The art of self-promotion makes me squirm and is not something I know how to do. It seems like this should come naturally as you grow professionally or expand your network. Easier said than done. The question is how to build that professional ‘personal brand’ without being annoying to the audience or becoming a one-minute-tweet-machine.

I recently read the book on the topic I had heard referenced numerous times, so I was excited to dive into 'Show your work' by Austin Kleon.  The book's title speaks for itself — it emphasizes the importance of showing the work you do. Combined with the article in this community about the importance of writing, it gave me the inspiration to share what I have learned and inspire product managers or other fellows passing by to write and share more about what they do.

So, if you only have 1 minute, this is what I would like you to get from it.

The other thing is that in 2022, great work is not created in a vacuum. It often results from collaboration, connections, and team efforts. Sharing what you do with others may connect you with your existing and future customers, users, and partners, to continue to build momentum, get feedback and improve on that.

Finally, as already said, writing for product managers is an essential skill and one of the most impactful weapons in your arsenal. It helps you to better align with your team and stakeholders and become more transparent and precise in presenting your points or arguments.

Let's put some bullet points here about why you need to share the work you do so the whole article looks more structured and solid:

Ok, it might be the point when you start to think, "Yeah, it may be a good idea to share what I do, but what would I share, and how, and where? Who would be interested in this?". So here are some insights I found valuable after reading the book and the article mentioned above.

Be brave.

A lot of us go about their work and feel like there is nothing to show for it at the end of the day. If we are not astronauts, scientists, or mountain bikers, it might seem like there is nothing special about our routines worth sharing. But whatever the nature of your work, there is an art to what you do, and there are people who would be interested in that art. If only you presented it to them in the right way.

Build sharing into the daily routine.Become a documentarian of what you do. Start a work journal. Whether you are sharing it or not, documenting your process has its rewards — you'll start to see your work more clearly and feel like you're making progress. Once a day, after you've done your work, go back to your documentation and find one little piece of your process that you can share. Try to stick to some routine, be open about what you are working on, and consistently post bits and pieces of work, ideas, or things you have recently learned.

Ask yourself the "So what" question.

Keep the audience in mind and remember that anything you post on the Internet has now become public. So, "post as though everyone who reads it can fire you" (as publicist Lauren Cerand once said). Think about how this particular piece of text would bring value to your readers and why they would want to see it.

Use what other great minds used to tell your own stories.

In general, every story has a similar structure and actors: the past, the present, and the future; the good guy, the bad guy. According to Kurt Vonnegut's structure, every story could be put into two axes — fortune and time. Main characters evolve and develop during the timeline and find their good or bad fortune. Picture the story you want to share on that graph and build on that.

Get ready for the bad, the good, and the ugly when you share your stories out into the world. The more people come across your work, the more criticism you'll face. You'll get feedback from your peers, managers, customers, partners, and stakeholders, which might be not as good or at least not as good as you wanted. So relax — it's not that bad. People tend to overestimate their failures. Remember that your work is something you do; it's not who you are.

While writing this article, I came through a wide range of thoughts like 'no one's going to read it, 'what do you have to share with the audience — they already know all this stuff, and "your writing is awful." As you can see from my example you are not alone in your struggles or doubts (if you have them at all). So this one last point is a sort of a bonus track — be an amateur. In the process of doing things in an unprofessional way, we can make discoveries. "In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities", — said Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki. "In the expert mind, there are few."