31 Days: Days 26, 27, 28

I'm cleaning house and trying to to finish up with the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Challenge. Although the challenge officially ended in August, the community is alive and well and coming up with new challenges and ideas. Join us at the Building a Better Blog Ning Group.

For those of you who are new to my blog, the 31 Days Challenge was started by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger. He came up with a series of challenges. Michele Martin turned that challenge into a community (and lured a certain reluctant individual into the challenge).

Here's some house cleaning:

Day 26 Link Up to a "Competitor"
In my blogging world, there are no competitors -- we're just all fellow travelers, learning from each other as we go along. I'm happy to link and do so with great gusto. Task complete.

Day 27 Get a Sponsor for Your Blog
I'm not monetizing this blog, so I'm skipping this one. Task ignored.

Day 28 Write a Mission Statement for Your Blog
Ok. This feels like a good task and one that I will have to return to when I've got more energy.

We all know what a mission statement is and have probably spent hours in group meetings crafting corporate mission and vision statements. Gosh, I remember the gusto we poured into this back in the early 90's. And then we all posted our printed missions statements on our cubical walls to keep us focused and on target and walking the talk.

The challenge is to do the same for your blog. So why do you blog? And if you don't blog, why not?

I blog because I started reading all of these other great e-Learning blogs and realized that there was something pretty cool going on and I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to jump in to the conversation; I wanted to learn from all of these really smart people. My mission statement will have to include some key words on e-Learning, instructional design, web 2.0 technology and learning from community.

If you've been following me for awhile and think my blog is about something else, please let me know.

Task in progress.

You can view all of my 31 Days activity here:

31 Days: Day 25
31 Days: Days 22, 23, & 24
31 Days: Days 17, 18, 19, 21 & 21
31 Days: Days 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16
31 Days: Days 8, 9, & 10
31 Days: Days 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 (I got my numbering off somewhere along the way)
31 Days: Days 1, 2 & 3

Building Community

The office park in which I work is right next to a big slab of conservation land. When time permits, my favorite lunchtime activity is to escape out to the woods and go for a walk. It clears my head, gets my heart pumping a bit, and gives me some much needed solitude.

A few months ago, I was sharing my walk with a coworker. We came across a big pile of bricks and decided to make something. He made a wall and I built a circle.

The next time I went back into the woods, our sculpture had been altered. Someone had made an exclamation point out of bricks, right in the middle of the circle.

I changed the circle to a yin/yang sign.

For the next month or so, every time I went back into the woods there was something different. It was always a thrill to see what would be there. A heart. I changed it into a question mark. A bullseye. I built a stonehenge structure.

We were communicating, this faceless person and I. We were collaborating. Invisibly.

Last week I was out in the woods (it had been way too long), and a family was playing with the bricks. Four kids and two parents. Stacking and sorting, making shapes and playing. I smiled at them and walked on by.

I don't think they were my original invisible community. But they had become a part of it.

Being a part of the Building a Better Blog community has given me that same thrill. But we have pictures, so we're not so invisible.

31 Days: Day 25 (Go Shopping)

Day 25: Go Shopping

For day 25 of the Blogging Challenge, the task at hand was to go shopping. Go to a mall and spend 30 minutes observing shopping patterns, merchandising schemes, etc.

My life in no way supports random trips to the shopping mall, so instead I'll look at my current shopping habits and needs: I need to get in and out of the store as quickly as I can, getting exactly what I need. Often I have two small kids in tow or I'm trying to check ten things off a list during my lunch hour.

I like to go to stores where I know the layout. I've got my system down and can't tolerate spending a precious ten minutes searching for the bread aisle or trying to find the peanut butter.

If you think about blogs and websites in general, we come to expect similar layouts and experiences from blog to blog. I look for a subscription button somewhere in the sidebar. A link to learn more about the blog's author. I like to know how long this blog has been around. The rest is either gravy or distraction. Too much clutter means I spend more time searching for the basics.

I almost always go to the grocery store that's nearest to my house. It's a bit more expensive than the store in the next town, but it's smaller and easier to get through. The aisles are shorter and there are fewer products on the shelves. They have just what I need. Or at least, just what I expect.

As I think about my own blog-reading habits, I see the same patterns. I rely on my feed reader to get me the information I need and want. Lately, I haven't had the time to go on random blog browsing sessions.

Right now I need a smaller blog store. I think I need to trim down what's in my feed reader. A good aggregator (like Stephen Downes) will get me the info I need so I'm not missing the really juicy stuff.

