Things I've Seen

Writing tips, via Friendfeed

Steve Rubel pointed today to Kaylow Media's Six tips for generating terrific blog posts. (Actually, Rubel shared this in Google Reader and it showed up in Friendfeed. Oh, how do you properly attribute sources in these social media times?!) From the post:

Notice everything ... I realized that the very experience I was having would make a great post

Be prepared ... I have a stack of index cards and a pen with me at all times, so I can immediately jot down any idea.

Talk with a variety of people ... the internet represents as diverse a community as you’ll ever find. Look beyond your bookmarked blogs ... Poke around the global neighborhood and see what you’ll find.

Create a "blogging only" workspace ... a person’s environment can influence their behaviors ... I’ve conditioned myself to associate [the blogging-only space] with writing, so my brain goes into “writing mode” as soon as I sit down.

Step away from the blogosphere ... Time spent away from the computer is just as beneficial as reading inspirational posts.

Create a crappy first draft ... but of course. You'll never write anything if you don't get something down in writing first - no matter how bad it is. That is writing 101 (my comment)

Nothing earth shattering - these are good tips for anybody who's writing anything - but a good kick in the ass for me since this blog continues to languish a bit.

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On that last point: I've been editing quite a bit at work lately - more than usual as we go through the growing pains of hiring new people and shifting others' roles around. And I must say I'm pretty damn good at it.

One thing I've noticed time and again is how so-called seasoned professionals will let that crappy first draft stand as final. I mean, it's one thing to just get your thoughts down on paper. Turning them into thoughtful, powerful, persuasive prose (or copy) is something else altogether.

Weasel words and phrases (so much the province of old-school PR), over-long sentences, weak verbs (forms of to be and to have, in particular), over-use of adjectives vs. good strong verbs ... these are just a few hallmarks of weak writing that I encounter every day. It's disheartening to say the least. Especially when you consider the fact that words are the tools of our trade. Worse still? I'm sometimes convinced that the folks I'm editing truly don't know the difference between an OK sentence and a compelling, even powerfully written one.

And that's just kinda sad.

Nobody here

Wow. Has my traffic gone down over the past year.  I guess I don't wonder why.

To get readers, a blog needs content - regular updates, too. But I've been busy on Facebook and Twitter and just generally anything that keeps me from paying attention to -  caring for and feeding - this blog. Will I fix it, especially now (great timing!) that I've added AdSense, which, of course is earning exactly $0.00? Well, that's the question now, isn't it.

Update: April has brought me about a buck and a half in AdSense earnings. Woo!

Caught in the net(work)

Art by Facebook friend, Alana Servis, drawn on daughter Susan's SuperWall.

Hugh is right, you know. From his post, Blogging is dead? According to whom?:

2007 has been all about :"Social Networks". With Facebook leading the charge, suddenly who you know seems far more interesting to the journalists than what you know. Screw the nodes, it's now all about the network, People. All about "The Social Graph", People. We no longer worry about what we have to say, we worry about who's controlling our data. We no longer talk about folk we know, like and admire, and what they're up to, we talk about hot-shot startups and how many billions Microsoft is going to pay for them ...

... If you have something to say, then a blog offers a cheap, easy global medium in which to express yourself. This is as true now as it was three years ago, regardless of what the groovy cats in Silicon Valley may be up to ...

...  if you're one of these people considering giving up on blogging in exchange for paying more attention to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, or whatever they throw at us mere mortals, bear in mind you are giving up on something rather unique and wonderful ...

Of course, Hugh McCleod's thing has been to build his own personal business brand via blogging. And he's had great success with the South African winery, Stormhoek, and other ventures. Not that he's eschewed Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. Not at all. But he's held to - and continued to build  - his personal brand.

I don't have a business interest in building my brand. But I must say whatever I did build by blogging, here and at Coit Avenue, has dwindled considerably over the past year or so since my blogging efforts have tapered off. And why? For me, it's the fact that social networking is so much easier than blogging. And the feedback is so much more immediate.

