I am relating this to blogs, but it can apply to many other things in life, and in business. In fact, the more I think of it, this really isn’t just about blogs at all. I hope that you can relate to this, and begin to uncover more of your bright ideas.
Do you ever have a great idea that you just have to share with the world … or at least the people who read your blog? I do, and I find myself jotting down a note about it. I am old school, so I end up with a squillion pages of notes stacked on my desk. Some of them make it to my handy dandy little notebook, and a decent number even make it to my list of draft copies here on my blog.
It is great to have a list of ideas for future articles to present to the world … or at least the people who read my blog. So, in those moments of inspiration, it is best to take some notes and remember to get back to it later. After all, it is often hard to be astonishingly brilliant on cue, and who wants to publish something that is less than “astonishingly brilliant”? Not this guy, but I still do it anyway.
Here comes the challenging part. Getting back on task with a particular topic can feel just a bit like hopping on a little pink bicycle to run to the grocery store … in your bath robe! Sure, maybe it is something different for you, but to me, it feels awkward. It is a huge challenge to resume astonishing brilliance after the initial spark fades away.
It is sometimes easy to wonder “Was that idea really all that great?” But you know, I sometimes question the same things while looking back at my blog archive. What I realized is that those sparks of inspiration add up to become the whole blog over time. The things we share in blogs, and in other areas of life and business cannot all be brilliant … Not for you, not for me, or anybody else!
This was inspired by the long list of blog article drafts stacking up in my list, but I think it can be applied to any other sort of great ideas that stack up on us. I still opt for quality over quantity, because volume of ideas is not impressive in itself. However, everybody has a different view of what is a “worthy idea”.
If you share more of your ideas, something amazing could happen. Somebody could be inspired or otherwise benefit just from the little bits of non-astonishing brilliance that you left in a pile on the corner of your desk. We are not all quite the same, and some of the stuff that you relegate to the “less-than-awesome” stack could just be worth “publishing” after all.
So then the challenge is to stop letting those semi-brilliant notes sitting in the draft phase from collecting dust. It makes me wonder how many brilliant ideas you have that are lying around collecting dust and getting shuffled out of your busy schedule?
Do you ever feel the same challenge, or is it just me?
I have been thinking about this topic for a long time. I tried to keep my inner voice to myself, but if you have read my blog before, you surely noticed that my inner voice has a bullhorn. I say what I think. I have said it before that “I do not try to please everybody, and that pleases some people very much.”
Call me a crusty old bastard if you like. Worse things have been said before, and you will not hurt my feelings. I only get my feelings hurt by people who care enough to create a meaningful dialog with me, and make a relationship. I welcome them to my table, and I will share my blog feast with them any day.
Conversely, trolls can have the corn preserved on the other side of my digestive system. Regarding lurkers, I kind of think of them like zombies. I am not sure if they have thoughts and feelings of their own, because they refuse to reveal them.
So what about the blog trolls and lurkers? I could take this examination to all new heights, because I know trolls, and I have enough lurkers to fill the Mariana Trench! Rather than drawing this out with a lengthy psychological analysis, I will just heave a heavy-handed slap in their direction and let you rip them a new one with your comments if you feel up to it.
Blog Trolls: Read the Sign!
Blog Trolls Read the SignTrolls suck! I have read multiple new blog articles that touched on the topic only yesterday*. Blog trolls are the bane of a blogger’s existence, and they insult our hard work.
Trolls leave pithy comments on blogs, and drop their website links in attempts to boost their ranking in search engines at the expense of hard working bloggers. Some trolls are out to cause an argument or to harass writers for missing a comma or spelling somtheing inkerektly.
Blog trolls don’t have any meaningful input, and they are just out for themselves. Some companies use blog trolling as their core online marketing strategy. If you want to see how “brilliant” that plan is, read about Ray Skillman.
When a blogger sits down to write about something, they are trying to communicate with you. They usually want to open a conversation with you, and they value your input as much as their own. It is how we learn together and often build meaningful relationships.
Two way communication is a basic concept of blogging. Collaboration is not something the doctor does when he lifts your gown and tells you to relax. It is a way for a community to enjoy the benefits of more than one mind.
Blog Lurker Bank and TrustBloggers often work very hard to research and produce something that is useful or interesting to you. Yes, you, and not the person standing over your shoulder reading your screen.
People often treat elections this way, too. They just assume that “the other people” will vote. In case you have not noticed the state of politics in this world, that is not productive thinking. It is not productive in politics, and it is not productive in blogs.
If you just suck up a blogger’s knowledge like free grape soda, without so much as nod of approval, or giving something back, don’t you feel just a tiny bit ashamed? Are you the kind who will walk up to the cash register at a convenience store and grab every coin in the “Take a Penny, Leave a Penny” tray?
