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HowTo Make a DIY Blog Organizer

I am so old school when it comes to organizational tools--I vastly prefer paper to electronic organizers, and that's why I got all giddy when I read this post by Julie Bonner about this "Blog Binder" idea that she came up with.

When I just had the 2 blogs that I was writing for (eSoup and 901am) I used to keep a list of story ideas for each blog in my notebook, but now that I'm blogging on multiple blogs and am in the process of building a new niche blog called Chocolate Chipped (more on this later), I realized that I needed to turbo-charge my organizational efforts in respect to blogging.

I've followed Julie's outline of how her binder is organized, and have adapted it to suit my needs. I've made it more GTD-esque, and am also using it to keep track of writing projects, such as some ghostwriting I'm doing and this mammoth e-book I'm about to start working on.

Here's how my blog binder is organized:

It's time to make some freakin' money: Andy Wibbels Launches 'Problogger Confidential'

Andy Wibbels has this cool new course that's starting next week called Problogger Confidential, and he's rounded up some of the savviest (is that a word?) problogging minds on the planet.

Andy says:

"Once a month we meet one of the top minds in problogging and grill them on what is really working right now.

And sure you’ll leave the Interview Call with a brain bubbling full of possibilities and ideas. But so often, people stop there and don’t take action. That’s why 2 weeks later, you and I have a Mastermind Call  to talk about what we learned and how to put that learning into practice immediately in our blogs."

If you know Andy, you know that he won't disappoint. He likes to stir the pot up and he's ready to squeeze these blog gods' money making secrets from their web jedi minds. Really, he'll squeeze their secrets right out of them.

(Note: No probloggers will be permanently injured during this squeezing process.)

June's problogger playmate is the award-winning blogger and online marketing veteran Jim Kukral! (This guy is a mastermind with affiliate sales, so you don't want to miss this one.)

The first call is June 20, so don't delay in checking out the course syllabus and get the rest of the details here: Problogger Confidential.

Passive-aggressive co-workers: Yet another reason to be glad you work from home

I am a sucker for a creative, funny, photo blog, the kind that has user submitted content and touches on aspects of daily life that are so annoying that they are downright HI-LAR-IOUS!

Enter passive-aggressive notes from roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers.

Yep, this is an actual blog, and it looks like there's enough passive aggressive anger and thinly veiled threats being exchanged by the human race that they'll have enough content to last them to kingdom come.

As you can probably guess, much of the passive aggressive note-leaving is committed by co-workers.

Those of us who used to work in the corporate world know about the Lord of the Flies environments that exists in many offices , especially when employees are jammed into cubicles and have to fight to keep their hotpockets, poptarts and pizza rolls from being ripped from their hungry little hands every day. (Are these lunch items even worth stealing???)

And I love the subject line of the above email: "Awkward Request". Uh, yeah I think she's hit the nail on the head there. Awkward and rude to boot! I bet she makes folks weigh-in before entering her office.

If you need a good laugh, please check out more passive aggressive notes left for co-workers, etc.

Kristin Gorski at Write Now Is Good found this gem of a blog--way to go KG!

Top 5 Things Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Albert "Bad Boy" Einstein

It seems like every field/occupation on the face of the planet has a resident "bad boy".

It doesn't matter if the occupation is figure skating, physics or problogging, there is always someone who doesn't quite fit in, who does things their own way, who likes to give the finger to "the man", and who everyone else likes to whisper about and secretly admire.

Well, Albert Einstein was the "bad boy" of the science world. Oh yeah, he was an outsider in his younger years, a misunderstood genius who couldn't even get an academic job (how's that for a slap in the face!), much less a doctorate in his field of expertise (ouch!).

My point is, I see in Einstein a lot of the same qualities that I see in the best internet visionaries of today.

You're out there on your own, following your own instincts, creating sites, products and services that are brand new to the world. Sometimes you'll get lucky and folks will hop on your bandwagon immediately, but most trailblazers walk the path of Einstein.

It can be mighty lonely at the cutting edge. It takes a strong person to lead and not be discouraged by opposition, and sometimes it's helpful to look at figures from the past to draw strength from their experience and courage.

Enter Albert "Bad Boy" Einstein...

Here are some Einstein-isms that I think have particular meaning for the internet visionaries and web workers of today:

1) "Imagination is more important than knowledge." So true, it's one thing to know the technical aspects of how to do something, but when you work in a creative field, imagination trumps knowledge every single time. After all, if you need more know-how in order to execute an idea, you can always learn on the fly or out-source the technical work.