But what of that feedback? What of 'results'? I now have 70 friends on Facebook (not bad for an 'oldster' with no claim to fame). I spend a fair amount of time each day reading and updating the daily mundane about and for that disparate 70 (too many of whom are my kids and their friends). And for what? There's no thinking or probing here, no exchange of thoughts or ideas, no synthesis and certainly no real conversation. Connection, yes. But nothing meaningful.

I guess my point is this: If the only way you connect is through social networking, it's  like eating only desserts. It's sugary, fun and easy to take. But it always leaves me wanting more, and is, in the end, somehow unsatisfying. Blogging is the meal, the main course, the sustenance. Sure it is more work. But it is more productive. And more satisfying in the long run.

So will I cut back on the sugar, break out of the easy-ness of social networking  and get back to balancing my self-expression with the more meaningful, satisfying  work of blogging? No promises  here (it's hard work, after all!) but  if  I  know what's good for me ...

 

Update on Amazing Michigan

The new blog Because Michigan is Amazing has added an About Us page with a little more information on the people and idea behind it. I have more about it on Coit Avenue.

Amazing Michigan? Not so fast

This is cross-posted from  Coit Avenue.

Fellow MI bloggers, I assume you all got this email too:

Hi, Kathleen. I'm writing from Hass MS&L Public Relations in Ann Arbor. We're trying to let people know about a new blog that launched today: Michigan is Amazing (michiganisamazing.com).

The purpose of Michigan is Amazing is to bring to everyone's attention all the great things about our state. While a creative agency will be supplying the content for the blog initially, it's the site's users that will become the content providers * and, through a ratings system, judge which stories are the best. The blog's categories are People, Places, Things, Events and Organizations. Users can use the blog to let everyone know about the things they think are special about Michigan using text, images or video.

All users who submit valid entries will receive a small gift, and all those who have posts published on the blog will win a free t-shirt. The best entry of each month will win the blogger an amazing Michigan-themed gift basket loaded with a variety of prizes.

We're trying to get the word out and we hope you'll let your readers know. Just for spreading the word we'd like to send you a small gift.

Thanks for your time. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely, Melanie Seasons

Word of mouth marketing, baby
So what's this all about? A google search on Hass MS&L turns up this from the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch: "David Binkowski from Hass MS&L is scheduled to appear on a panel "How to Create Great Corporate Blogs That Get People Talking" at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association conference in Orlando, Florida, January 20, 2006"

Ah, so that's it -- a Great Corporate Blog that'll get us Michiganders talking. But when I checked out the new blog for a sign of a corporate presence, I found nothing, other than a "sponsored link" from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. And indeed, when I clicked on "Send Us Your Amazing Finds," then "click here to read the rules," I read this:

Contest Eligibility:  Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan does not determine the submissions posted to “Michigan is Amazing” or the winner of the monthly contest ...

The agency MS&L, which acquired Hass in 2002, has a lengthy list of health care clients (although I don't see BCBSM on the list right now). Looking at the news area of their site, their expertise seems to be in positioning Big Pharma in the face of all its litigation and regulatory issues.

Digging further, I found that David Binkowski heads up Hass MS&L Blogworks and is a member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, where his page explains:

...  Hass MS&L has successfully worked with global clients to launch corporate blogs and to deal with the issues they raise. And our marketing outreach practice connects influential consumers with new products and helps spread awareness through these new media.

A notable success for Blogworks is the much-praised FastLane Blog from GM chief Bob Lutz.

So what's the problem?
What's wrong with all of this? I work in marketing communications. I understand that you can hardly get a better product endorsement than one that's person-to-person, or word of mouth. And I'm a blogger -- don't I believe in the power of blogs to spread the word, rally people for causes, inform us on issues, etc., etc., etc.?  Of course. Still, here's what grinds me about this pitch:

• I'm asked to "spread the word" about a new blog that appears to have no real reason for being, no author, no sponsor, no voice -- and therefore not much reason to engage.  (Content's kinda lame, too, but there is potential there, if people participate. It's about Michigan, afterall!)

• Prizes for blogging? Even a gift to me for "spreading the word?" Please!

• The initial complete and utter lack of transparency on the part of Melanie Seasons as to who is sponsoring the blog.

