If you’re looking to establish your online presence, and build relationships, it’s not the kind of project where you show up, build your profiles, friend a few people, and call it good. It’s a lot like tending the farm.
via chrisbrogan.com
Source: The Blog Herald
Where 15 years ago, having a Web site was something of a badge of nerdiness, today having a site doesn’t require much technical knowledge at all. Someone with almost no technical expertise can set up an account on WordPress.com or Blogger and be blogging within minutes.
However, this doesn’t mean that a blogger can get away with being a technical dunce. Though getting words on the Internet is pretty simple, building and growing a blog does require one to know a bit more than how to flip on a PC. Social networking sites make it easy to get online, but blogging, especially over the long haul, takes something more.
So what are those things that every blogger should know? There are many, definitely more than what is on this list, but here are five things every would-be blogger should know before, or at least shortly after, getting started.
1. The Basics of the Web
The Internet is a pretty amazing thing. Data travels all across the world on the back of a system that, when explained correctly, seems like it should never work. It’s both breathtakingly complicated and brilliantly simple at the same time.
Though a blogger doesn’t need to understand every technical detail about how the Web does its thing, a basic understanding of how a browser goes from a “.com” and then loads a site is probably a good idea. This should include at least a basic understanding of how domains are registered, how DNS works and how data gets from A to B on the Web.
One doesn’t need to know how the TCP handshake works, but a fundamental understanding of the “big picture” when it comes to Web infrastructure is pretty useful.
Why it is Important
Even a basic understanding of the workings of the Web can help you be a better blogger. First, if you go to set up your own hosting, you’re going to need some of that understanding to make everything work and understand the process of setting up your own domain.
However, even if you host with a free site, it can help you understand site outages, how to speed up your blog and why visitors often have very different experiences based upon their location.
Where to Learn It
How Stuff Works has a very thorough article about the basics of the Web, including DNS, IP addresses and more.
If you’re like me, it’s not unusual to have a pile of emails, documents and other information each day that need to be translated into tasks that you can actually move forward on. Learning to manage communications for any entrepreneur, freelancer, or self-employed person is becoming more and more important for maintaining a reasonable level of productivity. But before you can address anything coming your way the trick is identifying tasks first.
Who Wants What?
More often than not people will slip their requests in with polite communications. Often you’ll find a “I need you to…” or “Could you…” or “Please take care of…” sandwiched in between questions about you and the family or the status of a project. These phrases are like tags, noting what part of a particular voicemail or email is actually the task you need to complete. Focuson those first and deal with the extraneous stuff later.
Who Sent This?
It’s great to think that we can just scan our list of email messages and pick out all the tasks simply and easily. The real story is you have to at least read who sent you each message to figure out the context of what each message means. Comprehending just what someone’s asking you to do is an issue of context. For instance, as I read my email, I take note of what I need to do to take care of whatever question, problem or specific task and put it into context. A friend asking you to help with her blog is something very different than a client asking you for assistance with their blog.
Ask?
One of the things you do while processing new tasks is to get any necessary clarification. If there’s a question about what’s being asked of you send an email right away requesting any necessary details or a clarification. This way you can be sure that you have all the right information when you add a new task to your list. If you’re not sure that you’re correctly interpreting a message, go ahead and confirm you’re on the right track. Simply shoot back an email or a voicemail message restating the task and ask for a little confirmation.
What’s First?
For big projects that get dropped in your inbox, don’t bother fleshing out a whole time line immediately. That, in and of itself, is almost always a large task. Instead, identify the first step you need to take and make a note that planning out the smaller tasks and details is also on your to-do list. It isn’t always simple to identify what’s first but if you routinely work on similar projects, you can probably guess what the first step will be on your next project.
One Inbox?
Yes. Having one inbox where you can sort through everything can makes it easier to pull information from all the emails, documents and requests that get passed your way. Even if you have to move files around yourself, you can help speed up the time it takes to process this sort of information, just by having it all in one place.
