NicheKnot - where news niches knot into the big picture

How To Begin A Successful Blog

by Seth Simonds, writer and super blogger

First, an exercise. Then, a blazing finale. (perhaps)

To complete this exercise, you'll need:

• Two 3x3-inch sticky notes
• A large crayon
• A glass of water

Take the first sticky note and use the crayon to write whatever you expect to get out of your new blog. It's important to use the crayon because it's bulky, awkward, and not the best tool for the job at hand. Much of blogging is the same way. You might be an excellent writer but a mediocre editor and a terrible salesperson. That's okay. But if you want to build a successful blog, you must be willing to step into a variety of roles and learn to run in ill-fitted shoes. Once you've completed the list of what you want out of your blog, set the sticky note aside. 

Take the second sticky note and write down what your blog will provide to readers. Are you hoping to provide them with an insider's view of where you live? Do you have a perspective on real estate, finance, health, or politics that you think others would find useful? Who do you think will read your blog? Fill in the blanks: My blog will interest _________ with posts about ________. It can be longer (as much as you can write with a thick crayon on a sticky note) or a bit shorter. It's up to you. The important thing is that you have a clear view of what you wish to provide with your blog. You cannot expect something specific (community, support, moolah) from others without first having an idea of what you are providing for them. 

Fill your mouth with water from the glass. Instead of swallowing the water, force it against your lips and teeth until it sprays out of your mouth (and hopefully in a safe direction!). You need to practice spewing water because you will be repeating this exact motion while reading some of the comments left on your blog. Most readers will not read your "about me" page to see what your credentials are before commenting. They don't care. Most readers won't read your entire post, and if they do, they won't read it carefully. The comments they leave will reflect how ill-informed they are. Unfortunately, how you respond to those comments matters a great deal because other readers will judge you by your responses. It's best to leave the angry spewing for water across your living room and approach every comment with an eye for the positive. 

Once you've cleaned up the water, it's time to grab your sticky notes and start blogging. If you're wondering if a certain topic would be good for a post, check your second sticky note and see if it will further your goal of providing a specific type of content to your readers. When considering if, when, and where to place ads on your blog, a quick consultation of your first sticky note will lead you to a conclusion.

You might ask, "What? How can that be all? Isn't there a long and drawn out system through which I can build a blog that will guarantee my financial future?"

The answer is very simple. There is no specific system that will guarantee success. 

If you have your personal and projected goals (the sticky notes), you are in a solid position to make good decisions for yourself. If you can stomach the idea of facing your detractors alone, then you'll really enjoy the best parts of a blogging community! 

One of the key parts of successful blogging is to appear both present in your content and willing to discuss the posted topic beyond the original text. I think back to the 5-paragraph essay format I was bludgeoned with in school and consider blog comments to be the elusive 6th paragraph. 

That said, if you have any questions about building a blog, forming a community, or just something random that comes to mind, drop them in a comment below. I'll be around to reply. (the blazing finale you were waiting for)

If you just want to call me names or can't wait to talk to me, find me on Twitter or at my blog. 

TV Guys - Episode 6 - Come On Down

by Jon F. Merz, novelist (author of the Lawson Vampire novels), screenwriter, and now TV producer for the new TV show The Fixer 

Note: This episode contains language that may offend some readers.

While I busied myself with other production factors – small things like writing episodes, getting graphic design elements and a website in place – Jaime continued our hunt for financing.  It felt by now that we’d exhausted our lists of potential investors.  Jaime had pored over issues of Fortune, Forbes, and Boston magazines in his hunt for locating wealthy benefactors – all to no avail.

When we’d first come up with the idea of doing THE FIXER, our first thought was to approach one of the Boston area’s most flamboyant businessmen, a local car dealer who had inherited his empire from his father, but who still used the same motto that his father had screamed at television screens for years.  I’d made the initial approach but gotten no response.  Jaime, demonstrating his normal inability to take no for an answer, had kept dogging the man’s personal assistant.

Finally, Jaime called me one afternoon.  “Tell me I’m great.”

I paused.  “Tell me you got us $20 million first.”

“Almost.  I got us a meeting with Chalk.”

That got my attention.  “How’d you do that?”
   