Didn’t your parents ever tell you that it is nice to share, and that keeping everything to yourself is not polite? Oh, and seriously, do you really not think we bloggers see the 18 minutes you spent reading three articles, and then come back two days later to suck up another 43 minutes of our hard work? Yeah, we see that, and we know you are there.
We appreciate that you appreciate us, but why don’t you at least say “hello” and introduce yourself? I mean, we are your free labor, often doing the research that saves you countless hours of frustration. You could at least throw us your two cents between our long working shifts.
Trolls and Lurkers Say “Who Me?”
If you think this is directed to you, you are right. I am writing directly to you, whether you are a blogger, a blog troll, or a lurker. Until you take the initiative to introduce yourself to the other readers of any blog, you are missing the best value of blogs.
Sure, you can sneer at me and think I am an ass for saying what millions of other bloggers feel. I cannot speak for all bloggers, but this will cover a majority. We are working hard for your benefit, and what you failed to notice is that the greatest value comes to those who participate.
Maybe you think we get paid for this. Some bloggers do, but most are doing this to share good information above all. Some have advertisements to help cover their cost, and some blogs are there to promote a brand. There are many good reasons to blog, but most blogs are produced to be helpful and thought provoking, regardless of any other motivation.
For example: If you think that I write about SEO and social media marketing just to sell you something, consider this: If I sold my services to any more than one in 50,000 readers, my services would suffer, and I would be too busy to write this blog. I am not here to fool you, but rather to help you. If I get the benefit of a new client, or a little respect for knowing my job well, that seems pretty fair for both of us.
Don’t ask me for pandering, undue compliments, or to fluff your Teddy bear and pat you on the bum. Heck, just search Google for how to polarize an audience, and there I am … in your face! If you want somebody to tell you how it isn’t, go somewhere else. I will tell you how it is … according to Murnahan, of course.
Meet Rude Cousin Prolly
There are spelling and grammar errors that can make you look astonishingly lazy, and then there are spelling and grammar errors which simply make you appear stupid. The lazy errors happen to the best of us. I have never read a book that did not have an error, somewhere, even after many rounds of professional editing. Hekc, you may even find an error here on my blog.
I cannot expect people to be perfect, but what I can do is have a whole lot of fun at their expense. Perhaps you do not feel strongly about these failures of education, but do you ever read something which indicates that you are shopping in the wrong place?
I encounter horrible spelling and grammar every day, and I often wonder how these perpetrators of illiteracy keep up their fight to grow a business. Below are some brain-failures I hope to one day see eradicated.
Your Prolly May Hate Me For This
I think the first time I saw “prolly” used in somebody’s marketing material, I wondered what other kind of seafood they had. A “prolly” is the deep sea cousin of a prawn, right? Otherwise, I am at a loss to understand how anybody could slaughter a word so horribly.
I later learned that they were probably referring to the probability of business failure for being so damn lazy. “Prolly” is not a word, but if it ever becomes a word, I imagine that it will probably be used to describe a deep sea crustacean.
You’re Not Using Your Head
“You’re” is a contraction that means “you are” and “your” is a second-person pronoun meaning something belonging to the subject, you. “Ur” is deep sea text messaging code that the prolly kids use to keep grown-ups from understanding what the heck they are saying.
If you try telling me “your going to love our stuff” you had better be giving it away, because I am not buying it. My what is going to love your stuff? My wife, my kids, my libido? If you say “your going to love our stuff” you need to add something to help me understand you better. Perhaps you meant “your prolly is going to love our stuff!”
If you use “ur”, I may boil you in a seafood gumbo. There is not even a “dumb camp” for people so dumb to try and pass off “u” or “ur” as words. That is, unless you’re a 14 year old prolly girl and want to disarm the boys by downplaying your intelligence.
The words “you’re” and “your” are not even close to the same thing, and they are pronounced differently as well. Maybe understanding the pronunciation will help you to remember the correct usage. “You’re” begins with the sound of the word “you” and since it is a contraction, it slurs in the word “are”. Try it out and begin with “you” and add “are” and keep slurring them together faster until it sounds right.
The pronunciation of “your” rhymes with lore, more, store, and whore. So if you think about using the word “your” try using it as follows: “Your store is creating more lore.” Now remember that if you are talking about somebody’s whore, you can use the word “your”, because it is something they posses. It is their whore, and it shows possession. On the other hand, if you say “You’re whore”, you just called them a whore, because you said “you are whore”. That makes it more personal and is more likely to start a fight than simply talking about the whore they possess. You might just as well talk bad about their prolly while you are tossing around the insults.
