In the last week a new ad network has launched - PerformancingAds.

Bloggers who have been around for a while will know that this isn’t the first time Performancing have ventured into the ad network space - they previously launched a network back in 2006 but closed it down last year during a period where they when through a management restructure and ultimately were sold.

I was sad when the network closed last time as I thought it did have promise and love to see new ad options launched specifically aimed at bloggers.

So this week when I was told it’s back I was really excited.

Here’s How It Works

• The ads are based around the popular 125 x 125 pixel banner ads that you see on many blogs (including the ones you see in ProBlogger’s sidebar).
• It is a self service system where advertisers sign up, submit ads and pay for them all via Performancing and then they send you your share of the revenue at the same time each month.
• You can book your own ads for free - might seem a little silly but if you have spare spots and want to fill them with ads pointing at affiliate programs or even key parts of your blog you can fill them with internal ads.
• Publishers are put into a Marketplace where your blog will be shown to prospective advertisers looking for blogs to advertise on.
• They have a traffic exchange system where you allow other blogs to show their ad on your blog in exchange for credits which can be used to display your ad on other blogs. You also earn credits by selling ads.
• The Revenue Share - You earn a minimum of 60% of what the ads sell for - Performancing takes the other 40%. This will be tiered up as high as 90% for publishers for ‘better performing publishers’ (not sure if that is based upon sales or traffic)
• You have control over where the ads appear, how many are shown and even some control over how they look (like spacing between them)
• You can create multiple regions on your blog so have the ads appear in multiple positions
• You can filter out ads you don’t want to appear by adding words for keywords and/or domains that you don’t want advertisers from
• Advertisers buy ads based upon weekly increments
• They have a premium program where if your blog has over 250,000 US pageviews per month they can sell ads on your behalf in different size ad units (728×90, 300×250 and 160×600).
• You have control over what ads are priced at. You can also set ads to be no-follow ads (or not).
• There is a WordPress Plugin to help manage these ads if you’re a WP user

PerformancingAds are new and as with any ad network I believe you shouldn’t expect too much too quickly from it as it takes time to get them working to optimal levels for both advertisers and publishers.

The success of this network will depend upon their ability to sign up advertisers. Last time around PerformancingAds did manage to sell quite a few ads on ProBlogger - but it took time for them to get to that level.

Looking to Advertise on Blogs?

Performancing is looking advertisers at present and are offering $25 off your first ad purchase of $100 or more.

Last time Performancing had their ad network I actually used it to advertise my blogs quite a few times. There were plenty of bargains to be had around the blogosphere and it was a pretty cool way to increase the exposure of my blogs to new audiences. I suspect this will be the case again looking at the current marketplace of bloggers who have already signed up.

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cuil off /kul/ [kool]: “To launch a site aimed at slaying a giant and instead get owned yourself”

adjective, -er, -est, adverb, noun, verb

–adjective

1.
moderately cold; neither warm nor cold: “that site is cuil, too bad it won’t load”

2.
feeling comfortably or moderately cold: “I’m perfectly cuil, but let’s launch the site anyway, even if we can’t handle the traffic.”

3.
imparting a sensation of moderate coldness or comfortable freedom from heat: “a cuil breeze is lofting over the valley tonight”

4.
permitting such a sensation: “A cuil style indeed ~ raise $33 million and used shared hosting servers.”

5.
not excited; calm; composed; under control: “to remain cuil in the face of disaster”, (like getting owed from Google fanboys)

More reading:

TechCrunch http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/28/andcuil-is-down/

A week ago today I published a post asking ‘has Blogging has lost it’s relational focus?‘

It was a post that generated some great conversation in comments and one that sparked other bloggers to pick up on the thread and write about it on their own blogs. Today I thought I’d point out some of the conversations that are going on around this topic in the hope that it’ll extend an important topic:

• Richard MacManus wrote a good post titled Mixed Messages in the Blogging Landscape which picks up the topic and looks also at social media and how it could be impacting pro blogging.
• Shel Israel asks if Social Media is becoming a Vast Wasteland? and looks at some of the arguments for and against whether it is.
• Duncan Riley writes about the Changing Blogosphere and Blogging 2.0 and has some interesting things to say about a shift in blogging that’s been going on and encourages bloggers to embrace them.
• Mark ‘Rizzn’ writes about being on the edge of a Eureka moment and in a longish article shares some interesting ideas including that blogging is in need of an upgrade - he points to video as a way forward.

