Successful Blog

Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: Tell My Fortune!

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Look into My Crystal Ball

Personal Branding logo

YES, the mic will be open again tonight. So start collecting your thoughts. Remember, you get to bring what you want to talk about.

The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

Tonight we’re telling the future!

We might also talk about

  • experiences with fortune telling
  • tarot cards, Ouija boards, crystal balls
  • past lives, ESP, telekinesis
  • paranormal experiences

AND THE EVER POPULAR,
Basil the code-writing donkey, and Milton the Moose.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
The Mic Is On and It’s a Thank-You Party!

Blog Promotion: How to Write for People and Search Engine Spiders

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Blog Promotion by Writing Well for the Web

New Blogger Logo

Writing online serves two audiences — people and search engine spiders — those little crawly bots that move from link to link indexing information that ranks my pages. People are my readers. People are also the users who search for information. Spiders locate the content for search engines to index and serve up when people go searching for information. Keeping those facts in mind helps me handle the balance between the people and the coded arachnids that search out quality, relevant content to serve them.

The best blog promotion is to write well for the web. I keep my focus on people and give a nod to spiders by following these basics.

Write for People

    I write for people. I use my own voice. I write with the way people read as my guide.

    I read over my work as a reader would. When I read what I’ve written listen as a person would hear the message.

    I look for words, phrases, errors, and overly-long sentences that would get between readers and my message. I also have a proofreader check things behind me. If you find something, she’s not been here yet.

After the work is “people-ready,” I go over it another time for my secondary audience –- those search engine spiders. I make sure the spiders don’t trip and have plenty to eat.

Feed Spiders

    Spiders like to eat keywords. I make sure they find some in titles and subheads and key sentences. I don’t mind a bit of repetition.

    I avoid the word “here” as link anchor text. Spiders place more value on outgoing links when the anchor text shows how they are relevant.

    I add related articles. Spiders like to know how my pages relate to each other, and they like to have those pages to serve up when someone is searching for a related idea.

    I link out or trackback to quality blogs.

These last crumbs to feed spiders didn’t really change the content. So I give the piece a final read, fix what I find, and hit that publish button.

Readers are happy because they get my best writing. Spiders are happy because people get my best writing — that means the people will use their search engine again.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
6+1 Traits of Search Engine Relevant Content
Search Engines & People Care about Anchor Text in Links
Blog Construction–What’s Your Function?

Tony Hung Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Tony there?

When you meet Tony Hung you might not realize how soon, or how often, you’re going to be seeing him. He would need time to tell you about all of the places you might find him. Beyond his own blog, a few of his regular stops include the Blog Herald, Bloggertalks, Tuesday Night Comments, and events and conversations about the MESH conference. Soon there will be even more.

When Tony and I met via headphones and our computers, he shared his background — years of websites and playing with web design. We talked about how he came into blogging. Tony goes deep on any subject he’s interested in. It shows in the fact that his first blog was on WordPress with a theme of his own design.

I asked how Tony connected with the Blog Herald — he said he suggested some topics and shortly thereafter, Matt read Tony’s blog and invited Tony to write for them. The Blog Herald connection prompted Thord, another Herald writer, to invite Tony to be part of Bloggertalks, the hot new interview blog.

When I asked Tony what he did when he wasn’t blogging or talking to bloggers, I found out that he had another name, Dr. Tony Hung. He said he’s a final-year resident doctor in Internal Medicine. So we talked about doctors. I mentioned that I finally found a neurologist without a gargantuan ego. He replied that more than one specialty fell victim to that condition.

I think Tony’d be glad I didn’t share my favorite doctor joke.

Tony explained how he chose Internal Medicine. He said he had started in Family Medicine, but found that he wanted to help really sick people. We discussed how some folks don’t get better, but instead have to move on to other care. Tony mentioned the thought that goes into talking to family members who are also involved. You have to admire someone who does that work.

Dr. Tony Hung added one more name 9 weeks ago — Daddy. Tony Hung is the father of a baby boy.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

I got into it so that I could learn about what people are doing. I wasn’t prepared for how much fun it is. —Tony Hung

Stop by Tony’s Blog, deep jive interests, and say hi!

Thanks, Tony, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

Net Neutrality 11-28-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Wake up, Neo

Breaking the Matrix is my column in the October issue of Linux Journal. It goes beyond Net Neutrality arguments to explore the possibility of (nay, the need for) a truly open marketplace for connectivity. Some excerpts:

Far more powerful is a belief, held by nearly everybody in the developed world, that the best markets are captive ones. In the Free Software and Open Source movements we call captive markets “walled gardens” or “silos”. But to most producers in the developed world, these are ideal. And to most consumers, they are business as usual.
Even after the Net obsoleted closed on-line systems, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft continued to silo instant messaging inside their own walled gardens. In 2006, there should be no excuse for this.
Yet there is. We continue to believe, as both producers and consumers, that silos are okay. And worse, that a “free” marketplace is one where you get to choose the best silo.
We see this in the US today with our “choice” of services from phone and cable carriers. We even think the Net itself is a grace of telecom and cablecom carriage. After all, those are the guys we pay to get it. Those are the guys who have gradually increased our connection speeds.

[ . . . ]

These carriers can no more appreciate a truly free market than an agent in The Matrix can imagine a world not run by machines….
You have to be free to see how absurd silos can be. You have to see markets as wide-open spaces opened by ubiquitous relationships, and potential relationships, between digital devices and the human beings who use them. You have to see unrestricted possibilities for the people and organizations putting those devices, their applications and their data to work. Those possibilities lose their limits once you set your mind free of the notion that a free market is just a choice of silos.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Michael Vizdos Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Mike there?

If you go on Amazon, you’ll find that Mike Vizdos wrote a book with Scott Ambler and John Nalbone. The Amazon bio also will tell you that he’s a certified Scrum Master.

Mike told me that Scrum is a way of teaching development teams to manage chaos when every team member has conflicting needs. What does Scrum stand for? Scrum stands for Scrum — the letters have no meaning. I heard it from the master.

Mike and I had fun discussing the kinds of issues he faces teaching folks in all kinds of business to work together in teams. He said that often teams sabotage each other. We discussed the problem of middle managers, who learned to lead by giving orders rather than asking folks to solve problems together.

Mike says he has a better chance at making headway with the idea of teamwork because he’s from outside the culture. I said that I could see that. My thought was that ideas give people power — he’d be leaving and that would take away the threat. We talked about how the company culture often undoes what he worked to get started.

The heart of this part of the conversation was that as much as they talk about teamwork, organizations often reward heroes. So there’s no payoff to working with and for each other when one role has a paycheck or gets credit. Mike teaches the value of giving up that world view. He tells folks if they love working 100-hour weeks, they shouldn’t expect their teammates to do the same thing. I could almost hear him saying that life is about living.

Our discussion wandered into family, kids, neighborhoods, travel, and homeschooling. Mike has the advantage of being able to take his two sons and his wife with him when he works in other countries. We talked about the educational units they prepare for their kids so that they’re always learning.

I have a feeling Mike’s the same way. . . . always learning and always curious. When we talked about the things his teams do to form relationships, he told me in detail about the IT department that formed a knitting group. Now they all have long scarves they don’t know how to finish off.

Maybe Mike and I can get some folks to start a HELP DESK for IT Knitters.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

It’s amazing to see when people start going home to their families and things just happen. —Mike Vizdos

Stop by Mike’s Blog, Implementing Scrum, and say hi!

Thanks, Mike, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.