Todd Sattersten :: Astronaut Projects

Four Things...

1. If you really are interested in what is going on with me, bookmark my tumblr blog or subscribe to the RSS feed. I pull together my blog posts from here and 800-CEO-READ, my del.icio.us bookmarks, flickr photos of the family and twitter posts from when I am in a hurry.
2. I have been feverishly writing to finish a book manuscript for a title that will be coming out early next year. It is a part of my gig at 800-CEO-READ. The book is the 100 business everyone in business should read. It has been a great project in a million different ways and I'll be talking about that more over this coming year. So, that explains why there has been close to nothing here at the Astronaut Projects blog.
3. Marc Orchant's More Space essay Work Is Broken was published on ChangeThis last month.
4. Check out Grant McCracken's This Blog Sits at the : Intersection of Anthropology and Economics. I was hestiant to recommend it because I was having problems with the RSS feed. I upgraded to NetNewsWire 3.1.3 and don't see any issues.

The passing of Marc Orchant

The news is spreading that blogger Marc Orchant has passed away after suffering a massive heart attack.

I am so saddened by this news. I got to know Marc through his work on The More Space Project. I asked eight bloggers to contribute an essay to the project and I left one spot open for proposals. Marc got the spot with a submission that was smart and tactical, a wonderful balance to the other works.

Work Is Broken: Here's How We Fix It

Summary

Meetings, presentations, and e-mail are a part of many people’s work day. Used effectively, each can help keep teams aligned, impart important information, and move projects forward. We now are bombarded with information from the web, blogs, wikis, intranets, search engines, and other digital sources in addition to paper. We’re challenged to develop and maintain a system for collecting, processing, and acting on all of this information. And the classic techniques we’ve relied on in the past have either ceased to be effective or have simply broken. In this essay, I’ll share some proven techniques for fixing what’s been broken.

You can read or listen to his More Space essay here.

I've been tagged...

My dear friend Andrea has drawn me into this little game of tag.

I now have you tell you five things that you didn't know about me:

• When I was 13, I had to have brain surgery to remove an infection that started with a freak water skiing accident. I spent three months in the hospital recovering.
• I was kicked out of the band in 8th grade for playing too loud and talking back to the teacher. I was heavily recruited for the high school band (can you believe that?), joined on a fluke, and played all the way through college; serving as student director for my last two years.
• Just as our GE careers were starting to take off, my wife and I quit our jobs and travelled for a year - first to Australia and New Zealand, and then three months around the US. It is #4 on the life highlight reel after my marriage and births of our two children.
• Products I manufactured during my operations career - Ziploc Bags, industrial diamond, motor control systems for steel/paper mills, reverse osmosis water filters, transformer enclosures, and PET scanners.
• My favorite holiday is Groundhog's Day. It is so pagan. We still worship of a large rat to see if we are going to get more snow.

So, now I need to pull five more people into this:

• Jory Des Jardins - she tells great stories, just go read her More Space essay.
• Bob Sutton - he often blamed me for getting him into blogging; I think this a great way to get him a little deeper into the blogging community.
• Rob May - I still feel like Rob and I were pioneers in the business blogging community.
• Steve Farber - Mr. Farber is also relatively new to blogging. I hope he can share some great stories under his banner of Extreme Leadership.
• Tom Ehrenfeld - Tom and I share a passion for business books. I have always wished he would blog more. Here is a little nudge.

Stats at the New Site

It has been interesting to watch what has happened since I moved over to TypePad.  My audience has dropped dramatically.  I get about 7 page views a day now and there are 43 of you reading through Feedburner. 

I am not particularly upset about it.  If I wanted to build the readership again, I would need to start writing every day.  I have found that really hard to do with all blogging I do for 800ceoread.

So, thanks to those of you who are still visiting.  I will trying to keep it interesting from time to time. :)

SXSW - We Got Naked, Now What?

More Space authors Evelyn Rodriguez and Jory Des Jardins are speaking on a panel called We Got Naked, Now What? They are talking about blogging and the combination of personal and business lives.

Evelyn and Jory have had pretty positive experiences. Laina Dawes says she was fired for complaining about not getting a raise. She did not talk about the company specifically, but people at work knew she had a blog. She is certain her comments and opinions led to

Elaine Liner worked as an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University. She was teaching a writing class and asked students to start blogs. At the same time, she decided to start a blog. She started telling about stories about things she was seeing on campus--binge drinking, cheating, petty theft, drug use, eating disorders. SMU chose not to renew her contract.

Liner does not know for certain that blogging was the cause. The university did hire lawyers, but quickly found their was no grounds for libel. Students shared stories about the university hiring PIs to tap phones and scrub her computer.

Interesting stories...

From SXSW

I am at SXSW this weekend.

I'll give you my thoughts on the happenings over the next four days.