I’m sure there are others - if you’ve written on the topic of late feel free to share your links in comments below.

PS: I should reemphasize that in my original article I didn’t conclude that blogging had lost it’s relational focus. I did muse about whether it was harder to find and suggest that it is more evident in some niches than others - but by no means have I given up hope in the medium of blogging or it’s social media.

In fact, for me, it’s so social that at times this little introvert can barely cope!

The reason for my post was simply to remind bloggers of our social/relational roots.

One of the stimuli for the post was recently witnessing a couple of new bloggers go about attempting to build up blogs in ways that I could describe as anti-social. They came to me for advice after months of blogging in a very insular way, not linking out and not wanting to interact with other bloggers in their niche - in fact they viewed other bloggers in their niche suspiciously and purely as competitors.

My counsel to them was to consider that while other blogs might be competitors in one sense - that there was amazing opportunities in interacting and working together.

As I look at my own experience of blogging and that of bloggers that have been far more successful than me I see that often it’s those that are most social and willing to interact with other bloggers that rise the highest. I don’t see this changing even if the technology behind what we do does.

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It has been a while since I’ve run a group writing project here at ProBlogger so I thought it might be time to another one (if you’re new to ProBlogger and don’t know what a group writing project is I’ll describe it below).

While I’m getting things ready I’m looking for prizes from up to 3 sponsors.

Last time I ran a competition like this we had a lot of prizes and as a result didn’t give sponsors as much of the limelight that they each deserved - this time I’m limiting prizes to just the three best ones.

What do you get for the prize you donate?

• You’ll be linked to and have your site/service described in the announcement post of the group writing project
• You’ll get promoted with a thank-you to on each daily update through the week of the project
• You’ll be promoted again on the final day of the project and again on a compilation page of all entries.

All in all you’ll be mentioned and receive promotions each day for a week on ProBlogger. You’ll be one of 3 sponsors receiving this treatment so your exposure will not be diluted.

Last time we did one of these projects we had 893 entries and it got a lot of buzz around the blogosphere. It’s a great way to get word out to bloggers about your site, product or service.

What prizes am I looking for?

Previously we’ve had prizes that have been anything from trips/accommodation through to Nintendos, to laptops, to cash, to iPods etc. Really anything goes - however if you’re going to submit a prize idea you need to know the following:

1. the prize needs to be deliverable to people internationally at your cost. Please consider shipping costs or be willing to offer a cash prize to an equivalent value if you can’t ship outside the USA.

2. last time I did this I had 100 or so submissions for prizes. This time I am only choosing 3 - so those prizes selected will probably be among the most valuable. While it’s not all about how much the prize is worth I want to give my readers the chance to get the best thing that they can out of participating. It’ll also get you more attention if you do.

3. please no blog hosting packages or ebooks. While these are relevant to bloggers I get hit with 30-40 or so offers for this type of prize every time. While I’m grateful to it I find that readers respond well to fun prizes (think gadgets, cash etc).

How to Submit The Prize You’re Willing to Donate

If you’re willing to donate a prize please do so via my contact form with the following information:

1. Please include the word ‘prize’ somewhere in the email so I can filter the emails and make sure I see them all
2. Your name and email address (address will remain private)
3. Your Company/Business/Blog Name
4. The Site that You’d want to promote if your prize is chosen
5. The Prize
6. The value of the prize
7. Confirmation that you’re willing to ship it internationally

You have 48 hours to submit your prize suggestion (I’ll close this at 8pm Wednesday night Melbourne time). I’ll then contact the 3 that I’d like to use with further details.

What is a Group Writing Project

Put most simply a Group Writing Project is a group of bloggers all are challenged to write a post on a similar theme on their blogs. The themes are broad (we’ve done things like ‘Top 5′, ‘reviews and predictions’, ‘lists’) so that bloggers blogging on a wide range of topics can participate. Once they’ve published their post they come to ProBlogger to let us know where it is.