• The initial complete and utter lack of transparency on the blog itself as to who is behind it.

Conversation goes two ways
Yeah, I know word of mouth marketing is the thing these days. But if markets are conversations as we read in Cluetrain, this one-way deal isn't the way to go about it.  And it's certainly not what blogging is about. There needs to be an exchange going on here -- honest, open, no holds barred. And prizes and gifts don't count.

A word to BCBSM -- if you want to engage bloggers in a folksy, feel-good conversation about how great Michigan is, we'd be more than happy to talk, even spread the word. But take the mask off first. Be up front with us. If you don't, the words we spread likely won't be the ones you had in mind.

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SourceWatch had more on Hass MS&L: See the subhead Driving Bloggers Pro-War Coverage

 

Who's watching?

It looks like someone who doesn't want to be identified is checking out my blogs. I wrote about it today over at coit avenue.

Traffic by country

From my site stats as of today. It's not surprising to see that 78% of my traffic is from the U.S. But 5% from France? I wonder what's up with that?

Treat it like an A-List blog: Four Things

To paraphrase an old saw, "Treat it like an A-List  blog and it will become an  A-List  blog." (Uh huh. That's what I said, too.)

Anyway, if big guys like Kottke participate in the Four Things meme, the least I can do to achieve my goal is to copy them (and then you follow suit and copy me, see? Especially the four bloggers I "tag" at the end of the post).

Ready? Here goes:

Four jobs I've had
Cafeteria worker
Teacher
Day care provider
Church secretary

Four movies I can watch over and over (Have I even seen four movies that I like?)
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Monsters Inc
Scrooge (the George C. Scott version)
Disney's Beauty and the Beast

Four places I've lived
Great Lakes, Ill
Muskegon, Mich.
Kalamazoo, Mich.
East Lansing, Mich.

Four TV shows I love like
Desperate Housewives
The Simpsons
King of the Hill
Big Ten Basketball (I don't know!)

Four places I've vacationed
Orlando
Gatlinburg
Paris
San Diego

Four of my favorite dishes
Garlic smashed potatoes
Sushi (whatever you order for me)
Guacamole
Ice cream (any kind)

Four sites I visit read from daily
Newsvine
bOING bOING
BuzzMachine
fresh perspective

Four places I'd rather be right now
Kauai
Napping
Sunning on the beach at Lake Michigan
Biking the circumference of Mackinaw Island

Four bloggers I'm tagging
Lori
pairadocs
artinlife
g's spot

 

Something new

One of the first things I did after I left my job was to get a new email account. Sure I have our home Comcast account, and I have a personal one through Yahoo. But the former is full of sports news, ZDNet, and MSN emails sent to my husband (I use a PowerBook G4, if you don’t know). And the latter has become so full of scam spam (you know, “claim your $3 million, new car, pool table, video iPod”  – you name it) that I hated the thought of using it for my “official” business account.

So Lori set me up with an invite to Gmail, which, now that I’m used to it, I like just fine. It’s webmail, so I can access it easily from anywhere. I don’t have to bother with sorting or filing correspondence, since all conversations are threaded and Gmail is very searchable. There’s virtually no spam in my inbox. Even the advertising can be helpful, as it turns out.

I have to admit  that at first I didn’t pay attention to the ads being served up to me. I’ve become essentially blind to GoogleAds and I almost NEVER click on them at ANY website. So oblivious am I to this kind of advertising that it took me awhile to realize that the ads in the sidebar  of my email had to do with a subject in the message I was looking at. (I know -- duh, c’mon, it’s Google!)

Which brings me to the point of this post. I finally started paying attention to those ads, and now I have Google to thank for pointing me to a website that has managed to turn my head (slightly) from the tech, political, new media, sex and mainstream media sites that fill my newsreader (105 feeds and counting in NetNewswireLite) to a subject that’s also near and dear to my heart (and my expanding waistline) – food!

101 Cookbooks is a beautiful thing. The site itself is clean and white, with gorgeous photography (I’m thinking that foodie/photog Lori would love it just for that feature). I’m just digging into the information there, but it seems full of everything good and upscale and nouveau when it comes to food: trends, products, recipes.