Jaime proceeded to tell me that he’d finally managed to get his assistant to look at THE FIXER website and see what a cool project it was.  She had managed to locate some time on Chalk’s schedule for a meeting. 

Monday. 

3PM.

We were stoked.  Given the fact that Chalk was all over television through his ads and in bit spots on one the best shows on television, we felt certain he might be our guy.  We spent the better part of a week preparing for our meeting.

First, I researched as much sales data as I could find on the web about his empire and what figures he might be moving in a given year.  Our plan was to show him how backing us would not give him a tremendous return on his investment, but also give him fantastic product placement opportunities, enable him to gain a larger market share over his competition, and much more.  I wrote up five small character roles that he could play in THE FIXER itself if he wanted.

Nick, our web guru and one of graphic design wizards, put together a poster of one of the villains in THE FIXER and got it to me at midnight the day before our meeting, handing it over in the parking lot of a mall as if we were in a drug deal.

But Jaime and I felt certain that we had this thing locked up.  Our presentation was solid; we had all the materials we needed to make our case, and things felt…good.

We drove to the business office where Chalk reigned supreme.  My first impression was that it looked like someone had cornered the market on faux wood paneling.  The place was pretty much a dump.

Inside, Chalk’s personal assistant greeted us warmly and had us take a seat.  We waited for about three minutes and then Chalk himself came out.  We shook hands and then he looked at us.

“Who are you guys again?”

After explaining who we were, and trying to quell the uneasiness I suddenly felt, he brought us into his office and had us sit at the conference table.  As I sat and got my materials out, a magazine suddenly got shoved under my nose.

“Check it out!”
   
I glanced at the cover.  Billboard.  I looked up.  “Excuse me?”
   
Chalk jabbed a finger at the Top 100 charts.  “Check it out.  That’s my record label.  My first band.”

I looked back and saw that he’d sold 7400 copies of the CD for the band that he’d signed.  I wasn’t impressed.  The band had had national hits back when I went through Basic Training and if all they could muster was 7400 copies, I didn’t think it boded particularly well for the label.

But Jaime and I said “wow,” and “amazing,” until he seemed satisfied that we were impressed enough.  Then he dropped his lanky frame into a seat and looked us over. 

“So, a TV show?  What’s this all about?”

We went through our pitch, which by now, we’d honed to a fine point given all of our other experiences.  Jaime and I delivered it perfectly.  Chalk, however, was anything but impressed, and let us know in a high-pitched whiny voice.

“What?  You wanna do what?  Why?”

I told him about the Lawson Vampire books sitting on the table in front of us.

“Wait-“ he grabbed one of them.  “You wrote these?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my god, I have to get you to sign them.” 

I said sure, and took out my treasured Mont Blanc.  But Chalk waved it off.  “No, no, no, no, you gotta use a marker.  Don’t you have a marker?”

As I started to explain that the marker didn’t work well because the paper would make it bleed, he got up and raced back to his desk, returning with a thick Sharpee.  “Ya gotta use a Sharpee.”

I dutifully signed the books and he patted them.  “I’m gonna read these.”

Swell.  Jaime and I got back into our pitch. 

“So, I sold Bobcat Goldthwaite a car last week.”

Huh?

Chalk explained how he’d sold the comedian a car the previous week.  He then proceeded to explain how he and Goldthwaite got into a conversation about a certain actress and her rather impressive physical attributes.

“She’s got great tits,” said Chalk.

I cleared my throat.  “You know, that’s Bobcat’s ex-wife, right?”

Chalk stopped.  “Really?”

Chalk’s phone rang.  He looked at it.  “Hold on, I gotta take this.”  He then proceeded to have a fifteen-minute talk with the head of a record company.  Jaime and I respectfully waited until he was done.  Then we started up again.  After this, we waited.

“It’s just so fuckin’ risky.”

This then became Chalk’s mantra for the remainder of our meeting.  He would bring up problems and questions he had with the project and we would answer and address every one of them.  Every time we delivered a suitable response, he would counter with his newfound mantra.

“You know what you guys need to do: you need to find someone who doesn’t mind losing a few million.  You know, someone who can afford to do that.”
   
I cocked an eyebrow.  “All due respect, Mr. Chalk, you’re a billionaire.  And the Sultan of Brunei isn’t exactly returning my calls right now.”

