Archive for June, 2007

Post Scheduling: A Potential Downside

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 30 June, 2007 in Blogging and Tips. 2 Comments

I’m learning how to be a better blogger, slowly but surely.

One of the things I’ve learnt is to schedule posts - allocating a block of time on the weekend to getting a week’s worth of posts out of the way, and then setting them up to publish once a day. This is a wonderful thing, and one that has saved me a lot of stress. But it has a downside - it takes longer to respond to posts by friends unless I consciously reschedule the queued posts.

This sounds easy, but when I’m tired, or caught up in some afterwork, it is easy to forget that I am not alone in this journey - and indeed, must still take time to share the link love. I’ve noticed that gurus like Darren Rowse and Yaro Starak will add the odd “news just in” or “this is exciting” post to their daily schedule, so I think that this is OK.

It is not as if there is an either/or decision to make - it is possible to both schedule posts and share the love in a timely and appropriate way. Just something else to keep in mind and make into a habit.

Community Spark: Community building for bloggers

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 29 June, 2007 in Blogging. 2 Comments

I received a comment on one of my Blogging Tips guest posts from Martin Reed at Community Spark - the Online Community Building Blog. In my comment to him I said that I would look up his blog when I could - and I finally did, and was impressed.

Martin blogs about community building in a generic way - getting people involved in blogs, online forums, and community websites. His article Online communities: What is content? is well worth a read.

Blogging till it hurts: Blogging health hazards

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 28 June, 2007 in Blogging and Tips. 0 Comments

Generally, we spend too much time on keyboard-based equipment. This raises a lot of potential health issues - issues that we need to be aware of as bloggers, including:

  • Carpal tunnel syndrome
  • Relationship issues
  • Sedentary occupation issues
  • Mental health issues

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Wikipedia tells us that:

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a medical condition in which the median nerve is compressed at the wrist, leading to pain, paresthesias, and muscle weakness in the forearm and hand.[1] A form of compressive neuropathy, CTS is more common in women than it is in men, and, though it can occur at any age, has a peak incidence around age 42.[2] The lifetime risk for CTS is around 10% of the adult population.[3]

Coincidentally, I’m 42 :)

There are a lot of stories about bloggers with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome - a favourite of mine is Light at the End of the Carpal Tunnel. For what it’s worth as a non-sufferer, my advice is to get help if you experience any of the following symptoms:

The first symptoms of CTS may appear when sleeping, and typically include numbness and paresthesia (a burning and tingling sensation in the fingers, especially the thumb, index, and middle fingers).[3] These symptoms appear at night because many people sleep with bent wrists which further compresses the carpal tunnel. If the median nerve is already under stress, the increased compression of the bent wrist creates the numbness and tingling. Difficulty gripping and making a fist, dropping objects, and weakness are symptoms of progression. In early stages of CTS individuals often mistakenly blame the tingling and numbness on restricted blood circulation and they believe their hands are simply “falling asleep”.

Relationship issues
I mentioned this before in Married to the Blog - a heavy blogging commitment can get in the way of a relationship, especially when the other partner doesn’t understand what you are trying to do. Maybe the relationship is a little rocky anyway, and blogging has brought up old stuff - or maybe there are some relationship issues brought on by this new interest. It could be a mixture of both - my only advice would be to talk openly and honestly with your partner about how you both feel.

Sedentary occupation issues
Let’s face it - as a hobby and as a profession, blogging itself does not encourage exercise. Like all keyboard-based work, blogging can take time away from exercise - especially if you are a part-time blogger, full-time office worker or student (and who would like to guess how many bloggers this covers?).

My advice would be to ensure that you get enough exercise (and I’ll leave it up to you, your doctor, your personal trainer and common sense to dictate how much exercise is enough).