One more thing: “Youre” is another prolly word. Please refrain from using it unless you are deep in the ocean and related to prawns.
They’re Going to Take Their Money Over There
If you don’t get this one by the time I am done, you should be sent to swim with the prolly. Again with the damn contractions. I largely avoid contractions, in speech and in writing, but they are widely accepted in the twisted version of the Queen’s English that is used in my country.
“They’re” means “they are”, “their” means that they possess it, and “there” means somewhere else or the existence of something. Here is some practice for you to consider: There is a good chance they’re going to take their money over there if you screw these up. Now read this sentence again and think really hard.
There is a good chance they’re going to take their money over there if you screw these up.
“Their” is a personal pronoun. If you remember that lesson about “your whore”, just flip that around and now you are talking about their whore. If you get this wrong they’re probably going to take their money somewhere else … over there.
Your Till Will Ring Less ‘Til You Stop Abusing This
Note that I have edited this for clarification after receiving a comment (below) assuming I had a problem with using “till”, which is not the case. The problem is in trying to make a contraction of “until”. Think for just a moment about the word “until”. Until is just five letters long, but I see a lot of people who try to shorten it. If you want to shorten “until” consider how you may do so with the least absurdity. Would you add another letter to the word that did not previously exist and say “‘till“. That seems kind of useless, considering that you just removed one letter and added another letter plus one more character. In this case, maybe you mean the word till. Otherwise, “until” is still five characters long in this iteration ( ‘-t-i-l-l ), but it makes you look five times as stupid! I suppose you can get a down home feel by using “’til“, which would be the correct usage if there were an acceptable contracted version of until. On closer inspection you may notice that it is still only one character shorter.
A “till” is a place where money is stored, or something you do to the field before you plant corn to make your whiskey. Until you understand that “until” only has one letter “L”, and that till is not a contracted version of until, you may sound like you are drinking from a still. At least you will sound like a hillbilly for trying to make a contraction of the word until, in case that is what you are after.
The Alot Eats Prolly
I find a lot of people who like the “Alot”, but they abuse him. The Alot is a unique creature, and should not be taken for granted. I do not have a lot better way to describe the Alot than to introduce you to the creature in a blog article titled “The Alot is Better Than You at Everything“. Here is a snippet for you:
The Alot is an imaginary creature that I made up to help me deal with my compulsive need to correct other people’s grammar. It kind of looks like a cross between a bear, a yak and a pug, and it has provided hours of entertainment for me in a situation where I’d normally be left feeling angry and disillusioned with the world.
For example, when I read the sentence “I care about this alot,” this is what I imagine:
I have just one more thing to mention on the subject. Get your “‘s” (apostrophe s) and “s'” (apostrophe s’) right. If it needs an apostrophe or does not, you should learn the difference and also the correct placement. Otherwise, don’t blame me if your customer rides their alot over there to another store to buy their prolly.
What Makes You Want to Rant?
I could go on with rants about bad grammar until I am as blue as a prolly. What makes you want to rant? Perhaps it is people who correct your grammar? 😉
Copy/Paste Character and Word CounterI often have a need for a character count script to tell me how many characters something contains. I also often find a need for a word count script. Since I never seem to find such a dual-purpose script handy for calculating characters and words all at once, my quickest response is often to open up my Microsoft Word. I wait for the cumbersome software to load, then copy and paste it and wait for Word to think for a while. It stinks, and I finally got really tired of it. There is no need to hog system resources and more screen space by opening Word or a similar software. I nearly always already have a browser window open, so it would be a lot easier to just open a new tab and then copy and paste the content into a quick and easy javascript character counter and word counter.
I have been a web guy for a very long time. I have often found that when I need a script or an application, it is best to just sit down and create it myself. Over the years, I have written a squillion web applications of all kinds. Strangely enough, I often find that the simplest tools to create are also the ones I have a hard time finding the moment to just do it. Once I get around to it, I have often found that there were a lot of others who felt the same way. For example, there are thousands of people every month who use my very basic and aged screen resolution test. I wrote it because at the time I saw a need for it in my daily routine. The same thing happened here.
Simple Javascript Character Counter and Word Counter
I finally got tired of the character count and word count dilemma, and I decided to just write my own handy javascript character count plus word count script. I decided that it should provide live counting when content is typed or pasted into the form, and be quick and painless to load. It started out like this:
Extended Javascript Character Counter, Word Counter, and Etcetera
Since I was already on the task of creating a character counter and word counter, I decided to throw in a couple of extra pieces to create an an all-in-one character countdown script. Since there are so many social networks where characters matter, I thought some of you may find it useful as well. I did not add many just yet, but if there is a countdown you would like me to add, just add your comment here on my blog. I will add it right away.