For instance, in a post on the  recent Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, I read about new-trend "superfoods" like pomegranate, acai, green tea and herbal infusions. Now I gotta find out more!

This is stuff I absoulutely love to read, look at and learn about, just like with some of my favorite mags, Cooking Light, Gourmet, Food & Wine. Stuff I  might not actually make  or eat, but stuff I love to know about as part of a lifestyle I like to imagine.
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I've got more commentary on Google at Coit Avenue.

Last chance for the poll

Woo hoo!

A grand total of 4 of you (5 counting me) have voted in my poll asking about a GR blogger meetup. So far you're overwhelmingly sort of in favor of it:

YEE-HA! (that's yes) = 3 votes

Not sure = 2 votes

Now, in case any of you really wanted to register your enthusiasm for this but didn't get a chance, I'm leaving the poll up for about another week. So go vote (please).

If you all are still leaning yesward, watch for me to get something set up. [Anybody wanna help? :-) ]

Hey, Grand Rapids Bloggers

I've got a post on Coit Avenue about a possible area blogger meetup. Go take the poll if you're interested. Or if you're not. (Sorry it looks like crap. What do you want for free?).

Update 1/12, 2:35 p.m.: The poll is working now. Go ahead and try it.

New blog in town

Keash is a local freelance writer and a friend of mine who finally, after talking about it for months, has started a blog. Her intent is to talk about freelancing from a practical, experiential point of view.

"I get asked all the time how I got started writing," she told me. "So I wanted to get that out there for people to read," along with some real-life stories about the not-so-glamorous life of a freelancer. (Remind me again about why I want to do this freelance thing?) The blog is called writer's blog, and she's got two posts so far. Check it out.

Return of Figure 8

After shuttering his corporate blog about two weeks ago, my friend and yours, Figure 8 (aka an Englishman in Michigan, and if you still don't know who I'm talking about, sorry, that's all I can say) is back on track.

His new blog, Figure 8 Racing News, will cover his auto wreck of a hobby almost exclusively, something the former site touched on periodically. Postings might be spotty, by his own admission. But as Fig. 8 gets prepping in earnest for next race season, I expect to see more.

Old-school/New-school

Kathy Sierra writes some great stuff on the collaborative blog, "Creating Passionate Users."

"You ARE a marketer. Deal with it." begins by reminding us how practically the whole world scorns marketers. (Think "used car salesman" for an over-generalized image here.) Then she points out how the "open-source/cluetrain world" is causing "Old-school" marketing to give way, leaving us all to be -- that's right -- marketers.

I thought of totallly ripping off her chart comparing traditional marketing side-by-side with what she calls "Neo-marketing" but thought better of it. You can go study it yourself, if you're interested. Some of the contrasts she draws, are worth mentioning, however, such as:

• In Old-school marketing, marketers have the power; in Neo-marketing, users do.
• Old-school: one-way broadcast; Neo-marketing: two-way conversation
• Old-school: uses deception to sell; Neo: depends on transparency
• Old: bullshit; Neo: authenticity
• Old: 30-second spots are king; Neo: word-of-mouth is king
• Old: get the customer to believe in it; Neo: You believe in it

Is the company you work for still hopelessly "Old" or are they climbing aboard the "Neo" train (hopefully before it leaves the station)?

One of the "Old marketer" commenters on the post offers a rebuttal worth reading, if only so you yourself can refute him, point by point.

Another commenter offers a sobering thought that rings true: "The dispersal of the marketing function over the whole of society doesn't make it any less unpleasant; on the contrary, it makes it nastier, because not only do we have to put up with marketing from others, we now have to put up with the marketing we do ourselves."

Co-op logo contest

Hey all my art director/designer friends, here's your chance to design that super cool logo you've always wanted to do that no company would ever buy.

Buzz Machine's Jeff Jarvis points to the Blogads logo contest. There's a grand in it for the designer whose creation is deemed winner in an open source forum soliciting comments on the entries.

