David J. Garcia » blog.DavidJGarcia.com

We did it! 30 days of blogging: complete

David J Garcia — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:29:17 +0000

Gather round; it’s time for a debriefing. Today is the last day of my marathon challenge to post every day in June–and I’m happy to say that I succeeded.*

Also: June 30th (today) at midnight PST marks the end of my contest giving away a 2009 Associated Press Stylebook. So hurry: add a comment before the deadline for your last chance to enter. I’ll announce the winners tomorrow.

Posting daily has certainly been a challenge, but it’s been very rewarding as well. Your support and enthusiasm as readers is certainly what kept me going–so thank you! I honestly wouldn’t and couldn’t have done it without you.

Here are this month’s posts:

As you can see, there have certainly been some themes, but also some variety.

Now I need some feedback from you: the reader. What do you like to read about? Which posts did you find most interesting? What did you feel was a waste of your time? What would you like to see more or less of in the future?

Now that June is over, I’ll continue to post frequently, but I may allow myself a day or two off here or there.

Thanks for sticking with me!

Love you all!

– David J. Garcia

*I may have fudged around the edges a little with posts before or after midnight, but I won’t hold it against me if you won’t. Deal?

(Creative Commons image by flickr user bfick)

Top ten ways being a blogger is like being a preacher

David J Garcia — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:33:06 +0000

Being a blogger is a lot like being a preacher.

Although I don’t think of either as my career, I have some experience with both. I’ve run a few blogs, including this one. I also spent two years as a full-time volunteer missionary and lay minister in Washington/Oregon (I didn’t run a congregation, but I had many other religious responsiblilities).

So here are the top ten ways that being a blogger is like being a preacher:

10 - You need new content every week–probably even more often.

9 – Your subject stays the same, but you still must come up with new ways to say it.

8 - Every great experience makes you wonder, “How I could incorporate this into a sermon/post?”

7 - Comments of appreciation mean the world to you.

6 - Your community is surprisingly willing to support you.

5 - Your best work motivates people.

4 - You occasionally get told off for saying what you believe.

3 - If you go on too long, people stop listening.

2 - Since not everyone can become one of the “big guys,” you really have to do it out of love. Ideally, you’d do it no matter how many followers you have.

1 - You still really want more followers.

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Like it? Tweet it! The top ten ways that being a blogger is like being a preacher: http://djgpr.com/preach

(Creative Commons photo by flickr user bsabarnowl)

Happy 101st! – 11 articles from my archives

David J Garcia — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:45:35 +0000

In celebration of my 101st post, I think it’s fair to link to a few of the past articles that my newer visitors might not have seen.

San Francisco’s Surprising Sidewalk

“Perhaps one of our favorite attractions in San Francisco was “the bushman”, a street performer who–quite literally–pretends he’s a bush.”

Home, Sweet Hotel: Three Ways to Make Business Travel More Enjoyable

“…working from the road can quickly become exhausting if you don’t adjust your mindset. Three things can help you accomplish that change: food, furnishings, and fun.”

Metrics: The Proof is in the Numbers

“The ability to quantify results is important yet challenging in public relations. I’ve been doing some calculating, and I’ve finally been able to come up with some solid numbers reflecting my work.”

“Come on down! You’re the next contestant on ‘The Price Is Right’”

“Want to know what it’s like to appear in the audience of “The Price is Right” and how to hopefully become a contestant? I’ll be happy to tell you:”

An open cover letter: “Decisions”

“We humans seem to have an innate fear of making decisions. Call it fear of commitment. Call it worry about making the wrong choice. Or maybe it’s just easier to not do anything. Whatever it is, the greatest problem we have in sales, politics, public relations, or marketing is—fundamentally—getting others to make favorable decisions.”

Five easy ways to get more out of Gmail!

“These five simple, relatively unknown tips could each individually make your email life better. Together, there’s no stopping them (or you).”

Effective microcontent tells your story

“Last week I attended PRSA’s teleseminar on writing effective web content. The best key idea I got out of the presentation was this: Effective microcontent can stand alone.”

A 25-second lesson in investing

“If you invested in a DJIA index in October 2007 (one year ago), you could have lost more than 40% by now–in just one year. On the other hand, if you invested in a DJIA index any time before February 1998 (just over ten and a half years ago), you’re still up.”

Twiddly-diddly-deet

“Tweet tweet. I’ve finally bitten, and I’m now on Twitter.”

How procrastination can make your life better

“Instead of putting off something more important, postpone the less important things. All those excuses we use to justify delay of productive things can also be used to delay non-productive things.”

You don’t have to outrun the bear

“PR, multimedia, technology and life are all like that: there’s so much to learn that sometimes it seems like we’ll never “outrun the bear.” But we don’t have to.”

(Creative Commons photo by flickr user jvc)

Daily blogging: the good, the bad, and the ugly

David J Garcia — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:33:52 +0000

I’m now halfway through my month of blogging. I’ll post a full recap in July, but so far I’ve written 15 posts, including more than 7,500 words, 19 images, five MP3 files, and one embedded video (not counting comments and tweets).

