Tag Archives: blogging

Redesign and Reset

Aside

Thanks to you, last week, 2011 page views exceeded the total page views for 2010.

I participated in an on-line blogging webinar last week. As a result of a few of the many lessons learned, I decided to tweak the design in the hope it’s a little easier to comment. I recently wrote that I understood why one might lurk and never comment, but a key webinar inspired goal is to foster more participation.

I want to encourage regular readers in particular to jump into the water. What’s your perspective? What am I not considering? What have you learned that others could benefit from?

The more people comment, the less I’ll feel compelled to. It’s okay to “talk” to one another directly.

Again, thanks for reading and thanks in advance for commenting. :)

Ten Bookmark Worthy Blogs

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Huge caveat first. I don’t assume our interests overlap. These are all thoughtfully crafted blogs, but some focus on topics you will not find interesting.

With that out of the way, category one—non-stop bloggers that post several short, smart, informative, sometimes provocative posts every day.

1) Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen. Tagline, Small steps toward a much better world. One of the most successful blogs in the sphere. TC is a one of a kind dude. Brilliant economist also born in 1962. I’ve used a book of his in one of my classes and have exchanged a few emails with him. He has Aspergers and is the most prolific person I know. An info-savant. Posts several times a day every day. Reads several books a week. Has a co-blogger whose posts account for maybe 5% of the total. Writes books. Writes for the New York Times. Recently taught grad courses in Germany. Speaks around the world. I frequently get lost when reading his pure econ stuff, but enjoy the challenge. MR is known for the excellent quality of comments. TC is also known for his encyclopedic Washington D.C. area ethnic cuisine guide.

2) Daring Fireball by John Gruber. If he had one, tagline might read, “All things Apple.” Also very widely read, but interestingly, no comments. Minimalist design. A personal tech digest of sorts with lots of short excerpts with links to larger tech stories. I skip his software developer stuff, because you guessed it, I get lost.

Category two—bloggers without boundaries who grab you by the collar and pull you into their daily lives through truly excellent, highly specific, deeply personal writing.

3) Penelope Trunk Blog by Peneleope Trunk. Tagline, advice at the intersection of work and life. Also has Aspergers. Posts 2-4x/week. Posts are longish with lots of links. Every post is carefully written with nice pics. Employs an editor. Posts are often deeply personal and provocative. Someday, I hope to have half of PT’s writing guts.

4) The Altucher Confidential by James Altucher. Tagline, Ideas for a world out of balance. A male Penelope Trunk, although I don’t think he has Aspergers. Writes long posts almost daily. Always personal and provocative. Some of his best stuff flows from a Tina-Fey-like sense of self deprecation. Someday, I hope to have half of JA’s writing guts.

Category three—photog bloggers that skillfully use pics to compliment their substantive, solid writing.

5) DC Rainmaker by Ray Maker. If he had one, tagline might read, “All things triathlon, personal fitness technology, and travel.” Tied for “most interesting dude in D.C.” with Tyler Cowen. Late 20’s, from Seattle, works all over the world in IT. Also extremely prolific, long, detailed posts nearly every day. Given his near constant globe trotting, my wild ass guess is he works for the State Department, helping embassy’s with their computer networks. Brilliant on several levels. Outstanding photog, serious IT chops, and a clear thinker and writer (my INTEL friend says their engineers only speak and write in ways they understand). His reviews of exercise watches and related fitness gadgets are laughably detailed. I usually scroll to his conclusions. Recently married “the Girl” which leads to the next recommendation.

6) Berties Bakery. Don’t know “the Girl’s” name. If she had one, tagline might read, “Drool-worthy cakes and things”. Careful, you’ll gain weight just by clicking that link. I don’t have this bookmarked, but check it out on occasion when Ray references it. SAT syllogism—as Ray is to personal fitness technology, the Girl is to cakes. Spectacular culinary art illustrated with magazine quality pics.

A few more, category-defying bookmark worthy blogs.

7) The Browser/Five Books. Maybe more of an on-line mag. Interviews with academic authors and novelists about their choices for the five most important books related to different topics. Recent topics included American Conservatism and China.

8) World in Motion by Scott Erb. Tagline reads “Reflections on culture, politics, philosophy, and world events during an era of crisis and transformation. Poli Sci teacher at a public liberal arts college in the Northeast. Interdisciplinary thinker and writer. Smart, prolific, a lefty at core, but often writes in a refreshingly non-ideological manner. Better political analysis than you’ll find on the networks or most major newspapers. Superb recent post on Styk that he told me led to a spike in readership.