And here's the best part -- they don't want some pretty, sterile, pleases-everybody-and-so -speaks-to-nobody treatment. They want something, I don't know -- original, raw, gritty, homegrown, not safe ("edgy," as marketers around my workplace are fond of saying, with no apparent understanding of what that might be).

See the spec and registration here.  Submissions close on Sept. 9.  So hurry.

Success of a blog

Boing Boing founder Mark Frauenfelder reports on GQ Japan's interview of him as someone in the 'top position in the world of bloggers.'  The article offered four keys to Frauenfelder's success:

1. Persistence. "The readership of a blog is proportional to how frequent one is able to update."

2. Curiosity and fun. The four core writers for Boing Boing have "curiosity (that)  is twice that of most people" as they daily search "magazines, newspapers, nerdy trade publications, and the internet" for fresh content. Interestingly, there was never any intent to make a profit from Boing Boing; its writers are driven more by the fun of it than anything else.

3. No compromising to advertisers or readers. Speaks for itself, I think.

4. Community is key. Communication with other bloggers has been the key to increasing the readership. By trading links with other blogs, communication becomes much more active, and traffic to and from the site increases.

A-ha. That's what this blog's been missing. Community. Gotta work on that.

A direct reflection

Doc Searls pointed to this from Tony Pierce.  I'd read Tony's busblog before but hadn't visited in awhile, so I'm glad I saw this post.  Since I've been struggling a little with this blog, I thought it was good stuff to think about. A short excerpt:

i read an article today that there is a blog created every second.

this is what i hope from the new generation of blogs that were created in the last twenty minutes that its taken me to get it together and write this post:

you will have the courage to write your blog out of honesty, transparency, openmindedness, and creativity.

tell us what you really think. dont hide behind the links that you provide or the pictures you post or the commentors that you attract

if youre going to do what it takes and stay up late and work to tweak your blog, make it a direct reflection of your soul

There's more and it's equally thought-provoking. But this was enough thinking for today.

When you do what you love

References to this good-if-rambling article by Paul Graham are all over the Web right now. "What Business Can Learn from Open Source" is long, but it's worth the time. Graham points to several things businesses can learn from the force behind the development of open source and, similarly, behind the phenomenon of blogging. From the article:

Like open source, blogging is something people do themselves, for free, because they enjoy it. Like open source hackers, bloggers compete with people working for money, and often win. The method of ensuring quality is also the same: Darwinian. Companies ensure quality through rules to prevent employees from screwing up. But you don't need that when the audience can communicate with one another. People just produce whatever they want; the good stuff spreads, and the bad gets ignored. And in both cases, feedback from the audience improves the best work.

I count the 10 or so months I spent blogging for my employer as some of the most productive, interesting, and vital months of my stint there so far. Alas, I got a little beyond the company's comfort level and so I stopped. Which is too bad for my company and too bad for me.

Graham says, "I think the most important of the new principles business has to learn is that people work a lot harder on stuff they like." When I was researching and writing that blog, I was doing something I loved. I was also turning out something useful and important for the company.

Because I was blogging and I was on the internet for hours a day (much of that at home), I was compelled to stay on top of what was new on the Web, new developments in the company's  business, what other bloggers were doing, and more. I believe I thought bigger, wrote better (on all projects, because daily writing keeps you sharp, afterall), and brought a Web perspective to everything else I worked on. In fact, I wanted more Web work and asked for it, but it seems that my talents as a writer and editor are more valuable in the world of print, which we still produce in unprecedented amounts.

Graham points out that many a start up business was begun on someone's tiny shred of a dream -- a love they'd labor over, nuture, and grow, no matter what it took. My similar point is that when a company can recognize and leverage an employee's strength, interest, special skill --  OK, love -- both employee and company can benefit in ways that are perhaps immeasurable.

Got a haircut

Sporting my new, easy 'do at Michigan's Adventure

Ok now, this is a catch up post. Because I've been on vacation this week and being really lazy about this blog (although I have written in the other one, which I may or may not tell you about some other time.)

