What I’ve Learned about Blogging

As some people know, the last 6 months, at work have been spent designing (and building) blogs for our trainers. The idea behind that was to give the trainers a voice outside of our events and further establish them as experts in their respective areas.

Last Spring, Darrel and I led a meeting to help the trainers understand social networking and kick start their blogging. It's been exciting to see how far they have come, particularly within the last couple of months.

As a result of those conversations, I started looking at my own blog. If I'm going to be talk the talk, I need to be able to walk the walk. It's led me down an interesting path. What do I want my blog to be about? What do I want to be known for? Who is my audience? What can I do for them? Last July, I wrote out My Elevator Pitch.

It's been an interesting journey. I continue to ask myself those questions every day, blog post or not blog post. Instead of being frustrated for not having everything figured out, I'm discovering how healthy it is to have those questions on the forefront. The day that I stop asking those questions, is the day that I need to stop blogging.

I've learned other things throughout this whole process:

Blogging is hard.

Like everyone else in the world, I only get 24 hours a day. Devoting some of that time to blogging has to be intentional. --for someone that has always hated English class and writing papers, it takes time for me to sit down and actually write.

I have to have a strategy (AND stick to it)

On Content
I have milestones in Basecamp with everything that I want to talk about for the next month. But, that "push milestones and all following back" button is so easy!

On the Big Picture
I have to have an overall branding message that I am trying to communicate. What do I want people to remember me for? When people mention Amy Haywood, I want them to think graphic designer, not a programmer. But the truth of the matter is, it's a lot easier to write about code, it's more logical, more objective. I struggle with trying to reconcile the two.

On Being Myself Jason Fried has talked about how he just writes whenever he has something that he wants to share. -- If I did that, I would never write anything.

Gary Vaynerchuk, on the other hand, creates posts all the time. He "crushes it". He answers every comment and every email himself. He puts in ridiculous hours to make it happen. Honestly, I don't know if I can make that kind of sacrifice.

John Gruber doesn't answer everyone's email. He's estimated that he would spend 8 - 10 hours a day just answering email if he did that.

All that's to say, if I'm trying to figure out how to break my blog (not to be confused with destroying my blog, but rather getting people to notice it), then I have to come up with my own tactics. I can look at their strategies, but I can't copy them. I am not Jason Fried, Gary Vaynerchuk, or John Gruber. In fact, in Merlin Mann's interview with Seth Godin, they talk about that. I have to be my own person.

A Lot of content out there is redundant

As ridiculous as it may sound, there are days when I look at the Internet and think, "I have seen all there is to see." A lot of blogs that I read, link to the same stuff. -- Or, even if people are writing their own content, they are a lot of people with similar opinions. Almost every "what I've learned from blogging" post I've read says "It's hard." (Problogger, Chris Brogan...and now mine. I guess I can't say I wasn't warned.) But, I think that's why there's so much worth to original content; it's hard to come by.

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TAGGED AS: blogging - social networking
POSTED IN Social Networking || 0 COMMENTS

01
23
10

My Thoughts on an Apple Tablet

Like all Apple fan kids, I’ve had my head to the ground, listening to the tablet rumblings.

First of all, Apple’s marketing / not marketing is brilliant

Apple has said nothing about a tablet. However, go to MacRumors, Engadget, Tech Crunch, they’re all talking about an Apple Tablet.

Seth Godin, calls it a tribe.

It adds to that the fact that what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.
_Seth Godin, Tribe Management

What the tablet could mean

“This could change the printing industry forever.“
People are saying that the tablet could change the printing industry forever. In fact, a Sports Illustrated mock-up has been floating around on YouTube:

*SARCASTIC GASP* Interactive pictures and videos, mixed in with magazine articles? Revolutionary? *COUGH* Isn’t this exactly what a web page is?

I think we will always have print. Maybe I’m being old fashioned, but until there are standards developed and this type of technology is completely accepted, (I repeat) we will have print.

I’m a proud Kindle owner

Hopefully, I’m not trying to justify my Kindle purchase, but one of the things that I love about it is the digital ink. I’m gonna burn my eyes out on my laptop. The glow of the display doesn’t make reading easy. How is the tablet going to be any different than reading a book your computer or iPhone?

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TAGGED AS: apple - tablet - kindle - amazon - sports illustrated - youtube - rumors - marketing - seth godin
POSTED IN technology || 0 COMMENTS

12
24
09

Replacing the iPhone Camera with Apps

SHAKE IT PHOTO ($.99)

This app lets you take Polaroids. It will automatically color and add the frame to your photo. As soon as the photo takes, you have to shake your iPhone to develop it. I love the treatment, but after you take a few pictures, shaking your phone gets old. My other beef? When I take the photo, it's the iPhone rectangle size. When it resizes, colors, and frames, it changes my aspect ratio to square too. I can guess where it will clip, but it is frustrating that I can't frame up a shot the exact way I want it.

PANO ($1.99)

This app lets you create panoramas. You can have some fun with this app.