2) "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." When you're creating something out of the blue, it's going to take lots-o-tweaking before you get it just right, and you have to get comfortable with not knowing the end result. Sometimes ideas take off and become extremely profitable. Other times they just flop. It's just hard to tell what's going to work and what doesn't, so you need to always expect that something will work, but not be too upset when it doesn't.

3) "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds." I think that when you look at opposition (folks who make fun of you or people who just don't "get" you) in the right light, it can be a major motivator. You want to show them your vision, show them that you know what you're doing. The trick is to turn negativity into positive momentum. Opposition makes victory taste sweeter. :-)

4) "The only real valuable thing is intuition." You need to develop a "gut feel" that will help you detect if a person, idea or situation is healthy for you. Those who have the best intuition have the greatest success.

5) "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Einstein's creativity was heavily influenced by a thinking techinque he called "thought experiments", which was actually just plain old fashioned daydreaming  . This just goes to show that imagination, play, and a willingness to try new things is the key to being a visionary.

Somewhat related post:

• Albert Einstein: Creativity Trumps Brains

(Sidenote--the "bad boy" of figure skating currently is, I believe, Johnny Weir. It used to be Elvis Stojko. I also think there's a French guy who always skates shirtless, which lands him in the "bad boy" category. Each country may have their own figure skating bad boy, so if you know of others please chime in.)

Freak Filtering

"There are some really crazy people in this world. And sometimes I think they all have my email address." --Andy Wibbels

I think all internet biz owners can relate to Andy's well-spoken sentiments.

We are a fabulous melting pot of psychological diversity (this is putting it nicely ), and while this may be endlessly interesting in some ways, when you're trying to conduct business via the internet, you really need to come up with a way to control who you let into your life and who gets a piece of your time.

Some folks call this the "Ideal Client Profile", but I get a kick out of Andy's terminology for it cuz he tells it like it is.

It's a "freak filter", pure and simple, and as small biz owners we are in charge of creating an early warning detection system that will save us time, money, frustration, and a gazillion bottles of Tylenol.

Freak identification marks

It's true that on many levels freakiness is purely subjective. One man's freak is another man's ideal client, but in general, I think most small biz owners will agree that a freak has the following attributes:

1) Wants our help really, really badly, yet has no money to pay us with

2) Needs an awful lot of work to be completed in a ridiculously short amount of time at a moment's notice

3) Is looking for a miracle--let me site the guy with the poorly written e-book who wanted me to help him get on Oprah (Oy!)

4) Only wants to communicate in-person or over the phone and does not like to use email and IM.

5) Anyone who says they need to meet me in person to verify that I'm "real".

These are just a few off the top of my head--please feel free to share some of your own "freak identification marks" in the comments if any come to mind.

Crafting the filter

A more positive way of looking at the freak filter would be, instead of weeding people out, what you can actually do is filter in the types of people who you want to work with (this is what I do).

In order to do this, you need to have a very good image in your mind of who you want to work with.

Here are the criteria I use:

Personality--this is the most important element for me. Even if all other criteria are thumbs up, if we don't click personality wise, then it's no-go.

Niche/Target Market--If you have a tight niche/target market, this does a lot of the screening for you. 

Retainer hours--This is just me, but I like to work with just a few clients and that means I work with them on a daily basis, which in turn means I have set retainer hours that will allow me to support clients in this way. Having set retainer hours helps me weed out folks who don't want daily, long-term support.

Fee--The higher the fee you have, the more folks you will filter out (this is a good thing).

These are just a few of the criteria I use, but basically what I do is formulate in my mind the type of person I'd like to work with, and I use the above filters to help keep me focussed on the prize.

So, I don't focus so much on weeding out; I focus on weeding in, or I guess a better way of saying it would be to say that I focus on "attracting" a very specific type of person with a very specific type of business.

It's sort of like when you set up filters for email, and you take a few minutes one day to set them up, and then every day after that all you have to do is click a button and sit back and watch the filters do the sorting work for you.

I find that the same is true for the client filter--if you make your decisions on the front end about who you want to work with and what kind of work you want to do, then all you have to do is follow the filters, and making client decisions is pretty painless. Having the filters in place also frees you up to focus on what you do want, instead of fending off what you don't want.

Does anyone have any "freak filtering" ID marks, techiniques, or special approaches for attracting a certain type of client? Please share!

(Stunning Donald Sutherland image created by Andy Wibbels.)

5 Ways to Create Second Chances for Underperforming Posts

  a second chance 
  Originally uploaded by heavin inc..

Have you ever written a post that you really loved, then published it only to see it flop with no comments or feedback?

Ouch--It's always kind of sad to see one of your favorite posts fall off the front page of your blog and languish in obscurity.