Mental health issues
New Scientist argues that keeping a diary may lead to mental health issues - it seems that some people are capable of talking themselves into illness rather than using the diary as a way of assimilating past trauma. The same could be said of blogging - I think that the jury is still out on this, but it is interesting to note that the pop-psychology dictum “express yourself in writing - it’s good for you” may not always hold water.

There is a danger of social isolation through hours spent alone blogging. It needs to be said that physical social isolation does not necessarily equal total social isolation - I’m guessing that most bloggers interact socially online with other bloggers in one way or another (that said, I don’t have any references on this, and would be grateful for clarification).

There are some other issues that can affect mental health, such as loss of employment, social censure and imprisonment - these are discussed on Wikipedia under the consequences of blogging.

And as to advice? If in doubt, talk to a trained professional.

Conclusion
While there are some scary things in the above, I can’t see that any of them are deal-breakers - that is, there is nothing there that makes me personally want to stop blogging. But there are some important things to keep in mind that relate to your physical, mental and emotional health.

If you have something to add please leave me a comment - I’d appreciate links to stories on blogging health hazards, especially if they are personal anecdotes or relate to scientific research.

Take a sneak peek inside Blog Mastermind

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 27 June, 2007 in Blogging and Monetization. 0 Comments

Yaro Starak just sent his Blog Mastermind mentoring students a link to pass on to friends - a videocast sneak peek into the mentoring program. I’ve just watched it, and it reinforced my view that that I’m doing the right thing. My solemn promise - if it ceases to be that way, I’ll tell you.

Posting frequency revisited

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 27 June, 2007 in Blogging. 0 Comments

I wrote an article on frequency of posting vs. the popularity of the blog concerned and reprinted it here a week ago. Things have changed in the last week.

I’ve since started Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind mentoring program. Without giving too much away, Yaro is advising his students to do a few things this week - including publishing a pillar post every day (and there are good reasons for this - not the least of which is to get into the habit).

I’ve stuck to that wherever possible - either directly posting every day or scheduling the posts.  It is interesting how easy it is to do this when there is some external stimulus (in this case, I am paying Yaro to be part of his program so I want to get my money’s worth).

If you post every day, what is your stimulus? Where does the drive come from?

Share the link love without expectation or hesitation

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 26 June, 2007 in Blogging and Recommendation. 8 Comments

Wikipedia defines enlightened self interest as follows:

Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they belong), ultimately serve their own self-interest. [1] It has often been simply expressed by the belief that an individual, group, or even a commercial entity will “do well by doing good”. [2][3]

Doing well by doing good sounds like win-win to me. I like win-win because it is practical and sustainable.

What does this mean to bloggers? I believe that it means sharing the link love without expectation of return, or any hesitation. Inbound links from real people are one of our key success criteria, and their importance cannot be overstated. More inbound links means higher visibility, more RSS readers, higher technorati rank, better Google PageRank, peace in the Middle East, winning the lottery, finding your One True Love, and winning the Nobel Prize for Literature (OK, so it can be overstated - inbound links alone are not the answer, but they are certainly an important part of the answer).

You can share the link love by:

If I’ve missed any different ways to share the link love, please let me know :)

Love widely and love often. It is an easy way to build your own inbound links - at least some people will reciprocate. And at a bare minimum, you will generally get the people you link to reading your blog - in the past, my MyBlogLog sidebar widget has been graced by a lot of people that I’ve linked to - among them Wendy Piersall, Yaro Starak and John Chow. I have to admit to getting a buzz out of seeing fresh faces in the sidebar every day :)

Oh, and lest we forget - if someone gives you an inbound link, thank them by adding a comment. I’ve found it makes them more likely to reference your blog again, and can make them a friend. And friends make good readers!

Sharing link love will get you many blogger friends, but will it help you find a real-life love? Dating services can certainly fit the bill to help you find your one and only blogger love. You use the Internet for all other aspects of your life, why not try looking for love?