The first panel I am checking out the Beyond Folksonomies. They spent the first half of panel talking very philosophically about tagging (Zzzzz). The interesting parts include:

• The other 99.5% of the world is not using tagging. (All of us forget that).
• Mary Hodder from Dabble (video bookmarking) says their users look that two things to determine what they will watch - tags and clip length. This is unique for photos, audio, and video. Text search can do pretty good on blogs, but other forms of media can really benefit from tagging.
• More people need to think about uses. Do we need a 45th social bookmarking site?
• If you look at the folder structure on someone's computer, they are using folksonomy already.
• Folders are hierarchical, and tagging is better because it is flat and can show multiple relationships.

Tags: sxsw2006

Playing A Little Game

Scoble is trying a little game. He is telling everyone to put "brrreeeport" into their blogs. It is partial a test to see how long it takes for the search engines to notice. It is also your way to get listed with all the A-listers and break down the gates.

I thought I would play along. You can follow the brrreeeport progress over on Technorati.

Rocketboom: $40K for first week's ads

Rocketboom's Ebay auction ended tonight and the rights to the first week of ads went for $40,000.

I have wondered with many how Amanda and Andrew were going to make some money doing this.

It seems they have figured it out...

Marquette University Suspends Student for Blogging

It seems my alma mater continues to make very rash decisions about things they don't like.

Marquette University has suspended a student and removed their scholarship after they wrote comments on their blog about a professor and the other students in his/her class.

The Marquette Warrior has an excellent write-up of the entire series of events.

The student's comments were careless and crude, but they did not justify the actions the university has taken.

More reasons to say no when Marquette calls looking for donations.

New Blog and New Brewer

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a started a blog called Daywatch. It is meant to keep readers updated on developing news through out the day.

I think I like it.

I would have missed Robin Yount's return to the Brewers without it.

Links

I finally shut down the BizLinkBlog and got everything moved over to my del.icio.us account. Here is the RSS feed.

There is alot of good stuff over there and I thought I would highlight a few.

• Small is the new big
• More on small
• Can we change the world one small thing at a time?
• An introduction to using patterns in web design
• EPIC 2014
• How To Make Big Things Happen with Small Teams
• The Great Oral-B Sampling Campaign
• How to pitch the Long Tail News Curve

Being Open

I scheduled a call today with someone who I thought was doing some cool stuff. I told him I had read about his company recently and wanted to find out more.

"Are you writing a story?"

"No, I am just interested."

I told him I had a similar idea for publishing.

"We work with authors too."

I said that it wasn't really the same thing. I explained a bit and said I just wanted to know what sort of things he had learned through starting the company.

"Before we go any further, are you looking to partner with me or set-up some kind of consulting."

I said again that I wanted to know more about his business.

"It would be great to sit here and throw around ideas with you, but my time is really limited."

[Pause]

And I thanked him for his time.

I guess I have gotten use to talking about ideas freely and openly. It is such a natural part of the blogsphere.

Ideas that are shared, flourish and prosper.

Not everyone shares that view.

The State of Things

The frequency of posting here is way down.

Part of it is time. We were gone for two weeks on vacation. You know what that can do to things.

I have been putting most of my extra time into getting More Space done. We have been in kind of a quiet period. We are putting the final touches on the essays and the layout. We are pushing to get it to the printer and I promise more news on the project soon. We are going to need your help to make it successful.

I have said this before, but with all the blogging I do for 800-CEO-READ, I am low on energy and material by the time I get here. That may actually get worse.

I have accepted a full-time position with 800-CEO-READ. I have been working with Jack as a consultant for the last 14 months. We have been talking for some time about me spending more time with them. I have been really happy with the things we have accomplished and I see all sorts of potential for the future. I think it is going to be a great place to hang my hat.

I think with a place to focus my energy I don't have spare brain cells to spend thinking and commenting about the general affairs of the business day.

What does that mean? It means you are going to hear from me less here. I want to lower your expectations a little. If you like my angle on things, check out the 800-CEO-READ blog because you will continue to see alot of me there.

I know I still need this outlet, so don't worry about me disappearing completely.

More soon...

Just a link to save...

This was brilliant while it was running. It was hard to tell if it was a fan or a marketer....

http://darthside.blogspot.com

Stop It. Right Now.

There is an article in Men's Health this month about how you can simplify your life. There is a sidebar that specifically spells out 16 things you can do to make things simpler.

#15 was blogging.

It recommended you give up blogging and start playing more attention to your girlfriend.

I think you can do both...

Next Blog Business Summit Scheduled

The next Blog Business Summit is scheduled for August 17-19.

I think this news has been out for a couple of weeks, but I just saw it on Scoble's Linkblog.

I have a baby arriving right about that time, so I probably going to pass.

Anybody else planning on going?

Blogging Panel at the HOW Design Conference

I have been at the HOW Design Conference for the past day and a half.

I attended their blogging session entitled "Daily Candy: Is Blogging Good For You? Or Does It Just Cause Cavities?

There were 60 people at the session. This was pretty poor turnout when considering there are about 3500 people at the event.

The moderator Steve Heller started by asking how many people in the audience were bloggers. Six people in the audience raised their hands.

Heller also said that blogs are a part of normal reading now at NYT. He comes into the office now and sees everyone reading blogs. He says it adds about 30 minutes of additional reading per day.

The two blogs that were talked about the most were Design Observer and Speak Up. If you are of the design bend or are interested, you should check them out.