When you spend a good amount of time trying to craft a creative and helpful post, it's hard not to take the deafening silence personally, but the truth is it happens to even the most popular bloggers, including Darren Rowse at Problogger who writes about what he does to give underperforming posts a second chance.

In case you're like me and wondering "What gives? This is one of my best posts--why does no one like it?", Darren has some advice that is kind of consoling.

Reasons he cites that can account for a post that flops (his tips, my phrasing):

• More high profile stories breaking at the same time hog all the attention
• Your traffic fairy godmother was MIA (more about "traffic fairy godmothers here)
• Posting on the wrong day of the week (I am not sure what the "wrong day of the week" is, although my guess is that the most popular days seem to be Tuesday and Thursday, and the least popular are Saturday, Sunday and Monday)
  
• You wrote the post when you were still a newbie and didn't have any readers yet
• Or perhaps your post just wasn't as great as you thought!

I also want to add one to Darren's list:

• Posting too frequently--I'm starting to think that putting up too many posts has the inevitable effect of causing some of the posts to get lost in the fray. It could be that the post flopped simply because your readers didn't see it.
  

It does make me feel somewhat better to see that even Darren has these issues. He has some great tips giving your best underperforming posts a second chance which you can find here, but I wanted to share some of the things that I do to save my fave posts from dying a lonely death  .

Here are ways I give posts a second chance:

1) Blogging on a more popular blog. Sometimes I blog on bigger blogs than mine that get much higher traffic, and on a couple of occasions I have taken ideas from my favorite posts on my own blog, and have re-worked them to address the audience of the bigger blog. It's really rewarding to publish on a blog with much higher readership and see the comments and trackbacks start pouring in, especially if the post that I originally wrote for my own blog fell flat. Also, there is indirect traffic that comes to my own blog from my author link on the bigger blog.

2) Have a "Best Of.." section to draw attention to old posts. I put links to my favorite posts in my side bar.

3) Re-work posts and turn them into articles for online article submissions. Not all blog posts are suitable for online article submissions (the articles need to be more formally written and kind of timeless with minimal links), but when I write a post that is "article-worthy" I'll take some extra time and re-write it so that it's appropriate for article submissions. The article is reaching a completely different audience than my blog post, and it has the potential to get picked up for publication in an ezine.  I think I've had pretty good success with this, since at least one of my articles was picked up by an ezine with a big subscriber list, which resulted in a jump in RSS subscribers to my blog. Also a couple weeks ago someone contacted me asking if he could include one of my articles in a book he was writing (a book about archery, of all things!).

BTW--I always hear folks fretting about duplicate content with the online article submissions, but the submission service I use (www.SubmitYOURArticle.com) allows me to create unlimited variations of certain elements of my article (title, intro paragraph, resource box, and various sentences within the article) so that potentially each publisher will each receive a unique, well-written version of my article.

4)  Fewer posts, more fun. Another thing I've started doing on the front end to give posts more of a chance to take off and comments to develop is to post less frequently. I have decided that I would rather put up 1 to 3 posts a week and give conversation a chance to develop around the post than to inundate you guys with multiple posts a day every day of the week.

Now, this kind of goes against the problogging/SEO approach where you try to produce as much content as you can, but let's face it--I am not a problogger and I don't have the Hurculean writing stamina that those problogger guys have. It means more to me to produce quality posts and not kill myself with writing, writing, writing (after all, I have a life and a business besides this blog! ;-))

5)  Turn comments into blog posts. This is sort of a side topic, but another thing I do is re-work some of my more detailed comments that I leave on folks' blogs to be entire posts on my blog. In fact, the first version of this post you're reading here was actually a rather elaborate comment I placed on Problogger in response to Darren's post. I had written up such a detailed comment, I was like "This comment is "blog post worthy". I might as well find a way to use it on my own blog." I've also done this with a few other comments I've left of folks' blogs where my comment sparked the inspiration for a post.

These are some of the ways I give my fave posts second chances--I'm wondering if anyone else does this type of thing.

Do you recycle posts, and if so, how do you go about it and what success have you had?

I'd love to hear some other ideas! 

Update: I'm now realizing that I almost passed up a perfect opportunity to give some of my fave underperforming posts a second chance by posting links to them in this post. Here are my faves that are in danger of dying a lonely death:

• The Juggler's Rivalry--maybe it's just not a catchy title?

• Einstein: Creativity Trumps Brains--I've changed the title on this one a couple times trying to spark some interest, but no luck. I find the excerpt from the Daily Show to be interesting and hilarious. I've watched it numerous times, and was just waiting for someone to chime in and say they liked it too, but not one single bite so far!