Why we blog: Maslow’s needs as motivators

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 25 June, 2007 in Blogging. 11 Comments

Blogging once or twice is easy. Blogging for six weeks is fun. After that, you’re facing the monster and it becomes a duty. And the duty may be responsible for the tens of millions of inactive blogs.

So why do we bother blogging? What’s the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)? Will it sustain you when things get successful enough to be painful? I’d like to take a look at motivations for blogging and how sustainable they appear.

We’re motivated by a range of different things. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a good way to categorise motivators:

Let’s look at how these might work for bloggers, starting from the most basic deficiency needs upwards.

  • Physiological needs are those required for minimal physical subsistence - the stuff that we need to live, and while I believe that all the layers of the pyramid are important, we can go without the others for short periods. Is it relevant as a motivator for bloggers? Unless you are being tortured into blogging, or use blogging itself for sexual gratification, then it probably doesn’t apply. I’d rate this as a fairly rare motivator.
  • Safety is important - and I believe that this covers physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual safety. I can only think of a couple of cases where safety is a motivator for bloggers: (a) when the blogger’s personal beliefs rely on a view that needs to be promulgated through blogging (as in a spiritual mission), or (b) there is a fear of a loss of safety through not blogging (and granted, this could be the same thing). I’m guessing that both of these cases are extreme.
  • Love/Belonging is where it starts to get interesting - there is a fine line between blogging because all of your friends do (acceptance of peer pressure is usually placed in the Love/Belonging category), and blogging for the recognition of your friends (which is probably placed in the Esteem category - can anyone confirm?). Regardless, I believe that Love and Belonging are noticeable motivators for bloggers. Will they be sustainable when things become impossibly successful? Love may conquer all, but could the lack of it motivate us to blog?
  • Esteem is probably the easiest category of need to identify with blogging. If we look deep inside ourselves, chances are that most of us blog because we like the recognition that it brings. Sure, the recognition may be shared with a business or a partner. Low self esteem increases the need for recognition, but I wouldn’t draw the conclusion that successful bloggers have low self esteem. The esteem might come from blog income, an increase in services sales, or increased product awareness. It may be that the esteem payoff, if not forthcoming, is a prime source of the blog monster.
  • Self-Actualisation is the first of Maslow’s growth needs, and is where a lot of us see ourselves as bloggers - we’re on a mission to improve ourselves and others. Sometimes we succeed :) While I jest, I believe that there is an important thing at work here - creativity. In blogging, we generally think, solving problems in a way that reinforces and extends this aspect of our life experience (in plain language, we use what we have to get what we want and what we have gets better as a result). I’d argue that while self-actualisation is essential to a well-rounded life, it is not a sustainable motivator for bloggers - exercising our creativity is usually a by-product rather than a key motive to keep blogging.

Regardless of the motivator, it needs to sustain us through the bad times. My pick for Maslow’s sustainable motivator of choice for bloggers is Esteem - at least in most cases. The esteem payoff comes through recognition - and I may be oversimplifying things here, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that the single best way to maintain motivation for bloggers is to be recognised by their peers.

What do you think? Tell me, please, because I’m trying to figure this out for myself :)

Everyone has their reasons for blogging. Could be to vent, express views or update friends. There are also plenty of reasons for outsourcing Microsoft Exchange. When you use server web hosting for your email or site, you can be sure that your files will stay protected and you’ll see that Exchange 2007 is the best way to manage your emails.

Blogging in the News

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 25 June, 2007 in About. 0 Comments

My Blogging in the News page is now fixed - I forgot to upload the custom feedlist template after changing servers, argh :)

What I wished I knew before I got started in blogging

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 24 June, 2007 in Blogging and Tips. 5 Comments

Darren Rowse asks: What do you wished that you knew before you started blogging?

My comment was as follows:

Hi Darren,

basically, what John Wesley, Bowrag, Lori, tejvan and Rami said.

And not to be too big a suckup about it, but I wish most of all that I’d read your blog (and Yaro’s, and Steve Pavlina’s) for about two months before I wrote my first post - but I guess that there are some lessons that are best learnt through error.

