{"id":9874,"date":"2023-02-02T07:47:48","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T07:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/?p=9874"},"modified":"2023-02-02T07:47:53","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T07:47:53","slug":"internal-blogs-an-organisational-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/02\/02\/internal-blogs-an-organisational-hack\/","title":{"rendered":"Internal blogs \u2014 an organisational hack"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='e-content'>I love <a href=\"https:\/\/fedi.simonwillison.net\/@simon\/109779165326982978\" title=\"Mastodon: Simon Willison\">this Mastodon thread from Simon Willison<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Here&#8217;s an organizational hack I&#8217;ve used a few times which I think more people should try: run your own personal engineering blog inside your organization<\/p>\n<p>You can use it as a place to write about projects you are working on, share TILs about how things work internally, and occasionally informally advocate for larger changes you&#8217;d like to make<\/p>\n<p>Crucially: don&#8217;t ask for permission to do this! Find some existing system you can cram it into and just start writing<\/p>\n<p>Systems I&#8217;ve used for this include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a Slack channel, where you post long messages, maybe using the Slack &#8220;posts&#8221; feature<\/li>\n<li>Confluence has a blog feature which isn&#8217;t great but it&#8217;s definitely Good Enough<\/li>\n<li>A GitHub repo within your organization works fine too, you can write content there in Markdown files<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>One thing to consider with this: if you want your content to live on after you leave the organization (I certainly do) it&#8217;s a good idea to pick a platform for it that&#8217;s not likely to vanish in a puff of smoke when the IT team shuts down your organizational accounts<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s one of the things I like about Confluence, Slack and private GitHub repos for this<\/p>\n<p>The most liberating thing about having a personal internal blog is that it gives you somewhere to drop informal system documentation, without making a commitment to keep it updated in the future<\/p>\n<p>Unlike out-of-date official documentation there&#8217;s no harm caused by a clearly dated blog post from two years ago that describes how the system worked at that point in time<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I thoroughly endorse this. I\u2019ve been setting up blogs and internal communication channels at all of the organisations I have worked at over the past few years. We\u2019ve recently started an internal blog for our team using a \u2018community\u2019 on Viva Engage (formerly Yammer) as it is the only ready-made platform that has reach across the whole company. At the moment we are still talking into the void, but these things take time.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft 365 used to offer a blogging facility on your \u2018Delve profile\u2019, but this was squirrelled away on the web and was tied to your account; it wouldn\u2019t be widely visible and would disappear when you left the company. That facility now seems to have gone away. We tried using SharePoint, but it felt a bit like using a cheese grater to shave your legs \u2014 it would do the job, but not without a lot of pain.<\/p>\n<p>There is so much value in working out loud, but I\u2019ve never had much success in persuading other people to start posting their thoughts in blog form. The closest thing we have to it are internal Teams posts, which team members do post and <em>do<\/em> look like blogs \u2014 they may have a title, there\u2019s some content and then there is a thread of comments. Perhaps these are easier to write because the audience is limited to a few known colleagues. We\u2019ll keep experimenting.<\/div>\n<p><span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:2574,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/fedi.simonwillison.net\\\/@simon\\\/109779165326982978&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20251013182343\\\/https:\\\/\\\/fedi.simonwillison.net\\\/@simon\\\/109779165326982978&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-04 04:00:58&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-08 06:32:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-12 05:32:16&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-19 14:14:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-28 06:45:38&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-13 17:39:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 23:04:35&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-29 00:23:51&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-02 20:38:03&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-21 12:10:32&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-26 08:45:16&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-08 21:54:29&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-13 04:44:32&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-17 09:06:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-06-01 09:48:50&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:429},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-06-12 12:00:34&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:429},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-06-17 22:22:17&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:429},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-06-22 07:23:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-06-22 07:23:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/02\/02\/internal-blogs-an-organisational-hack\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Internal blogs \u2014 an organisational hack\"><div class='e-content p-summary'>I love this Mastodon thread from Simon Willison: Here&#8217;s an organizational hack I&#8217;ve used a few times which I think more people should try: run your own personal engineering blog inside your organization You can use it as a place to write about projects you are working on, share TILs about how things work internally, [&hellip;]<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-technology","7":"category-work","8":"h-entry","10":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":995,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2017\/02\/15\/response-hierarchy\/","url_meta":{"origin":9874,"position":0},"title":"Response hierarchy","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"15 February 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It was really interesting to read Michael Lopp's latest blog post showing his relative probability to respond to an incoming communication based on the medium through which it is sent: ...I realized that I had updated the prioritized hierarchy to how likely I will respond to a piece of communication.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Social&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Social","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/social\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9939,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/02\/19\/weeknotes-208-dead-bike\/","url_meta":{"origin":9874,"position":1},"title":"Weeknotes #208 \u2014 Dead bike","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"19 February 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"A week stuffed to the brim with meetings. I\u2019ve not been sleeping well, waking up in the middle of the night each night to check the time, mildly panicking that I\u2019ve overslept. I\u2019m not sure why. The bike that I bought back in 2013, which had recently been relegated to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weeknotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DraggedImage-1-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DraggedImage-1-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DraggedImage-1-2.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DraggedImage-1-2.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DraggedImage-1-2.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DraggedImage-1-2.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8193,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2021\/10\/31\/returning-to-the-office-redux\/","url_meta":{"origin":9874,"position":2},"title":"Returning to the office, redux","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"31 October 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Recently I wrote up my thoughts on returning to the office. Underpinning this was an assumption, which seems to be widely shared, of the need to get people together physically on a regular basis, with intuition telling us that this somehow creates a shared culture. This week I heard a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Work&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Work","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/work\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/DraggedImage-1-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/DraggedImage-1-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/DraggedImage-1-3.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/DraggedImage-1-3.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/DraggedImage-1-3.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/DraggedImage-1-3.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10737,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2024\/02\/26\/weeknotes-261-helena-deland\/","url_meta":{"origin":9874,"position":3},"title":"Weeknotes #261 \u2014 Helena Deland","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"26 February 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I was home alone for most of this week. My youngest son was on a school skiing trip, and my wife and eldest son took a short break to Marrakesh. I have too much going on at work right now to contemplate any time off. Things are actually going in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weeknotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Image-25-02-2024-22-22.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Image-25-02-2024-22-22.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Image-25-02-2024-22-22.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Image-25-02-2024-22-22.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Image-25-02-2024-22-22.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Image-25-02-2024-22-22.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9975,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/03\/13\/weeknotes-211-wrist\/","url_meta":{"origin":9874,"position":4},"title":"Weeknotes #211 \u2014 Wrist","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"13 March 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Here in the UK, temperatures plummeted again and we found ourselves living through frozen mornings and snow showers. The week was very busy; I ended up having to spend some of Saturday catching up with some of the tasks that I hadn\u2019t had time to complete by Friday. Next week\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weeknotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/DraggedImage-2-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/DraggedImage-2-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/DraggedImage-2-1.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/DraggedImage-2-1.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/DraggedImage-2-1.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":53,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2004\/09\/09\/apology\/","url_meta":{"origin":9874,"position":5},"title":"Apology","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"9 September 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the past couple of months I've been having to deal with an increase in the amount of blog spam I've been getting. Basically, evil spammers are writing comments on the blog that link to various sites (casinos, porn, etc) in order to increase their ranking in Google. This version\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9874"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9876,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9874\/revisions\/9876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}