The Three Things Worth Posting About

Ask a hundred business analysts why they don't post, and ninety of them will give you the same answer: they don't know what to say. That is not actually a content problem. It is a recognition problem. Most of us are trained to treat our daily work as unremarkable, because to us it is routine. What we forget is that the person reading our post is usually two or three years behind where we are, and what feels obvious to us is exactly what they are quietly stuck on right now.

You do not need a content calendar, a posting schedule tool, or a content pillar strategy document. You need three buckets, and the discipline to rotate through them.

Bucket one: lessons from the work

This is the deepest well and the one people underuse the most, because they think it requires naming the client or the project. It doesn't. What travels well is the pattern, not the specifics. Did a stakeholder interview go sideways because you asked a closed question when you needed an open one? That is a post. Did a process map reveal a bottleneck nobody in the room expected? That is a post. Did a requirements document get approved and then completely misread three weeks later, and you had to work out why? That is a post, and probably a better one than most of what gets published about elicitation technique.

The test is simple. Strip out the who and the where. What is left is the lesson. If the lesson would still be true at a different company, in a different industry, with different people, it is safe to publish, and it is useful to someone.

Bucket two: opinions about how the job should be done

Every experienced analyst has a hill they will die on. Maybe you think user stories are overused for problems that need a proper process map. Maybe you think most requirements documents are three times longer than they need to be. Maybe you think stakeholder management is really just conflict avoidance with better branding, and you have thoughts about that. Say the opinion. Not as a rant, but as a position you can defend with a reason. This is the bucket that actually builds a reputation, because it shows you think about the craft rather than just execute it. Nobody remembers the person who agreed with everything. People remember the analyst who had a clear, well-argued view on how the work should be done.

Bucket three: your own story

This is the bucket that builds trust rather than authority, and you need both. Where did you start? What confused you in your first year? What almost made you quit? What would you tell yourself if you could go back five years? People connect with the analyst who was once lost, not the one who claims they always had it figured out. This bucket also does something practical: it is the one most likely to reach people who are exactly where you used to be, which is precisely the audience most likely to become a mentee, a referral, or eventually a client.

My own version of this bucket is the part of my story I sat on for the longest. I studied engineering, did a master's in software technology, and quietly admitted to myself that I did not have a flair for coding. Everyone pointed me toward the obvious consolation prize for someone who could not code, and I refused it and went and found a school that taught the craft properly instead. For years I only told that story privately, to people who asked directly. The version of me now who mentors others into this field grew entirely out of finally saying it in public. That single true story has done more for how people find and trust me than any framework post ever has.

The rotation, not the calendar

Here is the part that actually removes the blank screen problem. You do not need to plan a month in advance. You need to notice, once a week, which bucket you have not drawn from recently, and pull from that one. Had a rough elicitation session this week? Bucket one. Argued with a colleague about documentation standards? Bucket two. Thinking about how far you have come since your first process map? Bucket three. The rotation keeps the voice varied and keeps you from ever needing to invent something you do not actually think or feel. One caution. Do not force all three into every post. A post that tries to be a lesson, an opinion, and a life story at once reads like a committee wrote it. Pick one bucket, one small idea, and let it be short.

If the buckets still feel abstract, try this instead of staring at a blank document. At the end of each week, ask yourself three questions. What surprised me this week? What did I disagree with someone about, even quietly? What would I tell a version of myself from three years ago?

Whichever question has an answer sitting closest to the surface is the post to write that week. You are not inventing content. You are transcribing something you already thought, in plainer language than you thought it in.

The other trap worth naming is waiting for a story dramatic enough to be worth telling. Most of what works is not dramatic. A five-minute observation about why a stakeholder kept saying yes in meetings and no in email is more useful to more people than a story about a project that blew up spectacularly. Small and specific beats big and vague almost every time.

I would also add one thing I got wrong for years. I assumed my own background, the engineering degree, the master's, the fact that I came into this sideways rather than through a traditional business route, was a weakness to manage rather than material to use. It took a long time to realise that the pivot itself, told honestly, was more compelling to most readers than any polished framework I could have written instead. If part of your path feels like something to explain away, it is very likely bucket three material, not a liability.

Go out and be successful.

Oluwatosin Ogunkoya | Flotog BA Insights  |  www.flotogbainsights.com

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