yet another variation on ready, shoot, aim

What goes in a blog? What doesn't? Pete Kruckenberg and I talked about this a bit yesterday. (Incidentally, Pete's migrated his blog from Radio Userland to MovableType and is a much happier blogger as a result.)

Blogging is like writing a letter to the editor, calling a talk show, or sending an article off to a publisher. You're making a public statement. You're on the record. There's a permanency with an upside and a downside.

The upside is that you're accountable. You may help solve a problem. You may encourage someone. You may put out a fire and help the firefighters see their possibilities as paramedics.

The downside is that you're accountable. You may start a fire and find you've distracted the firefighters. You may inadvertantly or intentionally rain on someone's parade. You may have to check your facts, issue a correction, or apologize.

Either way, sooner or later, blogging is likely to be an educational experience in ways you didn't anticipate.

So here's a low tech way to improve your content and protect your assets. Draft your blog in a word processor. Write freely. Don't try to edit while you write. After you've got something sitting there, then paste your best stuff it into your blog. Or rewrite it. Or go a different direction. In other words separate writing from editing and publishing. Write whatever you need to write and then decide later if that's something you want to publish. Maybe that will be a few minutes or hours later. Maybe it will be weeks, months or years later.

For example here's something I journaled October 9, 2002 -- several months before I started blogging. "Yesterday was an adventure. I helped (my step dad) Dee install a new light fixture in his bathroom. It is the first time I can remember driving alone with Dee in a long time, probably not since I got my driver's license. It was a pleasant episode."

So thanks for two memories, Dee. The recent one of removing the old fixture, going to the store, buying the new stuff, fishing wires, installing the switch, hanging the fixture, and finding satisfaction with the finished result. And the not-so-recent one when you trusted a 15-year-old with your car, and didn't panic when I failed to stop when making a right turn on a red light.

"If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy." -Red Green

On the calendar this month: May 24 - Bob Dylan's birthday

 

swim write

I wasn't going to write today. I told myself I'm just too busy. I'll post a quote and list a couple of links, but that's it. And then I saw the quote below and realized that it would probably be easier to write than to post that quote and feel strange about not having written something.

Relaxation and balance are on my mind today. Maybe because it's a Monday and I feel a little anxious and unbalanced. But I did swim on my lunch hour and again felt an incredible weightlessness in the water. I've been trying Terry Laughlin's Fishlike Swimming techniques. He teaches relaxation and balance, piercing the smallest possible hole in the water, seeing yourself as a vessel and shaping it to be a long, slippery and streamlined sailing ship rather than a barge, slowing down your stroke, improving your feel for the water, increasing your net propulsive potential by decreasing drag -- moving faster by slowing down.

Related concepts?

• Seek the sweet spot
• Let the game come to you
• Be bold, free, truthful
• Release your brakes
• Flow

Related resources at UEN:

• Creative Writing - Imagination - Themepark
  
• Writing - Communication - Themepark
• Prevention Dimensions: 100+ Things to Do Instead of Drugs

"Writing crystallizes thought and thought produces action." Paul J. Meyer

Found while looking for something else: Hats of Hope and Writing to Heal, Writing to Grow.

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The Kodalith effect. Doing this in a darkroom in the seventies took special film and hours of trial and error. Doing it in PhotoShop probably didn't need to take hours, but it was great fun to play around with all the possible variations.

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." --Abraham Lincoln

Found while looking for something else: A case history on how NOT to treat your customers. (Just take a quick scan through the red, negatives this guy has managed to elicit from his customers.)

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Dry Canyon (mountain bikin' on the lunch hour - May 6, 2003)

Why do I blog?

Just participated in a UEN Tech Summit discussion on blogging. The non-bloggers asked questions that I asked myself when I started blogging back in February. Here are some of the concerns that came up:

• What if no one reads it?
• What if everyone reads it?
• How much time does it take?
• What if I don't have a clear purpose in mind when I start?
• What criteria would I use to measure the success of my blogging efforts?

Here are a few of the ideas we considered.

Blogging can strengthen your communication skills. It's perhaps a bit like exercising. I attend a spinning class (indoor bicycling) a couple times a week. One of my motivations is to improve my strength and endurance so when I go mountain biking, I've got the lungs and legs climb the hill. If your job requires "excellent communication skills," blogging may help keep those skills in top condition.

Blogging is a worthwhile endeavor in self-expression even if the only reader is the blog writer. Thinking through topics, research, writing, editing, proofing, publishing -- the process may be as important or more imporant than what you actually write.

Will blogging increase your immunity levels, lower anxiety, and increase your sense of well-being? I don't know of any studies that have been done of the health benefits of blogging, per se. But studies of journal writers do suggest the above health benefits occur with some journal writers. Why wouldn't this tend to be true of blog writers -- especially blogs which are essentially online journals?

What role could blogging play in your portfolio of communication investments? Where does blogging fit on your list of effective communication techiques?

• one-on-one, face-to-face, in person dialogue
• small group discusion
• wowing an engaged audience
• boring a captive audience
• telephone conversation
• handwritten personal note
• point-to-point e-mail
• point-to-multipoint e-mail
• cogent voicemail under 15 seconds
• rambling voicemail over 60 seconds

"The inner speech, your thoughts, can cause you to be rich or poor, loved or unloved, happy or unhappy, attractive or unattractive, powerful or weak." --Ralph Charell

Found while looking for something else: Tchaikovsky's birthday

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University of Utah campus as seen from today's ride up Dry Canyon.

squinting?

I'm driving north along 2100 East near 1300 South at about 7:45 this morning. As I enter the intersection on a green light, an eastbound vehicle on 13th south fails to stop at her red light and enters the intersection. I swerve. She finally sees me and hits her brakes. We don't collide. She continues on eastbound up 13th. I continue on northbound along 21st, trying to put this together. Possibly the sun was in her eyes, she squinted at the traffic signal, mistakenly thought it was green and continued on her way. Fortunately, I wasn't distracted and had a quick reaction time this morning. Also fortunately, she slowed down as she came through the intersection. If she'd been going just a little faster or if I hadn't responded when I did, it would have been ugly.

I immediately thought of Jim Stewart's recent blog entry on his near accident on I-15 in Davis County. Jim's experience was more dramatic than mine, but I like the way he thought through it and chose not to let it anger him too much. If I hadn't have read Jim's blog I doubt that I would have cooled off as quickly as I did. I doubt that I would have remembered that I've also done some pretty dumb things and other drivers gave me the benefit of the doubt. Or there was some kind of unseen intervention. Or both.

p.s. Just went back and actually re-read Jim's entry to add in the above link. Jim, I don't think I quite gave you enough credit above. I see your entry actualIy had a great deal to do with my much-calmer-than-usual reaction this morning. Thanks.

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