The project runs for a full week. On the first day I announce the topic and then on each day during the next week I publish a list of bloggers that participate. At the end of the week random participants are selected to win a prize. You can see the last project here.

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Last week Google announced their ‘Knol’ service and I (among others) questioned whether it would have a significant impact upon smaller publishers ability to rank well in Google’s search results.

Initial results show that Knol articles are already ranking very well (here and here for example) - and with as little as a link or two from other sites are even capturing #1 search results for certain keywords.

Aaron wall from SEO book has added more fuel to the fire with some of his own testing.

Update: What I think irks me the most about Knol is Google’s insistance that they’re not a media company.

They host content, they pay those who write it income when that content makes money, they keep part of the money for themselves, they distribute the content….

If it looks like a media company and acts like a media company - I got the feeling that they are one.

Of course this is Google’s right to do - they can set their own business plan - but I guess they need to be willing to be up front about it and name what they are doing for what it is.

They also need to be willing for other publishers (many of them who are their partners in many ways) to react against them. I’ve been hearing murmurings from a few fairly large independent bloggers and web publishers today of talk of a move away from using AdSense out of protest. I’m not sure what impact this would have unless a lot of large publishers did it - but it seems like there’s growing discontent around the online publishing community around this issue.

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The “inside the beltway” world is often deemed to be a crazy echo-chamber of pundits and talking heads who just want attention or to be re-elected or to get more power, because of all the perks and luxuries and what-not. Oh, and the decisions are all made by lobbyists in back rooms and it’s all scotch and cigars and back-slapping. News flash: it’s not.

I’m lucky enough to get paid to report news on technology and public policy. It’s pretty complex stuff. Making the decisions on what to support or oppose isn’t easy for the people I cover, either.

The name of this section/column/blog space is SuitCase. It’s supposed to be a play on the word BasketCase. You know, people in DC wear suits…basket cases are crazy…basket case, suit case? ha. Ok, well you try and do better.

Let me be the first to admit it: I’m a geek on many different levels. Start with technology, move on down to the laws that regulate technology, then the laws that aren’t meant to regulate the technology but end up regulating technology anyway. I watch C-SPAN and I read tech blogs. Sometimes at the same time.

Next admission: I’m a bit of an insomniac. The two kind of go together. I can spend all night geeking out with a new VoIP system, then go into the work the next morning and pitch it, and I’m not even an IT guy. I just love this stuff. Do I need to do that interview with Qik? Nah. I could just bring out the voice recorder and have the quotes to verify before printing anyway. But I do, because I can, because I enjoy playing with new things that make my job easier.

That’s what Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas., has been doing, at least by his own admission. His job is a bit harder than mine, though. I have to write news articles that meet my editors’ standards and satisfy the subscribers, who pay the publisher, who pays my salary. On the other hand, he has to cast votes to make laws that represent the interests of a big swath of Texas. So, you’d be pretty sure he’d want to know before he does something they don’t like, right? Or, at least show those people that it’s not easy. Right?

Is anyone hearing me? These guys schedules are micro-managed, they spend 4 days a week in D.C. and go back to their districts for a few days, then get on a plane and return to DC. I guess the frequent flier miles are O.K. Oh, and exercise? They could be in a meeting or a hearing or reading a newspaper, and when a bell goes off, have 15 minutes to get to another building and push a button to vote. They might not know what they’re voting on, so they have to listen to someone else explain what’s going on and they’d better get it right, because the election is in a few months and they don’t want to dip below a 10% lead. Oh, yeah. Elections. They have to manage a campaign organization, too. Separate from their job. Two phones, two BlackBerries, two lives. Their second job is to keep their first job.

So along come some new tools, Twitter and Qik. Suddenly, talking to those thousands of people got a bit easier, and they can talk back to you, too. Because that’s a problem. See, since 2001, when some jerk sent some Anthrax to a Senator in the mail, security procedures got put in place, so it takes a month for someone’s letter to reach them.

Everyone wants their job to be easier, right?