Nominee for MKE Blog of the Week

It seems A Penny For... has been nominated for Blog of the Week by MKEonline. There are nine others on the list for determining this week's best blog in Wisconsin. Voting running through April 7th.

The downside of voting is that you have to provide your email address. I am not thrilled about that.

I hope you'll still consider voting (Mom, that means you :) You can click here to vote.

P.S. They have a directory of Wisconsin blogs called 1000 Voices.

Womma Blog Panel: Session and Questions

We had a great session. I want to thank Deborah and Rick.

We started by asking everyone some questions and the audiences answers:

How may know what a blog is - 95%
How many people read blogs daily - 40%
How many have personal blogs - 30%
How many have company blogs - 20%

Questions:

How influential are bloggers?

How can you tell how many people are reading blogs?

How are big brands using blogs internally?

Talk about corporate blogs, and transparency.

We needed another hour to get close to answers everyone's questions.

Blogging Panel Live - After

Using Blogs for Word of Mouth Marketing

I am going to be speaking today at the WOMMA Summit in Chicago. I have been asked to participate in a panel discussion on how blogs can be used to do word-of-mouth marketing. On the panel with me is Deborah Schultz from Six Apart and Rick Bruner from DoubleClick.

I wanted to publish some thoughts here for people who are (and are not) attending the event.

I think there are four reasons why companies should be using blogs to support word-of-mouth marketing:

1. Blogging is Personal - The vast majority of blogs are written by a single individual. This is what makes the medium compelling. You are hearing directly from another person what they think and how they feel. People talk about their passions. People talk about their day at work. They talk about just about everything.

The people who are drawn to blogging like to talk. They like telling others things. They like being the authority. Just the sort of people you would like talking about you.

Key point: Get to know the bloggers talking about you and your industry (and I don't mean by sending them press releases).

2. Linking - The use of hyperlinks is an integral part of blogging. Bloggers may reference a news story or the latest video game they bought. Those links are recommendations. They are telling people, "Go check it out."

   By linking to someone else, they also are giving them a gift. Robert Scoble (Microsoft Software Evangelist) calls it GoogleJuice. The more a site gets linked to, the more relevant search engines believe that content to be. Again it is like word-of-mouth--the more you hear about something, the more you start to pay attention.

   Key Points: Make sure your blog posts have permalinks and get familiar with Technorati.

3. Permanance - The trouble with most word-of-mouth marketing is that it is taking place one person at a time. And each conversation has to take place over and over again.

   The "conversations" that take place on blogs are (relatively) permanent. Before I make any purchase now, I check to see if any blogs have had anything to say. I can see if people liked the hotel they stay at or if I should buy the new Mac Mini.

   Key Point: Consider starting a blog to pull together what bloggers are saying about your company and your products (bonus points if you list the good and the bad).

   P.S. people are going to find both sides whether you like it or not.

4. Syndication - You are going to hear alot about RSS. It stands for Real Simple Syndication. RSS lets people subscribe to your blog and get notified when you post new content. This lets your biggest fans find out the moment you launch the new product. What would happen if you broke a story on your blog and simply let your evangelists spread the word?

   Key Points: Make sure you have a RSS feed on your blog and start using a RSS reader (like Bloglines) to keep up with blogs.

I have a great list of blogging links in my del.icio.us account. Start at the bottom and work your way up. You will find everything from what is a blog to how to pitch stories to bloggers. I highly recommend the Fortune article on blogging. It is the best mainstream media piece written on blogging thus far.

On the panel today, we will be giving lots of corporate examples of blogging. I wanted to give you a list of other business blogs you can check out. These are smaller companies using blogs in different ways to talk with their customers.

• Jewelboxing - This is product by Coudal Partners. They have a great feature where they list the cities they shipped to each day. It is a great way to give a nod to customers publicly without creating privacy problems.
• Green Cine Daily - If you like indie films, there is not a better site on the internet to find out what it going on. When they talk about movies, they link to them in their catalog.
• 800-CEO-READ - I am a little partial since I do alot of work for 8cr. Here is another example of a company taking their niche (i.e. business books) and striving to provide an unparalleled resources. With reviews/news, text excerpts, and audio content, they...I mean we are well on our way.
• Atomic Books - This is Baltimore based bookstore. It is a "slice of life" kind of blog, and next time I am in Baltimore I have to go visit them.
• English Cut - A Saville Row tailor talking about his craft and why his suits are better. And he gives lots of reasons...

Trying to get back

I have been very busy in the real world and in producing content for others in the virtual world.

Let me send you to some of the stuff I have written for others this week and I promise I will be back next week with my thoughts on the world:

• I have been working on educating 800-CEO-READ readers about tags. I have posted three in a four part series (one, two, and three). I am trying to get some standardize on the tag used to reference business books. If you find interesting content and use del.icio.us or Technorati tags, use businessbooks. I plan to use it to plan interesting content into the 8cr blogs.
• I wrote a post for Business Blog Consulting about the great blogging article in The Wall Street Journal this week.
• I am still posting links to the BizLinkBlog. I am pretty really selective, so you will probably see one or two links a day.