Skipping Messages?
Skipping an email or message and promising yourself you’ll come back to it later is good way to make sure something slips between the cracks. Instead of avoiding complicated requests or tasks, get them out of your inbox now. You can even turn down the request if that’s a better option. Either way, don’t put it off until a later that will never come.
Help Yourself
Lastly, make the emails and memos you send to others easy to translate into tasks, for them and for you. While it may not help you complete your own tasks, making the effort to streamline your messages that you can minimize time-consuming back-and-forths about what a client or colleague really needs to accomplish. It really will save you more time than you might expect and just might help someone else to communicate tasks more clearly for you.
*Originally posted on Active Grey Matter Blog
Staying productive is one of those skills no one teaches you in school but you have to learn. It’s especially important if you’re self-employed or a telecommuter because you usually find yourself performing many different jobs, each with their own set of tasks, during the course of a single day. It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you can’t organize information well enough to take it in. And it doesn’t matter how skilled you are if procrastination keeps you from getting your work done.
Many of us are prey to time-wasters that steal time we could be using much more productively. What are your time-bandits? Do you spend too much time ‘Web surfing, reading email, or doing personal stuff? Twittering?
Here are 10 tips that can help you increase your productivity and stay calm, cool and collected:
- Make it easy to get started. Often we don’t have issues with finishing projects, we have issues starting them. I try to break own my projects into what Sark calls Micro-Movements, small nuggets of action toward the completion of a goal, so I am not overwhelmed by them.
- Do the most important thing first. When I sit down at my desk in the morning, before I check e-mail, I work for an hour on the most important thing on my to-do list. I got this idea from Gina Trapani of Lifehacker. What I found was that even if I don’t get the whole thing done in an hour, I usually to go back to it once I’ve started it.
- Prioritize and organize the night before. I have also found doing the most important thing first thing in the morning works best if I prioritize and organize the night before so when I sit down at my desk in the morning I know what my most important task of the day is. Some people do this as soon as they are done with work for the day. I generally take 20 to 30 minutes before bedtime to prioritize
my To-Do list, check my calendar for events I need to attend or appointments I need to go to. - Check your email on a schedule. It’s just not time effective to read and answer every email as it arrives. Just because someone can contact you immediately doesn’t mean that you have to respond to them immediately. Check your e-mail on a schedule and prioritize the responses. During work hours, my clients’ e-mail tend to get priority. After business hours, other people and things get my attention first. Most people want a predictable response, not an immediate one so as long as people know how long to expect an answer to take, and they know how to reach you in an emergency, you can answer
most types of email just a few times a day. - Don’t leave email sitting in your inbox. The capability to quickly process information and transform it into action is one of the most emergent skills a self-employed professional can have. I organize email in file folders and use G-mail to archive all my important e-mails. If the message needsmore thought, I move it to my to-do list; if it’s for reference or to read , I either print it out or save the URL and add it to my To-Do list; if it’s a meeting or an appointment, I move it to my calendar . Take action on an email as soon as you read it.
- Keep web site addresses organized. You can use book marking services like del.icio.us or StumbleUpon to keep track of web sites. Instead of having random notes about places you want to check out, places you want to keep as a reference, etc., you can save them all in one place, and you can search and share your list easily. If you use Firefox, you can also use their handy tool bar to create links to the sites you use most often either with a button or using bookmarks.
- Know when you work best. Because I telecommunute, I can pretty much work any time of day or night. But I try to schedule things so that I work on the most important things between the hours of 11AM and 3PM when I am the most productive. I also often work in the evening after dinner for a few hours, depending on my energy level. Everybody has a “best time”. You can figure out yours by monitoring your productivity over a period of time. Then manage your schedule to keep your best time free for your most important work.