As I avoid the bigger stores these days, I've also noticed myself avoiding the longer posts in my feed reader. When posts are really long, I start skimming. I may even just skip it completely, thinking I'll come back to it later when my brain is less full. Yeah right. I'm sure many of you are the same.

Keeping blog posts short will ensure they get read more. A challenge to all writers. And a big challenge to me, who can ramble on like no other....

Another big shopping challenge is navigating the checkout aisle. All those candy bars in reach of the hands of little children who are riding in the shopping cart that's shaped like a car because you're trying to keep them entertained while you get the groceries. (You've seen harried young mothers attempting this feat, right?) I'm sure this relates to blogging -- the enticing thrill of a delicious looking link that can send you off in a myriad of directions....

Darren did a great summary of his lessons learned while shopping as did Michele Martin.

Do you have any great shopping tips that can be applied to blogging? Are you a browser? A shop-aholic? Or a speed shopper? Do you notice similar patterns in your blogging?

Photocredit: Shopping Cart by sanja gjenero courtesy of stock.xchng

31 Days: Days 22, 23 & 24

I've been seriously lagging in this 31 Day Blog Challenge. For me, the Challenge has worn thin.

The tasks are relentless -- every single day there's something new to do. And yet I feel compelled to continue and fulfill my duty to my fellow Challenge Participants.

Rather than tackle the last nine days in one really long post, I think I'll chunk things out a bit. For my sanity as well as yours.

Day 22: Catch Readers Up on the Basics of Your Blog

As your readership grows, new folks will be wandering in. The idea behind this task is make sure your new readers know what you're all about.

Some key questions Darren suggests you write about: Why did you start your blog? How is it designed to be used? How can readers connect/subscribe? How can readers get more involved? Where should new readers start?

I recently did this in my About Learning Visions page, which is now displayed prominently at the top of my sidebar.

The idea would be to periodically (say every couple of months) write a post answering one or two of the questions above to let any new readers know just what you're all about as a blogger. I'll keep this mind.

Task sort of completed, but one to think about in an ongoing fashion.

Day 23: Go on a Dead Link Hunt

Also known as "Link Rot", this is the phenomenon when items that you link to return the dreaded "Page not Found Error". So the answer is to periodically check your site to make sure that all your links are still valid and active.

Rather than go through each page and test each link manually, there are a number of tools you can use that will spider your site and check for links.

I tried Dead-Links.com and at first couldn't seem to get it to work for my Blogger blog. It only got as far as my main page and returned a link not found error. I came back again today and tried again. This time it seemed to "work." Dead-Links found what were supposedly a bunch of dead links, but I clicked on most of them and they worked just fine.

When Dead-Links wasn't working at first, I tried Google Webmaster tools. This was new to me and a nice discovery. Turns out there's a lot of tools in there, including a view of who's linking to you. I found a number of blogs that had linked to mine without my ever knowing!

If you're using Google Webmaster to check for dead links, you'll first need to claim and verify your site. I had to add a wee bit of code into my blog template. Once you've done that, go to the Diagnostics tab and choose "Web Crawl".

As far as I can tell, Google didn't find any dead links on my site. But this may simply be a dumb user not fully understanding the data I see.

So I think I can say task completed and also complete waste of my time.

Day 24: Do a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Audit
This is exactly the kind of task I hate and as Darren notes, definitely makes my head spin. The idea here is to make sure you're writing your posts in the best possible way to ensure they get picked up by the most readers and you get more hits and a better ranking.

Darren has a good post on the topic: Search Engine Optimization for Blogs -- SEO that you should read if you're interested in maximizing your search results.

"My main advice to people wanting to optimize their blogs for Search Engines is to keep it simple. Start with quality content on a specific topic and then tweak it using the best current advice going around."

I'll keep it as simple as that.

Task completed (in a completely half-assed way).

If you're just tuning in and would like to track my progress (or lack thereof) in the other days of the challenge, you can read more:

31 Days: Days 17, 18, 19 & 21
31 Days: Days 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16
31 Days: Days 8, 9, & 10
31 Days: Days 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 (I got my numbering off somewhere along the way)
31 Days: Days 1, 2 & 3

And check in with the other 31 Day Bloggers who are taking part in the great Chocolate Challenge:

Tim Davies
Eklavya
Kate Foy
Christine Martell
Michele Martin
Frances McLean
Alex Miller
Kate Quinn
Sue Waters
Laura Whitehead
Al Upton and the miniLegends

31 Days: Days 17, 18, 19, 20, & 21

If you've been following along with the 31 Day Challenge, you may know that it's starting to wear thin. Nevertheless, I'm trying to keep up.