A Biography of Blogging

Fred Wilson wrote a great post a couple of weeks about his interactions with some of the big player of Web 1.0. If you read it, you'll find names like Bo Peabody, Jason Calacanis, and Scott Kurnit. He also writes about what is different about Blogging 2.0.

Daily Show on Blogging

There has been lots of links to this.

It is definitely worth watching.

A Little Feedback Needed

I have been running BizLinkBlog for a couple of weeks and I wanted to see what everyone thought of it. Dana likes it. I find that I am only posting a couple things a day over there and I wondered if I need something separate for that. I could just as easily do that here. I know the expectations are a little lower on the LinkBlog, because you know you are only going to get link and maybe a sentence about it.

OK, enough back and forth. What do you think?

Safely in Seattle

I am safely in Seattle.

I had a great day checking out the Science Fiction Museum with Evelyn.

We then had dinner at Lola with Curt, Lisa, and Robert.

It was great to meet so many people in person from the world of blogs.

There is going to be even more of that tomorrow.

What are you talking about?

The headline is not meant to be said with a classic Different Strokes emphasis. I was thinking about what it is I have been talking about lately on the blog.

If you look down the page, you'll see less posts. I think that is driven by my work over at 800-CEO-READ and my many side projects.

I have been talking more about blogging than business. I think that reflects where I am spending my time right now. I don't do the searching I use to for interesting business stories. I am going to try and get back to that a bit. For example, did you see there is a shortage of high quality audio tape? [WSJ, sub. needed]

I also find I am talking more about life events. I was a little hesitate about that, but today's post from Evelyn reminded not to be. I don't know if what I am doing is compelling, but the things I talk about I am interested in and I think some passion comes through. So, expect more of that too.

I am also going to launch a linkblog devoted to business posts. I hear lots of people say that they can't read all of the blogs I do. I understand that. So let me offer to a way to see the things I see that are interesting, but don't have time to post. There really isn't any linkblog that offers you a pure business feed now. I will have that up and running in the next week.

So, there is my thinking on the blog right now. Hope you like it and keep on reading...

Lots of Reasons

As we head into Blog Business Summit next week, I thought I would post some of the recent blogging links for marketers, advertisers, and PR people.

It started with Bob Cargill at Brand Republic stating his ten reasons "Why advertising, marketing and PR pros should blog".

Then Tony Walsh at Clickable Culture responded with this ten reasons for "Why advertising, marketing and PR pros should not blog".

I then ran across an older article from webpronews.com, where Linda Burton gives 6 reasons for marketers to get out there blogging.

If you are unclear about my position after all of that, I think businesses need to be blogging.

Tag Search on Technorati

The hot thing in social computing is tags. If you are not familiar, the idea is that you can associate words with a piece of data (i.e. hyperlink, photo, etc.) Del.icio.us pretty much started the idea. Flickr and 43 Things allows users to make heavy use of of them too.

Llike a good search engine, Technorati is now allowing you to search on tags. Here is their take on the term business. They are pulling from del.icio.us and flickr. The blog results need some work.

I'd put this in the "something to watch" column.

[via Scoble]

I am attending Blog Business Summit

I have been debating for about a month about attending Blog Business Summit.

I decided to pull the trigger today.

For those of you going, I can't wait to meet all of you in person.

For all of you on the fence, do it. It is worth it just to meet all of the wonderful people who are going to be there. The discussions are going to be great. The presentations look interesting. What other reason do you need?

Now , I can't wait.

For those getting there Sunday, I am thinking we need to put together a little trip to the library and/or sci-fi/music museum. Anyone?

Building a Better Blog

Brian Bailey from Leave It Behind has a post titled "Building a Better Blog".

I like this post alot. I think is it time to think a little about how you are communicating with others with your blog. You can make improvements.

Here is his list with my thoughts:

1. Use categories - I was just talking about this with Ben and Jackie yesterday. If you blog covers a wide range of topics, I think you should use categories. It lets your readers see what you talk about and lets them key in on the things that interest them.
2. Use Titles - I am trying to get better at this. I think it is really important. Generic titles tell you nothing when you are reading RSS feeds. We are looking at using our blog content better at 800-CEO-READ and good titles is a key to readers being able to see what content will be of interest to them.
3. Publish During High Traffic Times - I haven't thought much about this one. I am going to experiment with this a little
4. Syndicate Your Entire Post - PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do this. If you have Typepad, go find the box to click to syndicate full posts. For others, find out how to modify your template. For those of you who are intentionally showing partial posts, you are losing readers. I know you want people to see your site and bump up those advertising measurements. I think you are going to have the opposite effect in the long-term.
5. Click Your Own Links - I don't do this enough. It is link verification and it helps others see you.
6. Develop an Authentic Voice - I think this is something everyone does over time. Write about what interests you and you will be fine. The right people will find you.
7. Tell Us Who You Are and How to Contact You - This really important. People are always looking at your about page and often want to talk to you one-on-one. Make it easy to do that.
8. Don't Be Afraid to Promote - I am mixed on this one. I rarely send others' emails introducing or promoting my blog. I do try to create community events that draw bloggers and readers. I guess that promotes my blog in a slightly different way.
9. Commment on Other Sites and Your Own - I think this is important. It is part of what blogging is about. It is creating conversation.
10. The More You Write, The More You Will Have to Write About - I pretty much agree with this point. I know that when I have an idea, I have to write the post right away or else it is lost. Saying you will write it next week, rarely working. Just start writing.