9) On Performance by Justin Baeder. Tagline, “Examining issues of performance, improvement, and the changing nature of the education profession.” Hosted by Education Week. The blog I might be writing if I wasn’t suffering from advanced education cynicism and fatigue.

10) Miss Minimalist by Francine Jay. Tagline, “Living a beautiful life with less stuff.” Clear, inspiring, thoughtful, focused writing about exactly what’s advertised, living a beautiful life with less stuff.

State of the Blog—August, 2011

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It’s been a long time since I’ve pressed pause on Pressing Pause.

I’m assigning myself an “F” in terms of my goal of creating a “virtual seminar”. Consequently, I’ve updated the tagline and “About This Blog” link. It’s okay because I understand people’s passivity since I rarely comment on the blogs I read. Nor do I write reviews of anything I purchase, actively participate on forums, or ever reply to the annoying “Is this advertisement relevant to you?” pop-up. I don’t find the Facebook execs (or Peter Singer’s) argument that privacy is obsolete the least bit convincing. Apart from this blog, I’m net-passive, so lurking be cool.

Sometimes people email me comments and talk to me in person about my posts, both which I really appreciate. Even if you don’t want to comment publicly, don’t hesitate to email thoughts, suggestions, or ideas for posts. Whatever. Any feedback is appreciated.

I’m focusing more on the process of writing substantive stuff and thinking less about readership stats. However, I have to confess to sometime envying (what commandent is that?) the five or six bloggers I regularly read when they receive more comments per post than I receive readers.

The bofo blogs all leverage social media in ways my Facebook-less self doesn’t and they tend to fall into three categories with some overlap: 1) non-stop bloggers that post several short, smart, informative, sometimes provocative posts every day; 2) bloggers without boundaries who grab you by the collar and pull you into their daily lives through truly excellent, highly specific, deeply personal writing; and 3) photog bloggers that skillfully use pics to compliment their substantive, solid writing.

Why don’t I just imitate them more?

I don’t want to blog fulltime while eating cake frosting because then I’d get dropped on Tuesday/Thursday night training rides and the GalPal would leave me for some hunkier dude. Then I’d have to join an on-line dating club which would preclude non-stop blogging.

I would like to self-censor myself less, but I don’t want to try to be provocative just for the case of being provocative because that would defeat the purpose of being more authentic. Also, I don’t know how to write more personally on-line without sacrificing the privacy of family and friends who never signed up to be blogging fodder.

And that leaves photography. As you can tell, I’m pretty hopeless there. Saturday I rode up the back of Mt. Saint Helen’s via Windy Ridge and Norway Pass roads. 57 miles, 5,577′ of climbing. Truly off the charts beautiful, even by Mt. Rainier/Cascade standards. It reminded me of Grindelwald in Switzerland. At the last minute, I tossed the camera in the gym bag in the car because I was already carrying three water bottles and some nutrition and I didn’t want the extra weight. Selfish I know. I think the minimalist in me is partly to blame. Even with the simplicity of digital data storage, the degree to which some people document their daily life via cameras and cam-corders strikes me as an odd, modern form of clutter. And I wonder if my ride may have been slightly less special if I had been thinking about documenting it for you and therefore stopping more frequently. Obviously there’s a large middle ground and I regret not having taken a few pics to share. I’ll try to do better.

To summarize, feedback in any form is greatly appreciated and I’m going to continue focusing on the process of writing as much stuff I want to go back and read later as possible.

Wednesday. . . another birthday tribute (of sorts).

Thanks for lurking.

S.O.B.

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2010 state of the blog.

I’ve studied reader statistics, top posts of all time, and taken a critical look at the blog. I’ve also studied successful blogs and identified certain commonalities.

My conclusion is I’ve failed. Yes, readership continues steadily upwards, but at too slow a pace. Participation is limited to some friends and family. I appreciate their comments, but after three years, it’s not nearly enough of a dialogue.

Why? Two reasons I think, my ambivalence towards social networking and my lack of focus. The lack of focus seems especially significant. Simply put, widely read blogs have a much clearer focus. They are “go to” blogs on one topic whether aging, triathlon, or baking. As you know if you’re a regular reader, my listed categories don’t really do justice to just how eclectic my interests tend to be.

