Other guidance for college students applying I shared during the live tweeted #mashadvice column this week:

demo via social media (activities, blogs, commentary) strengths you'd include in your application

besides showing interest in a topic via social, also show *engagement* (what you DO about it)

Twitter, LI, any service: what's findable should reflect you/path you're on, match up w/what you present in applications

think about using Pinterest to create portfolios of your work (actual, or imagined-future), curate your vision

photos can be used as complement: to create atmosphere, demo aesthetic, show history

This portfolio site is the #1 Google result for my name. This month I've started a reconstruction blog here.

It's going to be the blog that would have existed if I'd known then what I know now.

...if I'd been telling my personal and pro story all along with today's perspective on where it leads, and what matters.

Few little edits, but mostly going in as it already exists. Later I'll start linking all the pieces together, and developing further some of the content.

I'm also pulling together my material that's been scattered around the web, plus adding unseen pieces that germinated in the dark social of email, and in general, bringing out unpublished and otherwise fallow pieces of all kinds.

I'm thinking it'll be a way to refresh my own interest, and, with the help of web search, eventually connect me with others who are interested in those topics or treatments. They may even be future collaborators to bring the work to fruition. A public filing cabinet of sorts.

Have you tried this, or another retrospective approach to building a blog?

Update: Social media marketing pioneer Chris Abraham posted this related and detailed suggestion to "Fill in your entire social media and blog history", July 26, 2013.

"Spend this week digging through memories predating the moment you joined the online conversation and start posting them," Abraham writes.