Now what if your company had its’ employee manual written in the 1800’s, with a revision every 30 years or so. You might have a problem with some of those tools, right? Would that make you a bit sore?

I’m not going to rehash the details about the controversy surrounding Congress and social media. I’m also not going to tell you anything new, because that’s not what this is about.

If I can keep up, I’ll try and look at the news I reported and the people I reported on, and maybe with a fact or two, give you a window into why it’s not so simple, why left and right and right and wrong aren’t very obvious all the time. If I can do a really good job, maybe it will help you understand why technology policy is so hard to formulate, or why it’s so hard to get anything done in today’s environment.

You won’t see many opinions, because by trade I’m a journalist. I’m objective, or at least I try as hard as I can. What I can do for you though, is give you the “history” and maybe show why the stuff that looks a little bit crazy out there, makes perfect sense here. Think of me as your translator.

Welcome to Washington.

This is an old story, but a good one nonetheless.

I was approached while on the stationary bike at the gym by a guy that I’d seen a few times at my gym who wasn’t a regular. He asked me out, and I had nothing better to do, so I said yes and gave him my number. As he was walking away, I had to yell out “Hey, my name is Darcie by the way” because he’d forgotten to ask. That was my first clue that it was going to be a great date.

Before he finally got a hold of me, he’d left me a few voice mails. They were both similar “Hi, this is the guy you met at the gym the other day while you were on the bike. Just wanted to hook up with you, see when you are free. I am free pretty much anytime, as I am currently unemployed. So, lunch, breakfast, dinner…it doesn’t really matter because I don’t have a job.”

uhm…

Clearly he’d had some coaching on what to say to women when trying to get a date. We LOVE knowing that we will be paying for the date and if the relationship progresses that we will be your sugar mama.

Regardless, I went out with him. He was good looking and had a great body. The color of his skin was odd. It was the color that blond hair turns when they get a bad dye job trying to color it brown. You know, that icky greenish-brown color. It was quite odd.

Now, I’ve always maintained that the type of work or the amount of money a guy makes is not important to me (as long as it’s legal, I’m a good girl). However, I do want a potential boyfriend to make SOME money.

It’s not even like this guy was an “entrepreneur” between jobs, who had “stuff on the go”. He was plainly unemployed. He was about to be evicted from the student housing he was staying in so that he could move in with his aunt in the suburbs.

That is so hot.

Now, I knew throughout the entire date that I was NEVER going to see this guy again. I mean, come on. But I do need to give him props. Not many men would have the balls to ask a girl out when he didn’t have a job. And, despite the fact that I drank import beer, and more than he did, he still paid (taking his money out of his Velcro wallet). As you know, I have trouble getting men to pay (see this post).

So, no, I never did see him again. He never showed up at the gym again. He did somehow magically find my e-mail address, despite the fact that I never gave him my last name. That was creepy.

Over the last few weeks there have been a number of offers and deals for bloggers - some exclusive to you as Problogger readers.

As some of these expire at the end of the month I thought I’d give a brief recap of three of them with cut of dates that are approaching:

1. $100 Signup Bonus from Chitika - Chitika are offering all new publishers who sign up through ProBlogger the chance to earn up to $100 as a signup bonus. Any new publisher signing up with them will have their earnings up until the end of August doubled - dollar for dollar - to a maximum bonus of $100. This is a good deal for anyone who has applied to join Chitika previous but who wasn’t accepted into the program because they’ve now widened the type of blogs they can monetize and are accepting more applications than previously (read more about this deal). Sign up for this offer here.
2. Pepperjam Network Offer $10 SignUp Bonus - The Pepperjam Affiliate Network is offering all new publishers a signup bonus of $10 for all those bloggers who sign up in the month of July - there’s just a few days to go on this one (read more). Signup for this deal here.
3. TeachingSells to Close Doors - The TeachingSells course will close it’s doors to new members in the coming days (midnight on 31 July). It will open again at some point but at a higher price point so this is your last chance to get in at current prices (read more about this).

Get notice of more deals like these (plus other exclusive ones to subscribers) by signing up for the ProBlogger weekly email newsletter. I’ll announce a new competition in this newsletter in the next day or two.