From what I’ve learned so far, here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly of blogging every day:

The good:

Traffic. It’s now at least four times what it was previously.
Buzz. People are talking (or at least tweeting).
Ethusiasm. I’m more excited about my blog now.
Comments. Discussions are fun.
Content. Daily blogging develops a site quickly.
Scheduling. It forces you to keep a blog calendar and schedule.

The bad:

Time/resources. There’s a lot to do to keep up.
Attention. Your audience may miss some of your best stuff.
Quality control. Keeping the same standards in a daily blog as a weekly one requires focused effort.
Burnout. I haven’t hit this too hard yet, but your commitment and creativity will be tested.

The ugly:

Finding yourself awake and editing at 2:30 am.

In case you missed anything:

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Like it? Tweet it! And don’t forget to subscribe or come back tomorrow, because I’m posting new content every day this month.

How Twitter killed my blog–then inspired me to resurrect it

David J Garcia — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:39:40 +0000

New to the whole “Twitter” thing? Twitter is an efficient way to share insights and information. It uses 140 character “tweets,” which are somewhat a cross between a blog post and a Facebook status. It’s the hip topic in social media. And it almost single-handedly destroyed my blogging career.

How Twitter killed my blog

Twitter has several advantages over blogging:

It’s easy. The 140-character limit keeps things simple. Numerous desktop programs, mobile applications, and text messaging allow you to Twitter anywhere.
It’s quick. As soon as you get an idea, post it.
It’s conversational. Replies are built in. Having everyone in the same place facilitates conversation.
It’s challenging. I think it’s fun to craft concise messages that still convey my meaning.

Twitter quickly became my creative outlet of choice. When inspiration struck, I no longer needed to develop enough elaboration for a blog post. Instead, I distilled it for consumption on Twitter. Find something inspiring online? Link to it on Twitter. Need to send a message to a friend? Twitter’s the way.

Twitter also takes time, especially as you’re learning to use all the tools. You can limit your involvement, of course, but it’s tempting to linger, especially as your connections grow. That’s time that I no longer spent updating my blog.

Why Twitter inspired my to resurrect my blog

But there are some things Twitter is not:

It’s not flexible. Every tweet is 140 characters (or less). That’s it. If you want to add something else, you have to link to another site. There’s countless things you can do with those 140 characters, but the basic format’s the same.
It’s not in-depth. Twitter teaches you to say a lot in just a few words. But sometimes that doesn’t cut it.
It’s not (usually) the end destination. Many tweets are links to the other sites that host a variety of in-depth content. It’s great to provide good links, but it’s better to provide good content for links.
It’s not enough. Because it’s quick and easy, the barriers to entry are low. As more bloggers move to Twitter, the payoff for those who remain developing content outside of Twitter (and Facebook, for that matter) stands to increase.

Perhaps ironically, it was a blog article, posted on Twitter, that reminded me of the importance of developing content (not just linking to it).

What am I doing about it?

I’m now using my blog and Twitter presence to complement each other. Some ideas will still go straight to Twitter. But the ones that deserve more attention will get it. I’m posting lots of new content this month (every day). Hopefully you’ll like some of it enough to share it.

What about you? Do you blog? Twitter? Both? Just Facebook? How do you split your time–and why?

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My promise: a great new post every day in June

David J Garcia — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:22:33 +0000

Thirty days; thirty posts. That’s right, folks: I’m going to blog every day this month! Stay tuned, because I’m really excited about what’s in store:

Tomorrow, learn how Twitter almost destroyed my blogging career, and why I’m back to blogging again.

On Wednesday you’ll learn about a powerful new approach to searching the web–and when you’ll want to use it instead of Google.

Thursday begins a weekly interview series. If you’re at all interested in public relations, writing, publishing, broadcasting, or any other aspect of communications, you won’t want to miss these.

Fridays will be committed to the technology and techniques that make communicating fun.

On Saturday, we’ll focus on resources across the web. Who knows: maybe I’ll feature your blog!

Sundays are devoted to “life”–stories from my life and thoughts on making your life (and mine) better.

Here’s some of the things I’ve changed to prepare for this intense re-launch:

Launched and customized this completely new theme. With this theme:
- The most recent posts are still at the top, nice and easy to read when you visit.
- I can feature my past work, which is essential for a portfolio site.
- The visual element of posts is emphasized, forcing me to think about and include graphics.

Added the CommentLuv plugin. Now, leaving a comment on my blog automatically includes a link to your most recent post. It’s a great way to get new visitors–comment on my blog and see traffic on yours.

Drafted a complete month-long editorial calendar. We’re not talking about lazy post-for-the-sake-of-posting posts. No; these are real articles.

Added a Twitter widget. Don’t use Twitter? That’s okay, because now you can still see my latest tweets when you visit my blog every day. You will visit every day, right?

Updated comment settings. As long as you don’t trigger the spam filters, your comment will show up instantly when you click submit.

To encourage your participation, everyone* who comments on my blog this month is automatically entered to win a brand-new 2009 AP Stylebook! And the person who contributes this month’s best comment (in my sole judgement) will receive a gift chosen uniquely for them.

It’s going to be a fun month–so please: subscribe to the RSS feed, get posts by email, or come back tomorrow!

* Real people/comments, not spammers.

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Creative commons image by Andreas Levers (Flickr user 96dpi)