Jaime and I had been in a lot of meetings by this point, but this was something else.  Chalk was anything but professional.  His manner betrayed a complete lack of grace and his speech was uncouth, given the nature of our meeting.

I’d had enough.

While Chalk looked over one of our handouts, I calmly eyed him and said, “Why on earth did you have us come in here today?”

He looked up.  “Huh?  Well, Christine (his assistant) told me about you guys and you know, I kinda like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and stuff, and so…” his voice trailed off.

Jaime and I gathered up our stuff.  It was time to go.  We thanked Chalk for his time and left.

There are a lot of colorful terms I could use to describe Chalk.  But I think you have a pretty good idea of what he’s like and I’ll leave it to your creativity to conjure up a suitable moniker for him. 

And just think: this is the abbreviated version of what actually happened.

Note: Jon's latest thriller PARALLAX is now out as an ebook! Check it out HERE!

Back on Stage: French Horn Player to Chief Information Officer

by Linda Cureton, CIO of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

I had the pleasure of participating in Government 2.0 Boot Camp at my old Alma Mater Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC.  I hadn’t been there since that glorious day 32 years ago where I graduated as an 18-year-old French Horn player. 

I called the panel moderator that morning to get my marching orders for the day. I chuckled to myself as the instructions sounded a little like a treasure hunt or adventure game. 

Come in the front door you’ll see a round table with a bunch of “stuff” on it.  Take a pen pick up a badge and put your name on it along with your Twitter “handle”.  Look around and you’ll see a wall with  some 4x6 index cards that have sessions and locations written on them.  Find ours and meet me at our venue. 

Got it. 

Now, as a young French Horn player and newly minted driver, I had no problem getting to the Washington, DC neighborhood of Georgetown from anywhere in the city … navigating circles, cross streets, Rock Creek Park, Whitehurst Freeway, and occasional alleys.  But, as a grown-up CIO, I needed my Navigation System.  Humm, how weird.

As we approached the familiar stately white building, I had an obsessive and familiar urge and said to my husband “Quick, grab that parking place before someone else gets it!” As we crossed the mall in front of the school, I reflected on the last time I was there – my graduation day – 141 talented artists about to start the rest of their lives.  I remembered nearly getting into a fight with a classmate who grabbed my cap after I tossed it in the air – by the way, a CIO skill that I honed during budget negotiations.

Climbed familiar steps and entered an unfamiliar foyer with an inspiring art gallery and a welcoming entrance into the renovated theater.  Gee, I’ve never seen this place before. Anyway, found the table, found the index cards – we’re backstage.  Oh, oh.  The last time I was back there, I ran off the stage crying. I hope I don’t do that again.  Today, as a CIO, I have managed to wait until I get home to cry.  Lots of progress there, I tell you.

I sort of knew where it was, but didn’t really want to remember. Down the hall on the right and turn left.  Ok. Oh, my old locker was here. Hardly kept anything of value there … just staff paper and tennis shoes.  Anything of value stayed with me or in the car.  Come to think of it, I still do that, much to the dismay of my husband who complains about all my briefing papers in the backseat of my car.  He also notes that his wife is a bag lady with about a dozen briefcases full of valuable CIO stuff littering the mudroom.

Here we go about to break the plane that marks the territory of drama and dance students --- a place where music students, denizens of the pit, do not cross. Through the dance studio – that mirror is still broken – there it is … backstage.  A Mozart French Horn Concerto.  Good embouchure, good intonation, a missed note, a traumatized teen-aged girl. The head of the music department dried my tears and told me I had to play again next week.  So, I sucked it up and played. Good embouchure, good intonation, didn’t miss the note, poor phrasing from nearly hyperventilating. I decided that this was much too stressful to pursue as a career and chose … to be a … wha?! CIO. Oh, the folly of youth.

I realized later, that I learned a lot about leadership that day as I ran off the stage crying. Thirty-two years later,  yesterday’s lessons are today’s critical skills:

• How to play through the tears;
• How to be resilient;
• How to muster courage; and
• The importance of taking deep breaths. 

I never dreamed that I would be back on that stage again not as a French Horn player, but as one of the CIOs at our nation’s space agency. Many seasons have passed.  I don’t think so much about scales, transposing, valve oil; I think about skills, transformation, and mission value. I did learn a lot about being a CIO that day.