BEST CAMERA ($2.99)

So far, this is my favorite camera app. It allows you to add filters to your photos on the fly. One downside? It likes to resize your photos to 800 max width or height, due to the phone's memory. But, for sending them out via TwitPic, it's perfect!

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TAGGED AS: iphone - apple - photography - apps
POSTED IN photography || 0 COMMENTS

12
18
09

How I taught myself to program

I'm often asked, "How do you know all this stuff?" Usually, I just chuckle and say "Oh, I just I picked it up." This time, instead of laughing my geekiness off, I thought I would share. Most of the stuff I know, I taught myself.

Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign

I'm a huge fan of Lynda.com. You can subscribe for $25/month, which gets you access to her entire video library. I've learned so many tips and trips for using Adobe products that I've quickly become the go to person on my team for "How do you do __________?"

HTML

My very first job was with a web company. I came in, knowing close to nothing. They were very gracious and patient with me. Within the first couple of weeks, I was handed a basic introduction to HTML book. Read this. --So I don't remember exactly what the book was... but, I've written a basic crash course of my own that should at least give you a starting place.

CSS

NOTE: This book concentrates on the concepts of CSS 2. I know people are pushing for CSS 3, however, I've yet to really sink my teeth into it, because it's not supported across the board.

PHP and MySQL

Kevin Yank does a fantastic job of explaining code in a way that makes sense. This book will help you with all the essentials you need for understanding PHP and MySQL.

If you're looking for more advanced PHP (i.e. Object Oriented programming), I also read a good chunk of Harry Fuecks' The PHP Anthology. However, I'll warn you: he's a large contributor for PEAR. I was disappointed by how much he relied on the PEAR libraries instead of rolling up his sleeves and actually explaining PHP.

jQuery

jQuery is a JavaScript library. Other popular libraries that you may have heard of are MooTools or Prototype. I don't know what prompted me to pick jQuery, but I've been so pleased with the ease of use. It was far easier to learn than what I expected.

ActionScript

I watched the Lynda.com Flash Actionscript 3.0 videos and then use the Flash Quickstart and O'Reilly's Essential Actionscript 3.0 for reference.

CodeIgniter

If you're not familiar with CodeIgniter, it is a PHP framework. A lot of the functionality that would normally take a few hours to set up is already been built in. Recently, I've realized that I'm a control freak when it comes to writing code. I love the fact that I don't have to give up any of this control, but can move ten times faster in the building process.

The hardest part for me, in learning CodeIgniter, was wrapping my mind around the MVC model. Once you get that, it's pretty straight forward.

One of the reasons that I love CodeIgniter is Ellis Labs has done such a fantastic job in writing documentation. (thank you!) So between reading through their site, forums, and other people's tutorials, I got up to speed pretty quickly.

Expression Engine

Jason Irelan has done a fantastic video screencast on Expression Engine. -- Granted Ellis Lab just released EE2.0, but Jason's already written an ebook for that too! I haven't read it but, I've already bought it.

Wordpress

The other day, I shared my entire Wordpress collection. As I mentioned at the top of that post, Digging into Wordpress, has proved be the best resource I have found, to date, on Wordpress.

Movable Type

This one is a little bit harder. As I mentioned in my CMS comparison post, it's been hard for me to find ACCURATE resources. On their site, Movable Type has a Designer's guide that is so-so, at best. Even then, I've found some of the documentation to be wrong and definitely lacking. The best resource I've found has been co-workers that have run into the same issues I have. (helps you alot, I know.)

My next undertaking: Building an iPhone app

So, I guess it's pretty obviously, I LOVE to learn. Once I feel like I have a good grip on a subject, I look for another challenge. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to write an iPhone app. The syntax is a little different than what I'm used to, coming at it from a PHP background. But, I'm finding that my knowledge of Flash helps more than anything else.

One final shout out

A resource that is often overlooked is Google. I don't think I could code without it. You don't think about it, because it is the middle man, but it is an invaluable resource.

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TAGGED AS: jQuery - PHP - HTML - CSS - ActionScript - Flash - MySQL - CodeIgniter - Movable Type - Expression Engine - programming
POSTED IN web development || 0 COMMENTS

12
15
09

My Entire Wordpress Collection

I'm a digital pack rat! I love collecting links, images, and little nuggets of information. Today, I thought I'd dive into my Delicious account and share my Wordpress collection with you.

CLIF NOTES :: IF YOU ONLY CLICK ON 2 LINKS

A few weeks ago I wrote a post that compared multiple CMSes (Content Management Systems.) Wordpress was one of them. I talked about how the community was over saturated. There is so much information out there! I don't know who to trust. However, I recently found an ebook that Chris Coyier helped write:

Digging into Wordpress It is hands down, the best comprehensive resource that I have found to date on Wordpress. His ebook is more than worth it's weight in gold.

Elliot Jay Stocks has written some quality Wordpress blog posts. His Wordpress Theme, Starkers, can be downloaded for free. It is a fantastic starting point for creating your own custom themes.