Bonus:Content Brings Google - Absolutely. It happens all of the time.

[via Scoble Linkblog]

NetNewsWire supports podcasting

I am a huge fan of NetNewsWire. I like the capability to read posts offline. The cursor keys commands allow you to scan feeds and posts really quickly. It works with ecto nicely.

They posted today that their 2.0b10 supports podcasting. :)

My year in review

This year has been great and so much has happpened.

When I started the year, I was working with my father. A month later, I decided that I needed to do something else. That something else started with staying home with my one year old.

That gave me some time to do things with this blog. The Business Blog Book Tour started in February. I held Brand Week and Finetuning later in the year. I also tried wikis with the BizBlog Directory Wiki.

I tried my hand my hand at distribution with the Kaospilots A-Z book. Fast Company reviewed the book and I stepped in to provide US distribution. I sold 40 copies of the $50 book. It was not a runaway success, but it was a great learning experience. What was better was getting the chance to visit Uffe and the school in September.

The BBBT led to an introduction with Jack Covert and 800-CEO-READ. We hit it off and started a blog to see what would happen. That led to another blog to run book excerpts. And that led to starting a podcast about business books.

On a sadder note, I lost my grandfather after a year of poor health.

We were able to travel quite a bit this year. We spent five weeks in Europe on two different trips. I spent a weekend in San Francisco after BlogOn. This last week I have been able to enjoy the beauty of the Colorado Rockies.

Finally, I have met so many wonderful people this year. I would not even know where to start in listing everyone here. I think you all know who you are.

At the beginning of last year, I could have never predicted where I would be now. Some might say I didn't plan very well. I don't see it like that at all. I think I am going the right direction. I think it will be interesting how opportunity presents itself in 2005.

To an even better 2005!!!

Fortune Article on Blogging

Just want to make sure you go read the Fortune article on blogging.

I am honored

This is the only chance I am probably ever going to get to be an ABC News Person of the Year.

Last night, ABC News ran a piece on bloggers being their people of the year. Bloggers are sharing this title with the Google Guys, Joseph Darby, and Mary Fetchet.

The latest essay on "Blogging is not for me."

Joseph Epstein writes an one of those oh-so clever and plithy editorials in today's WSJ. This one is titled "Blog, Blague, Blog". As far as I can tell you need to subscribe to be able to see it. I do find it a little interesting that the editors didn't make this available on the Opinion Journal.

I have decided to post the whole essay here. If I am pushing fair use a bit, I apologize.

Blog, Blague, Blog by Joseph Epstein

No big surprise, I suppose, in Merriam-Webster's recent announcement that "blog" was the word most looked up on its Internet sites during the past year. Bloggers were much in the news; in fact, they often turned the direction of the news, and made a fair amount of news on their own. Bloggers caught up with many campaign lies during the past presidential election; by catching him out in shoddy journalistic practice, they cost Dan Rather an honorable departure from a long career.

Bloggers have become something of an auxiliary media, often doing the grubby journalistic work of picking up the essential threads left hanging by the major, or mainstream, media.

At their best, they resemble that small stockholder who ruins what was supposed to be a smooth stockholders meeting by pointing out that the company's top executives seem to have been making ungodly profits by putting asbestos in the products of corporation's baby-food company in Latin America. Politicians, journalists, public figures generally, have been served proper notice: Beware -- Little Blogger is watching you.

* * *

A blog, for those who have not yet looked up the word, is a journal kept by a private individual and made available on the Web. The etymology of the word derives from web log. (Through available software, a blog can also send its readers to other pertinent material through hyperlinks.) Persons who keep such journals are known as bloggers, their activity as blogging. Blogs, like private journals kept in pre-computer days, tend to be updated daily.

A name for habitual readers of blogs has not, so far as I know, been invented. Blogettes wouldn't be bad, if it didn't suggest exclusive feminity. The best available for now is probably blogophiles. There must be lots of them out there, for some blogs are thought to have large followings: Andrew Sullivan's blog, for example, and that of the notorious blog gossiper Matthew Drudge used to get frequent mention.

After admitting all the successes of bloggers in politics and journalism in recent years, I myself remain a bit of a blogophobe. My problem with blogs is, to stay within computerese, a RAM problem. RAM is, of course, random access memory, denoting how much information one can store in one's computer, or, in human terms, in one's brain. Those little gray cells, as Inspector Poirot likes to call them, are dying off in impressive numbers in all of us; and do we wish to spend many of them reading blogs, in which a large percentage of the material cannot be relied upon, and lots more of which is beside any possible point? Well to remember that the French word blague, pronounced the same as blog, means to talk chaff, to hoax, to humbug.

