For years, I’ve run a software consulting business. The work is technical, often confidential and usually involves stepping into systems other developers or agencies have left behind. It’s rarely flashyit’s valuable to the businesses that rely on it.
Lately, I’ve been thinking more about visibility and how platforms like LinkedIn fit into that. I read a lot of about how being active on LinkedIn will help grow your consulting biz or build that magical client pipeline. I don’t disagree with the potential, but how do you write something that's valuable to people. Like actually valuable?
That’s the question I put out publicly: What am I supposed to write on LinkedIn that’s actually useful?
I wasn’t asking for engagement or internet likes but I'm actually unsure. The pattern usually is that I read something positive about using LinkedIn to connect with other technology folks and bring attention to my consulting practice. Then I opened my browser and go to write something. But somewhere between opening the browser and clicking the 'post' box I read some gross posts that kill my desire to write anything. I end up going blank and don't know what I'm suppose to write. Most of my work involves custom development, deep technical architecture and helping clients recover from half-finished or mismanaged projects. I wasn’t convinced that any of it made for interesting or helpful content that could be valuable to people reading my feed.
But the responses I got made me rethink that.
One person encouraged me to make the invisible work visible—to write not about results, but about the process. Another pointed out that people often want a feel for how someone works, not just what they’ve done. And more than one person reminded me that it’s okay to write about past projects without breaking confidentiality, as long as you focus on the problems solved and the value created.
Those perspectives made sense to me and actually gave me little bit of excitement on some things to write about. Much of my work involves untangling messes in legacy systems and rebuilding confidence in software that's been left for dead and helping teams get their projects back on track - .Net Rescue Projects is what I call them. That’s the heart of my consulting services: not just writing code, but restoring direction.
So that’s the path I’m going to try by writing posts that reflect how I approach problems, what patterns I see, and how I think through solutions. Some will be technical. Some will be more about process or communication with the teams I work with. Some will be weather data visualizations. But they’ll all be rooted in the same question: How can I make this more useful to the next person dealing with a similar problem?
If you’re navigating similar challenges—picking up abandoned systems, trying to understand what your software actually does today, or wondering how to move forward then we should talk — I’ve probably seen something similar. That’s the kind of work I do every day.
And if you're curious about what that work looks like, feel free to explore my portfolio or reach out directly.