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I’ve spent a good portion of the weekend restructuring things around here at Technosailor. You can see that the site is much more organized around topics, as you can see from the new Masthead. Each of the verticals have been segregated into five separate blog-like entities.

Desk of the Editor is all of my content. Entrepreneurship, branded Venture Files, will continue to contain Steve Fisher’s content, but will also have contributions from others as appropriate to the topic. Web Marketing is branded Wicked Marketing and is a vertical dedicated to usability and interface design as it pertains to corporate marketing. Tech Policy, a.k.a. SuitCase will officially launch tomorrow with Andrew Feinberg. Finally, Contenido Español is our long time Spanish only content stream edited by Carlos Granier-Phelps. It is being branded Sincronizar, or Synchronize in Spanish.

The front page of the site will undergo some further enhancements that, hopefully, pulls together this content in a snapshot that works well for most readers. Honestly, the current layout which is only a few months old, is not working the way I had hoped. So you’ll continue to see changes over the next weeks.

During the process of reorganizing things, I had to go back through all four years of my archives, a step that kicked me into a significant introspective mode. Where have I come from? Where am I going?

Honestly, much of my content from early years is downright embarrassing. And really, it goes beyond the content. I’ve spent the weekend thinking about the mistakes I’ve made as a blogger and wondering what I would do differently if I could. Keep in mind that my goals for this site were always professional and that I foresaw a day when it would be my only job (I hope that day comes, still!).

Here is my advice for bloggers who wish to do the same thing.

Make Every Word Count

It’s so easy to get into the mindset that no one is reading a blog and this is “my” space and “I’m gonna write what I want to write”. While there is truth in that, content is evergreen. By evergreen, I mean that it will be there for years to come unless you take the wrong, in my opinion, approach and delete archives that you don’t want anymore.

Understand that people always grow and become more mature. You are no different as I am no different. In four years, if you go through the exercise I’ve gone through this weekend, you will look through different eyes than you did when you first wrote.

On the other hand, people who really only want to blog for themselves can use these opportunities for their benefit. It really is interesting to see progression in your own development and feel good about it.

My advice, though, is to make every word count. Even though you have unlimited space and there’s no such thing, to many people, as too many posts, I’d recommend the economy of words.

This takes practice and discipline. Knowing what you want to say and saying it with just enough words to make your point without being so verbose that you might as well divide a post into multiple posts.

Mark Evans used to tell me that if you can say it in 1000 words, you can say it in 500. If you can say it in 500 words, you can say it in 250.

Your blog is valuable space. Make every word count for something.

Attack Ideas, not People

Another bit of low hanging fruit, when it comes to traffic, is attacking people. Everyone likes a good controversy. I’ve done the “Mike Arrington said…” or “Jason Calacanis said…” thing more times than I care. For awhile, I was highly ranked (#3) in Google for the search phrase, “How to be a whore” because I wrote this article about my friend Duncan Riley. Duncan and I have mended the bridge and are friends today, but that is not always the case.

I’d recommend avoiding the attack paradigm altogether. It’s much more efficient, when building of a brand or property, to offer ideas. Offer solutions, offer ideas, innovate. Be a thinker and a leader. By attacking people, not only do you hurt the chances of working with them, but you garner a recommendation that will follow you for a long time.

Plus, you end up singing from their songbook and not your own. Not beneficial if you desire thought leadership or to be considered a subject matter expert.

Take Time Every Day to Soak In the News

Ever had a day when you just react to something that is going on? I have. Too many times. I’ve discovered, however, that a 1am reading of Google Reader, while I’m relaxed (and because I’m an insomniac), is much more conducive to “catching up” than doing a break-neck scan at 9am before the day begins. Why? Because you’re relaxed and much less likely to act irrationally or reactionary. You’re not misreading content because you have work to get started on. You’re soaking in every word that another blogger is writing.

Are you going to get breaking news that way? Probably not. But you have the benefit of multiple opinions from multiple sources during the course of the news day. On this site, we don’t break news anyway so I’m not looking for the benefit of breaking news. We do analysis and in the presence of the multiplicity of opinions, a story is vetted.