Day 17: Run a Stumble Upon Advertising Campaign

Not my thing. Next.

Day 18: Create a Sneeze Page and Propel Readers Deep Within Your Blog

This task is about spreading germs. The germs of ideas and wisdom, that is.

The goal of this task is to write a post that links back to some of your greatest hits, unearthing those old treasures from way back when.

I've been looking at which search terms come up as readers find their ways to this blog. "Getting started in instructional design" seems to be a recurrent topic. A few months back I was on an instructional design writing rampage. To complete this task, I attempted to write a summary with some links to my story and other useful instructional design resources.

Day 19: Respond to Comments on Your Blog

I think I do a pretty good job of engaging with those who comment here. It's at least half the fun. Then again, I'm not trying to stay on top of hundreds of comments a day.

Day 20: Survey Your Readers

Ask 'em what they want to read from you or what would be more helpful.

So. I'm not going to bother with a full-blown survey. Way too much effort at this point for this particular gal. (The other Chocolate Challenge participants are holding off on this until December. I may join in then -- we'll see.)

But I will ask my dear readers (informally, of course) if you have any thoughts as to how I can make this blog better? Particularly if you're a reader from the e-Learning field. Is there information that you would like to see more of? Are there topics that you are just burning to hear me expound upon?

Day 21: Make a Reader Famous (or another blog writer)

I do my best to share the blogging wealth. If there's a great comment thread in a post that I think people should read, I'll write a new blog post that points it out. When I come across a new resource or a new e-Learning blog, I spread the word. Most bloggers have much more interesting things to say than I do, and I'm always happy to point that out.

The more people who actively participate in the conversation, the more we can all learn from each other.

You can catch up with all of my 31 Days activity here:

31 Days: Days 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16
31 Days: Days 8, 9, & 10
31 Days: Days 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 (I got my numbering off somewhere along the way)
31 Days: Days 1, 2 & 3

And check in with the other 31 Day Bloggers who are taking part in the great Chocolate Challenge:

Tim Davies
Eklavya
Kate Foy
Christine Martell
Michele Martin
Frances McLean
Alex Miller
Kate Quinn
Sue Waters
Laura Whitehead

31 Days: Days 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16

The 31 Days of this challenge is definitely dragging on. I'm losing my steam, but trying to stay somewhat on target.

Day 12: Introduce Yourself to Another Blogger

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger says, "I find that the most fruitful interactions that I’ve had with other bloggers don’t come as a result of me asking for something - but out of me giving something."


This reminds me of a post I saw today at the Internet Time Community from Andy Jones: Give me a Lobster.

It also makes me think of the whole gift-giving economy which is central to BurningMan, an arts festival and community that is created every year in the Nevada desert.

It's nice to give gifts. And reaching out to someone to say hi can certainly add a little sunshine to that person's day. I know it does to mine.

So go ahead and "Email or IM another blogger in your niche to introduce yourself and your blog". I did.

Day 13: Search for an Affiliate Program
My blog is not about making money. So I just skipped this one. Phew.

Day 14: Analyze Your Blog's Competition
(Determine What Your Blogging Niche Really Is)

I don't view this as a competition, nor does Darren. He says,"I use the word ‘competition’ hesitantly because the thing about blogging is that those blogging on the same topics as you are potentially your biggest allies. "

I think we're all in this together. No competition. That said, I do think each of us finds his or her own niche. As Michele says, it's really about finding your own voice.

I've got good awareness of what many other e-Learning bloggers are writing about. Beyond that, I think all I can do is provide my own take on things in a fairly transparent way. I want to share as much as I can about projects I'm working on. I've tried to post on things that I haven't been able to find much about when I've been doing research, figuring others might have the same info gaps.

Day 15: Stickify Your Blog
(Make Your Popular Posts More Sticky)

Get people to read more; get people to stay. The gist of this step is to add more links within posts to drive readers deeper into your blog, so they can see all the cool things you have to say and ultimately subscribe and become a regular reader. I've been doing this for awhile now, trying to give life to old posts that generated a lot of interest.

You can also put an RSS link right into your most popular posts, making it really easy for them to sign up. I'm not sure I'll bother with that. Maybe I will. I don't know.

Day 16: Create a Heatmap
(Look at a Cool Visual of Your Site Stats to See What Clicks)

Go to CrazyEgg and create a heatmap of your site. Pretty cool. Another gadget to look at. So I just signed up for it (it's free). One day's worth of data doesn't show you that much when you've got a little blog like mine with a fairly compact readership.

We'll see what I see.