One thing that these two posts have in common is that they are both based on videos, and I don't know if that has anything to do with the lack of interest. Or....maybe they just aren't as good as I think they are, and I'm more attracted to the idea behind the post rather than the post itself.

• And from over on 901am.com, I really thought the post Nomadic Web Workers Follow In Hemingway's Footsteps would go over bigger than it did. Remarkably, the same day I posted the Hemingway post over there, I also published a HowTo called "5 Ways to Work Less & Get More Done Online", and that one took off! Out of the two of these, I really liked the Hemingway one more and thought it was better writing, but the HowTo got far more comments and trackbacks. Oh well, what do I know?!!! 

My 5 Favorite "Top 5" posts in the Problogger Group Writing Project

It's been a really fun week participating in Darren Rowse's Problogger Group Writing Project. He says that 893 posts (nearly a gazillion!) were entered into the project which amounted to a TON of reading material.

From the plethora of Top 5 posts I had the pleasure to read, there were a few that struck home with me and/or made me giggle.

I share them with you now. Here they are, in no particular order:

  "Jean Grey, Phoenix Force" by Dave Johnson 
  Originally uploaded by fullbodytransplant.

1) 5 Superhuman Powers I would like to have by Mjuboy

Okay, now this is serious–after much thought, I’ve decided that if I could have super powers, I would want the ability to manipulate time and space. One of the perks of this power is that if you ever mess up and put your foot in your mouth or make a bad decision, you could turn back time and get an instant “do over”!

2) 5 Cool Things You Can Do With Your DNA by Hsien-Hsien Lei, PhD

When Dr. Lei said that you could "send your DNA into the future by having children" I was like, "Whah? That sounds so space-age--How would you do that?" and then it clicked. Now I get it!

3) Top 5 Reasons Bloggers Make Great Pets by Jason Spence

I have often thought bloggers would make great pets. After all, we're pretty easy to keep tabs on (staying indoors all day working on the computer), we are pack animals (it's all about community!), and much like Golden Retrievers, we'll pretty much do anything to get noticed. :-)

  Geek love 
  Originally uploaded by Sunnaholic.

4) Top 5 Reasons to Marry a Geek by Eric Giguere

Again, lots of the reasons why bloggers make great pets are also reasons why Geeks make great husbands. They're easy to keep track of, generous with the link-love and most obviously, it's free IT support for life! That last one in itself is worth it!

5) The Top 5 Strangest Things I've Learned While Blogging by Robert Hruzek

I have to commend Robert for being able to whittle "the strangest things" down to a mere 5! Included in this list is my all-time favorite strange thing--CheddarVision.tv "where you can join over a million others in watching, live and in living color, a cheddar cheese as it ages to perfection." Thank God I found this site before the cheddar was finished aging and got shipped out.

Oh, and in case you have trouble finding needles in haystacks, here was my contribution to this project: Top 5 Hottest Blogger Fantasies

Top 5 Hottest Blogger Fantasies

  Cooooooooooooooooool ! 
  Originally uploaded by Stéfan.

Sometimes when you have a new/unknown blog, it can get a bit lonely.

It's like you've done all the preparation for a great party, with food, music and ambiance. You're all decked out in your best party dress, and you're just sitting there on the couch twiddling your thumbs, waiting for someone to show up.

During these times of loneliness, sometimes the only thing that keeps us going is to conjure up some steamy blog daydreams and get our imaginations percolating to remind us that better times are ahead.

Here are the hottest recurring blog fantasies that get me through the day:

  Go Cowboys ! 
  Originally uploaded by Terry_Lea.

Blog Fantasy #1--The Traffic Fairy Godmother.  This is the one where I wake up one day to find that my traffic has increased by a gazillion percent through no effort of my own, as if a Fairy Godmother finds a way to send me some unsolicited traffic.

This happened to me when Gavin Heaton added my blog to the Z-List--which again, generated immediate huge results in Technorati, much to my joy and bewilderment.

This just goes to show that relationships are everything in the blogosphere, and not one of us can do it alone!

Blog Fantasy #2--The book deal.

Oh, I know I'm not the only one dreaming that a publisher will miraculously find my blog and offer me a book deal. This has become the Holy Grail of blogger fantasies, and it's only been made stronger because it has actually happened to a few bloggers.

Nevermind that there are 71 million blogs out there, and out of those 71 million only about 5 or so bloggers have gotten book deals--this is what the fantasy is for!

I actually think that there are some Hemingway's among us. Think about it--if you've been writing quality content day in and day out on your blog for a year or more, aren't you already well on your way to having enough content for a book?

  My Powerbook is Sexy 
  Originally uploaded by photoni.

