How to Be Famous in Your Profession

Copyright (c) 2023 by John Hedtke.

For reprint rights, contact the author at [email protected].

John Hedtke has written all kinds of things for all kinds of people, from end-user docs to APIs, programming language reference manuals, and backbone router manuals.His favorite silly accomplishment was doing the online help for AOL for Windows, which means his work is on CDs buried in thousands of landfills across North America. J John is an experienced documentation manager and technical writer who truly loves writing. He’s published 27 books and written ~200 articles. John is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication.

Fame—that is, being well-known and nothing more—can make networking easier and extend your own networking reach. Fortunately, it’s not hard to become famous and it’s a lot of fun. Here’s how:

1. Get online!

Much of your success is your online presence, which can augment your local, regional, and international standing. This includes things like having a website, writing a blog (and contributing to other blogs), and being on LinkedIn, FaceBook, and many other social media sites. There's a lot to know about social media and making a splash, but the basic rules are:

• Nobody knows what's best, so be sure to do SOMETHING.
• Do a lot. Don't try just one thing.
• Be friendly and polite.
• Provide good content to your readers.
• Share!

2. Attend things.

Don’t sit around watching TV. Whenever possible, go to conferences. Go to meetings. Go to lunches and picnics. Attend sessions online. Participate in group activities. You don’t need to volunteer for hard jobs—indeed, that’s the harder way to be famous; besides, you’ll be asked plenty about volunteering as time goes by and your fame increases—but do pitch in for things.

3. Meet people.

Fame is largely a function of who knows you. Meet as many people in your profession as you can, both online and in person. As your network grows, you’ll discover that people know you that you don’t know and you don’t even know the people that they say they heard about you from. You don’t need to be the life of the party, but be interesting. Don’t be a jerk; it’ll always come back to bite you.

4. Listen.

Good listeners are hard to find and will make themselves welcome almost anywhere. Men in particular have a cultural tendency to interrupt. If you make a point of listening to whatever the other person in a conversation is saying until they’re all done and then replying, you will differentiate yourself from 99% of the rest of the world. (Hot tip for men: being a good listener will do you worlds of good in your relationships, too.)

5. Remember peoples’ names.

Everyone likes to think they’re special and they’ve made an impression on someone else. And truly, they are all special, but you want to make them feel that way, too! Try to remember as many names as you can. (I am really awful at this, truth be told.) When you do the business card swap with people, be sure to make notes on business cards about who the person is, when you met, or what you talked about as a trigger to memory, too.

6. Speak at events.

Fame is largely a function of who knows you. I’d mentioned attending events—always worthy—but now consider volunteering to be the event. Being a speaker at events is one excellent way of getting people to know who you are and what you think about things. Don’t forget to answer questions and talk to as many people afterwards as you can.

7. Publish articles.

Articles get your name out to a wider range of people than doing public speaking. It’s also a different audience, too: the folks that hear you speak are the ones who, like you, like going to conferences. The people who read articles are going to be the ones who stay at home (and the ones who go to the conferences and enjoy learning everything they can about the profession).

8. Have some opinions.

Having opinions is part of being human. You don’t have to tailor your opinions to what is popular, but you should be willing to discuss your point of view with other people.

9. Be ready to disagree with people appropriately.

Having opinions is part of what makes other people human, too. Your opinions are guaranteed to brush up against someone else’s opinions. It will broaden your horizons to hear that someone disagrees with you keenly on some fundamental issue (even if you’re sure in your heart that they’re a jerk for doing so <G>). Be professional in your disagreements and try to accept the people that disagree with you.

Remember Hedtke’s Law: Someone who doesn’t offend somebody couldn’t possibly interest anybody.

10. Make connections between people.

One of the values of being known by a number of people is that you can make connections between people and increase the networking opportunities. For example, as your own circle grows, people will often ask you questions like “How can I get started in this business?” or “Who do you recommend I talk to for a job?” Knowing a lot of people allows you to introduce people in your network to each other, which can make them happy and increase your own prestige in the process.

11. Have fun!

Being famous is really all about extending your reach. It’s great for hearing about that next job or finding someone with hard-to-get information. Fame even lets you get a free drink or lunch occasionally, but it’s not a substitute for having a life of your own. Relax and have fun with all this.

Summary

Fame is not a zero-sum game. Everyone can be well-known if they want to be. Never make the mistake of assuming that because you’re famous you’re entitled to more than anyone else. The real value of being famous is that it puts you in a position to help other people: you can make connections, provide introductions, even get advance information that will help others (and you!) when you need it most.

Remember that it’s not enough to be famous just for being famous. As an example of this, think of the Kardashians. Okay, stop gagging, but hold that thought in the back of your head: cheap celebrity has nothing to offer anyone. You need to be famous because you actually have something that you do reasonably well. If you forget to do things for yourself, you will soon discover that you don’t have anything new to offer... and you’ll become a parody of what you once were.