Successful Blog

The Mic is ON. It’s Thassos Island, Greece!

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It’s Like Open Mike Only Different

Here’s how it works.

The rules are simple — be nice.

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.

Some things we might talk about could include

  • our favorite words.
  • whether anyone’s putting email on their blog(s).
  • whether you’ll ever do a podcast.
  • what your biggest blogging problem is.
  • why Liz had to find her own photograph.

AND THE EVER POPULAR,

What are the code-writing donkey and the drinking moose doing tonight?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Open Mic Tonight 7pm Chicago Time

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Tuesday Open Comment Night

Personal Branding logo

YES, the mike 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.

We met lots of new friends last week as we always do. If you missed it, stop by this week, and we’ll meet you.

Some things we might talk about could include

  • our favorite words.
  • whether anyone’s putting email on their blog(s).
  • whether you’ll ever do a podcast.
  • what your biggest blogging problem is.
  • why Liz had to find her own photograph.

AND THE EVER POPULAR,

What are the code-writing donkey and the drinking moose doing tonight?

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

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The Mic in ON in Tuscany!

9 + 1 — The Sequel — When Big Words Go Bad

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Big Words Are Wonderful

Thank you, to everyone who read and took time to comment on 9 + 1 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer. The post and the discussion became much of what I personally think is the appeal and the addiction of blogging — learning by an interactive, rolling dialogue.

One point in particular seemed to get several comments. It was this one.

Set aside your expensive vocabulary. Don’t use big words, when perfectly good little words communicate easily. I don’t read with an online dictionary, and I don’t want to.

It seems folks were worried that I don’t like big words at all. I love them. I like the way they sound and the way that you can find one that will precisely pinpoint the idea that you’re going for. The point up above that I didn’t make clearly — yeah I’m unclear too, go figure — is that I was writing the 9 + 1 post in the voice of average readers, who don’t have time to go looking up words that might get between them and your message.

El Hakeem pointed out that some folks DO like big words and enjoy learning them. Starbucker is one in particular. He reads William Safire for that very reason. They’re right, you know. If your audience shares your love of vocabulary and finds new words delicious, I’d never ask you to take that away from them. I don’t expect that you would, even if I did.

I was talking about folks who use big words to make themselves or their writing sound smarter. Using vocabulary that way isn’t authentic and readers can tell.

Tony Lawrence left a story in a comment this morning that is a perfect example of how a guy can get caught doing just that.

Many years ago I had a partner who sometimes liked to brag about his education. I think he liked it all the more because I am mostly self educated – I dropped out of high school the moment I was legally able.

Anyway, Don (we’ll call him Don because that was his name) had prepared a new company brochure and was presenting it to me and another partner. As I was reading it, I came across an interesting sentence:

‘We provide simple pneumonic phrases to help you remember the commands.’

“Don, what the hell is a ‘pneumonic phrase’, I asked (not all that pleasantly).

Don nearly preened himself. “Well, if you had the benefit of a college education, you’d know that a pneumonic is a memory aid.”

I shook my head. “I am an autodidact, you fatuous ass, but I know how to spell and I know that the word you were thinking of is ‘mnemonic’ and that YOUR word is more usually found in conjunction with plagues”. I wrote ‘MNEMONIC’ out in large letters as I said that.

‘Benefits of a college education’ indeed.

Thanks, Tony, for letting me share your anecdote. (That qualifies as a big word.) You did what I couldn’t do and you did it artfully. I probably would have had readers screaming, “Liz, the darn horse is dead.”

By the way, my favorite word is despicable. It sounds like it should have punctuation inside it. What’s yours?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz’s help with your writing, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

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See the Customer Think and Writing Power for Everyone series on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES PAGE.

Net Neutrality 6-27-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

How can we keep the Bells from committing net-neutricide?

How do you detect when the Bells are committing neutricide? It can’t be as simple as measuring throughput. There’s a host in China that I can’t reach from my ISP in London because of an incorrectly configured router at Sprint. That’s stupid and painful, but it’s not the same thing as anti-neutral. Distinguishing stupidity from malice from outside is going to be very hard.

One thing we don’t want is something like the SEC’s anti-insider-trading rules. Network neutrality rules won’t have much practical use if the only way to get them enforced is to convince a bureaucrat at the FCC to raid AT&T’s sales office, seize its files, and investigate your suspicions of wrongdoing. . .

Hyperbolic neutrality nonsense

Netflix founder Reed Hastings wants to move his company’s video distribution system off the postal system and onto the Internet, where it would become a major consumer of bandwidth. He’s worried about traffic-sensitive pricing, so he invokes the all-singing, all-dancing Wonder Principle, “net neutrality”, on the opinion pages of America’s most credulous newspaper:

Today, forces are at work to stake out future control of Web site traffic and eliminate the Internet’s longstanding openness. . . .

. . . While I can sympathize with Mr. Hastings’ desire to have Fedex service for the price of a first class stamp, I’d rather not be the one to pay the difference.

EXCLUSIVE: AT&T CEO’s political donations to net neutrality opponents

As AT&T continues its battles with net neutrality proponents on Capitol Hill this week, I thought it would be interesting to see where AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre has been spending his own money this campaign and election cycle.

I went to Opensecrets.org, and checked under “Whitacre.” . . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Email Subscriptions Got My Mother-in-law & 2 Nuns to Read My Blog

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Who Wants a Blog by Email?

See the subscription form in the sidebar under the search box? It looks like this.

I put it on my blog as an experiment. I was skeptical. I thought Who’d want a blog in their email box? Wouldn’t that change the whole experience?

3 Good Reasons

My dad used to say get 3 good reasons for what you want to do. I did my homework, and I got them. Three good reasons for trying email to my blog.

  • Some folks spend a lot of time on email and little time on the Internet.
  • Some folks don’t want to come to find me. They’d rather I came to them.
  • RSS feeds are hard to explain to folks who’ve never seen or used one before. I know. I’ve tried.

Two other reasons I gave email subscriptions a try were that I don’t have to pay anything, and I like the way the email version of my blog looks. I made a screen so that you could see for yourself. [Read more…]

Cat Wentworth, Designers who Blog & the Header

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Cat Wentworth

Late on Friday, I got an email from the designer-publisher-superwoman, Cat Wentworth, who owns Designers who Blog. You may know her from the Successful Blog community. She’s commented here often with her insights. She pointed us to the Great Find article on C.R.A.P. design by Mike Rundle, and she stops by for Tuesday Open Mike Night whenever she has a chance.

Designers who Blog is a showcase for creative bloggers. Cat is great at making sure the world knows about talent in her own creative and wonderful way. In this particular email, Cat said she was going to feature Successful Blog in her showcase. How cool of a turnabout is that?

What happened next was too exciting. People who know how laid back I can be would have paid money to see how I reacted. I’m not kidding, really. My IT husband was laughing through the whole thing. [Read more…]