As a company, LexBlog has a firm understanding of how to blog. It is our core strength. Over the last year we have been taking what we know about blogging, RSS and WordPress to build a new product, Portals.

Portals are syndication engines that can bring together other publications under one domain. Our pilot example is our own site, LexBlog.com.

Portals started because we wanted to help shine a light on the work of all the amazing bloggers on our network. It then grew into something bigger as we added more functionality, and more importantly, also became something we could open to other organizations who wanted to do the same.

I bring up portals to illustrate something that I hope more people will pay attention to at their job. How much influence they have.

This influence can get lost in your day to day work, but if you take a moment and step back, and look at what you and your co-workers are doing, you will see your influence is everywhere. Be it in documents you have written, sentences sent in emails that have become the language of your organization, and even in the drive and attitude of your co-workers.

I was made aware of this well before I worked in technology, after reading the book, The Soul of a New Machine. It is a seminal non-fiction book about the technology industry. Filled with stories about brilliant people driven to get something done despite overwhelming odds. I still find it endlessly inspiring. Especially the central theme of the book. You are visible in your work or more eloquently said,

The “Soul” of the new machine comes from the dedicated engineers who bring it to life with their endless hours of attention and toil. The soul is theirs, stored in silicon and microcode.

What we do in tech is highly collaborative, so it is often difficult to point to one’s accomplishments. But that is only to the outsider looking at the product. We on the inside should be able to see our intellectual DNA all around us. And once spotted, it is fun to watch it evolve.

So take a moment to look around you. This is applicable not just at work, but for any group you are a part of.

Do you see your influence? Have you contributed to the “soul” of what has been accomplished?

If not, it might be time to rethink how you approach your work or how you look at things.