A few weeks ago, I read a post on how to generate a following for your blog.  I would love to give credit to the author, but I can’t remember where I saw it.  In any case, one of the post’s recommendations was to include the blog’s URL in your e-mail signature.  This may sound like a no-brainer, but I hadn’t thought of it, and so I decided to give it a shot.  I added the URL for Water Cooler Wisdom to the signatures for all three of my personal e-mail accounts.  And much to my surprise, my traffic increased.  I’d previously grumbled to my friends that none of them read my blog, but as soon as I stuck a link in the signature that they were forced to look at all the time, they started commenting on it and e-mailing me questions.

I gather that most of you don’t have a blog you’re trying to promote, but there’s a lesson in here for you just the same.  No one is as invested in what you’re doing as you are, and if you want people to pay attention, you have to remind them over and over again.  That’s not to say that you should go around the office patting yourself on the back ten times a day, but if you want to be recognized for the good work you do, you have to know how to subtly assert your achievements so that they’re visible to the people who matter.  This might mean proactively providing weekly status reports on your projects to your boss and/or Group Head, or sending an e-mail around the company thanking those who helped out on the successful initiative that YOU ran. 

It’s an unfortunate circumstance of human nature that the squeakiest wheel gets oiled first.  If you’re humming along, doing your job and staying out of trouble, you simply aren’t going to demand as much attention as someone who’s screwing up.  Getting the recognition you deserve may be slow in coming if you don’t make an extra effort to be seen as an important contributor.