Hair (If this topic bores you, skip to the next subhead.)
Tuesday I decided I just had to have my hair cut right now. I hadn't had it cut since February in prep for my trip to Hawaii. I don't know why. I've never let my hair go so long between cuts; Ive always been an every 5-6 weeks kind of gal. Guess it's true, as one friend suggested, that I've been letting myself go of late. LOL!

Anyhow, I like this cut 'cause I don't have to do ANYTHING with it if I don't want to, other than mess with the bangs a little. Too late I realized it is exactly like my sister Loraine's hair, but oh well. She's a blonde. And I never see her anyway. (Sorry Lor. Just kiddin'. Really!)

GR Blogger (If you don't like this one, you're so in the wrong place.)
I finally went to my newsreader today (didn't get very far, however) and saw -- wowee! -- TWO new Technorati search results for this blog. One was from my buddy at work, who links to me every now and then, especially since I quit blogging for my company :-).

The other was from a blogger here in GR whom I've read a couple of times and who is a member, as am I, of the Grand Rapids Bloggers Webring (oh, the buddy above is a member also). Matt VanDyk is an attorney here in town who seems to have started a blog rather recently. He's done a waaaaay better job than I have of ferreting out local bloggers, and some worthwhile reads, too. Well, Matt has me on his blogroll right now, which is cool. He's got several recommendeds on his site, which I'm going to check out. Trouble is, they all seem to be Calvin grads. (As is he. Hey, Aaron, you should be on the list -- do you know Matt?) Well, I guess that's not really a problem.  And anyhow, I do sing at Calvin in the Oratorio Society and my last name begins with Vander ... Maybe those two things make me meet the criteria????

Reading (This one's for Lori S. and you.)
A couple of my friends have tried to encourage me to read more, one by loaning me a bag of books (which I have yet to read or return) and another by telling me pointedly, "You  need to read more." So right now I have three books with bookmarks showing progress made in each since oh, January. Pretty pathetic, I know.

The one I'm working hardest to get out of the way is the worst: Scar Tissue by the Red Hot Chili Peppers's Anthony Kiedis is getting pretty ho-hum after 335 pages (only 130 to go!) of fired guitar players, drugs, sex, shows, drugs, girlfriends, sex ... I mean, how many girls can possibly be the sweetest angel ever in Anthony's world? Quite a few, evidently, but it's geting old.

I'm also reading  a free pdf version of Lawrence Lessig's book, Free Culture, and I'm going to say that the reason I haven't finished that one yet is that my pdf is stored on the flash drive that I ruined ... no, that excuse won't work for a downloadable file, will it? OK. Anyhow, I'm about halfway through Lessig's look at where art and culture are headed in the digital age. If you've ever illegally downloaded even one song off the internet, you need to read it. It's scary. Truly!Which is maybe the real reason I haven't finished it. (You're not buying that either, are ya?)

The third book I really just started this week (OK, so I lied about January). It's a fiction work  by Goldberry Long called Juniper Tree Burning. The name of the novel is also the female protagonist's name, and so far most of her problem seems to stem from a troubled upbringing that is exacerbated by (and obviously signified by) having been given such an odd appellation.  So far the woman mostly just irritates me -- she's a real hard-ass bitch. I'm thinking she'll redeem herself though, so I'll keep reading.

Weekend (You're almost done. Hooray!)
The daughters and their cousin are spending the weekend at my folks' house in Muskegon. My brother-in-law (the niece/cousin/god daughter's dad) is here entertaining my husband. There's nobody online -- NOBODY -- to talk to, so I'm just taking it easy. Reading, walking the dog, taking little naps, lounging in the sun, half heartedly catching up on stuff online. For two nights now I've  gotten away with refusing to do much in the way of fixing dinner. OH -- I do have some laundry I'd better get busy on, but other than that it's been a nice, lazy weekend. A fitting wrap up to a pretty laid back week off.  Well, the dog is whining at me, so I guess I'll take her for a walk before it gets too dark. Can't neglect all my duties, don'tcha know.

Fitting

Brian Bailey gives Dave Winer his due (see the hover text, too).

BlogMap

Hey, this is kind of interesting. Shows where my blog is along with 19 others in the area who have "geo coded" theirs. Click on it to see where the others are in relation to this one.

