked how he described the experience of writing a daily blog post:
Sometimes this process produces great insights for me and possibly others. Sometimes it produces garbage. But I’ve come to realize that the daily post, and its quality or lack thereof, is not really the thing. It is the ritual, the practice, the frequency, the habit, and the discipline that matters most to me. And, I would suspect, the same is true of the readers and commenters who frequent this blog.
Fred’s blog was a major source of inspiration for me. I saw him doing it. I saw the value he was getting out of it. And I wanted to do it too. So I did, almost 2 years ago.
But he also inspired me in another way.
Venture capital and real estate development share many similarities in my mind, even down to the way that deals are often structured with preferred returns and promotes.
But the interesting thing about venture capital is that it went from a largely closed and “ivory tower” kind of industry to now one where almost every venture capitalist blogs, tweets, and strives for greater transparency (when possible).
I thought this was a fascinating shift and it made me think that the exact same thing was bound to happen in real estate development. So I am trying to make that happen. Hopefully this blog is helping.
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Value creation, transparency, and authenticity
I started writing this blog a year and 10 months ago.
At that time, I had no real title for it (it was just called “Cities”) and I had no idea where it was going to take me. All I knew was that I enjoyed the discipline of writing every day and that I wanted to talk about cities and city building. It was a way for me to neatly organize all of my passions – which span everything from architecture and real estate to technology and transportation.
Since that time, this blog got a name (Architect This City). It was named by the Guardian (UK) as one of the best city blogs in the world. I’ve met an incredible array of different people (send me an email if you like coffee and are doing cool things). I get invited to comment on city building issues on a regular basis. And an incredible community of almost 10,000 daily readers has emerged (you can email subscribe here).
A big thank you to everyone who reads and contributes to ATC.
But over the course of writing this blog, something else unexpected happen. I started getting referred to as a “brander, marketer, and content creator.” Now, I’ll admit that I’ve become increasingly interested in these fields over the years, but it was certainly not something I thought of or could have predicted at the outset.
What really happened though is that I simply started riding a wave that arguably took hold sometime around the mid-2000s and then focused my attention on an industry that has historically been slow to change (real estate). And that wave is the shift towards inbound marketing (as opposed to outbound or interruption marketing).
If you’re a marketer, this is old news. You already know this. But I think there’s still lots of room for this to take hold in the real estate industry. So let’s talk about it a bit.
To give you an example from outside real estate, take a look at Five O’ Clock magazine by Harry’s. Harry’s is a shaving company out of New York that offers moderately priced well-designed shaving supplies for men. It’s simple model that works very well.
Their positioning has been around the idea of “Own Your AM”, which makes sense given that they are a shaving company. And so what they often do in their Five O’ Clock magazine is profile the mornings of interesting people, such as professional skier Jimmy Chin (who happens to live in one of the best places on earth).
But if you do a search for the word “shave” in that Chin article, you won’t find it. Because it’s not about just creating content so that you can plug your business at every opportunity; it’s about creating value for your customers and building a relationship.
And that’s really fundamental to the change I’m talking about.
Today, the marginal cost of reaching your customers has dropped to almost zero (even if you’re reaching out to them on a one-on-one basis over, say, social media). And so the opportunity exists for companies, brands, and individuals to do things that simply weren’t feasible before.
Because of this, it is now possible for everyone to easily establish their own personal brand. I think we’re going to see more, not less, of that. And it has changed how we message and communicate – whether it be via blogs, social media, or online magazines.
In my view it comes down to 3 considerations: value creation, transparency, and authenticity. If you can create value for your target audience and be transparent and authentic, you’re going to naturally draw people in. I try and do all of that on this blog and hopefully it comes through.
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10 things I learned from blogging every day for a year
Last month marked the one year anniversary of Architect This City. This means that I’ve been blogging every day for over a year. It’s been an incredible journey and I often tell people that they should give it a try if they have any inclination.
