The consistently insightful Valeria Maltoni over at Conversation Agent shared her thoughts on Penelope Trunk’s career-catalyzing advice, as taken from the pages of Trunk’s book, Brazen Careerist. Among suggestions like turning down promotions and making sure you hit the gym, you should:

Start a blog—starting a blog is the equivalent of letting people into the way you process information and form opinions; it’s a way to see if you exercise critical thinking and flex your writing muscle articulating on topics of your choosing. This is part ideas lab—the place where I test concepts to see for myself if they hold water. Sometimes I do not know exactly what I’m thinking until I commit it to writing and invite others to poke holes into it. The process is so transparent that it cannot be easily faked. It’s also a way to let others inform our thinking without having specific agendas—on a peer to peer level, with peer being defined as interested person/thinker. This is a very different process from the one we encounter in corporate America, where the person’s title may be the driver in decision making.

Right on the money, Ms. Maltoni.

Blogging is a way to take ownership of your professional, intellectual turf. It puts you in the spotlight (or the crosshairs), but understanding that responsibility liberates us, allows us to take risks, worry less about appeasing authority, and concentrate on innovating, on evolving—on being a thought leader. If a blog is a conduit to that kind of dialog, or allows you to raise your expertise profile, then by all means blogs are on the thought-leadership vanguard.

Put your ear up to the boardroom door; that panicked, scrabbling sound you hear is the old guard trying to understand what the kids are up to these days and grousing about how they can’t control it.