Tag: writing

• I’m writing a book on becoming a real estate developer

  

  https://500px.com/embed.js

  One of the most common questions I get from readers of this blog is: How do I become / get into real estate development?

  In fact, I get it so often that I’ve decided to write a book as my response. It may be a short one or it may end up a long one. If you’ve emailed or messaged me with this question and I haven’t responded, I’m sorry. There’s a lot of you out there. But I do want to help and that’s why I’ve decided to take on this hobby book project.

  As part of the book, I’ll be talking about my own journey, as well as the actual nuts and bolts of development. But I would also like to feature some much more established players in the business. In order to do that, I’ve decided to crowdsource some of the content for this book. 

  So here’s my ask to you: If you’re a real estate developer and would like to share your story, please complete this short questionnaire. You can be located anywhere in the world.

  My plan is to select a handful of developers from around the world and then feature their stories, one-by-one. I’m confident that there will be a lot of interest in hearing how successful developers established their careers and/or own businesses.

  I’ve been thinking about doing this for quite awhile now. It feels good to get started. 

  2015.12.19

• My blogging methodology

  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.

  2015.11.17

• I would make a terrible politician

  Ever since I was a little kid, I have thought that I would one day get into politics. 

  A lot of it has to do with me wanting to affect positive change, which is also one of the reasons I love real estate development (and one of the reasons I write this blog). Developers might have a bad rap in some circles, but I view it as a mechanism for positive change in the built environment.

  However, I have also felt that politics is something that’s better to do when you have grey hair and you don’t actually need the money to live. That way people take you more seriously and you can, hopefully, just do what you feel is right as opposed to playing the political game.

  But more and more I find myself thinking: Brandon, you would make a terrible politician.

  I don’t want to play games. I don’t want to have to think about which stance will win me the most votes. And I don’t want to have to dance around questions so I can avoid upsetting certain constituents. I’d rather be clear and decisive about what I think is the right thing to do.

  But that doesn’t always work so well in politics. So I think I’ll just stick to building things and writing this daily blog.

  2015.05.17

• One year of Architect This City

  Can you believe that it’s already been one full year of Architect This City? Well it has. I wrote this quick post on August 28, 2013 and it kick started a yearlong discipline of writing something everyday (usually) about cities.

  In celebration of this one year anniversary, I thought I would open up the kimono and provide a full look at what one year of regular blogging looks like in terms of the numbers, as well as in terms of the benefits that I feel I derived from it. So here goes.

  Below are my pageviews from Google Analytics (the number at the top of the Y-axis is 10,000). As you can see, it’s been a slow and steady climb:

  

  Here are the top 10 countries that read Architect This City (also from Google Analytics):

  

  Here are the 5 most read posts from the last year (notice a trend?):

  1. Transitioning from architecture to development
  2. How Toronto became cool
  3. What real estate developers do and why I became one
  4. The future of the architecture profession
  5. A new model for the architecture profession

  And here’s where I sit in terms of followers and subscribers:

  • Twitter (@donnelly_b): 1,364 followers
  • Facebook (ATC Page): 152 likes (relatively new addition)
  • Tumblr: 2,592 followers
  • Email Subscribers: 871

  When I started blogging, I already had a few hundred Twitter followers, but probably less than 100 Tumblr followers, and absolutely 0 email subscribers. Interestingly enough, it took almost 11 months to get to 250 Tumblr followers, but only another 3 days to break the 2,000 mark. So these things definitely snowball.

  But the numbers really only tell one side of the story.

  Over the past year I’ve had the privilege of meeting a ton of great people as a result of me putting myself out there publicly. In fact, it has now reached the point where I just can’t keep up with all the requests for coffee. I hate saying no (or forgetting about the email), but there’s only so much time in the day. Regardless though, I’m always flattered and entirely grateful that somebody actually wants to hear what I have to say. So I try and take as many meetings as I can.

  Blogging everyday is certainly a lot of work. But it’s no different than keeping any other routine (like going to the gym) and there are countless benefits to doing so. If you’ve ever thought about starting a blog, I would encourage you to give it a try. Once you get rolling, it actually becomes hard to stop.

  2014.08.28