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To My Friends At Lunesta…..pffft.

March 27, 2006 By 4 Comments

Working along on my posts for my many number of blogs, and wondering why my eyes are so heavy, the folks at Lunesta have a advertisement that appeared on the Food Network, boasting about a perfect night’s sleep.  To a father of 4 kids 6 and under, we often forget about what it was like to have one of these perfect nights of sleep.

Great time to make this ad after lunch and while the kids are in bed for their afternoon nap.  The a Pavlovian dog my mouth begins to water about the rest I see on the television.  Thanks for the reminder that I have not slept. 

If your PR team is out mining the net and you run across this post, can I ask for a free sample and a babysitter?  After all, you require the first time use to have at least 8 hours of time to see the effects of the drug on the person.  If you are not out keeping an ear to the ground of what people are telling you, you should, I just gave some valuable feedback.

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Filed Under: Bloggers For Hire

Spec work: Is it worth it?

March 23, 2006 By 4 Comments

I read a very interesting article this morning on graphic designer Susan Kirkland’s blog about spec work – which is, essentially, doing all the work before you get hired in hopes of getting hired – and it got me to thinking about a project I’ve been working on the last couple of days.

Jim has me drawing up a new look for one of our clients, because although they’ve expressed an interest in updating, they’ve not taken us up on our offer to spruce up their site. The idea is that the client will see firsthand what they can have, and will jump at the opportunity to have it. Theoretically, it’s nice, but logistically, it’s impractical. I can spend the dozens of hours on the mockup of a new site, but the truth is, the chances of them going for it are about 50/50. If they accept it, great; the work is done and all I have to do now is implement it. If not, however, I’m left with hundreds of dollars of work that is completely worthless now. Not exactly a sound time investment.

We decided on a compromise: Get together a general idea of the new look, and present it with an outline of the extras we can/will do should they decide to move forward with it. We still run the risk of the client not being interested, but this way they (the client) get a little taste of what we can offer them personally, and we’re not out too much time if they decide not to use it.

All in all, doing spec work isn’t the best way to get clients when you’re a start-up company or independent contractor. It does, however, have its place with particular clients who really need to see what you can do for THEM – not just what you can do in general.

Filed Under: Blog Consulting, Client Sites, Services

Blogger Burnout

March 22, 2006 By 1 Comment

As you can tell, we have not had much action over the last couple of weeks here, and it is not for want of things to say, but more of a want for time to say it.  How is it possible that a professional blog consultant can miss posting every day?  Well some of it was technical, not having internet access for a few days, and some of it was related to just having too much on my plate at one time, and some of it I suspect was blogger burnout. 

People can become attached to the hip with their blogs and get caught in a situation where the content is being generated just for the purpose of putting words on a screen.  I don’t and haven’t been caught up in that process.  I recently read an interview on the BlogBurst blog of Jory Des Jardins Co-Founder of BlogHer and she makes a great point in the question of blogger burnout:

Do you ever experience blog burn-out?

How do you get yourself back in the blogging groove? Blogging for me is therapeutic, so I don’t experience burn out. However, I do experience overload–when there’s too much on my plate for me to really delve in at a level that I am satisfied with on my blog. When this happens, I forgive myself for not being brilliant on-demand. Then I take a morning to zone out and really extract my best thoughts. For me, burn-out is not so much an issue as falling into an obligatory relationship with my blog and trying to force inspired, authentic content every day when I really just want to sleep.

I too have forgiven myself recently for not being brilliant and have let the content and posting here wane for concentration on business related projects I have been needing to take care of and things that a business owner must perform on a day-to-day basis.  It is okay to let the blog content go when more important things are needed, but as I always advise, get back into the blog as soon as possible to keep the content fresh, and to make sure that your readers and/or consumers and customers know you have not closed your doors.

I too have forgiven myself recently for not being brilliant and have let the content and posting here wane for concentration on business related projects I have been needing to take care of and things that a business owner must perform on a day-to-day basis.  It is okay to let the blog content go when more important things are needed, but as I always advise, get back into the blog as soon as possible to keep the content fresh, and to make sure that your readers and/or consumers and customers know you have not closed your doors.We are here, but right now we are just very busy.  In business that is not a bad problem to have.

Filed Under: Bloggers and Blogs

The investment and the returns behind business blogging — what does it cost and what are the benefits?

March 8, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Many business owners want to know about blogs.  After a brief discussion about what a blog is, beginning with a definition and then an overview of blog as applications, the next question always is asked, “How much does it cost and what is the return on that investment?”  This compound question is the most difficult question to answer for the business blogging consultant.  The reason it is a difficult question is not because we don’t understand the question, it is because we don’t always know the answer.  Each business has a different idea about what they consider an investment.

Shel Holtz has a great entry about Business Blogging and Return on Investment. Shel argues that:

But I would make the argument that the kind of ROI assurance executives want is not the kind of ROI accountants measure; we’re getting too hung up on definitions. The ROI in question here is more commonly referred to as a cost (or risk) benefit analysis. While ROI generally refers to the amount of money earned after all expenses are tallied, the risk-benefit analysis weighs the consequences of an action or expense against the benefits it will achieve. Because so many executives fear the consequences and don’t understand or recognize the benefits, I still think this kind of measurement is important.

