Introducing lightning posts

Alexa...set a timer for 15 minutes. ⏳

Admittedly, I've made many attempts to blog in the past. Ultimately, in almost all cases, it has failed due to lack of time. But somehow, some past encounters with different people have managed to make me try again.

But this time I want to approach the subject differently. What I certainly can't achieve: gaining more time. But I dare to try different techniques to divide my time better.

The first encounter that made me want to blog was during a job interview. I saw that the applicant was blogging and asked him: "What is your motivation to blog?"

He told me, meaningfully: "I use so much from open source communities every day. It's time to give something back".

Wow! That immediately triggered me. 🤩

But how can I "give back" meaningful content on the one hand and not sacrifice several hours of my time for it on the other hand.

I dare an attempt which I call "lightning posts".

Based on the technique of "lightning talks" which I already know from various conferences. I set a timer for 15 minutes and start writing.

What are lightning talks? ⚡️

Wikipedia says:

A lightning talk is a very short presentation lasting only a few minutes, given at a conference or similar forum. Several lightning talks will usually be delivered by different speakers in a single session, sometimes called a data blitz.
Some formats of lightning talk, including PechaKucha and Ignite, involve a specific number of slides that are automatically advanced at fixed intervals. Lightning talks are often referred to as ignite talks.

In my own words, it is about reducing a specific issue, topic or problem to its essence and explaining it to an audience in a short time.

Of course, I have thought about a topic in advance. And there are already many ideas circulating in my head about how to structure the topic accordingly.

So the biggest challenge is to focus and just get started. At the same time, I prepare myself for the fact that not everything will run perfectly from the start. I'm also adjusting to the fact that the amount of content per post probably won't be as detailed. But is that necessarily a bad thing? When I read blog posts, I tend to like ones that get to the point quickly. Because even when I'm reading, I feel that the time I can invest is simply limited.

Inspired by the crazy 🎱

Another source of inspiration was a design sprint I recently participated in. There we used the brainstorming method "crazy 8". Each team member has eight minutes to visualize possible solutions to a problem on eight fields of a sheet of paper. I thought that was very cool! The method ensured maximum focus on a concrete problem in the minutes.

The obvious thing about both variants (lightning talks and crazy 8): they use the technique of "timeboxing". I try to get the maximum out of a defined time. This does not necessarily have to be perfect. But the way is the goal. You can always improve later.

I'm curious myself how the experiment is going. And I look forward to your feedback in the comments. If you come across things that I should formulate more precisely, please let me know.

👋