Seven of the top ten most read posts of all time are education related. Bummer because professionally I feel like I did at mile 21 of the Seattle Marathon, running completely on fumes. The good news is I (think) I have a sabbatical coming up which will no doubt prove regenerative. On top of the fatigue, my normal healthy skepticism about the state of the national educational discussion has evolved into serious cynicism.

Then again education is what I know the most about. And when I skim the top rated education blogs, I have a sense that even in my depleted state I can make distinctive contributions within that part of the blogosphere.

So I’m going to try to write my way out of my professional funk by focusing much more closely on teaching and learning. I still intend on casting a pretty wide net, focusing on education writ large and not just formal schooling. And I’ll still provide the occasional fitness update.

Not sure yet, but contemplating a title change.

The metamorphis will take place over the remainder of the month. You’ll notice some changes starting with Monday’s post on a 11/27/10 NY Times article by Peg Tyre titled “A’s for Good Behavior“. Have your reading done ahead of time and please join me then.

Hope you stick around and make commenting a 2011 resolution.

How Autobiographical?

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Awhile back, I started out a fitness update with a passing reference to an encouraging sibling of mine who once told me “no one cares” about my swimming, cycling, and running.

That begs a larger question. What type of writing do readers, blog readers more specifically, find most interesting?

I’m not entirely sure, but I have some hypotheses. Think of the blogosphere in terms of a continuum with writers either off the stage altogether, on the stage’s edge, or center stage. Put differently, there are blogs focused almost exclusively on impersonal specialized content of some sort; other blogs that focus on the sometimes personal application of relatively impersonal specialized content, and blogs whose content is in essence the personal details of the author’s life.

I don’t read a lot of blogs, but here are a few that I do that represent fairly well the different points on the continuum. Each is wildly successfully at least measured by readership. Also interesting, Cowen and Trunk self identify as having Aspergers.

Example one, Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen, an economist. Written primarily for other economists, the content is sometimes a reach for me, which is nice. Cowen is scarily prolific posting several times a day. The main thing to note about his blog is he’s mostly off-stage. Sure he’ll ask for restaurant suggestions for where ever he’s traveling next, and he’ll summarize what he’s reading every few weeks (also scary, seemingly a book a day), but don’t look for him to write about whether he’s getting along with his wife or daughter or his non-academic interests.

Example two, DC Rainmaker by Ray Maker, a triathlete. I highlighted Ray’s blog recently. Written primarily for other triathletes, the content tends towards the science of triathlon training. His reviews of triathlon related electronics are the clearest, most detailed, and intelligently written up on the internet. He’s also an outstanding photog who sprinkles twenty or so pics in his three or four posts a week. Ray is my “stage’s edge” example. Two-thirds of the time he focuses in on all things triathlon. The other third, you learn about his worldwide travels (I’m guessing he does IT for the State Department), his fascination with sharks, his love of cooking and food, and “The Girl” who he was recently engaged to.

Example three, Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. Penelope is the undisputed “center stage” champion. She’s successful I suspect for the same reasons the authors my writing students and I are reading—Esme Cadell, Sherman Alexie, and Frank McCourt—are: 1) She understands that not every moment in every day and not every day in every week is equally interesting. She’s skilled at teasing out from the details of her life “critical incidents” that encapsulate the most interesting elements of her life that also resonate with other people. 2) When describing and exploring the meaning of the critical incidents of her life she grabs readers by the collar by providing intimate details even when they are not flattering. Scratch that, especially when they’re not flattering. And there-in lies the third reason. 3) She doesn’t self-censure herself, instead she opts for authenticity, transparency, the unvarnished truth, pick your phrase(s). In the same literary vein, Tina Fey’s or Liz Lemon’s self-deprecation on “30 Rock” is pure genius.

So in essence, my sib didn’t go far enough. If I self-censure myself and churn out safe, vague, self-conscious descriptions of the personal aspects of my life no one will care for any parts of my personal life story let alone the swimming, cycling, and running chapters of it.

And in all honesty, three years in and I still haven’t figured out yet how to follow Trunk’s, Cadell’s, Alexie’s, and McCourt’s examples in this format. For example, I’ve consciously chosen not to write about the most personally significant thing that has happened to me this year. I’m not quitting though and I suppose this post is another step in the process of figuring where I want to sit on the continuum and exactly what type of blogger I want to be.

Why the Rich Don’t Feel Rich

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The title of a great article by Laura Rowley on Yahoo’s Personal Finance page last week.

