Reading Time: 2 minLast year I binged through the show “The 100” and had the same experience that many others had — it was fantastic at the beginning, but faded as the seasons wore on. There are different theories as to what happened, but I think the lack of constraints hurt them. Having constraints can be a wonderful […]
Content
Post-COVID
Reading Time: < 1 minI made it most than two years without contracting COVID, thanks to a good degree of caution, mask-wearing, and vaccines, but it finally caught me last week and knocked me down. All in all it wasn’t too bad, but it was rough enough that I had to end my daily blogging streak at 620 days. […]
Your readers aren’t stupid
Reading Time: < 1 minWhen writing (or recording a video, or a podcast), there’s a fine balance between being informative and treating your readers like they’re dumb. This is something I struggle with a lot. If I’m talking about something like my move to Obsidian, I try to balance the “here is what I’m doing with Obsidian” along with […]
Enjoy your obscurity
Reading Time: < 1 minWe all tend to want to reach more people, whether that’s through our creative work, sports, acting, etc. Even on this blog, which I’m doing almost entirely for my own growth, it would be kind of fun to have more traffic. That said, a bit of obscurity can be a good thing. If you look […]
Flow follows process
Reading Time: < 1 minGetting into a state of flow can be amazing. It could happen while you’re writing, painting, running, or many other things. Time slows down and things feel effortless. We all know well enough that for things like exercising, the decision to do it is often more work than the actual exercise. Once we get going, […]
Google extracts “near me” from search phrases
Reading Time: < 1 minI mentioned a few months ago that using the words “near me” on your website (or even in the name of your business) was unlikely to help improve your search rankings, and now there is some more data to support that. To be clear, people search for things “near me” all the time, myself included. […]
Writing with empathy
Reading Time: < 1 minEmpathy is the key to great writing. If you can really understand the worldview of those that are reading what you write, you’ll tend to be much more effective. In her book “Everybody Writes“, author Ann Hadley shared two great quotes that go into this. First, she shares how empathy isn’t just something you have; […]
Algorithms versus value
Reading Time: < 1 minAs I’ve been working to improve my content on my LinkedIn profile over the past few months, I’ve learned a lot about how their algorithm works. For a while I was trying to tailor my posts to better suit their algorithm, but I’ve learned to (mostly) ignore it and focus on providing great value. For […]
I was fantastic with Google+
Reading Time: < 1 minI thought Google+ was a great product. I dug in deep, and developed a solid following on there. Today, that’s worth absolutely nothing. It’s good to develop strong skills in a particular area, but it’s even better to develop skills that don’t rely on a particular piece of technology or a single service. My Google+ […]
Anchor and twist
Reading Time: < 1 minThis term has been around for a long time, but I hadn’t noticed it until very recently. It has to do with sharing new ideas, and “anchoring” them to something people are familiar with and then “twisting” into how the new product is different. It’s similar to Seth Godin’s concept of putting your new product […]