Many CEO’s when purchasing a tool for a company know that the tool will cost an amount certain, and as that tool provides the company with the benefits of better and more efficient ways to produce their product or service, they realize that they have saved, earned, or deposited a finite sum.  This is a hard number that can be grasped.  This is not always the same with blogs.  There are many costs to consider when deciding on whether to invest in a blog and many benefits as well.

Blogs are merely a different tool in the larger picture of the overall business operation.  Businesses have budgeted for certain tools that help each section of their overall operation.  Shel’s post mentions the use of telephones, a great example of a business tool.  It is a communication tool that is used to converse with vendors, clients, potential customers and all manner of people a company talks to in its day-to-day function. 

Kevin Dugan raises a great point in the comments of Shel’s post:

Shel – Calculating the time cost complicates the discussion and reinforces your recommendation to measure.

In a service industry, you’re acutely aware of billable hours and while it takes a few bucks and a “few minutes” to build a blog, it takes a lot more to grow it into a successful communications vehicle.

If I understand Kevin’s point, it takes an investment of time (manpower) to make a blog successful.  Buying a tool is different if you have to fix that tool everyday, or give it an investment of time to make it work.  It takes time from other more productive responsibilities.  We have addressed this issue here at One By One with many of our clients.  Sure your investment is not much for the tool itself, heck some blogging applications are free and it costs next to nothing to make a blog materialize.  The catch that we discuss and a situation we help companies address is that someone has to operate the tool.  This is the largest part of the investment.  We offer professional bloggers to companies that cannot make the sacrifice of providing a full or part-time employee to operate this new tool. 

The investment in blogging has many faces as do the returns.  A blog consultant can help your business sift through the costs and the benefits and then you can make a business decision based on that advice, but remember not every business will have the same model.

Filed Under: Blog Consulting, Bloggers For Hire, Business Blogging

Translation and RSS Feed Readers

March 6, 2006 By 5 Comments

I spend an inordinate amount of time scanning my feed readers, yes don’t ask me how many I use but suffice it to say it is less that the fingers on my right hand, but nonetheless, I have lots of web feeds I read.  It’s the curse of being a professional blogger and blog evangelist.  I also have a number of search feeds that send me information related to certain search phrases and terms.  I mine the blogosphere and other places across the Internet for anyone discussing my company or anyone discussing the clients for which we provide the service. 

One of the things that seems frustrate me the most is finding a site that has mentioned a search feed term, and when I go to read the information, it turns out it is in a completely foriegn language.  It’s frustrating trying to find a translation service that will translate the information so that I may read the feed in english.  This is on my wish list for the people at Bloglines, or Newsgator or the rest fo the feed readers. 

Please work on a translation application of all feeds into the native language of the user.  I know this can be done if the right company takes on the project.  Each site if it could would have a script that would allow each language to be accounted for in the blog or site.  Of course, now that I think about it, this may be more difficult than imagined.  I still would like to put it on my wish list for future applications.  Any takers?

Filed Under: Blog Tools, Professional Blogging, Services

The Rug Doctor Needs A Blog Doctor

March 2, 2006 By 6 Comments

The Rug Doctor may find need to communicate its side of the story whether their side is good, bad or ugly.  Visiting their website we find absolutely no press release or other communication regarding its recent story about firing an employee for rushing to the side of his wife who was dying of cancer.  They have since offered the man his job back, but this could be a devastating story to the brand of The Rug Doctor.  If you don’t think it will, just think about every woman, or man for that matter, that uses their service finding out that they don’t look kindly upon their employees taking time away from scrubbing rugs to be with a dying spouse. 

If The Rug Doctor had a blog, they could explain the company position on the firing and subsequent offer to rehire the man.  It could be a small misunderstanding that could cost the company a large stack of revenue.  If it is a big misunderstanding, it may be lessened by explaining their side of what happened.  The MSM of course will not succumb to the big corporate line here, and may be painting the picture wrong.

The Rug Doctor could also be mining the blogosphere right now looking for what conversations are going on about the subject firing and comment about their side of the story.  I wonder if their PR people will run across this blog post and perhaps tell us their plan.  I would bet not.  If a company will fire a man for being beside his dying wife, I doubt they care too much about the opinion of a blog doctor.

[via The Denver Channel]

Filed Under: Blog Mining, Blogs and PR, Companies Needing Blogs

Don’t Be Too Late To Join The Fun

March 2, 2006 By Leave a Comment

I am sitting here lamenting the fact that I want to be in Palo Alto right now.  The New Communications Forum has been kicked off by Rebecca Blood and I would love to be there to absorb the information that will surely be discussed.  I was unable to procure arrangements for the trip until it was too late.  I am a procrastinator of the first order, and this was the cause of missing out on all the fun.  I always intended to go, but for one reason or another, I always had an excuse to put it off.  Now I sit here angry about missing out on the forum.

Don’t let procrastination make you miss out on all the fun at the Blogonomics Blog Cruise 2006.  Don’t be fooled into thinking that the cruise is not for another 7 months.  Early bird pricing for the event ends March 15, 2006.  That is in the next two weeks!  Don’t be sitting at home wondering what all the bloggers are doing in the Caribbean, be one of the people celebrating the sunshine and excellent blog conference.

Filed Under: Blogonomics Conference, Conferences/Trade Shows