- Don’t waste time waiting. From client meetings to waiting for a bus, it’s impossible to avoid waiting for someone or something. But I don’t just sit there and twiddle my thumbs. I always have something with me to do such as something I need to read, a phone call that needs to made, or a small bound book in which I write new tasks, make notes or organize work for the following day. Technology also makes it easy to work wherever you are too; your cell phone, laptop or netbook will help you stay connected.
- Organize your to-do list every day. If you don’t know what you should be doing, how can you manage your time to do it? Some people like writing this list out by hand because it shows commitment to each item if you are willing to rewrite it each day until it gets done. Other people like software that can slice and dice their To-Do list into manageable, relevant clusters. For example, I use Tasktoy because it shows me only my tasks for a specific client or project and I can access it from anywhere as long as I have Internet access. It’s also free. You can get Tasktoy here. I use both methods. I flesh out my tasks by hand and then add them to Tasktoy.
- It’s okay to be a little pokey. Remember that a productive manager actually responds to some things more slowly. For example, someone who is doing the highest priority task is probably not answering incoming email while they’re doing it. Typically in any day, there are more than a few tasks more important than processing email. Intuitively, we all know this. What we need to do now is recognize that processing work (evaluating what’s come in, what’s going out and how to handle it) and planning work are also critical tasks.
No matter how organized we are, there are still always only 24 hours in a day. Time doesn’t change. All we can actually do is manage ourselves and what we do with the time that we have.
I found this in my digital file cabinet today as I was spring cleaning my computer. Thought I’d share. Sometimes, it’s not what you say, but how you say it.
One day a blind man was sitting on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read: “I am blind, please help.”
A creative marketer was walking by and stopped to observe. He saw that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped in more coins, and without asking for permission, he took the sign and rewrote the words.
He returned to the blind man and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins. The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had rewritten his sign and wanted to know what he had written on it.
The marketing man responded, “Nothing that was not true. I just wrote the message a little differently.” He smiled and went on his way.
The new sign read: “Today is spring and I cannot see its beauty.”
No one has to tell me I have creative work many people envy. I set my own hours, I can move with my creative flow, choose what projects I work on every day and have a great deal more independence and flexibility than I would ever have if I had a typical nine-to-five job.
So when people tell me they could never possibly do what I do, I often I wonder why. I’m told it’s too scary, too hard, too expensive—or they could never pay the bills let, alone turn a profit from being self-employed. I understand their concerns. We all need to pay the bills, have health insurance, and keep food on the table.
But getting to where I am didn’t come easy and I am still not where I want to be. There were barriers for me, too. I had to reinvent myself and focus on what I could do instead of what I couldn’t.
This makes me believe that the difference between those who pursue a creative career and those who don’t seems to lie mostly in attitude and anyone can break through a fear of starting a business by remaining open to the wisdom and advice of others who have done it.
Certainly not having enough money is a valid enough reason for not quitting a day job and not one many people would argue. But no one says you should abandon your cubicle and paint the next Warhol or write the next great American novel. Often the secret to taking a creative plunge is in what SARK calls, MicroMOVEments:
Here are some of my own microMOVEments for fledgling creatives who think doing creative work they love is nothing more than empty, wishful thinking:
Listen to your heart. Do you want to write full-time? Do you want to build websites or blog for extra money? Do you want to stay at home with the kids and write? Doing what you love doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do it full-time. Assess your skills and talents and consider taking a few courses at your local art center or community college to brush up if you want or need to.
Create a support community. Creating a community of supportive friends and family is important, especially when you are embarking on a new path. I’m not talking about a group of “yes-people” but surround yourself with people who genuinely care about you and can be honest with you, even when you might not like it. If you can find a mentor who can show you the ropes and share insight with you as you are starting out so much the better.
Know your industry. Creating a business is different from weekend painting or creative writing at night after you tuck your kids in bed. It’s a good idea to build a solid foundation—and a creative career often means starting a small business. If you are a writer, do you want to go into copywriting, editing, or essay and short-story writing? If you are an artist, are you interested in painting, sculpting, ceramics or textiles? Decide on your focus and study it. Research the Internet and read about latest trends and what other people are doing in your area of expertise. Join local and online discussion group, or volunteer at a local art center to learn more about your industry community.