You can catch up with all of my 31 Days activity here:

31 Days: Days 8, 9, & 10
31 Days: Days 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 (I got my numbering off somewhere along the way)
31 Days: Days 1, 2 & 3

And check in with the other 31 Day Bloggers who are taking part in the great chocolate challenge:

Tim Davies
Eklavya
Kate Foy
Christine Martell
Michele Martin
Frances McLean
Alex Miller
Kate Quinn
Sue Waters
Laura Whitehead

31 Days: 8, 9 & 10

Day 8: Run an Advertising Audit on Your Blog.
Obviously, that's not my focus so I took Michele's advice and tried to do something from Daren's Get Your Blogging Groove Back series. I attempted to write a linking post.

In More on Learning Styles, I linked back to a lot of older and (I thought) interesting posts I'd written on the subject of learning styles, while also attempting to add something new. I know, from having looked at my stats at the time and the comments that came in, that these posts seemed to generate some interest. It's nice to recycle them and give them new life.

Day 9: Declutter Your Sidebar
I've been doing this off and on throughout this challenge, and even before, so no surprise when this assignment came up. My goal of late has been to streamline and simplify. Personally, I don't like blogs that have countless widgets that you scroll on endlessly. My house might be a mess, but I'd rather my blog were neat and tidy.

• I used to have a lot more on my sidebar and in looking at stats I could see people rarely clicked on most of those items: I had deli.cious links, access to my LinkedIn profile, another picture of me, and yet another link list. I just deleted a bunch of stuff and/or tried to incorporate it into my About Page.
• I did keep the Instructional Design Resources list, which seems to be useful to people.
• I also kept the LibraryThing listing books I'm currently reading (or have read or intend to read at some point...), as this does get a lot of interest (aka "hits"). It has a Facebook widget feel to me, but I think it's ok here.
  

What do you think? Have I lost anything in the process? Did you even notice the difference?

Day 10: Dig Into Your Blog's Statistics
Not hard to do with tools like MyBlogLog or FeedBurner. I just have the basic MyBlogLog account, so I can only view a week's worth of data at a time. And I just started using Feedburner recently, so only have data back to August 1. My info is limited.

That said, some of the stats that Darren suggests one looks at aren't very interesting to me. My goal is not making money. Maybe it's about creating readership, because that's about creating more community, connections and learning opportunity. So I wanted to look at my stats more from a content perspective -- what are people finding the most interesting of what I write?

If you do want to create a lot of traffic, do a product review. I've recently written about Buzzword (a new online collaborative word processing application) and this is the number one way people get to my site. But sort of off-topic for me. I also did a post on Google Sidebars & Dual Monitors -- which seems to be a hot search topic for people.

My Most Popular Pages as accessed in the last week (in case you were wondering):

1. Buzz on Buzzword
2. My main page index
3. Google Desktop, Sidebar & Dual Monitors
4. Online Portfolios
5. 8 Random Facts About Me (the power of the meme)
6. Real World, Second Life, Facebook/MySpace
   

With Community Comes Great Responsibility

In reflecting over the benefits of the first week or so of the 31 Days to Better Blogging Challenge, the biggest thing for me has been the overall boost in community. I've reached out to more people and more people are reaching out to me. It's awesome. But with community comes great responsibility.

(I'm a touchy-feely-people-kind-of-person. I'd like to take the time to personally hug everyone.)

Christine Martell writes:

If you start commenting and emailing multiple people, reading lots of blogs with posts with similar names, it gets confusing really quick. Suddenly, you need a new level of organization and ways to keep track of it all.

This is why using a feed reader (I use Google Reader) is essential to staying on top of all of the blogs you read. Christine's going to set up a netvibes page.

Staying on top of the comments can be tricky. I've been using a tool called co.mment. With a co.mment icon now installed on my Firefox toolbar, I just need to remember to click on it when I leave a comment on someone's blog and want to track the conversation. Then I can go back to my co.mment page later and check in on all the conversations I've been having. My problem is I often forget to click the icon.

CoComment is another commenting tool out there to help you manage all those conversations. I was using it for awhile, but had issues once I moved to Firefox.

Tim Davies is also wondering about how to stay on top of all of these conversations:

The challenge has been great for encouraging me to be more willing to comment, so I've been dropping in input, questions and comments where I can across todays blog reading. Making the time to engage in conversations online does seem to move towards greater abundancy thinking and I'm really enjoying the opportunities it is presenting. I'm a little worried that my current level of participation is only enabled by the flexibility of the projects I'm working on at the moment... and that it will be trickier to keep engaged when work pressure bite.