In short, Todd Henderson, a U of Chicago lawyer who makes $300k/year with his doctor wife, got hammered by his blog readers for arguing that he wasn’t rich and couldn’t afford a tax increase.

The blowback took two forms. First, people understandably took him to task for his questionable logic. After reading his post, I was stunned by his lack of perspective. I guess he doesn’t know many regular folk. And I guess he didn’t read the recent WSJ article that detailed how many poor people go shopping at Wal-mart at 11:50p.m. the last day of every month so that by the time they hit the check-out registers with their baby formula, diapers, and food, their new food stamps have kicked in. Or I guess he hasn’t traveled in a developing country.

Second, people questioned his sanity for daring to write the post, intimating that he would have been better off not writing it at all. This is where I disagree. While I have no sympathy for his argument, I admire his courage for honestly stating his views. As a blogger, and person I suppose, I probably self-censor myself way too much. Henderson didn’t get hung up on “what might other people think”, instead he chose authenticity. Questionable arguments honestly communicated deepen our civil discourse and strengthen our democracy.

300th Post

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Quite a few don’t you think. Thanks for reading and sometimes commenting whether online or in person.

You’ve probably noticed I’ve been switching templates lately. The problem is the best designs have the smallest, least legible fonts. Within wordpress, to get a larger, more readable font, you have to sacrifice on the design front. I’d like to customize things, but need someone more tech savvy than me to volunteer to help. Yeah, yeah, I know, why specify “more tech savvy” when that’s most everyone.

As always, I’m open to suggestions.

As I think about the topics I’ve written about, I’m struck by how wide-ranging my interests are. I’m sure blog consultants would say too wide-ranging. I could TRY to narrow my focus, but that would mean posting less often. Right now at least, I’m more inclined to accept the limitations of my decidedly generalist orientation.

Speaking of consulting, I would like to do more going forward and would appreciate any leads you might have. Primarily lectures and/or workshops on: 1) reinventing high school teaching and learning; 2) the high school to college transition; 3A) internationalizing curriculum; and 3B) teaching about globalization. In April, I enjoyed helping a university faculty at an Iowa college (on 3A&B) and I am looking forward to speaking at a college in Illinois next spring (3A).

I’m looking forward to being on sabbatical during the 2011-2012 academic year, although I may need to tweak that in light of other departmental colleagues on the same timeframe. I intend on using my sabbatical, whenever it occurs, to prep for and seek out more consulting opportunities.

April Miscellania

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• The wife got me with a pretty good April Fools, said the new car “wasn’t starting in the morning” and “we should have someone look at it.” I had to return serve. So a few hours later I told her “Good news, the NYT is reporting that young trendsetters are dying their hair gray.” She laughed heartily until I said “April Fools!” That fact that it wasn’t a joke, is now the joke. That’s just the multi-layered way I roll.

• Got some rare direct blog feedback at dinner last week. One of my sibs said indignantly, “Why should anyone care about the details of your fitness routine?!” I explained those posts are primarily for Lance. Consider them optional, not required reading. Lance NEEDS to know how hard to work to maintain his running and cycling superiority.

• So here’s my indignant sib-adjusted fitness report for March. Battled a micro-tear in one calf and then threw my back out lifting/twisting dumbbells to and from the rack without my legs. Lost about a week. Swam 23,900m; cycled, 340; ran 97. WOM (workout of the month) was a 33 mile ride and 2.25 mile run with my 22 year old uber-niece who is about to kick some serious butt at the College Nationals Triathlon in Texas.

• March Madness update. The WSJ computer and I are currently in sixth or seventh place out of eleven in the office pool. If Duke wins, I will probably end up on the podium, but no one remembers who came in second. The first five participants don’t even follow college bball. I’m actually glad computers apparently can’t quantify something as complex as a 64 team tournament. It won’t be the same when it goes to 96 teams. Classic case of less being more. Of course this year I wish it had been 196 because then UCLA might have qualified.

• This recent David Brooks essay is one of my favorites of his of all time. Brooks got killed by the most recommended commenters. I found some of their comments perceptive, but most of those were of the “Look at me, I caught you being inconsistent” variety. No one is always perfectly consistent. Many of the most recommended comments struck me as weakly argued, mean-spirited, knee-jerk liberalism. I’m a liberal, but not a fan of knee-jerkism of any variety. Very easy to criticize especially so indirectly. I give Brooks credit for courage. He knows he can’t win when it comes to most NYT readers.

