Bloggy Question 34: Time Is Money, but Content Is Free for the Paraphrasing!

Creative Problem Solving

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life hypothetical question. . . .

Your friend has recently broken through the barrier and gotten her first client. You’re delighted for her. She’s just delighted. Things seems to be going smoothly with everything. Her client likes her work. Her blog is getting traffic. You like to see people succeed.

You were feeling happy for her too. Until yesterday.

Yesterday you were listening to a podcast she used to talk about regularly. In the middle of it you started thinking, “Gee, this sound familiar. I must have listened to this before.” But you know you haven’t, because you haven’t listened to a podcast in over two months and this one is 3 weeks old.

You start to remember something. A bad feeling comes with it. Still it bothers you enough that you have to check it. You pull up your friend’s blog to find the same content is there in print. It’s paraphrased sure enough, but there’s no denying that the ideas are in the same order.

You think back to how you friend used to talk about that podcast all of the time and now doesn’t. You think about how she used to complain about having no time between meeting client deadlines and keeping up with her blog to get new clients. You think that the two might be related.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss