A simple question . . .
Does your blogging take time away from other work you should be doing?
Four Days Make a Long First Week . . .
It’s a priniciple of the work universe. Four-day work weeks alter the time-space continuum. How does a week seem so long and confusing when there is one day less to do that it? This week, I thought Monday was Tuesday. . . .
It’s Friday and I wish I was on a tropical beach . . . or taking a nap.
Still I usually do better at adjusting to changes than I have to this particular four-day week. It took me until Thursday to lose that “I’ve been on holiday” feeling.
Wait a minute, that’s the problem.
This wasn’t my usual four-day work week thing. The stakes were raised exponentially by the fact that it’s the VERY FIRST week back to work of 2007. No wonder, I don’t know where I am. I’m back to normal working days again. Normal isn’t my usual state. Even when things are normal, I’m a little off balance — hmmph not that anyone, who never met me, might notice.
The hardest week of the year — the week after the holidays — is over!
That changes everything and I’m changing everything too! I’ll make space this afternoon to put some “new” into my new year. I know exactly what I will do.
I’ll say good-bye to 2006 officially. Toss my old calendar. So long to cards and things left from the holidays sitting around my computer gathering dust.
I’ll get control of 2007. Lay out things that still need to be done. Plan what I’ll do first on Monday and what three most important I pick for my focus.
I’ll set up my command center. Put the things I use most where I use them.
I’ll make a plan for the weekend that gives my brain a break. I’ll walk out the door feeling in control again.
I made it to Friday of the first week of 2007! There’s no stopping me now. I’m ready to change the world again. A celebration is in order. I’ll meet a friend for some coffee, buy a book, and a CD.
Okay so I won’t go to that tropical beach, but a nap or even two just might be in order.
Nice AND Intelligent: The Big Picture and Selfish Requests
In my time in publishing, there were always way too many balls in the air and way too many plates spinning. Balls flying, plates spinning steal focus and emotions.
People knew me as smart, great at making things happen, and good at my job. They didn’t necessarily get time to know me as nice and sometimes I didn’t do much to encourage them.
But perception is reality. People saw smart, but they didn’t see nice, or when they saw both, they saw them as separate. It’s one reason I left that business.
My head and heart want to be back together. . . .
Yesterday, I got three requests for help. Two were from readers — people who “know” me. They were thoughtful and generous, suggesting ways they might return the favor in kind if not payment. I so enjoyed helping these two people.
But the third —
The third message was a moderated comment that read something like this.
I read your post and I found it interesting. I’m a new blogger. Would you visit my blog and look it over to tell me what you see. I’d really like the opinion of an expert. . . .
What? My post was interesting? Would I critique his blog? I took a peek at the blog in question. It was a business blog! New to blogging, I thought, but not new to business or other relationships. He hadn’t seemed to notice the Blog Review Checklist on the page two posts below the one he commented on. That said something about his level of interest.
I get these expectations every few days . . . and they always amaze me.
The problem is that my head and heart always want to respond differently. These things put back in the world of intelligent versus nice. Yet I can’t seem to reconcile the big picture of these selfish requests because I’m sitting inside them.
So I’m asking for your view. Can you help me on this? I want to stay nice . . . AND intelligent.
What are folks thinking when they write a request like that? Do they write such things to everyone and hope someone, anyone will do their work?
What’s going on that I don’t seem to get?
The Cool Kidâs Guide to Blogging in 2007
The Baton and Disclaimer
A friend and reader, and very intelligent person, Amrit Hallan, who writes the Content and Copywriting Blog made 6 Predictions for 2007. At the end of his post he passed the baton for predicting the future to four others. I was one of the four that he chose.
The Disclaimer: Anyone who wore brown knee socks in high school — as I did — cannot claim the title of “Cool Kid.” However, it is just that fact that makes me “acool” — as in apolitical or asymptomatic — the right person to write this guide. You see, the inherently acool become great observers. We watch the cool kids to see what makes them tick and how their rules of survival work. That said, I move on to the guide.
The Cool Kid’s Guide to Blogging in 2007
Who exactly are the cool kids of blogging? Who will be the cool kids in 2007? What do cool bloggers do? What won’t they have time for? I talk to several bloggers every day on my cell phone. I read their blogs and have conversations in comment boxes. What pattens come through from all of that fodder?
Here’s what I’m finding from this informal data. Things this year are different from last year. Things next year will be a new again. Cool kids don’t let things stay the same for long.
- Having Fun and Learning: Cool kids are no longer enthusiatic beginners. They are serious bloggers having fun at it. They are no longer tweaking templates for discovery. They know exactly what they want to do. XTML, HTML, CSS, PHP, aren’t new toys to learn, they’re a means to an end. If they can’t do it, they’ll find, hire, or barter with someone who can.
- Focus: Cool kids know whether they’re information or relationship bloggers. Either way they are narrowing their focus. They are dropping feeds that don’t provide what they’re seeking. Cool kids talk about blogs they have outgrown and things they now know that they never used to. They no longer spend hours looking for new blogs. They find themselves in new places by going where their friends already are. Cool kids are starting to read books again — some never stopped.
- Branding: Cool kids are going narrower and deeper. They’ve got a blogging identity. They’ve found a unique and authentic voice. Cool kids know their brand, their readers, and their blogging style.
- Communities: Cool kids don’t worry about Social Networking. That’s so five minutes ago. It will have to evolve to exist next year. Cool kids only go to MyBlogLog regularly and peek in on the others when they have a special need to. No Cool Kid that I know has figured out a genuine use for LinkedIn or its clones.
- Writing: Cool kids are becoming writers and they’re doing what they can to be even better at words in print. Content and communication is the beginning, middle, and end for every cool kid online.
- SEO: Google loves cool kids because cool kids don’t game the system. They blog for readers and know the spiders will do the rest. They link and stay connected, because they value the thoughts of others.
- Thought Leadership: Cool kids have stopped being snarky, started thinking deeper, and learned that self-promotion doesn’t win a prize. They’re not buzzword crazy. Cool kids talk with words that humans use.
- Productivity and Listening: Cool kids have nearly reached the end of their need for productivity tools. They’re becoming less enamored with multitasking — except talking with friends while consuming food and drink. Cool kids know that listening is a value we shouldn’t lose.
- Beta toys: Cool kids don’t need to download more stuff. Invitations to betas are a dead idea. Don’t talk to them about being a user. They know what they need and what they know. You won’t get their attention with anything less than spectacular, and then it better fit their niche.
- Blogging and the World: Cool kids have quit trying to prove something. They no longer worry about whether grandma, the media, or anyone else doesn’t understand what a blog is.
Cool kids have a beginner’s mind and an independent, helpful spirit. They love, listen, and learn all at the same time.
If you want to be a cool kid in blogging in 2007, it isn’t hard to do — just keep a couple of things in mind. No one makes the blogosphere run and no one needs to make that sure it does. Being helpful, not hypeful still wins respect, and respect is still how relationships thrive.
It’s awfully nice to be in a place where everyone can be cool, by showing respect. I guess that’s why it’s called the IN-ternet.
To the IN-credible, IN-telligent, IN-sightful readers of Successful-Blog, may your 2007 be ever so very cool.
That Christmas Week — When No One’s There
This is a Friday when most folks aren’t in the office. When I used to have an office away from my home, this day and the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day were my favorite days to sneak in for an hour or two to organize things.
It was the “be there when you don’t have to be” feeling.
It was the “be with the handful of folks who are also there” camaraderie.
It was the “I can clean out my files and talk about anything” freedom.
It was the “everyone has taken a vacation from deadlines” lack of stress.
It was the “I can toss this, move that, and add a picture” comfort and pride of ownership.
It was the space, the quiet, the room to breathe.
We spend more waking time in our offices than in our living rooms. It only took an hour or two to make my space somewhere I wanted to be.
Do You Know the Difference Between Quality and Cost?
When Quality Is Wrong
Writing, designing, tweaking anything, we work to bring what we do to the highest level. Who decides what the highest level is? Who determines the definition of quality? At first we think we do.
But we don’t.
The customer does.
If the customer can’t see what we add, it’s not quality.
If the customer doesn’t value our additional tweak, that’s not quality either.
If the customer doesn’t want that bell or that whistle, we may have gotten her way, we may have actually taken something from him.
If the customer can’t tell shades of blue as well as we can, we may have just made the customer wait.
In each of those cases, we weren’t adding value by investing our time what we added was . . .
COST.
What’s really silly is that some of us will sit back and wait for a thank you, a thank you that will never come from customers who want what we called quality. Thanks come so much more quickly when we give our customers something they want.
I don’t want a new chair. I want this one fixed.