We had a really successful staff development day not long ago, so I thought I might share the format - as it might be useful to other small companies or project teams. If you have a lot of associates and flexible workers as we do, it's important to get together now and then to catch up.

1. Vision - the vision behind the company or project, the inspiration behind it all. Does the mission statement need renewing?
2. Celebrate ourselves - review recent successes. It's easy to find in routine operational meetings that you're discussing mostly challenges and problems, and success is not lauded. You might find, as we did, that we had many successes to celebrate.  We made time to thank one another for the support we got within the team.
3. Review of projects, feedback from clients and learning points! We realised we had some strengths and skills we hadn't previously identified.
4. Magic Wand - if you could wave a magic wand and change something for the company what would it it be? (We decided moving en masse to the Seychelles wasn't really on, but as we actively promote remote and flexible working, an employee moving to  sunnier climes would not have to resign!) /more

Every blog post starts with an idea. I’ve written previously about the types of blog post and how to “think blog” so that ideas flow to you. Don’t forget to keep track of those ideas! Now you have an idea, how do you turn it into a published blog post?

1. Just write. Once you've got your idea, your topic, your angle, give yourself some time and write. For this first draft don't worry about editing, checking back – that's for the editing stage. Use the “free writing” - give yourself ten minutes, or twenty – and just keep going, don't stop. Dump out the contents of your brain on the subject. GY38PVJRN35E
2. Now edit: That first draft won't be perfect. If you've done proper “free writing” it may be full of repetitions and unnecessary verbiage. Start to put in a structure, a beginning, a middle and an end. Make sure the arguments follow logically, one per paragraph. Clean up the grammar and check the punctuation. Polish those random thoughts into a coherent whole. This is the key step.
3. Structure: Although a blog post is short, it needs to be able to be read by itself, in isolation, and it needs to be easy to read. It needs a good title, an opening sentence and paragraph, a description of context, a logical sequence of points, and, at the end, a sum-up or rounding up of what you've said.
4. Don't say too much Quite often you will find that what you have is actually too long for a single blog post. This blog post itself became three in the editing. You're not writing an article or a short story: short and concise are the watchwords. However, it needs to be long enough to carry the reader with you – and posts do vary in length between blogs in within blogs. An introduction to a subject for the beginner, for example, will necessarily be longer – and even split across more than one post – when compared to a link post, which may be very short. There's no such thing as the ideal number of words or paragraphs for a blog post. With practice you will develop your own typical length.
5. Use your own voice There's a lot said when one studies writing about “voice”. The main thing is, however, that you can use a template or an idea from other blogs or blogging courses like Reach Further's How to Blog course, but ultimately it is your blog and you will develop your own voice in which you are comfortable writing. If you're not naturally a comic, don't try to be funny. Tell your story in your own style and voice.
6. Practice: Luckily a blog is the ideal format to learn to write, as your early posts will be eclipsed by your later and probably better ones. So long as you are honest, polite, and accurate – if they're good they'll be remembered, if they're not, they'll disappear into the trillions of words on the Web.