It does take more focus and time to stay on top of the conversations in which you're engaged. And now that some blog conversations have turned into more private email threads for me, there's a whole 'nother level of effort. But it is worth it. This is where the community part of the whole shebang really happens.

That said, I do think it's ok to not have to respond to each and every email and each and every comment. Sometimes, it's ok to just write another blog entry to continue the conversation! Then you can respond to everyone at once.

31 Days to a Better Blog: Days 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8

This whole 31 Days to a Better Blog exercise is proving harder to stay on top of than I had even imagined. But I do think some good is coming out of it.

Michele Martin is doing a fabulous job of keeping this little sub-group connected. See the list of folks who've signed up with her. And I've met some wonderful new bloggers along the way.

I have a bit of catching up to do. In summary:

Day 4: Interlink Your Posts. Go back to old posts and link to newer ones. I've been doing this off and on throughout the day and find it tedious. It seems a bit insincere to me -- has made me realize that I feel like it's morally wrong to go back and edit old posts once they've been published. I have been known to do that in the past in order to fix egregious spelling and grammar errors. But to go back and add links seems strange.

Day 5: Audit Your About Page.
Well, I didn't even have an About This Blog Page. So I created one. It's now a link in the top right corner of my sidebar. Feedback appreciated.

I also added an option to "subscribe via email". I realized my blogger's arrogance in assuming that everyone's using and prefers feed readers. So that's new. And hopefully "better".

Day 6: Email an Old Time Reader.
Be warned. One of you -- my two old timers -- will be getting an email from me thanking you for sticking with me and adding value to my blog content. I've sort of done that already today, but I think I'll do it again.

Day 7: Plan a Week's Worth of Blog Posts.
Already I can tell you that I'm just going to skip this step.

• I'm not trying to make money off this blog.
• I've got too much of my real work to do to be that organized.
• I use this blog as my own learning tool and write about what I feel like writing about -- usually right when it hits me.

I do have a Google Notebook called "Blog Ideas" in which I've occasionally jotted down a future blog topic. I opened it up today and noticed it's been a long long time since I've used it. So maybe my unique take on Day 7 will simply be keeping track of things I'd like to write about.

That said, if there's a particular topic that you'd like to hear my take on, feel free to make a suggestion!

Day 8: Comment on a Blog You've Never Commented on Before.
Like Michele, I've been doing that all week, so I can check that one right off.

I used to have comment anxiety. I'd get shy. And I still do. But I've realized the benefits of commenting: you get a response (usually), you make a connection, you start a conversation. So I invite you to comment on this blog if you've never commented on a blog before. And we'll see what happens.

Well. Stay tuned.

31 Days to A Better Blog

I mentioned to Michele Martin that I was interested in participating in the 31 Days to a Better Blog Exercise being led by problogger Daren Rowse. I was initially intrigued by Daren's ideas and by Michele's enthusiasm. I'm not blogging for the money or the fame, but I am in it for the community, networking and learning opportunities. So I guess it doesn't hurt to try and get better.

Well, when I stated my interest, Michele went nuts and added me as a participant on her blog list. She's an inspirational task master, really. Since I've now got some authority to report to, I'll do my best to keep up with the homework.

I'm already behind...

Day 1: Email a new reader. Haven't done that yet, but I was inspired to make sure I am actively commenting on commenter's comments. I'll take the leap. I really will. If you are a new reader, why not take the leap yourself and comment on my blog? I'll send you an email and will be taking blogging to that next level together!

Day 2: Sit with a new user while they walk through your blog. Hmm...I need to find a likely suspect who's willing to waste some time with me. I did send my blog link to my cousin Alex who works for a new media company. We were IMing each other and he disappeared for about 15 minutes. When he came back he said, "that's great stuff!" He's my cousin and he's supposed to say that, but I'll take it anyway. Does that count for my homework? (He occasionally posts at his company blog Inspire Action. Check 'em out. They're hip. They're funny. They're new media.)

Day 3: (Which is today -- actually, I think that's tomorrow. Daren is in Australia.) Search for and join forum's on your blog's topics. So I'm thinking I'll finally join Jay Cross's Internet Time Community. Is that what you would call a forum? (I admit to feeling like an old lady by even having to ask that question). Do you have any suggestions for e-learning/instructional design forums?

In preparation for all of this, I did spend some time mucking with Feedburner. I've been using MyBlogLog to track visits, etc. but it doesn't tell me how many actual subscribers I actually have. (Other MyBlogLog users -- am I missing something?) So I set myself up in Feedburner and now have a benchmark and more analytics to check out. I admit to getting overwhelmed at times with all the tools out there. What tools do you use to track readership/subscribers for your blog? Or do you even care?