Now, that I have it, what do I do with it?

I am at a loss for words (My friends & colleagues will tell you that me being mum on a subject is nearly impossible). Let me explain my dilemma this way. Have you ever attempted to get something without thinking what you would do with it once you received it? Well that is my situation with my recent access to LinkedIn Publishing. Gaining the ability to publish on LinkedIn was a privilege that I desired, but I did not give any thought to what I would do with it if I received it.

To say that I “desired” the ability to publish on LinkedIn is an understatement. I thought I had to the qualifications that LinkedIn would look for in a blogger; an early adopter to LinkedIn (in first 250K members); previous speaker at Talent Connect, and as a member of LinkedIn 100 (Class of 2014). But the algorithm did not select me. I applied for early access a number of times, but only silence. I attempted to use some internal LinkedIn contacts to influence the selection algorithm, but no success. Then, I get the word today; I received the long awaited invitation.

Now, that I have it, what do I do with it?

To be honest, I have not noticed many people in my network of 8000+ people publishing articles; so I needed to start with research on what people wrote for their first posts on LinkedIn. One of the first posts that I read was What Jeff Weiner Can Teach Us about Posting on LinkedIn and found out that I should wait until Monday to publish this post. Obviously, I am going to ignore that advice.

There was a number of first time bloggers that were surprised at being granted publishing access wrote their first post and have not published since that time. Obviously, I don’t want to be one of those people.

Perhaps the best advice was from Annie who wrote “Five lessons from my first long-form post on LinkedIn.” Lesson #5: The second post is the hardest. Obviously, the jury is still out on that theory.

We will find out that on a Monday when I write a post that people will notice because I will be like #JeffWeiner, # DaveKerpen, #GuyKawasaki, or even my CEO, MarillynHewsen who find that Mondays are the best day to publish.