Just a Few Words

So long, farewell, and thanks!

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/03 at 03:18 PM • Just a Few Words

Blogging is still hot, and I’m still hot on blogging, but I’m pretty much tapped out when it comes to blogging about blogging. From this point on, I may update this blog periodically, but—officially—I’m retiring it.

Don’t get me wrong! My book, Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies, is still a great resource for blogging! I put a lot of time, energy and experience into that book, and I’m so pleased by how well it has remained current and useful. (I shouldn’t have done such a good job, since Wiley might have asked me to write a new edition if it hadn’t held up so well!)  It’s not retiring! This is merely a reflection of my desire to make more blogs, and talk about them a little less.

Thanks for being such great readers. For now, hasta la vista, baby!

 
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Telus to wire rural BC with highspeed

Posted by Tris Hussey on 04/11 at 10:45 AM • Just a Few Words -- Not About Blogs
This sounds great—Globetechnology- Telus to hook up with remotest B.C.—Telus and the Province of B.C. are going to wire most, maybe all, of the Province for high speed Internet.  Great!  Rural communities will be able to tap into the power of broadband, telework, even Skype.  Okay.  The only hitch I see is keeping up with demand.  Telus hasn’t finished wiring Salt Spring for high speed.  There are still significant chunks of the Island where dialup is the only option.  I had to borrow off my landlord’s DSL connection until I called Telus enough times for them to find a port for me.  It was worth Telus’ while, though, since I immediately upgraded to Enhanced DSL (2.5 megs down, 640K up).
 
So, I look forward to a day when 100% of BC is wired and wired with enough surplus capacity that new users can be added quickly without having to call daily and bug them.
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Fasten your seatbelts…guest blogger here

Posted by Tris Hussey on 04/11 at 08:48 AM • Blogs -- Blogging News -- Just a Few Words
Hi I’m Tris and I’ll be your guest blogger this week while somebody gets a well deserved vacation.  So like most things in life, there’s a good story behind this guest blogging stint so here it goes…
 
It’s all Paul’s fault.
 
It started like this.  Paul asked me to be a part of the nascent Professional Bloggers Association late last year.  Cool.  He was also working with Susie on some little book she wrote so he invited her as well.  At the same time there was a Business Blogging conference in Seattle.  I had pretty much decided not to go, but for lots of reasons, personal and professional—including Susie IMing me “Paul says you should go to Seattle…” I decided almost at the last minute to go.
 
I rode down to Seattle with Susie, her husband Travis, Jon Husband, and Fred Fabro in Fred’s car.  It was, undoubtedly, a great conference.  One of the offshoots was Susie and I both started getting more attention on our blogs.  We both were making Scoble’s link blog pretty regularly and were wondering how to keep the traffic up.  Well the answer was obvious and easy—keep writing and write often.  So this lead to a little contest where Susie and I had to post to our blogs with two posts a day during the week and one over the weekend.  First one to miss had to blog on the other’s blog for a week, two posts a day.  You can see where this is leading can’t you?  Yeah, I blinked first.  But I’m not bitter.  It was a great exercise in writing.  Sure a tad stressful at times (oh jeez it’s 11:30 and I have to write one more post!), but overall great.  And like many things in life there are unintended, but very positive things that come out of seemingly insignificant events.  This is one of them.  All bloggers know that if they don’t keep publishing on a regular basis their audience starts to dwindle.  But, um, we’re real people.  We get sick, we get busy, and yes, take vacations (I don’t remember when I last took one, but that’s besides the point).  So when Susie and Travis were going on vacation, Susie called in the bet.  So here I am.  And this is great.  Susie knows that while she’s away she’s going to get at least two posts a day (when I get on a blogging tear…), I get to write for another audience, and help a friend at the same time!
 
It’s all good.  We both win.
 
So that’s the story.  Sure there’s a lot more to it, like Susie is really cool.  She’s an American ex-pat living in Canada too.  She married a Canadian, as I did.  But, those are stories for another day.
 
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Guest Blogger Tris Hussey

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 04/10 at 11:14 PM • Just a Few Words

Photo of TrisTris Hussey of Larix Consulting will be blogging for me this week, while I’m on vacation. I think you’ll enjoy hearing from Tris—his enthusiasm for blogging is matched only by his knowledge of it.

I’ll be back next week, sunburned and much more relaxed. In the meantime, Amazon.com has finally begun shipping Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies. Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered copies— I can’t wait to hear what you all think of it!

 
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I’ve Won - But I’ve Lost

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 03/02 at 06:40 PM • Just a Few Words

On Monday I won a contest. Back in January, blog consultant Tris Hussey and I challenged each other to post twice each weekday, and once on the weekend. The person who failed first would blog for the other for one week. On Monday, Tris hit the Publish button six minutes after midnight, and I won our little wager.

As it turns out, though, I’ve actually lost. The competition kept me blogging on some tough and busy days, and the first thing I did when Tris declared himself the loser was to stop blogging for a day and a half. It truly is a bittersweet win!

On the other hand, I’m going to enjoy those extra posts from a truly inspired blogger next week.

 
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The Kindness of Strangers

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 02/18 at 06:54 PM • Just a Few Words

I owe a big thank you to Bobby Masteria at Multi-Blog for letting me know that he got an error when he tried to use one of my trackback URIs. Without his email, who knows how long it would have been before I realized I had a big problem…

It’s fixed now and a trackback showed up almost immediately, so I’ve clearly been missing out on an important part of the blogosphere dialogue.

Thanks to Bobby for noticing and for taking the time to send me a note about the situation.

 
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Changing or Taking Down Posts

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 02/17 at 10:18 PM • Just a Few Words

I had an interesting conversation tonight with Richard Eriksson (of Bryght) about taking down or changing posts that you no longer feel represent you well online. Now, we weren’t talking about the kind of posts that have gotten people fired or anything, but posts on personal blogs that just don’t seem, well, apt anymore.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about (and writing, for the book) appropriate subject material for blogs, but mostly I’ve thought about them in a business context. For business blogs, there is a question of appropriate content, of course, but it’s all about the business—don’t blog trade secrets or disclose confidential or proprietary info, don’t blog about your personal life in a professional space and so on. And of course there have been plenty of bloggers who have gotten into trouble with their employers about things on their personal blogs.

But tonight I’m thinking about those personal bloggers who have just decided that what’s on their blog doesn’t really reflect who they are anymore, or that what’s there is one-sided. Richard talked about having done a lot of posts that he called “thinking” posts—they were introspective, but not reactive, and he just didn’t want to be that kind of blogger anymore. So he took them down.

There are hundreds? thousands? surely not millions? of abandoned blogs out there. I’ve also talked with many bloggers who have changed what they were doing with their blog, but I don’t think I’ve ever spoken with someone who took down quite so much content.

Before tonight I would have advised any blogger—personal or professional—to leave old posts up, even if you don’t agree with them anymore, as long as they didn’t contain libelous or offensive information. As I think about it, however, I realize that this is more important for business bloggers, who are necessarily held to a different standard of truth and transparency. For a personal blogger… well, people change, and so why not a blog?

 
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Family Web Sites Book

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 02/10 at 01:26 PM • Just a Few Words

Creating Family Web Sites for DummiesJust wanted to give you all a heads up about a new book by my good friend Janine Warner: “Creating Digital Family Web Sites For Dummies.” Out this month, Janine’s book focuses on the Web applications, resources and services available for families looking to share photos, text, video and more online.

In the book:

  • Discover how to share your photos and stories on the Web.
  • Find the best online Web design services.
  • Register your own domain name.
  • Create customized Web sites with FrontPage or Dreamweaver.
  • Step-by-step instructions show you how to crop, resize, and edit images that load fast on the Web.
  • As a bonus, the CD includes a collection of pre-designed Web templates that make it easy to create Web sites for a new baby, wedding, sports, hobby, or travel photos.

Don’t miss the chapter on family blogs, too!

 
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Happy New Year

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 12/31 at 11:59 PM • Just a Few Words

My husband and I aren’t big fans of the New Year’s holiday—for all the talk of Christmas being a manufactured holiday, New Year’s feels more so to us. Add to that the number of unsafe drivers (i.e., drinkers) on New Year’s Eve and it almost always feels like a night to stay safely at home. So we celebrated a night early this year, with a fabulous meal at Hapa Izakaya (Japanese tapas) and gelato afterwards. You have to be happy with a climate that requires a coat, but permits you to eat gelato at the same time.

Tonight we are having black-eyed beans? peas? (whatever, it also seems to involve ham), the smell of which is quietly permeating everything we own as I write this.

Have a safe and happy New Year, everyone.

 
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