The Success of Jan 2010

An Expanded List of Accomplishments

Since 2010 is a new journey for me I’ve decided to do a monthly wrap up of things that I was able to accomplish for the month. It’s about being successful and accountable this year.

The Blog

Well, I started this blog with basic intentions. I didn’t want to broadcast like crazy because I wanted it to evolve, and I wanted to learn more than I already knew. I did some writing, a video or two, and tested some social media paradigms that I learned, and I loved every minute of it.

Accomplishments

• Over 500 visits to the blog in 3 weeks
• Found the theme I like for the future bloggerspost.net site
• Got the theme up
• Read over 100 blogs of Chicago bloggers

Twitter

My goal on twitter was a bit different for @thebloggerspost than my other account @martybhatia. I was a lot less worried about quality of connections when I started @Martybhatia. For The bloggers post I am following are a lot more carefully selected. I am looking to be a part of the blogger community in Chicago along with web workers etc… so I’m here tweeting, reading, participating, and again loving it!

Accomplishments

• Over 100 followers with a majority being awesome Chicago people I searched for
• Several mentions and conversations that I was excited about
• Started to customize Tweetdeck
• Learned about #FF (follow Friday) which is a great way to shout out to your followers some people you follow that rock
• Started using Friend or Follow to see who I am following that are not following me back so I can see if I’m not getting followed by someone I really thought had a great blog or was just cool
• Connected twitter to a feed on the bottom of my blog, Linkedin, and my phone

The Bloggers Post

I Found and negotiated for an awesome location. For some of you that don’t know I am a real estate broker from my former life, and I negotiate with the best of them. I tested some theories on great terms that were mutually beneficial for both landlord and tenant (me), and they accepted gladly. I just have to raise the capital to open the space, which I am in process of doing now.

Nerd Saturdays which is our current standing meetup think-tank is rocking with new people almost weekly now, and we are getting a lot accomplished. I can only imagine what this type of collaboration and community would be like in a physical location dedicated to tech and community (the dream).

Geek Out Tuesdays are starting this coming week officially in a conference room I bartered for so people can make it during the week.

Linkedin

I want to state that I am not a huge fan of the user interface of Linkedin. It took me the better part of the afternoon and evening to fix the duplicate profile, adjust all the settings, add the applications, rewrite the information, and fix connections.

The problem is that it is just not all that intuitive, and it’s really busy. But none the less I was able to accomplish a few things:

• Fixed profile
• Added the blog and twitter feeds
• Started a group called The bloggers post Chicago
• Joined several groups after sifting through All Chicago groups
• Connected with several really good people
• I’ve started to blog about Linkedin so look forward to that. I hope to cut some time off your setup or at least get it more functional for you.

Personally

2009 was a devastating year for me. A lot of things happened that put me in one of the darkest and hardest periods of my life. I know a lot of you reading can relate to the hardship of 2009. I’ve made happiness my focus for 2010 on beyond. That is where The Bloggers Post comes in. I am returning to my true passion which is, in a word “Community.”

Community is something I think that we all have in a virtual sense or in a general sense, but this hyper electronic connection has left us lacking a place to be in community. This is especially true for people that work primarily on a computer or out of their home. I know this from personal experience. I have 1000 contacts in my phone, I email constantly, I’m on Facebook connecting with friends, but there wasn’t a working community to be a part of that I could find. Face it, no one wants to go out with friends to talk about the business that they do all day long.

It has taken me the better part of 3 months to really start to articulate the idea which has boiled down to a co-working space based on community and collaboration where all the things one would need to rock the internet and their business would be present. It’s a place to geek out, learn, play, collaborate, and share.

On a sidebar I’ve hit the gym 6 times in 2 ½ weeks with a 7^th slated for this weekend, and I’m feeling great about it. I’m excited to take life one step at a time with no hyper active goals. I’d rather take my time and just start. I’m sure my wife can lift more weight than I can right now, but I’m just happy I actually am going to the gym.

Feb’s Goals

First and foremost the goal is to not lose momentum. I’m going to simply list it.

• Add great content that is well written to my blog to hopefully attract 20 new subscribers
• Add 300 local followers on the twitter account
• Have 1500 views on the blog
• To get www.thebloggerspost.net totally functional, and the primary landing space for my blog.
• To get better at video blogging (it is hard to be me on camera)
• To workout at least twice a week
• Reduce one bad habit
• Finish the first chapter of one of the two books I am writing
• MOST OF ALL TO BE HAPPY AND HAVE FUN

Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope that I can inspire you, help you, entertain you, and get to know you throughout 2010. My promise is to always be me, and to engage with you authentically. Your support in January really motivated me, and your return in Feb is already appreciated.

Yours Truly,

Marty Bhatia