Blog Fantasy #3--Expensive bribes to blog about products.   

I know, bloggers who accept gifts from companies walk a thin line between being objective and selling out, but I would like to have my moral fiber tested on this one, just for the fun of it.

For those of us who never get offered anything tantalizing, wouldn't it be so cool to have an brand new sexy Mac arrive on our doorstep out of the blue, with a letter asking us to try it out and keep the thing (no strings attached, of course!)?

I dream of being bribed with a new computer, expensive gourmet chocolate, jewelry, and designer shoes.

I would actually settle for being bribed with anything half decent--as it is now the only letters I've gotten address me as "Dear Bloggers" and don't offer me anything in return for giving them free publicity. (This may explain why I've never reviewed a product on my blog ;-).)

  Count-Down 
  Originally uploaded by Telstar Logistics.

Blog Fantasy #4--Having business cards that say "web rockstar" or at the very least "problogger".

Now this one really is a fantasy, and also kind of a joke, because the money I've made off of paid blogging has been only enough to buy a new pair of shoes (albeit a really nice pair!). Certainly not enough to live off of though, although I think going to a party and being able to honestly say to folks, "What do I do for a living? I'm a problogger" is just shockingly cool!

Perhaps even cooler than "Problogger" is the title of "Web Rockstar", which I learned about here.

Yes, there is actually a person with enough moxie to put "Web Rockstar" on their business cards--you've gotta love that!

One thing I don't understand is when someone has finally earned the right to honestly call themselves a problogger, why at that point decide that you want to be called something bland like "web publisher"? Ugh--how vanilla.

As  Penelope Trunk says,being a ProBlogger is akin to being an astronaut, and who in their right mind would pass up the chance to call themselves an astronaut?

Blog Fantasy #5--That my blog is really worth what the "My blog is worth" calculator says. How they came up with the figure of $220,170.60 for my blog is beyond me, but it makes me feel good nonetheless.:-)

All I need now is to find someone who's willing to shell out $220,170.60. I have a feeling this fantasy will be in existence for a long time!

Share your own...if you dare

Maybe these fantasies are common...or maybe they are kind of weird. I have no idea how odd this is.

If anyone daydreams as much as I do about this stuff, please share your secret blog fantasies in the comments.

If they're too embarrassing ;-), feel free to leave your comment anonymously (or be brave and come out of the closet!).

This post is my contribution to Darren Rowse's Problogger Group Writing Project. You have until Thursday to enter!

Blog Post Writing Project: $1,001 to one winner

  numberfive 
  Originally uploaded by appaloosajackson.

I wanted to let you know about this wonderful opportunity from Darren Rowse at Problogger--he's doing a group writing project, and he's going to pick at random one "winner" who will get $1,001 USD.

All participants will also get 2 links from Problogger, which is an amazing gift in itself.

Problogger is currently ranked 32 in Technorati, so the linkage helps!

This project’s topic is: ‘Top 5′

You'll write a top 5 list post on an appropriate topic for your blog.

Darren says:

" Write it in any style you like, a rant, list, poem, essay, video, pictorial, haiku, podcast….. anything."

I believe the last day to submit to him is Thursday of this week, so hop on it!

I need to do some brainstorming for what I'll write about--I actually love writing contests (altho this isn't actually a "contest"), but have a bit of performance anxiety. Oh well, I'll get over it!

Get the full scoop here, and be sure to follow the instructions!

Update: Here's my contribution...Top 5 Hottest Blogger Fantasies (cuz sexiness sells)

Simple idea, genius execution: Alanis sings "My Humps"

Sometimes it's not the idea that's the most valueable thing, but the execution of the idea.

We see this all the time in the blogosphere and in the business world--folks who take very simple ideas, and with soul, talent, and vision, find a way to turn something superficial and boring into a work of art.

As I watched this video of Alanis Morissette singing the Black Eyed Peas song "My Humps", I was transfixed. To think that such a haunting performance could come from a song that has lyrics like, "What ya gonna do with all that junk inside your trunk?" An absolute genius satire/parody.

Obviously Alanis understands that real memories are created by surprises.

I know it's funny too, but no kidding, it's mesmerizing the way she sings it. What do you think?

Update: I liked this video so much that I wrote up a post over at 901am that somehow combines Seth Godin, knitting, and Alanis signing "My Humps". It's called "HowTo make a ho-hum blog more memorable: Alanis sings "My Humps".

What can I say-- I'm trying to impress my 901am editor with some really hard-hitting journalism. ;) Watch out Katie Couric!

Oh, and BTW, this was more "news" broken via Twitter (Thanks Andy!)

(I think I'm getting a bit loose with the term "news" these days.)