Never Hide Your Archives

As I went through my content this weekend, I came across a post where I was announcing my intention to do paid review posts. This idea smacks of PayPerPost and today I do not want to be affiliated with PPP.

In a moment, I almost sent that post back to draft status and unpublished it but I didn’t. The reason I didn’t is because the entire nature of an archive, as embarassing as it is, is a story of your blogging life. Sure, I wish it wasn’t there but it is and there it will stay.

Maybe one day I’ll go through some kind of exit where my content here is analyzed very closely. I fully anticipate posts like that and others like it will hurt me. Yet, I cannot hide my archives.

Never Think More Highly of Yourself Than You Ought

Today I can brag. Three years ago, not so much. I say that cautiously and some will think I’m contradicting myself. Today, I can brag but I have to do it in the humility of knowing that I have a very long way to go. This site is not the mega property I’d like it to be, but it is getting there. It does not have the highest subscription numbers, though all feeds combined are in the neighborhood of 2000 subscribers. It does not have the traffic I want, but it does have significant traffic.

It’s okay to brag if you have something tangible to brag about. Three years ago, I bragged and had no substance to back my bragging up.

Let me tell you a quick stoy about my friend Marshall Kirkpatrick who writes over at Read Write Web. Last November, while in Vegas at Blog World Expo, Marshall and I were at a party at the Wynn thrown by the fabulous Steph Agresta.

As the guests cycled out, Marshall and I were talking outside and he, in his very laid back Oregonian way said, “From one asshole trying to figure things out to another, take this however you want. Maybe you should just not be so aggressively ‘out there’”.

Initially, I was stunned but his comment has stuck with me to this day. Marshall and I were even laughing about it the other week.

See, none of us have really figured this stuff out yet. Some of us brag more than we ought. Maybe I do. However, if you’ve got nothing to brag about then don’t. Plain and simple. No one will think any less of you for not bragging, and if you genuinely have something to brag about then you won’t need to because people will take notice.

Five ideas I’ve picked up in my weekend of introspection. Feel free to add your own lessons in comments.

I’ve spent a good portion of the weekend restructuring things around here at Technosailor. You can see that the site is much more organized around topics, as you can see from the new Masthead. Each of the verticals have been segregated into five separate blog-like entities.

Desk of the Editor is all of my content. Entrepreneurship, branded Venture Files, will continue to contain Steve Fisher’s content, but will also have contributions from others as appropriate to the topic. Web Marketing is branded Wicked Marketing and is a vertical dedicated to usability and interface design as it pertains to corporate marketing. Tech Policy, a.k.a. SuitCase will officially launch tomorrow with Andrew Feinberg. Finally, Contenido Español is our long time Spanish only content stream edited by Carlos Granier-Phelps. It is being branded Sincronizar, or Synchronize in Spanish.

The front page of the site will undergo some further enhancements that, hopefully, pulls together this content in a snapshot that works well for most readers. Honestly, the current layout which is only a few months old, is not working the way I had hoped. So you’ll continue to see changes over the next weeks.

During the process of reorganizing things, I had to go back through all four years of my archives, a step that kicked me into a significant introspective mode. Where have I come from? Where am I going?

Honestly, much of my content from early years is downright embarrassing. And really, it goes beyond the content. I’ve spent the weekend thinking about the mistakes I’ve made as a blogger and wondering what I would do differently if I could. Keep in mind that my goals for this site were always professional and that I foresaw a day when it would be my only job (I hope that day comes, still!).

Here is my advice for bloggers who wish to do the same thing.

Make Every Word Count

It’s so easy to get into the mindset that no one is reading a blog and this is “my” space and “I’m gonna write what I want to write”. While there is truth in that, content is evergreen. By evergreen, I mean that it will be there for years to come unless you take the wrong, in my opinion, approach and delete archives that you don’t want anymore.

Understand that people always grow and become more mature. You are no different as I am no different. In four years, if you go through the exercise I’ve gone through this weekend, you will look through different eyes than you did when you first wrote.

On the other hand, people who really only want to blog for themselves can use these opportunities for their benefit. It really is interesting to see progression in your own development and feel good about it.