• Personal record for blog readership in March 2010; however, no reason to get carried away, you’re still a member of a select group. For reasons I’m not entirely sure of, people never comment on my personal finance posts, so I think I’ll retire that thread. Even though readership is up, commenting is not. Maybe I’m not angry enough? Maybe I need to tap my inner-Glenn Beck. Also, for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, I can’t get many readers to follow the small number of links I sometimes include. Case in point, you didn’t even open the previous Brooks’ link did you? I know everyone is pressed for time and I appreciate the fact that more people are at least logging on and skimming posts.

• Turns out I was exaggerating when I wrote that I’d pay anything for an iPad. I have not ordered one yet not because I wanted to read the reviews that were just published and let the application/software dust settle a bit. I anticipate buying one sometime before the summer equinox, but as a card carrying late adaptor, if so moved, I reserve the right to postpone the purchase indefinitely. Not owning one won’t stop me from adding “Sent from my iPad” on the bottom of my emails. Faux tech cache. Sometimes I amaze myself.

• Speaking of email, publicly admitting that I suck at it in my last post proved cathartic. Oddly, it inspired me to turn over a new email/internet leaf captured in this sticky note. Three days later, I’m stickying to it. Now email is not the boss of me, I’m the boss of email!

The note doubles as a logo cover, sorry Apple

“How To” Conundrum

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A very successful blogger I read says “always write something that’s useful.” Her posts are often of the “How To” variety. A friend told me the other day a recent post was too long. “I started reading it,” he said, “and then I scrolled down, down, down.” Another requested more pictures. Obviously no point in trying to please everyone, but I thought I could experiment with writing a shortish “How To” post.

Then I wondered what the hell do I know “how to” that others may not? I came up with a few things I don’t normally screw up, but then thought, what percentage of people would care? And do I really want to even flirt with a form that could be grouped together with the self-help writing that I almost always find complete bullshit because the authors dumb down complex phenomena.

Then I worked through those dilemmas and started in on a “How To” post, but I got hung up on qualifiers or caveats.

And then I thought, since I’m more comfortable with good questions than simple answers, maybe I’m just not cut out for “How To” writing. But there’s some evidence to the contrary in the archives, some decent posts (I think) about how to create an active lifestyle, how to cycle long distances, and how to choose a college.

It will never be a natural form of writing for me, but I’ll try again, sometime soon.

Shortcut-mania

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Spent Saturday at the King County Acquatic Center in Federal Way (the “KCAC” if you’re cool) watching the State YMCA Championship swim meet with over four hundred competitors. Fourteen’s swimming career began last August at the start of high school. She decided to swim because she recognized she wasn’t lighting the soccer world on fire, her parents encouraged it, her older sissy was a co-captain, and she thought it would be a good way to make friends.

The season exceeded her expectations in part because she improved a lot, a result of swimming five times a week and improving her technique. Dropping time is fun. Now though she’s an intermediate swimmer and dropping time is considerably harder. And swimming isn’t as fun. Saturday she swam more slowly than she had hoped. There had to be an explanation she thought. “Was the pool meters?”

The great thing about competitive swimming is there’s an almost perfect correlation between one’s training, pre-race prep, and race day performance. Fourteen misinterpreted her results on Saturday. Her conclusion, “I didn’t race very well. Just didn’t have a good day. Maybe I’m not as good as I thought.” The truth of the matter is she hasn’t been training consistently and intensely enough to swim any faster. It doesn’t matter if you have the perfect track on on your iPod pre-race and are completely amped, race day is simply a barometer of the quality of your training. The question is have you put in the time, have you done the work?

Aren’t we all like Fourteen? We often want to see improvement in some aspect of our lives without investing much time and energy in whatever it is? For example, recently I’ve read some extremely successful blogs that generate one hundred plus comments per post. When I do this I don’t think about how much time those bloggers spend on their blogs, I just say to myself, self, “You should have a blog like that.”

One’s blog readership and juice is almost exclusively a barometer of time and energy invested. The blogosphere is a meritocracy.

So the question for Fourteen, me, and maybe you, is how badly do we want to swim fast, have a widely read blog, get out of debt, lose weight, make a relationship work? Fourteen has other priorities like school and I have a day job. She swims and I blog “on the side” or maybe the “side of the side”. Maybe you try to reduce spending, save money, eat more healthily, exercise more consistently, and spend quality time with your partner “on the side”.

The challenge is being honest with ourselves about what’s most important. In the meantime, we shouldn’t be surprised by the meager results of our sporadic, abbreviated labors.