Needed- A Blog Strategy For Unhinged Eccentrics

Ever since I started blogging a couple of years ago, there has been a question nagging me that I can’t seem to shake. “What is your blog about?” It came back again when the subject of this years Nevada Interactive Media Summit came up. I attended last year and had a great time. I learned a lot, met a ton of interesting and friendly people. But, when it came around this year, I decided to skip it. Why? It has to do with what we might call, “the rules of engagement.“

Marketing people, as well as others, can tell us all about the importance of staying focused, to set a goal and work towards it. If you’re going to sell shoes on the internet, then By Jove sell shoes on the internet. Never let a day go by when you’re not blogging about shoes. Get on Twitter and tweet about shoes. Start a Facebook Shoe Fan Club. Join a shoe forum. It’s all shoes all the time, 24/7. “Need a shoe? I’m your man.J”

But bloggers aren’t selling anything, so why would we need to limit ourselves? For bloggers, this sort of thing seems just plain wrong. It brings out the worst of all possible tyrants; the tyrant of the self. It represents the conscious choice of a free individual to confine himself, to stamp a label on his own forehead and willingly enter a box, never to come out again.

The ability to have disparate interests is a common human trait. If the internet were a true reflection of humanity, there would be very few goal oriented, single focus blogs. It seems that bloggers have adopted a set of rules that don’t necessarily apply to us. We have accepted a strategy that encourages self limitation. Even if you think you are marketing yourself, surely your product is greater than a single dimension.

So, taking it to the other extreme then, what would an unhinged eccentric’s blog be like? Y’know, some guy let’s say, oh I dunno, a jet boat racing court stenographer with a bee-keeping hobby, who rides a Harley, wears brown shoes with dark suites, listens to Black Sabbath and has an H.O. train diorama set-up in his basement. What would his blog strategy be? Would those of us who are only a half bubble off center, find it useful?

At first, I thought a kind of anti-brand was the answer. But, it turns out that an anti-brand is still a type of brand. The deliberate lack of a strategy is still a strategy. Is there no escape from the yoke of the tyrant? Even if you set about to purposely make your blog a chaotic whirlwind of meaningless futility, the whirlwind would be your strategy and futility would be your brand.

What is needed is a method of random subject selection. It would be like being lost in a maze with each dead-end representing a different subject. True, entering a maze with the deliberate intention of becoming lost is a strategy, but once inside, aimless wandering can take place. Once the aimlessness is achieved, the randomness of the dead-ends (new subjects) become possible.

The human mind seems to insist on making plans. Reaching the apex of randomly scattered, diffuse nebulosity won’t be easy. I’m still working on it. In the mean-time, my next post will likely be about the same damn thing my last post was about.

New Blog In Town

A couple of weeks ago I was scrolling through my Twitter feed and found that a couple of blogger/journalist friends of mine had started a new website called This Is Reno. Bob Conrad and Ryan Jerz have some unique views on what journalism is , and what it can be. You can find some insight into their views on the philosophy page. Another interesting aspect is that they're encouraging participation from other bloggers/writers/journalists from around the Reno area.

So I got to thinking, maybe I could contribute something sometime. Just about then, Bob emailed me asking if I'd like to double-post in the opinion section. Well, for a blogger, being asked to contribute to another bloggers project is the highest form of flattery, and as my old algebra teacher used to say, "Flattery will get you everywhere", so I agreed. In an effort to bring my reader(s) over, I wrote a 2 part series, "Deflation threat debunked", that is appearing only on This is Reno. You can find part 1 here. Part 2 will be published on Sunday.

Besides Bob of
The Good, The Bad, The Spin, and Ryan of
Mr. Jerz, and myself, Laurel of
Ann On Everything, and Mike of
i am indisposed have also joined the fun. Knowing these people, this could be more than fun, it could be revolutionary. What's more fun than a revolution?

Financial Flame War

One of the great issues of the age is the new-media/old-media debate. Over the last year, as I've slowly immersed myself in what is more properly termed "social media", I've seen it takes many forms. The most common is print journalism versus bloggers. Hardly a week goes by without a print journalist weeping over the death of newspapers. Recently, here in Reno, it took a generational turn with Myrna The Minx calling out baby boomers on their lackadaisical attitudes towards the many uses of the latest whiz-bang gadgets. But now, another front in the ongoing war has opened up.

In a lengthy, and well done blog post, John Reeder of Real Property Alpha examines the dispute between the CNBC meat-puppets and the financial bloggers. It's a much more balanced look than what you'll find here. In it, Mr. Reeder makes several good points. The first of which is;

Who would you rather get your information from? A reporter that might have gone to journalism school, or a professional trader/economist/investment manager?

I remember when the financial TV channels first made their appearance. The question of the day was; "If they're so smart, why aren't they on Wall St. making some real money instead of sitting in a TV studio reading the news"? It was a valid point then, and I think, it remains a valid point today. Many of the strictly financial blogs are written by people who are actively engaged in trading, or are professors of economics and so on.

Another good point Mr. Reeder makes:

The bloggers read each others entries, re-post portions of the entries, and add more comment on top. In theory the bloggers should be in competition with each other for reader attention, but in reality they benefit from powerful network effects of belonging to a group of financial bloggers that all link to one another.

The fact is, bloggers, of any stripe, really don't compete with each other, and financial blogs work the same as any other type. If you like one blog and that person links to another blog, that won't cause the reader to stop reading the first one. The reader will start reading both, and if both provide value, will continue reading both.

The idea that a simple investor like me would take on, say, Barry Ritholtz, in direct competition is insane. Mr. Ritholtz runs his own hedge fund. He writes books. Why wouldn't I look at him as a friendly source of information? To the extent that I understand what he says, I pass the information along. Why would he see me as a threat?