My advice, though, is to make every word count. Even though you have unlimited space and there’s no such thing, to many people, as too many posts, I’d recommend the economy of words.

This takes practice and discipline. Knowing what you want to say and saying it with just enough words to make your point without being so verbose that you might as well divide a post into multiple posts.

Mark Evans used to tell me that if you can say it in 1000 words, you can say it in 500. If you can say it in 500 words, you can say it in 250.

Your blog is valuable space. Make every word count for something.

Attack Ideas, not People

Another bit of low hanging fruit, when it comes to traffic, is attacking people. Everyone likes a good controversy. I’ve done the “Mike Arrington said…” or “Jason Calacanis said…” thing more times than I care. For awhile, I was highly ranked (#3) in Google for the search phrase, “How to be a whore” because I wrote this article about my friend Duncan Riley. Duncan and I have mended the bridge and are friends today, but that is not always the case.

I’d recommend avoiding the attack paradigm altogether. It’s much more efficient, when building of a brand or property, to offer ideas. Offer solutions, offer ideas, innovate. Be a thinker and a leader. By attacking people, not only do you hurt the chances of working with them, but you garner a recommendation that will follow you for a long time.

Plus, you end up singing from their songbook and not your own. Not beneficial if you desire thought leadership or to be considered a subject matter expert.

Take Time Every Day to Soak In the News

Ever had a day when you just react to something that is going on? I have. Too many times. I’ve discovered, however, that a 1am reading of Google Reader, while I’m relaxed (and because I’m an insomniac), is much more conducive to “catching up” than doing a break-neck scan at 9am before the day begins. Why? Because you’re relaxed and much less likely to act irrationally or reactionary. You’re not misreading content because you have work to get started on. You’re soaking in every word that another blogger is writing.

Are you going to get breaking news that way? Probably not. But you have the benefit of multiple opinions from multiple sources during the course of the news day. On this site, we don’t break news anyway so I’m not looking for the benefit of breaking news. We do analysis and in the presence of the multiplicity of opinions, a story is vetted.

Never Hide Your Archives

As I went through my content this weekend, I came across a post where I was announcing my intention to do paid review posts. This idea smacks of PayPerPost and today I do not want to be affiliated with PPP.

In a moment, I almost sent that post back to draft status and unpublished it but I didn’t. The reason I didn’t is because the entire nature of an archive, as embarassing as it is, is a story of your blogging life. Sure, I wish it wasn’t there but it is and there it will stay.

Maybe one day I’ll go through some kind of exit where my content here is analyzed very closely. I fully anticipate posts like that and others like it will hurt me. Yet, I cannot hide my archives.

Never Think More Highly of Yourself Than You Ought

Today I can brag. Three years ago, not so much. I say that cautiously and some will think I’m contradicting myself. Today, I can brag but I have to do it in the humility of knowing that I have a very long way to go. This site is not the mega property I’d like it to be, but it is getting there. It does not have the highest subscription numbers, though all feeds combined are in the neighborhood of 2000 subscribers. It does not have the traffic I want, but it does have significant traffic.

It’s okay to brag if you have something tangible to brag about. Three years ago, I bragged and had no substance to back my bragging up.

Let me tell you a quick stoy about my friend Marshall Kirkpatrick who writes over at Read Write Web. Last November, while in Vegas at Blog World Expo, Marshall and I were at a party at the Wynn thrown by the fabulous Steph Agresta.

As the guests cycled out, Marshall and I were talking outside and he, in his very laid back Oregonian way said, “From one asshole trying to figure things out to another, take this however you want. Maybe you should just not be so aggressively ‘out there’”.

Initially, I was stunned but his comment has stuck with me to this day. Marshall and I were even laughing about it the other week.

See, none of us have really figured this stuff out yet. Some of us brag more than we ought. Maybe I do. However, if you’ve got nothing to brag about then don’t. Plain and simple. No one will think any less of you for not bragging, and if you genuinely have something to brag about then you won’t need to because people will take notice.

Five ideas I’ve picked up in my weekend of introspection. Feel free to add your own lessons in comments.