Ten years ago, on the eighth anniversary of my first column in this newspaper, I wrote one about what it’s like to be a columnist.
With the Business Daily celebrating the 18th anniversary of its birth on March 7, my editor and I thought it would be good for me to go back to what I’d written in 2015, now having published over 470 articles here.
I wrote then about how founding managing editor Nick Wachira twisted my arm into becoming a regular contributor, and it was good to see his as one of the articles that appeared a couple of weeks ago about how the Business Daily came to life and how it struggled through its early days to the prominence and influence it soon started enjoying.
As I spoke to Nick and to my present editor Allan Odhiambo about this 18th anniversary, they both pointed to the transformative impact of the online version of the paper, of social media, and of younger readers generally, on how contributors communicate these days compared to when the Business Daily started.
A very tangible change came when a few years ago the paper went through a redesign and my word limit was chopped from 1,000 to less than 800—a real sign of the times.
What about the topics I’ve been writing about? For me, the domain that has moved centre stage in the last few years is the one about compliance, sustainability and everything around the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) trio.
As for my writing style, it has always been rather conversational, and mainly I tell stories about what I experience in my professional life.
This enables my readers—very much including my younger ones—to enjoy the ride and not need too much time to absorb my messages.
In my 2015 article, I wrote that as I thought about possible topics, I fully assumed I would run dry within a year of starting, maximum 18 months. Yet there I still was, churning out my twice-monthly thoughts, with little prospect of writer’s cramp setting in, I acknowledged.
As I went about my business, as I read an article or a book, heard a talk or participated in a board meeting or a workshop, or just engaged in a casual conversation, I explained, I was constantly scanning for ideas. And that is exactly how it has remained.
It has been very satisfying, and it became a normal part of my life, I wrote, while now I actually think of it as my hobby. “It’s a great feeling when an idea for a piece suddenly strikes me, and then I can hardly wait to hit my computer and get going,” I wrote.
“It was George Bernard Shaw who described inspiration as ‘a blank piece of paper’ and other than now replacing the paper by a screen he might have added the need for a deadline. For necessity is indeed the mother of invention, with the columnist’s deadline unnegotiable.”
Now, as has always been the case, quite often as I start hammering away I have little idea of where my story will take me or how it will end.
Sometimes, I revealed in the earlier article, I feared that what I have to say would consume considerably less than my word quota, so I would have to force myself to create the balance—and this without waffling. Then on other occasions I overflowed my limit, so I was forced to chop precious phrases and sentences—a painful exercise I still endure.
It was an article I’d read in the New York Times that gave me the idea for my first one on this subject. The author challenged his readers to list all the original ideas they had, and then to write an article about one of them.
“Perhaps you’d be very successful at this,” he accepted.
“But now imagine doing it for four weeks,” he continued, “then for two months, then six, then a year, then five years. And all this while pursuing your other activities. How do you think you’d fare?”
The writer wouldn’t go so far as to say his readers would be sure to fail. But he admitted being left with a grudging respect for columnists.
“It really is a lot harder than it looks,” he concluded, adding that he couldn’t imagine how he’d cope with the demands of staying fresh for a regular column. You can imagine how good that made me feel.
I ended my last article noting that I was approaching my 1,000-word limit. And here I am now reaching the 800 mark. Gotta stop.
The writer is chairman of management consultancy The DEPOT, co-founder of the Institute for Responsible Leadership and member of Kepsa Advisory Council. [email protected] www.mike-eldon.com