Best regards, Andrew

I’d like to expand on that.

John Wesley wrote:

I would have thought more about niche and branding. In the beginning I didn’t understand how important those things are so I had to adjust as the site developed. Having a plan from the start would have helped a lot.

I couldn’t agree more. If I’d planned and found my niche right at the start then I would have been a lot better off. I know this because when I did nichify my numbers went up. 

Bowrag wrote:

Differently:1) set the theme before I began… I have changed too many times and need to change again.
2) Name the blog the same as the domain name I had. I had an old domain name and used it but the blog is different.
3) FIND traffic

Yes, yes, and yes. I’ve wasted far too much time fooling around with widgets, theme hacks, poor headers, you name it - I should have spent this time writing quality pillar posts. And as to domain names - Facibus Reviews (my first attempt at serious blogging, and therefore the least niche-specific) has appeared under no less than three different URLs in the past three months - I’ve finally settled on something I can use. Bowrag’s third point is especially helpful - getting out there and commenting on other people’s posts, actively contributing to social networking/community sites, sharing some link love - all these things are lessons that I’ve had to learn through not doing them initially.

Lori wrote:

Great question..as a 3mth newbie, I would do many things different. But the one thing that stands out is I wish I would have made a plan and researched my niche before jumping right in. I was so excited to get started that I didn’t research anything…hec, I didn’t even know what blogging was when I started. RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH!

Three very powerful words there :) If I’d taken the advice of blogging gurus then I would have done a lot better. Find the right niche, set up a useful blogging platform on a server with a relevant domain name, write quality content, network, you know the drill. If I’d known it three months ago and researched for two months, I know I’d be ahead of where I am now with considerably less effort.  

tejvan wrote:

Use the best blogging software and try to avoid wasting time messing around with design and getting the blog to function. I learn’t through experience Wordpress is the best blogging software

Absolutely. Find the right platform, set it up, and don’t mess with it every day. Sounds so sensible to me now :)

rami wrote:

I’d focus on one topic only per blog.

Yes :) It sounds so simple, but is so hard to do. I found myself writing on a whole heap of different subjects on Facibus Reviews: restaurants, marketing, customer service, consulting, information architecture/classification, recipes, basically whatever popped into my head. Of course, once I learnt the “one topic only per blog” I started more blogs (at last count, there are nine of them) and I really only contribute to two of them as often as I should.

As to the last part of my comment:

And not to be too big a suckup about it, but I wish most of all that I’d read your blog (and Yaro’s, and Steve Pavlina’s) for about two months before I wrote my first post - but I guess that there are some lessons that are best learnt through error.

I have to reiterate: the biggest single thing that I wished I had done differently was to research for a month or two to learn how to do it properly. I’m still learning - at least I’ve learnt enough now to know that I need to learn a lot more :) I’ve read a heap of ebooks that have come from respected sources and I’ve joined Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind mentoring program.  I have every faith in Yaro that he will teach me a lot more.

Is there anything that I’ve missed? Let me know :)

The Changing Face of Blogging

Published by
AndrewBoyd
at 23 June, 2007 in Blogging. 2 Comments

There is a wonderful article on Ungeek It on the changing face of blogging. Gartner says that blogging has or will shortly peak, and technorati’s statistics show that inactive blogs number in the tens of millions.

In the Ungeek It article, Jeri says that blogging is not dying - it is changing. I agree. The bloggers are still out there - Jeri works with a bunch of them, and so do I. Blogging amongst my consultant friends is growing - sometimes done as a release, and sometimes as a means of establishing thought leadership in their respective fields. Perhaps it is the motivation that is changing as more people come to see the professional benefits in both making money directly from blogging and using it to promote a services business or a product.

I think that the millions of inactive blogs are due to people not learning to slay the blog monster - that is, they lose heart and therefore lose interest.