So today, I’d like to share some of the things I’ve learned over the past year. I actually started this post at the end of last month, but I needed some time to collect my thoughts. Now that they’re collected, here are 10 things I learned from blogging every day for a year:
1. Starting from zero sucks
Lots of people have grand ambitions of blogging their way to prosperity. But then they start and they realize it sucks. It’s incredibly difficult to write content on a regular basis when all you get back is crickets. All you’re doing is giving without getting anything in return. But that’s why starting anything from nothing is always difficult.
2. Passion actually means tenacity
When people say that you should follow your passion (you know that cliche), what they’re really getting at is that anything worth doing is going to be a complete and utter slog at times. And the only way to make it through those periods is to actually enjoy the journey enough so that you keep doing it when it’s not so fun.
3. Accomplishment has a lot to do with momentum
As much as starting sucks, once you get going you develop momentum. People start telling you that they read your stuff every day and you get addicted. You realize that you can’t stop. Somebody is actually reading what I’m writing! You also notice that things are starting to snowball. For example, it took me about 11 months to get 250 followers on Tumblr. It then took me another 3 days to break through 2,000. There’s a snowball effect.
4. It gets easier
I follow wine guy and internet marketer Gary Vaynerchuk. I love his energy. And one of the things he’s said about his father’s wine business, that he famously helped grow, is that even though he took it from $3 million in sales to $45 million in sales, he recognizes that the truly hard part was actually going from zero to 3. Starting from nothing is hard.
5. Good things come from putting yourself out there
Often I’ve found that my most popular posts have been the ones that I felt a little uncomfortable posting or that I quickly wrote without seconding guessing myself. Social media and internet marketing today, at least in my view, is all about being authentic, genuine, and as transparent as you or your business can afford to be. Because that’s what engages people.
6. Constraints can be great for creativity
I can be a bit of a perfectionist. It’s the designer in me. In architecture school, my favorite line was: Perfection or nothing. I got it from the German engineering and design firm, Werner Sobek. But perfectionism can be a debilitating. Sometimes it becomes a form of procrastination, which is why I decided to write every day. Because then you don’t always have the time to be a perfectionist. You just have to post. And that can be a great thing. As Steve Jobs used to say, real artists ship.
7. The internet democratizes
When you write a blog and put yourself out there publicly, people all of a sudden consider you an authority. They want to know your opinion and they begin to consider you as an expert in the topic you write about. Now, I’m not suggesting that I’m an expert on cities, but I think it’s incredibly powerful that people now associate me with cities, real estate, design, and all the other things that I’m passionate about.
8. Everybody is their own media company
This ties into the last point. What shows up first when you Google your name? Do you use social media? Do you own and manage your firstnamelastname.com? (i.e. brandondonnelly.com) In other words, what is your personal brand? It used to be hard to put yourself out there. The media channels were simply too expensive for individuals to start building their own brands. But today, anybody can create a free account on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, and all the other social channels that people are now using to market. And that means that each and every one of us is basically their own little media company.
9. The benefits of blogging are indirect
All that said, the benefits of blogging for me, so far at least, have all been indirect. I’ve probably only made a total of $300 in revenue directly attributed to this blog. But I didn’t start blogging to make money. I started writing because I knew that it was going to be beneficial to get my thoughts down on paper every day (it’s my public journal). I knew that I was going to learn a lot from others and the process. And I knew that it was going to be a great networking tool.
10. Lots of people care about cities
Given the mission of Architect This City, this is probably the most important takeaway from the past year: Lots of people care deeply about cities and the built environment. I initially thought that it was just going to be city geeks like myself that would enjoy what I was writing. But it turns out that city dwellers and urbanists all over the world recognize the importance of building great cities. We know that the majority of the world’s population now lives in a city, and so it makes sense for us to address something that impacts so many people’s lives.
On that note, thanks for reading Architect This City. I’m incredibly grateful. Here’s to another year!
Image: Pinterest (I like blogging with my morning coffee)