Don’t quit your day job. You can build a fruitful career in a creative field while you are still doing the nine-to-five thing. Start small but think big. Create a solid, but personable clientele and you’ll still have steady income and while you are working toward your goal.
Get out. Don’t rely on a few clients or word of mouth—constantly market yourself. Be prepared, especially in corporate markets, to meet with clients face to face. Network and connect with others outside your social sphere. Build a website and/or a blog and market your business like any other. Make use of social media like Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and Social Median to connect to others in your industry around the world and learn about what is new, exciting and profitable. Work will not come to you in the beginning. You have to create it.
Good businesses take time to build—as in years. Don’t look to get top dollar right away but you can earn a good second income and eventually a living. Build a strong base by knowing your industry, practicing your craft, keeping your mind open to new things and fresh perspectives. Remember start small, think big.
Life is wide, grab a swizzle stick.
* Orginally posted on Active Gray Matter Blog.
I hear yousaying now, “What?! I’ve just learned about using e-mail effectively and building websites, now social media? Yeesh!”
In its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read, and share news, information and content on the web. Social media is the fusion of sociology and technology and has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect to one another in the online world to form relationships for personal and business reasons.
Some people will tell you that it means, the days of postcards, direct mailers and catalogs are over and that the new generation of artists, gallery owners and consultants are programmed for faster, higher quality marketing techniques. Well maybe, but there will always be a certain population who wants something in their hot little hand to read or include in a file or portfolio. There is still something to be said for finding a lovely art postcard or direct mailer in amongst the bills when we pick up our snail mail each day.
However, thanks to social media networking sites like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, we areable to connect with our friends, family, colleagues, fan base and peers in new and different ways, 24/7. So in that way, social media offers everyone immediacy, connection and community and often leads to more exposure in lesstime on a global scale.
In addition to the 4 Basic Tips for Social Media Beginners I’ve written about, there are a few points you may want to know as you delve into the world of social media.
Social Media is a platform to showcase your work and your art AND connect with people on a more personal level.
Some schools of social media thought will have you believe that there;s no room for your personal life if you are looking to increase readership or your network. This is old, outdated, corporate thinking. As artists and creatives we walk a fine line between personal and business. People want to know more about us than just what our credentials are. They are interested and curious about what makes us tick, what inspires us, how life is for us but that doesn’t always translate to photos of the family dog or your kid’s latest tap dance recital.
If you already have a Facebook profile set up for more personal use, you don’t have to toss the baby out with the bathwater and hide your more personal information. Simply create a Facebook Page used specifically for career purposes. No vacation or family pictures here, just images of your work and related business. You can check out how I did it, here.
Social Media is a way to meet people, you wouldn’t normally meet and find people you have lost contact with.
These sites all reach a global audience. You might offer the best services in the universe, and have some amazing, innovative work- but how will you ever find a large group of people to see it? Social media finds another missing piece to that puzzle. It only takes a quick invitation and a brief, personal message to let someone know you’d like them to view your work and become a part of your page or network. This is also a way to see who their contacts are, possibly connect with new friends and often discover that you have a great many more friends in common than you thought.
Keep it fresh.
Once you establish a profile on one or all of these sites be sure to keep your pictures, events, blogs, and contact information fresh and alive. You never know who will be curious about you. Stay current, focused and accessible.
Social Media is FREE.
There is no cost to sign up to any of these sites; the only investment you make is in time. No website, no web hosting fees, no Domain Name to buy, no price per picture uploaded.
Still not 100% convinced? Here are some interesting facts about social media:
- 700,000,000 photos are uploaded to Facebook.com monthly
- 346,000,000 people globally read blogs
- 55% of internet users upload and share pictures, video and news
- 57% of internet users have joined a social network
Which site do I chose?
