Blogging and The New Economy Experiment Part 1

I had read only one blog until about three months ago. That blog was a family member’s who set up a blog to display baby pictures and keep everyone updated on the baby.  A link to the blog was sent to us in an email and we bookmarked it for future visits, so easy even a caveman could do it.  I heard about the political and celebrity blogosphere in the news but it never interested me enough to check it out.

I had an idea for an online business and ran it by a friend who has had a few online businesses.  He said no matter what you get into you have to do your research and you have to move fast in the digital world.  There are thousands of websites going up everyday so don’t just stand there, get going.

I took his advice and started downloading the podcast Internet Business Mastery which boasted being the #1 podcast for internet business.  Hey why not start at the top?  Jason Van Orden of the show recommended a blog for a website because for the non-techie its easy to update and is extremely search engine friendly.  And out of the choices of blog software, he recommended wordpress.  Not knowing any difference, I just chose it and got started figuring the most important thing was to be continuously moving forward.

The next recommendation took longer to accomplish than I ever anticipated and that was to host my blog on my own domain.  I posted the job on elance and it got done in about three weeks after two weeks of trying to do it on my own.  Unless you know what you’re doing, I highly recommend hiring someone to set up your blog if you’re going to put it on your own domain.  I didn’t get the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org so I set up a blog at wordpress.com first.  You can still find it at theneweconomyexperiment.wordpress.com.  I basically copied the first two posts over to this domain to get started.

What About Michael Phelps?

I made the point in my second post, ‘First Observable Change in Behavior…’ that one of the great things about a blog is the ability to pass on good information to a lot of people who it may benefit. 

I was out of town for 24 hours over the weekend while I was mulling over my last post in the back of my head.  I wanted to post it before I left town because I hadn’t put up a post in a few days but I didn’t even get a draft written to be posted at a later date due to other projects that were more urgent before I hit the road.  I brought my laptop with me but I might as well have brought a kettle ball.

We were in the hotel bar on Saturday night watching the end of the Ryder Cup for that day.  We were cheering everything the Americans did while an Englishman sitting a few tables over was cheering everything the Europeans did.  The simultaneous cheers and groans on every putt were comical.  What’s great about hotel bars is that people are friendlier because you’re all out of town, relaxed a little bit being out of your old environment and its much more likely to have good conversation with someone from another part of the universe. 

We started chatting with our new friend and found out he is in the apparel business and used to work with Speedo. He met Michael Phelps a few times and said that he’s the most focused individual he’s ever met.  He went to bed every night regularly at 8 so that he could wake up and start swimming at 4AM.

Michael Phelps Donates Speedo’s $1 Million Bonus To Launch Charity Foundation

15.09.2008

Fourteen time Olympic Gold Medallist Michael Phelps this week announced the launch of the Michael Phelps Foundation, donating Speedo’s $1 million bonus he will receive for winning eight gold medals in Beijing.

There wasn’t a whole lot of media coverage of Phelps’ charitable endeavors.  What a great project to start.  Phelps deserves all the success he’s achieved.

First Observable Change In Behavior: Started a Blog

I love the etiquette of a blog.  If I run across helpful information either on the web or in a conversation that could help people I don’t like it going to waste.  I want to pass it on.  What are my options though?  Well, I could tell everyone I see and speak to in person but how do you do that without coming across like a windbag?  I could send a blast email to every email address I have but if the advice is not relevant to you it seems like spam.  Plus, you didn’t ask for my help in the first place.     

The other limiting factor in the first two examples is the lack of reach.  The information can only travel as far as my circle unless it keeps getting passed on or forwarded by people in my circle to others in their circle.  But what if the information could be beneficial to someone outside my own circle and my circle’s circle?  A blog widens my reach and ability to inform exponentially. 

Most importantly, you, the reader, are in complete control of how you want to be informed.  First, you decide if you’re interested.  Then, you decide how to be notified for updates either by email, rss feed or returning to the site again.  What could be more polite than that?