Add a Character Count to Your Website
If you think this is useful, of course I welcome you to bookmark this page and keep coming back. Feel free to copy and paste either of the snippets below and add them to your site. Simple Javascript Character Counter and Word Counter
Extended Javascript Character Counter, Word Counter, and Etcetera
The Murnahans of Day 2912I thought for a moment that this article belongs on another of my blogs, but then I realized how it fits here as well. This is a bit different from my typical marketing article. It is a piece that I posted on Facebook in November of 2008 addressing the power of written words. It is not specifically marketing oriented, but it does involve something that bloggers and marketers deal with, which is that of having the right words, and the importance of written words. In this case, it addresses the power of a love letter, but it has a good message that can be applied to many other relationships in your life.
I will note that today is number 3,479. It is also my eighth wedding anniversary, which gives me even more reason to honor the day with something meaningful. This story is about day 2,912. I hope that you will enjoy this inspiration. Here you go:
How Do You Remember Day Number 2,912?
As I witness friends with troubles in their marriages, I am reminded of many whom have come to me or to my wife for advice and counseling. I got to thinking about why we are so popular in this area, but it should be no surprise. We have a great marriage. We communicate our feelings, and let down our pride when it is necessary. We show our love every day, and we do not take the other for granted.
We always try to help our friends when they come to us with marital struggles, and sometimes we are really helpful, but I thought a proactive approach would be even better.
I guess I am trying to lead by example, in hopes that others may start to think of their relationships, and how they can be even better. I wish to inspire others to share their love with their spouses and loved ones, and never wait for a better time.
Put it in writing. It is far too easy to let another day slip by without putting it in writing. Our days together come and go, and the opportunities to put feelings into words diminish with each moment, and with each heartbeat.
The written word cannot be taken away. When you put it in writing, it is a promise … a contract of how you were feeling at the moment it was written. There is no substitute for the written word. We say “I love you” so much that the meaning is often not taken. A love letter is timeless, and it may be just what you need.
It does not have to be complicated. Hiring a pilot to write it in the sky does not show that you care more, and the big gestures like that are often far less frequent than what he or she deserves. Just a quick compliment or something romantic on a Post-It Note can do the trick, if you do it with feeling. It is even better if you do it often.
Let it get your heart pumping. Let it get your tears flowing. Don’t be ashamed to feel, and never be afraid that it will not be taken right. Just the act of thinking about them and putting it in writing can be great for both of you.
There is not a perfect love letter. If I ever thought there was a perfect love letter, I would just make copies and give it to my wife each day. Keep practicing. You will get better at it, and you will love the way it makes you and the special recipient feel.
Say it with meaning, and be very personal. Don’t re-write it a bunch of times to get it just right. Write it, deliver it, and repeat. Here is a quick and simple example:
Dearest Peggy,
I am writing this to you today as a profession of my love. Today is not an anniversary, or a date that would immediately spark a memory. Today is another date in the calendar of our marriage that may one day be just a blur along with the other 2,912 days we have spent together. Today represents another thread in the tapestry that makes up our lifetime together.
Why should I choose to write this today? It is because I love you. I love you every day. I love you with all my heart. Day number 2,913 may not be our greatest. Our days are numbered, and we may not yet know how truly meaningful day number 2,912 is to us.
On day number 2,912 I am reminded of day 556. Day 556 was the day I promised to love, honor, and keep you for all the days of my life. I am reminded of our great pride 2,210 days ago when our son was born, and two days later when we brought him home and wondered “what do we do with him now?” Then just 223 days later, we were wondering how to postpone his walking just a little longer, because “they just aren’t supposed to do that yet”. I am reminded of day 1580 when we rushed to the delivery of our baby girl, and how you were so strong as you pushed through the labor, and how pleased you looked when I introduced you to her for the first time. It is hard to believe that was 1,332 days ago, or that it was 55 days ago when we heard our new baby’s heartbeat and that we will do it all again in the vicinity of day 3,062.
I am reminded of these days, along with the many days of sadness for the death of loved ones, successes and failures, good times and bad times. Best of all, I remember those little moments in between. I remember days at the park, holding hands, stomping around in puddles, cooking a great meal, cuddling on the couch. I remember knowing that you were there each of these 2,912 days, receiving my love with an open heart.
Today is a great day to love you. I look forward with great joy to spending day number 2,913 with you.
All my love,
Mark Aaron
This was a while back, and now we have another member in the family, Jack Walden Murnahan. Things have changed, but one thing that does not change is the power of written words. Use them, practice them, and never forget their importance!
