Today we have a different post, a guest one by Giles Hutchins to open our eyes for the future and rethink our values as we approach the new year. 

Aware thinkers and leaders know what’s at stake. The global issues are too prominent to ignore. Whether it’s mass migration, political extremism, governmental incompetence, violence towards minorities, banking collapses, or evidence of stress and mental illness in epidemic proportions, we cannot ignore the fact that we are living in a time of upheaval, volatility and uncertainty.

The very planet itself is changing in character – with global water shortages, rapid soil erosion, marine species on the verge of collapse, Arctic sea ice at record lows, and a warming atmosphere which threatens the biosphere on which we all depend.

In today’s global conditions, ignoring the global issues facing humanity is ultimately a self-destructive existential choice.

Those opting to pretend that the status quo can be preserved as it is – or was – are blind to the facts of huge shifts globally, already occurring and set to increase. They also overlook the extraordinary human challenge afforded this generation. The ancient Greeks called such a time Kairos, a supreme moment of history, an incredible opportunity to step forward which if not adequately acted upon will pass us by.

This supreme moment asks us – demands us – to get radical and deal with root causes.

My blog just turned five. Can you believe it? I can't! When did this happen? Time really flew by. 

But I've learned a lot, I've experienced a lot and I've met some amazing people. 

Blogging is one of the best ways to develop new skills and to think.

Seriously, that last part sounds weird but it's true.

For me, putting things into words on the screen is the absolute best way to think through and reflect, to gather my thoughts, to analyse them, to put them into structured, sense-making expressions and then to develop new ideas. 

It's the best way to come up with something. It's how Inbound PR was born - through writing. 

Blogging is an immense way to expand your thought process and your knowledge because by researching a topic you want to cover you learn new things and by writing about it you fully develop a knowledge bank. 

Then comes, of course, your own brand building. Blogging is fantastic for that but only when you do it right. 

And this is what I want to share with you today - my 5 key learnings from 5 years of blogging - that will help you get started and build your own brand through blogging. 

5 Key Learnings from 5 Years of Blogging:

With 2017 around the corner, I decided to spend some time analysing the performance of my blog for the past year and to draw some learnings from the findings.

I love HubSpot for this because it pulls out the data and it allows you to dig into it pretty well.  

Today, I want to show you what I found content and traffic-wise but also share my own takeaways and action items based on the analysis as you might find them useful for the New Year to try out too. 

Let's start with the most popular posts that I published in 2016 based on traffic: 

Top 5 Blog Posts by Traffic Published in 2016: 

1. The 4 Key Emotional Intelligence Capabilities [Infographic]
2. The Six Leadership Styles And How To Master Them [Infographic]
3. 31 Influencer Marketing Statistics You Need to Know Now
4. The Easiest, But Most Effective Guide to Keywords Research & Strategy
5. Why Inbound PR is the Future of PR? My #INBOUND16 Talk

Learning #1: Not my core topics bring the top traffic. It's because of infographics.

As the year is coming to an end, more and more PR students are starting to seriously think about their PR dissertations to finish their degrees. 

I've been getting a lot of emails from PR students requesting ideas for dissertations over the past three weeks. 

Now, I understand it's probably difficult to come up with a relevant and interesting topic but I always advise students to follow their passions - what is it really that you are interested in? What did you like the most during the past few years of studying? Surely, there must have been something that you have really enjoyed. 

So start there - with your interests. 

Then move onto the trends in the industry. Do some research. Figure out what other PR professionals are talking and worrying about. Find the opportunities of the future. Google is your best friend here.

After these two steps, just see where your interests and the industry trends collide. 

There you have it!

Still, I'll help you with the second part a bit just as I did two years ago. Below you can find 10 more public relations dissertation topics based on what I see happening in the industry. 

At the beginning of 2016 I set myself a goodreads challenge to read at least 30 books this year. 

I'm well on track, mixing the books between business-related ones around marketing, PR, strategy, and fictional novels. 

In addition, I've also noticed a trend towards books on personal development and particularly Leadership and Emotional Intelligence or the ability to recognise, understand and manage our own emotions and recognise, understand and influence those of others. 

I've written about these topics on a few occasions throughout the year so you might have also noticed that passion of mine. 

Keeping up with my books challenge and staying faithful to my latest passion, I finished two books on Emotional Intelligence last month: Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Emotional Intelligence: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Emotions and Raising your EQ by Ian Tuhovsky.

As much as I loved Daniel Goleman's insights, his work mainly covered the theory behind Emotional Intelligence (which is definitely needed and is the first stepping stone), I felt I was ready for more practice. This is why I picked the last two books as they were heavily focused on applying those learnings. 

I've found some of the exercises that were suggested in them particularly useful and relevant to my current state within my personal and professional life.