I also added Things I've Seen to a blog ring here in Grand Rapids. The link is in my sidebar -- the arrows on either side take you to other blogs in the ring. There are only 10 bloggers right now; still it could have some networking potential.

I might put the BlogMap in my sidebar content later, too. I just wish it was a better looking graphic. What do you think? Keep the Blog Map badge visible by adding it to my sidebar? Or let it go into archive with the rest of this month's posts?

Not madness

Wow. Most exquisitely sane.  Diary of a Mad Kenyan Woman.

Recovering. Slowly.

Movin' on to something different ...

Ok, I see that some regular readers of my other (former) blog have been here, looking, checking this thing out. I bid you welcome, but be aware: This isn't that blog; it has never been anything like that blog; it never will be that blog.

No, it hasn't been updated much, as those of you who have visited more than once already have seen. For the past 6 months or so, I've poured all my energy into that other blog, and this one has suffered.

And now that the object of my most intense effort is gone from the web, I need some time to recover. Some time to think about what's next.

You see, even though Things I've Seen came first (the present version moved over from an earlier effort), I feel like I really cut my blogging teeth on the blog that I quit. It's where I really became aware of what was going on in the world of blogs and the internet; where I began to see that I could make even the slightest difference in people's opinions.  I had loyal readers (even though most didn't comment) . I was asking people  to think; beginning small dialogues; contributing in my own small way to the conversation that is the internet.

So why did I quit? The blog had become too much effort for too little return. Its timing was not right. It felt less and less worthwhile to pour my heart and soul into something for which I was the sole cheerleader and enthusiast among my peers.  I guess you could say I had a crisis of confidence; a failure of heart.

Whatever the reason, I've bounced back here, to my beginnings. With a big hole in my sensibility, as well as in my schedule, that was filled up by producing the other blog. I can't go back. But neither can this blog ever be the same. I've come too far for that.

And so it's going to take some time for the blog to figure out what it wants to be. Please be patient while I work through it. Feel free to offer comments and suggestions. But keep coming back. I promise I'll be better at updating. Just don't expect the moon. Not right away, anyhow.   ;-)

Blogging Platinum Seminar

Where we've been for the last three days

You can syndicate me now

Hey, I don't know what happened, but somehow I never enabled the RSS on this site. It is now enabled. So to you regular visitors: Syndicate this site! Maybe I'll be encouraged to update it more often.

Thanks, Doc

What does a blogger want more than anything? That’s what a friend asked me recently.  A friend, incidently, whom I met by blogging.

“Lots of visitors who leave lots of comments?”

“No,” he said. “It’s  more than that. Think”

“Ummm, Google page rank?”

“Nope.”

“Links?”

“Bingo!” he said. And I knew he was right.

More than anything, bloggers want to make connections. We want to be noticed by others “out there.” We strive to build community, we’re looking for relationships, affirmation,  heck, we crave confirmation of our very existence. Comments and page rank are nice. But links are the real prize.  Getting a text link within a post on someone else’s blog is a blogger’s high -- a supreme affirmation of  effort. To be added to someone’s blogroll – well, that’s practically heaven.

Well, I didn’t get to heaven this week, but I’ve been soaring since yesterday. A comment I left with a link at The Doc Searls Weblog earned this blog a link in one of his next day’s posts. More than 70 hits later, I haven’t quite come down yet. Check  it out.

Thanks, Doc. You made my week!

This summer

New blog, new rules. On my old Tripod site I tried to never show faces that were recognizable. Made for some pretty interesting photos, but it was limiting.

So for the new blog, I'm officially changing the rules, as documented by a photo taken this summer in New York. The occasion was the Kirk Singer Tour '04, which I chaperoned. It was fun. Really!

Dani & Meg & iPod in the Big Apple

 

New place, same stuff

Well, you've found it -- the new Things I've Seen. Actually, this'll be the same stuff as the old Things I've Seen. It'll just be easier for me to maintain. I hope.

If I get around to it, I'll recreate some of my posts from the old site. but mostly, I just hope to keep up with this one while still maintaining my corporately correct quixtatic. Cheers.