Professional journalists may be under an obligation to check 12 or 15 blogs each morning. As an amateur, a mere kibitzer, I am not. I do not have enough RAM left in my brain to accommodate bloggers in the distant hope of gaining a bit of inside information, I cannot really accommodate them in what I think of as my intellectual hygiene. Forget inside information, it's all I can do to handle outside information.

As for my intellectual hygiene, it begins with writing in my own, private, written-in-longhand journal, which I have been keeping for some 30-odd years and which no one else has ever seen. It continues with a brisk reading of the New York Times, beginning always with its obituaries (the only news that, as Ezra Pound said about literature, stays news). The Wall Street Journal is next. After checking my e-mails, with its many fine offers of cheap Viagra and chances to meet cheating housewives, I click over to ArtsandLettersDaily.com, which reprints a good selection of recent articles on culture and intellectual life in the Anglophone world.

I also subscribe to 12 or so magazines, from the English Gramaphone to the imprecisely named GQ, standing for Gentleman's Quarterly (it comes out monthly and, with its explicit advice on sex, is decidedly not for gentleman). At night I watch "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," and try my best to steer clear of CNN or "Larry King Live," not always with success. Information overload is, decidedly, threatened.

All success to the best of the bloggers. But, as the Jews of Russia used to say about the czar, so I now find myself saying about them: May they live and be well, but not too close to me.

A lot of explaining to do

I find I still have alot of explaining to do when it comes to everything going on with blogging, RSS, podcasting, and the social networking area.

I posted about 40 links to my del.icio.us account this morning. Based on the fellow linkage, some of the links are very popular and there are others where I am the first.

I just wanted to offer it as a resource and a place to you can direct people who are trying to get up to speed. Lots of ideas from lots of voices.

The first audio from BloggerCon III

If you are one of those who missed BloggerCon, ITConversations has started posting the audio from the conference. The first is aptly Adam Curry and the podcasting session. They will be posting a session each day over the next couple of weeks.

Discouraging blogging

Scoble has an anecdote about bosses who discourage blogging.

In my previous post, I got caught up in the institutions and abstracts of "branding" and "companies". I am quickly reminded it is people who protect the history of a company. It people who protect the image of a company. Often, it is only people trying to protect their egos.

And it takes conversations to change those attitudes. So, we'll just keep doing what we're doing and wait for the rest to come along.

Branding and Blogging

All this talk about branding lately.

James Tauber says:

Recently, Doc Searls made the observation that the companies known for their brand don't have nearly as many bloggers.

I was all ready to embrace this meme that blogging and branding were opposing when I stopped and thought—hang on, Tom Peters blogs. Tom, more than any other person taught me the power of the personal brand.

Then it dawned on me. Blogging builds your personal brand. Perhaps people that (are good at or want to) build their personal brand don't sit well in companies that have a strong corporate brand.

I like James' thoughts. I think he is exactly right. Blogs only work if they are written by people who have identities. Over time, those identities become brands. Apple wants you to think about the Steve Jobs brand or maybe Jonathan Ive brand, not a program manager developing the next release of Mail. I agree with Mr. Ruebel. Apple is not going to have people blogging any time soon.

Why is the assumption that bloggers will distract and not enhance these mighty brands?

How much longer can companies keep employees from doing this very natural thing of talking customers?

It's hard

There is lots of buzz about the Mazada psuedo-blog [the site has been taken down].

I agree with everyone else. It doesn't work.

My first thought was to say that corporate blogging is hard, but that is not true. It really isn't that hard. There is no lead-time needed before you can do it. There is no technology barrier.

Maybe, it is hard for companies to talk to people. Without the veneer. Without the lawyers and message makers in between.

Companies don't need an ad agency to figure out how to talk to people. You do need to decide how you are going to go to market, but then talk to people. If you are trying to figure out to talk to them, you are thinking too much.

[End Rambling]

Podcasting 101

iloveradio.org is putting together a great resource going called "Podcasting 101: Illustrated Tips for Newbie Podcasters"

Also check out "I Was Nearly Peter Jennings' Love Child".

Give you a little more

Evelyn said I short changed you on this post from a couple weeks ago. Consider this quote:

The best musicians are like the best programmers – and like the best bloggers, although notice I didn’t say the most popular bloggers – they do it because they can’t not do it. They write and/or play music for the same reason a writer writes: it’s how they breathe. And it’s as involuntary as breathing. Most of them can’t tell you why they do it. They just do, and they love it.

This may help you consider reading the whole post.

Blogophobia

Robert Scoble of Microsoft tells you why you should stop being afraid and start blogging already.

Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research tells you why should be afraid and think twice, thrice, or four times before jumping into blogging.

I am with Robert. Start the blog already.

[thx to Media Guerilla for the Jupiter post]

Great Blog List

Adland has a great list of marketing blogs.

I think it is a great list because there are lots of blogs that are new to me.

How to Podcast

Engadget has an outstanding post on how to create a podcast. They tell you what software you need and how to configure it. This specifically talk the Mac platform with screen shots and everything. They promise the same for PC as soon as they figure it out.

Podcasting

There is some really interesting things going on in this realm of podcasting.

