Archive for December 23rd, 2009

This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:

See the table of contents for the book here: BLOGTASTIC project

Previous article: Blogging can be a serious addiction.

BLOGTASTIC: Take a stand please…

We’ve talked about the importance of managing your online identity. However, readers won’t come to your blog just because they like you. They’ll come to your blog because you share smart ideas and clearly express insightful opinions.

Your attitude and personality form the skin of your blog. The content and focus provide your blog’s muscle, sinews, and bone. Reflect on these five questions for a moment:

1. What does your blog stand for?
2. Who is your audience?
3. Why should someone read your blog?
4. What is in it for them?
5. Why should they come back?

If you have a well-planned blog, then you should be able to wrap the above questions into an answer that makes sense to both you and your readership. These answers should provide the elevator pitch for your blog.

If you are having a hard time answering these questions, then you should go back to your drawing board and re-think your blogging strategies.

Unless you are planning to be a news-reporting site (which itself is not bad), then you need to have to have a theme for the blog. Your audience will be built over a long period of time. Your readers will come to your blog for a reason. Here are just a few samples why people come to successful blogs:

• Improve their leadership skills;
• Become more productive; and
• Discuss viewpoint on specific professional topics.

You shouldn’t ever try to replicate someone else’s blogging formula. You’ll likely fail, because the blog’s voice won’t be authentic. You have to find your own voice and leverage your passion and knowledge.

Brian Clark at Copyblogger.com took a stand that “Copywriting is the Key to Successful Online Marketing” and focused Copyblogger on “everything about compelling content.” The result : 50,000 subscribers to the blog and growing.

Leo Babuata at ZenHabits.Net took a stand that there is power in doing less. He says – “Do Less. Get More Done” and focused his blog on productivity. The result: 86,900 subscribers and growing.

Look back at your blog’s content. If your writing topics do not excite you, then it’s unlikely they will interest anyone else.

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Blogging Tip: If you don’t stand for something, you may fall for anything

Many people struggle to take a stand—whether it is on their blog or in any part of their life or career.

I’ve talked to many people, and they view a stand as a “box.” In a way they are right. Taking a stand requires you to focus on some things and exclude many other things.

As a savvy blogger, you should know that there’s an opportunity cost when you refuse to take a stand. When you include everything, you refuse to exclude anything. You will quickly confuse your readers and the people around you. Whatever way you look at it, you will be much wiser to take a stand than not take one.

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Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow

Tagged as: BLOGTASTIC!, Rajesh Setty, taking a stand

For many entrepreneurship is scary, I found it that way for a long time until I found myself in the right environment. Initially I envisaged entrepreneurship as finding the right idea, quitting your job and following your nose with your new idea. For the longest time I just seemed to miss the idea.

In a way it is a bit like approaching getting married. You love your girlfriend and want to spend the rest of your life together, you see your friends and family getting married one by one around you and they all seem happy. However, I was still apprehensive about what was going to happen after I got married. Were all my married friends suddenly engulfed by the “married spirits” and sworn to secrecy. What was the world like after taking those vows? Were they just waiting for me to fall into the same trap?

Of course not! What was I thinking looking back now? The reality was that I just did not have the knowledge or experience of what were the standards and criteria for operating as a married couple. I didn’t even know where to look to find the answers. Yes I saw my parents with 30+ years of experience but it did not occur to me that that would be the same for me. In fact what I didn’t realize was that the actual answer to this mystery was actually my parents, as the background of what it is to be married is shaped by those around us, that we observe. Our interpretation of that is how we engage in a married relationship – of course your spouse also has her background of what marriage is and so the interaction of these two visions is what drives the resultant actions we hold in marriage as a couple. So far so good and in many ways our actions seem to be exactly how our parents acted with us.

There are no magical entrepreneurial spirits out there but there are different ways of overcoming the apprehension. Many entrepreneurs just find themselves in the situation and their story is just how they dealt with the situation. A bit like a couple after a steamy and risky night, suddenly find themselves dealing with the situation of becoming parents, they just have to deal with the situation.

The remaining entrepreneurs are in two camps: those waiting / planning and those executing on fulfilling their ambition. Those waiting for the right moment, big idea, perfect plan etc will remain that way unless something around them changes. I was in this group for a long time, I know what it is like. For me the ambition was there but the desire was just not strong enough to quit and start out on my own. I recognized that I still had many knowledge gaps and a lack of capacity to act, which all compounded the risk to start executing. For me I needed the organization, to help me cover these knowledge gaps and with the team at Active Garage I have been able to execute on an entrepreneurial venture I could not have imagined on my own.

From me this is a thank you to the Active Garage team for making this venture possible. To those of you on the fence, waiting for the right something. Stop waiting and seek out the help in the areas that you have apprehension – those are the knowledge gaps you have to close before you can move forward. Happy Holidays!

This article was contributed by Guy Ralfe, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book ProjectManagementTweets. You can follow Guy on Twitter at gralfe.

Tagged as: actions, career, career change, decision making, Entrepreneurship, gralfe, Guy Ralfe, www.activegarage.com