How to Build a High-Traffic Blog Without Killing Yourself – Tim Ferriss
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I genuflect to the church of Tim Ferriss, the author of “The 4-Hour Work Week”. His book and methods have been a constant inspiration. This talk in particular, given in 2009 at the San Francisco WordCamp, has a lot of great takeaways.
The talk centers around developing and maintaining a blog (which was helpful to me with this blog relaunch) but he also covers many topics such as efficient ways to use Twitter, researching topics to share, having fun is not wasting time and even out-sourcing his love life(!). In addition he discusses covering blog topics that are “evergreen” and timeless, and not to chase the news and current trends, which is a stance I continue to agree with and try to maintain. Check out his blog if you get a chance, a really rich community of smart people striving for improved lifestyle design.
Lots of great info in this video and a perfect primer if you are starting a blog, want to reignite your current site or just develop a community to share ideas and info with your followers.
Creative Career Surfing – Are You Catching The Big Waves?
I like to surf. I like to look for big waves. Career big waves.
To be successful you always have to keep an eye out for the next big wave. Plus be able to ride it. There are basically two ways to run your creative career.
There are those that ride the waves. When the waves tend to be not as big, they look to other beaches. They move there.
Often they find that this new beach, or rather this new market, is just starting to get popular. Waves are getting bigger and bigger each day. This is a good place to be.
Then there are those who never leave the same beach, who stay with their same services, their same marketplace. When the waves die down, they stand there. Up to their knees in still waters. They look backward and think about the big waves from the past. They worry and stress about the future, they anticipate waves will be smaller from now on. They think, well that is just how it goes.
They don’t even notice the others who have moved to new beaches, enjoying new emerging markets, who are fluid and mobile with their skills, career and talents. Still they continue to stay at the same beach.
Your career has to shift and move, you have to move to new markets, keep an eye on what is next and work to anticipate it. If your current scenario is not working, move to a new beach. It may be similar to your old beach, just bigger waves. Keep looking off into the distance, keep looking for upcoming options.
I like to surf. I like to look for big waves. Career big waves.
I have practically done this my whole career. But my focus is on bigger waves on other beaches I have yet to explore. And I usually can catch them.
Am I the best surfer? Not really. So what’s my secret?
Always be looking.
And have great binoculars.
Hitting The Road – Driving Your Company Like A Virtual Vehicle
What is the difference between a new growing company and a company that is stagnant or experiencing cutbacks? One is moving and the other is stationary. This could be a small one person operation or it could be a large enterprise. It does not matter the size, it only matters if there is velocity there. Imagine your company as a moving vehicle, with the goal to constantly travel and meet new people and clients. You could almost think of this as a political campaign, logging hundreds of (virtual) miles with the goal to expand your audience and reach.
I often talk on the blog about promotion and marketing, spreading the word. Creative artists and business people may not be wired to move rapidly forward while sharing the story of their craft, but you do owe it to your audience. You have a duty to make sure everyone knows what you do and how you do it. Once you start to think of your empire as a traveling show as opposed to hanging a sign for a stationary for-hire service, you start to expand your thinking as well. You begin to see the future charged with possibilities. Extending your reach in all kinds of new and exciting ways.
How you move is up to you. You could network, virtual and in-person, speak at local and national events, write an advice column, post videos of what you do on the web, start a fan group, organize a street team, there are almost limitless possibilities of not only where you can take your brand but also how you can get there.
Momentum is the primary ingredient. As is steering. A company moving is a company that is flexible enough to steer into new areas. The core talent and services are still there, but the road traveled presents new niches and paths of opportunities. Things you find exploring you would never discover if you were stationary.
How has your business moved this week? Did you extend your reach, present to a new group, break in to a new demographic, develop a new product or service that was a bit out of your normal scope?
Are you sitting around anxiously waiting for the phone to ring or are you hitting the road and bringing the show to a new audience on a weekly basis? There are so many avenues of communication these days, especially with the web, that there is little excuse not to explore new ways to reach large audiences.
So how far are you moving this week?
Elizabeth Gilbert On Nurturing Creativity
Check out one of my favorite TED Talks. I saw Elizabeth speak live in Portland at The Merrill Auditorium and she’s a great creative inspiration for me.
Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.
The author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert has thought long and hard about some large topics. Her next fascination: genius, and how we ruin it.
Her website is here and you can also view this video on TED
The video runs about 20 minutes, but stay with it, it’s a great talk for any creative artist to hear.
Check out my site Media Artist Secrets – Creative Career Inspiration at http://www.franklinmcmahon.com/
No Tech Weekends – Unplugged And Off The Grid For Two Days
I’ve been experimenting with doing no tech weekends, instead of constantly checking Facebook and Twitter, looking at email and news, actually scaling down to nothing by avoiding using laptops, social networks, tech in general. Imagine doing social things and not having an eye on my iPhone during conversations, going on outdoor hikes instead of inside with my eyes fixed on a flat screen, just trimming it way down to almost nothing. I say almost, because it is tough to go cold turkey, but a dramatic reduction is not that hard. I’ve learned a few things along the way during this tech elimination.
As for news, not much happens over the weekend, so things that are posted online tend to be pretty fluffy. I find most critical things I may want to know happen on Mondays and Tuesdays. E-mail is also not critical typically. I recently read an article where a CEO never checked e-mails on the weekend. He reasoned that if he did, he would start answering them. And if he started answering them, clients and associates would be notified that they can and would reach him on the weekends and get a response. As for social networks, the more you interact the more reaction you get. So if you don’t post and comment, you typically don’t get much for responses, which trims things way down.
The one item I would suggest is to have everything ready for Monday, ready on Friday. Unless you have your task lists and items completely covered and scheduled, your mind will keep running about work all weekend, which defeats the whole purpose. Ever leave for vacation on a Friday? You work so hard all that day to have everything buttoned up that when you set off your mind is free and relaxed and ready to have some fun. Imagine having that feeling every weekend? What has happened to me is that I approach Monday and the work week with much more renewed energy and excitement. I am recharged and ready to roll. As opposed to working though the weekends and having a never ending cycle, which can cause burnout. This may not work for everyone, but I am guessing that it could. Give it a tumble, if you think you can’t not work weekends because of client commitments, start to rethink the efficiency of your actual work week. Try going tech free for a stretch and see how refreshing and recharged it can make you.
Do you go tech free now? Can you do it?
