Am I a Blogger?

An Authentic Fraud

Are you a victim of the haunting question of “what do you do?” In our lives, in this country, we are often defined by the answer to this question. I don’t really blame us though. There is far too much coming at us all at once, too much stimuli, and we as humans need to categorize and become selective with the things we interact with.  So we use “what we do” as an easy way to define who we and others are in one quick question.

I’ve personally come to realize just how painful this question can be for people in this day and age. Many of our friends have lost their jobs, our economy is damaged, and we are in a period of transition. I am currently struggling with this question myself, and voila a blog post title was born.

I have dedicated my adventure into blogging with a couple of agreements with myself. I wanted to build a community that I could joyfully spend every day being part of, and I wanted to do it with an authenticity that I feel both me and my world needs. The community part is steadily becoming a reality, but the authenticity part is what I am struggling with. And, it all comes down to the question in the title of this blog…”Am I a blogger?”

The Juxtaposition (I love this word)

Paralysis by Analysis

February ends, March Begins, and Marty Bhatia Learned Something

Have you ever started, stopped, restarted, stopped, rinsed, and repeated with the only outcome being the fact that you really haven’t gotten anything worthwhile done? This phenomenon is sometimes called “paralysis by analysis”. As I build my blogging career (yes, that is what I am doing) I have found that my constant desire to improve has yet again left me stuck.

If you remember, the end of January resulted in a Jan wrap up post. From there I was hoping to create a format for end of month summaries so that I could follow that format every time. The problem began when I realized that I can’t keep a format because I am doing so many new things.

The amount of stuff I’ve learned only leaves me with a feeling that I’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg. But, when I go and help someone I quickly realize just how much I’ve actually learned. So I’ve decided to keep it simple, and give you a list, and then the most import thing I’ve learned in February.

A List of Successes

Follow Friday (#FF) on Twitter

What the “Hashtag” (#) is this all about?

Do you use Twitter and see the #__________ (fill in the blank) all over the place and wonder , is that even useful? The short answer is sometimes. To get an idea of just how much there is to know about click this Hashtags. The signifigance of the #ff is that it is about people promoting other people on Twitter. The best part about it is that it is actually useful.

I have been working hard at “mastering” my use of Twitter. I’ve been figuring out different ways to follow, manage following/unfollowing, using my phone, and other twitter applications, but I’ve also been learning the art of engaging other people. The fact is that there is an active community on Twitter that is on Twitter to really share and connect. There are others just pouring in information, and many more just lurking trying to figure it all out.

The #FF is a great way to find active engaged communities on Twitter. I look forward to Friday for so many reasons, and now follow Friday is a new reason. I have found so many great people, with cool blogs, strong networks, and great businesses that are local, and this promotion also builds a bit of karma.

How often in our real lives (not Twitter lives) do we really give someone an appropriate call to attention? Do you ever walk into a work and say, “Hey I just like to mention Jerry over there is doing a great job, and you all should pay more attention to him.”, or something like that? I doubt it.

How I like to Use Follow Friday

A Blogger Changing Themes

That's me...changing themes

Theme Changing to a Blogger is What Moving is to Homeowners

Have you ever wondered how a blogger picks his/her theme? Or, are you a blogger that has gone through this painstaking process that leaves you up at night? Well either way I’ve discovered just how much changing a theme can affect your psyche. For bloggers this is a nightmare with fears of losing followers, alienating people, and having functions that don’t work, and for readers it could be quite annoying similar to the morning I woke up and Facebook had changed.

This would be an appropriate point to insert a “WTF”.

T.B.P. (the bloggers’ post) Sponsors a Meetup Group

What do you think?

And a New Logo Too!

Have you observed a group of people that you think you are like, and want to actually meet people in this community in person? If you answered yes, you’d be talking about www.Meetup.com. This is a brilliant site in my opinion, it’s simply facilitating interactions with people you’re interested in hanging around with in a much likelier chance than sheer luck. I think the idea of the “meet up” could help the economy grow simply by connecting our disconnects in business. But, I get ahead of myself sometimes, and this blog post is about my Meetup group.

It’s called “Chicago Blogs”, and the process of putting this together was easy. It was the commitment I was making that was more interesting to me. I discovered that I was actually putting into action much of what I hope to achieve with all my blogs. If you are like me, and you’re thinking “what‘s this blog’s theme?”, or “where this blog site is going?”, then you would be discovering that my underlying theme is building community. And, while we are at it will make it a really authentic community.

The Plan

Step 1: Start a blog about anything.  Just be really really honest when you write, and make it about things you like to talk about. So in the very least I have tried something new.

Step 2: Get inspired.

SEO? What the Hell is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization 101

If you’ve been busy blogging and learning twitter and trying to figure out what you could do to get more people to your blog, than you surely have heard of SEO. You see in geek, a language many speak but very few understand, things are exactly like they sound. So search engine optimization (SEO) is simply writing, linking, tagging, etc… in order to be ranked on search engines for when you topic is searched for. Was that clear enough?

I was meeting with a friend of mine from Down to Earth Marketing in Chicago to learn more about how this process works. I wanted to get into the guts so that I could try to clarify it for my readers and clients. What I realized is that SEO could also just be called best practices. By following some of these processes you can actually make your blog or site a lot more clear for your audience too.

Now, I am going to give it to you straight. It’s just not that easy to understand in a single blog. What I am going to do is give you a piece of the pie that you could start on right away. I’m going to give you something easy, something to think about, and something to focus on for your site or blog. Without further ado…

Something Easy

A Confession of a Blogger

Getting Paralyzed by Positive Comments

I have a confession. I have recently been so passionate about blogging, and connecting in these new communities that I have been requesting lots of feedback. And, lots of feedback is exactly what I got. The good news is that most of it was positive, helpful, and caring. The bad news is that all this feedback has left me paralyzed.

I realized that I was stuck while trying to write the last 3 blog posts. This may sound stupid to most, but now I am paralyzed because of the positive feedback. Nothing is good enough. I keep starting over. I don’t want to let anyone down, or lose momentum because my blog writing skills have actually started to regress.

I thought by blogging about this fear I may overcome my fear, and hope that my readers understand. Some blogs may suck, and I just have to get over that. Besides, if I were this “always producing great material” type of writer, I would be negotiating book deals instead of blogging about being stuck. To be honest I don’t think everything written by even my favorite authors is always great. They must have poorly written things out there too. Don’t you think?

Writer’s Block…Here’s a Video

Conversations with the Dog

A Lesson in Language

This isn't Roscoe but you get the picture

I’m sitting on the couch blogging away, and then I hear the clinging sound of my dog Roscoe’s water bowl. Without really thinking I put down the laptop, and go to the kitchen to refill it. I suddenly realized that my dog has effectively turned the tables on Pavlov’s research. I am now the conditioned subject, and my dog is the bell ringer.

This role reversal made me think of how challenging communication can be in a new language or on a new medium. I instantly thought of the fear that many people have expressed to me recently about social media. The fear is the fear of being misinterpreted by their audience because they don’t know how to speak the language.

Searching For a Blog Topic

Recently I’ve been recommending a blog as a great form of expression for some of those not so tech savvy friends and family of mine that are desperately searching for what to do with their life. I of course feel that the internet is a great place to start when you need a bit of inspiration.

I didn’t realize just how un-tech savvy some of my family and friends are. I tried to explain what a blog is, and after failing several times I have just started to tell people to watch the new Julia Childs movie “Julia and Julie”. It did a great job of introducing the simplicity of blogging to the deathly afraid masses who feel you need to have a post graduate degree in computing to type. It was a great movie, as I too love to cook and blog. .