What is podcasting? There is a definition on the Wikipedia. Dave Slusher boils down a podcast to three things:

1. Must be a discrete and downloadable media file
2. Published in an RSS 2.0 enclosure feed
3. Handled automatically on the receiver end, downloaded and moved to where it needs to be and put in the playlists for your playback device

Doc Searls probably has the most linked to post on the subject.

iPodderX is the first newsreader for audio files. You subscribe to feeds and it downloads any audio contained in them. It is a very simple application at this point that will undoubtly evolve.

Adam Curry is probably the biggest cheerleader for podcasting right now. You can check out the iPodder.org website. You can also start listening to his Daily Source Code.

One last thing - I had a post back on September 3rd where I described what needed to happen with audio blogging:

I think it is going to take some more experimenting in form and function. How can I easily record post and upload them? What if it was easy for readers to download audio posts onto their iPod and listen to them later? RSS readers detecting audio posts, downloading the new ones, and putting them into a playlist on iTunes?

How about that? Some others saw the same thing and made something happen. I love the stuff that is going on with this. You will see an experiment from me soon.

PR Pitfalls with Bloggers

There has been an interesting discussion started around PR and blogging. It started with John and Richard of the Marketing Playbook sending out some email to bloggers telling them about their new book. Peter Davidson immediately stepped in and called the authors out for sending out spam and not knowing how to pitch to bloggers. All sorts of people have chimed in since including Kristen and Rich. The boys at MP have posted an apology or two.

I talked about how I liked the book over at 800-CEO-READ, but in this post I want to talk about the PR and blogging.

Here is my thoughts on the subject:

1. Blogs are people and people are posting things that interest them. Those seeking PR have to read the blog to know if what you are offering is going to be a fit. Also understand that bloggers talk about everything, and that anything is fair game from the moment you contact them.


2. Those seeking PR need to send links. That is the basis for the medium. Give me a link I can read and send others to.


3. Don't get cheap. I had a person pitch me with a .pdf file of a chapter from a book. I showed interest, asked for a copy, and was turned down. If you want some love, don't just flirt with me.


4. PR people need to know bloggers are going to be a hard sell. I don't think I have endorsed a product or service that has been pitched to me. I know this to be common with other bloggers too. [P.S. it is a little different over at 800-CEO-READ. I talk to authors, publishers, and PR people all the time.]

Audio Blogging Manifesto

Maciej Ceglowski at Idle Words has recorded an Audioblogging Manifesto.

Ceglowski is not a big fan of audioblogging. To make his point, I think he makes it as painful as possible to listen to his entry. He spells out web addresses (h-t-t-p-colon-backslash-backslash...). He starts background music halfway through that sound like the theme to "Hunt for Red October" and increased the volume as he marches toward the conclusion.

I don't disagree with many of the declarations Geglowski professes in his audio post. People do read faster. The web is about motion (page to page, top to bottom) and with audio posts, the reader has to stop and listen. It is not as efficient.

I still think there is a place for audioblogging. I think readers will listen to an occasional post. You can convey additional information using emphasis, intonation, and cadence. Put links you refer to beneath the link to the audiopost to provide relevance. It adds more personality to your blog.

I think it is going to take some more experimenting in form and function. How can I easily record post and upload them? What if it was easy for readers to download audio posts onto their iPod and listen to them later? RSS readers detecting audio posts, downloading the new ones, and putting them into a playlist on iTunes?

P.S. If you are still against the whole audio thing, you can read Geglowski's manifesto here.

The Same but Prettier

Robert Scoble's Corporate Blogging Manifesto is now available from ChangeThis in a fancy and pretty pdf format.

Another take on frequency

Mark at Weblog Tools Collection asking "How many posts are too many posts?"

Finetuning - Question 4

I get a lot of people who tell me that if they can get lots of people read their blog they will consider it a success. More eyeballs the better. These are people who still have a media viewpoint of the web.

I believe traffic is important, but linking and commenting are each equally important also. It is about conversations. That means you need people listening (traffic), but you also need people talking back (links and comments).

Today's question: In your experience, what kinds of entries generate the most comments?

I think I could also ask: What sort of entries do you comment on? What qualities or traits do they have?

Blogs from the Brew City

Milwaukee Magazine features five local blogs in their current issue:

• Bourgeois Pig!
• Boots and Sabers
• Czeltic Girl
• The Vast Dairy State Conspiracy
• Jon Bass

I am happy to see all of theses cheesehead bloggers. I am working through their blogrolls to find others.

Good stuff

Greedy Girl had some good stuff yesterday.

GG points to Keiko, blogger/clothing designer. I have to agree with GG - "This young woman has more innate marketing savior faire than many of the oh-so-dull business bloggers I struggle to read each day." Keiko is creating a lifestyle on her blog, she is creating something you want to become a part of.

GG also points to the new State Business Tax Climate Report from the Tax Foundation. I am happy and a little surprise to see Wisconsin right in the middle of the pack.