You can start with one and eventually join all of them. The three I’ve mentioned below are the ones I find myself using most often. They are also the most popular and viewed.
Twitter.com: This is a micro-blogging service. It enables users to send “tweets.” Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters and are delivered to said users “followers.” It’s great a way to share information, meet new people and let them know what you’re up to at any given time. Follow me on Twitter.
Facebook.com: A typical Facebook profile consists of a number of different sections, including Information, Status, Friends,
Friends in Other Networks, Photos, Notes, Groups, and The Wall. Most of the sections are self-explanatory but some are specific to Facebook. Facebook is as interactive as you want it to be. You can establish who sees what information and allows your friends to leave comments about your work, your status or just to make a connection. Find me on Facebook.
LinkedIn: A typical LinkedIn profile consists of your work status, previous employers and experience. It’s a little more professional than either Twitter or Facebook. It allows connecting with others,,requesting recommendations, but there’s no “wall” and there is only room for 1 profile picture. LinkedIn is specifically for building business contacts. You can also post your resume and search for employment as well. This site is less for your creative side, and more for creatives interested in developing a network of business contacts as well. Look me up on LinkedIn .
Using one or all of these social media sites is another way in connecting, networking and building community. The growth of these sites on a daily basis is beyond measure. I am sure that by signing up with one or more of these sites, you’ll meet new and fascinating people, people of a like mind and reach a broader market, and gain more exposure to your art or service, faster than you ever thought possible.
How has social media changed your online connections to other people?
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Always tell the truth about yourself. Social networks are experiential. You need to jump in and experience it. If you are serious about establishing a social internet presence and networking, you have to be prepared to tell the truth about yourself if you want to connect with people on a real level. Using social media tools helps to establish your professional background but there’s a person that accompanies that background too.
Show yourself. If not your face then why not something about you? I don’t trust a person who wants to connect with me and doesn’t have a profile picture instead of the default photos they use on most social networking sites. And I’m not alone.
Stop cramming your business opportunities down my throat. Give it a rest. I get it. I really do get it. Quit talking about what you do and tell me about yourself. What books and articles are you reading? What television shows or movies do you like? Do you have a family? Pets? What do you do when you aren’t working? Trust me, I am not going to be more interested in your work stuff if you are always yapping about it and I’m fairly certain no one else will either.
Be as generous and positive and as supportive and nice as you can be. I don’t cozy up to unwarranted negativity. Not many people do. And yes, sometimes people are just jerks and there will be times you will need to handle these characters. Do it with grace and prudence and no one will bat an eyelash. I enjoy a good, carefully crafted, humorous and appropriate rant as well as the next blogger but if all you ever do is b**ch and moan, criticizing everything, you’ve lost me and everyone else.
Remember, it’s great when you receive news that someone in your network found value in something you shared or even just that someone thought enough of you tweet hello. Be glad. It means you have a network of friends amongst the Internet hype.
Task #2; 31 Day Blog Challenge
Cross-posted on krishanna.com
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Andy over at The Working Geek (one of my favorite blogs) posted ” 23 Rules for Job Hunters” As I sat and watched it, I realized that these “rules” (which are more like simple truths if you ask me but you didn’t ) are pretty much universal and inclusive of everyone. So take what you want and leave the rest. Enjoy!
23 Rules For Job Hunters
View more presentations from Andy Lester.
Darren over on Problogger is sharing his thoughts on us how we can build a better blog in 31 days. I’m playing along. Why not you too? All you need a a blog and the
desire to make it even better!
The story behind the challenge in Darren’s words is:
“If you want to improve your blog but have been putting it in the ‘one day’ basket or just don’t know how to do it – you’re not alone.
When I asked on Twitter whether there were any bloggers interested in joining together for a month to work to improve their blogs I had over 300 positive responses within an hour.
48 hours later 2500 bloggers had already signed up and today as I write this over 9100 bloggers are participating”.