Which brings us full circle, back to the baby boomers and our lackadaisical ways. We've seen our retirements funds dwindle through two bubbles without a word of warning from the cheerleaders at CNBC. Any number of financial blogs were posting warning signs before the last one. Knowledge is power. You won't get knowledge from watching TV. For this boomer, the way into social media was through the financial blogs.

A Few Useful Links

Is it my imagination, or did the switch to Daylight Savings Time wipe out a few bloggers (including me) this week. The early morning hours are prime blogging time for me, so I haven’t accomplished much this week. But, I did promise a few examples of the presentations at the Interactive Summit.

Thanks to a comment from Ryan Jerz in my last post, there is an excellent Twitter feed that has links to many of the presenters. Here are a few highlights.

Mike Henderson’s summary of his talk on podcasts is here. Even if you’re not thinking about podcasting, you can see it’s pretty thorough.

Mike McDowell’s Media 101 is in slide show format. I don’t know if it will make sense to someone who wasn’t there, but it’s a lot better than the notes I took. Trust me on that one. I’ve started using google reader as a result. It’s working out really well. It saves a lot of time and is much less aggravating than going back and forth from the blogroll. What I’d really like to do now involves an aggregator. It would be something like Nevada Blogs, only it would be the blogs I choose. So far, everything I’ve seen to do this involves HML, so I’m still looking.

Marcel Levy’s summary is in PDF format. Marcel doubles as a stand-up comic. Who would have guessed that building charts could be so much fun? There are some hard to find web addresses in here. I know they’re hard to find because I’ve looked for them, so this will be very helpful.

There’s plenty more on the search twitter link. I have months worth of projects just from these three. I'm off to visit mom this weekend, so I still won't get much done, but maybe I'll adjust to the new time zone.

Notes on the Summit

I attended the Nevada Interactive Media Summit held at the Reynolds School of Journalism on Saturday. Is it possible to suffer information overload, and still not have heard enough? The conference was designed in three groups of workshops per hour, over five hours, so I didn’t get to hear everything I wanted. Still, by day’s end, I had to go home and give my poor little brain a rest.

There were a few themes that nearly everyone was talking about. One of these was strategy. Most of the presenters were marketing people, as were a majority of the audience, but what is the goal of blogging? Every so often I come across a blogger asking: ”Why do I do this?” It’s a bit like asking a weekend artist why he paints landscapes. There are a thousand reasons, and no reason in particular. The more I do this though, the more obvious it becomes that there are abundant opportunities for the taking. The field is wide open, and setting some long-term goals would probably be a good idea.

Another constant throughout the day was the importance of mobility; that means gadgetry. Most of the talk was about programs and applications, but sitting here at my desktop is already considered somewhat quaint and old-fashioned. I put a lot of effort into keeping my life simple. This blog naturally reflects that. I’m not a gadget guy. Still, the place could use a little variety. I now have a much better idea of how to accomplish that without getting tied up in USB cables. I can liven it up a little while maintaining a minimalist approach.

One thing everyone could agree on was the need to filter out all the chatter and concentrate on only the things that apply to them. No doubt, there is somebody filtering out this blog post right now. There are some time saving techniques on how to do that, and there will likely be better ones coming along in the near future.

As hokey as it sounds, the best thing about these types of conferences are the people. The knowledge, ideas, and experiences, the friendliness, the focus, it’s a great way to spend a day. It’s always good to be reminded that behind every post, tweet, and camera shot is a human being trying to communicate. The fears of virtual isolation are much overdone, as the virtual has merged with the physical. Many of the presenters said they would post summaries on-line, so I’ll have an update with links up soon. Also, as I complete some new projects, I’ll be posting about how it went. For those that missed it, you’ll see it was worth the price of admission.

Problems at CPAC

Republicans are the pro-business party. Why then are we so lousy at public relations?A case in point from Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media:

...those of us inhabiting the official bloggers row, sponsored this year by Pajamas Media, are clearly considered the red-headed stepchildren by CPAC’s organizers. The best evidence for this was that bloggers row was situated at the back corner of the exhibit hall (which doubles as the first floor of the hotel’s parking garage). The organizers could not have positioned us any farther from the events here at CPAC without setting us up outside the building. In contrast to political left, where bloggers and new media have propelled Democrats to stunning victory and are courted by their politicians at the annual Daily Kos convention, the conservative establishment still has no idea what to do with new media.

OK, here's a pop quiz for all you Republican "leaders". If you take your date out to dinner, and the waiter gives you a table that is closest to the kitchen, with banging pots and pans competing with angry shouts from the cooks, do you tip him 0%, 5%, or 10%? If, on the other hand, the waiter seats you and your date next to the window, where she can overlook the gardens as the evening sky turns from pale blue pink to Rosy red, do you tip him 25%, 50%, or leave an endowment to his kids?

Needless to say, Mr. Poole was not overly gracious in his comments on the rest of the conference. He went on to point out that most of the speakers were the same retreads that caused our collapse. Looking at the straw poll, I can't say I have a lot of hope for 2012 yet.

Mitt Romney...20% (Are Mormons ready for a Mormon President?)

Bobby Jindle..14% (Makes Bob Dole speeches seem thrilling by comparison.)

Ron Paul......13% (Will he ever get 15% anywhere?)

Sarah Palin...13% (The thrill is gone, maybe.)

Newt Gingrich.10% (Who?...What?...Really?)

Mike Huckabee.07% (Not many Baptists at CPAC this year.)

Mark Sanford..04% (Did we ever decide the Confederate flag issue?)

Rudy Giuliani.03% (Aw Rudy, we'll always have New York.)

Charlie Crist.01% (Apparently candidates were allowed to vote for themselves.)

The good news is we have 4 years to work on it.