State	Indexed Score	Rank
Wyoming	8.30	1 (Best)
New Hampshire	8.05	2
Wisconsin	5.69	28
California	4.36	49
Mississippi	3.97	50 (Worst)

Finetuning - Question 3

I got sidetracked this week on a couple of projects. I am going to keep running the Finetuning questions into next week. I hope you'll keep adding your thoughts.

Today I want to talk about the length of an entry. I can very quickly say there is no minimum. I have used only a couple words and a link make an entry. It doesn't add a lot to the discussion, but sometimes that is OK.

The more interesting discussion is about the maximum. A year ago, I would have said that you don't want an entry to run longer than four or five paragraphs. I think that has changed. Readers are more tolerant of longer posts with interesting ideas. When I say longer, I am thinking of 10 paragraphs.

I think there is still a maximum. I wouldn't recommend writing 30 paragraphs in a single entry. I think the reader will leave you and click on to something else.

So...

Today's question is: How long is too long for a blog entry? Use paragraphs as your unit of measure.

Reviewer Request

Rick Bruner at Business Blog Consulting is looking for some folks to review blog software.

Finetuning - Question 2

We all know linking is an essential part of blogging. It creates conversation. It creates connections.

I want to talk about the words that bloggers hyperlink to in their entries. I think for the most part the decision process is unconscious, I think it is important to look at.

As I look through my own blog, my strategy varies. I find if I am talking about someone else I will highlight the verb in the sentence (i.e. Zach Braff of Scrubs fame is writing a blog to promote his new movie...).

I often hyperlink to the objects I want to highlight, like companies and blogs.

I also know that I will construct sentences differently if I need to put two links in the sentence. I always make sure that links aren't next to each other and that there are words between them. I want to eliminate any confusion about where a reader will be going.

This almost reminds me of the exercises you would go through as a kid where you practiced emphasizing different words in a sentence. It showed how the sentence's meaning can differ with a slight change. I think linking is like that.

The other consideration is search engines. Scoble told me he doesn't really think about what words he links to, but sometimes thinks about how a search engine will view the links. I find it is sometimes hard to figure out a link when I am looking at an excerpt in Technorati.

So, here are the two questions to answer:

1. How do you decide what words to create links on?

2. Are there larger issues to consider when creating links in your blog?

FineTuning - Question One

Frequency

There is no question that maintaining a blog requires new material which is delivered on a regular basis. Anyone who writes an advice column on blogging will always mention this. It is also the top reason given for why people stop blogging - the burnout.

I think RSS has changed the need for posts every day. With the time saving component of RSS readers, people don't care as much about frequency.

So two questions -

1. What is the acceptable minimum for blogging frequency? This answer should contain a number (i.e. once per day, once per week, etc).

2. What are the factors that control what the acceptable minimum is? My first thought is the age of a blog. Older blogs with established readership can post less often. When you are first starting out, providing lots of new material is very important. The topic of your blog can also dictate frequency.

So, comments and trackbacks are on. What do you think?

More people think about the next phase

I wanted to point you to Trevor Cook's questions about the his next phase of blogging.

I think the topic is ripe for conversation.

We'll start here a week from Monday.

Good Things

7 Good Things RSS is Good For...

[via Scoble Linkblog]

Starting to talk

Babs responds to some of my blogging questions from yesterday.

Details, Details

I am back from the West Coast and BlogOn. People have been asking if it was worth the trip. At this point, I could go either way. The conference really was about tools and people who invest in companies who make tools. I had heard most of the stories that the panels told. I felt it was a vendor conference more than a user conference.

On the other side, I met great people. I know that it the reason people go to conferences. It is for the conversations over lunch and in the hallways. It was great to finally meet Robert, Heath, and Steve in person. I also met Hylton.

The conference got me thinking about blogging from a user/reader perspective. Seth hits on one of the first thing I thought of - Are blogs backwards? His new project ChangeThis has a blog called Read and Pass . It confused me at first because it didn't match the view in my reader. Then I realized it was in chronological order. As Seth says, it is a much better way to tell a story.

I have been thinking about other questions too. What words are the best words to link to in an entry? How often do you really need to write and has RSS changed that? What sorts of entries generate the most comments and conversation? How can bloggers better welcome readers?

I would love to get together with people who are interested and talk this kind of stuff. There should be a conference for passionate bloggers. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. I think money and money would make it hard to get all the people in one place. So, we'll try another experiment here at A Penny For...

During the week of August 9th, I am post a series of questions and invite everyone to chime in. My goal would be to generate a first pass on a Writer's Guide to Blogging. There has been a lot of great stuff written on how to create a successful blog. I guess I want to go one level down and get into some of the mechanics and nuances.

If you have similar questions, pass them on. If you think this has all been done before, point me there. Otherwise, I hope you'll join the conversation in two weeks.

I am off

I wanted to thank everyone for the SF hotel suggestions.

I ended up going with the Serrano Hotel. Ben and Jackie wrote about it back in September and gave it a big thumbs up. I can only hope for the upgrade they got.

I am certain there will be stories to tell. I plan to blog about the conference and share my impressions. This is my first tech conference, so it will be interesting...

Bloggers read blogs

21% of blog readers are bloggers.

{via Scoble's Linkblog]