Having a couple of relevant keywords in your Google Alerts can help with finding topics for your blog

I know there are people who blog on a daily basis and even more frequently and there have been times, usually on a Sunday or a Monday, when I’ve told myself “this week!”. The statistical reality is that over the years I have averaged just over 3 blog posts a week on this site.

I console myself that:

a. this is not my only blog, so if I take account of my blog posts elsewhere I probably do post on average closer to five days a week, and

b. a lot of my posts are a lot longer than those of some of the daily or several times a day bloggers

I’m not saying my longer posts are necessarily better, brevity being the soul of wit and all that.  But I have to admit I do perk up whenever I read or hear another social media/blogging consultant say that about three times a week is a good number for a business blog, even if they also advocate more frequent postings.

And even with an average of three posts a week here, rather than five or more, I do get stuck sometimes about what to post on.

Today, for instance.

Here I am, end of the working week – although that’s often a flexible concept for those of us who work from home – and so far I’ve done only one post here this week.

Then I thought, I know, Google Alerts.

For any reader who doesn’t know about Google Alerts, it’s an excellent, free service that basically keeps watch on the Web and alerts you when a word or phrase you are interested in is used somewhere.

I have a few words in my Alerts relating to home based business. Today, one of those had an alert for a very interesting, in fact impressive UK based site, Enterprise Nation, which focuses on home based business and whose founder and editor is one Emma Jones.

Sometimes I get quite disheartened, looking for blogs which are about home based business but are not just plugging office furniture or some get-rich-quick-in-your-night-attire capers.

So finding Enterprise Nation, whose tagline is “a free resource to help you start and grow your business at home”, made my day.

And yes, I got an idea for a blog post. But then I got chatting here about Google Alerts and finding Enterprise Nation, and now I see that the post is quite long enough, so the blog post idea can keep for another day. Soon!

Actually, there’s another idea, which is not original but which I could use – break up some of my longer posts into shorter ones, thus in one stroke

a. lifting my batting average

b. pleasing those who like shorter posts.

If you have ever found yourself coming up a bit short in the “things to blog about” department, why not try Google Alerts? And if it works for you – or if it doesn’t – do please share your results here.

I need a new business card and I’m thinking through what I need to have on it and what the basic look will be. My existing one is a 2007 quick adaptation I did online of a professionally designed card which was originally done about four years ago.

The old card is pictured here.

With a few offline events coming up I really do need something more up to date.

I’m taking this opportunity to figure out just what role I see the card as playing in my marketing and what I want the card to communicate about me and what I do.

That process is making me do some serious questioning of the whole business of business cards.

I’m by no stretch of the imagination a graphic designer, but for reasons outlined below I’m casting caution to the winds and designing this card myself, with the help of a couple of basic tools, Microsoft Publisher (part of Microsoft Office) the free, downloadable Irfanview image software and online tools provided by business card printers (details below).

This is a longer post than I’d orginally intended. Its length is partly due to its reflecting over 20 years experience of using a variety of business cards, with at best mixed results. I’m hoping the post might be helpful to someone, sometime, although as it’s about a DIY exercise I’m pretty sure it won’t win me any friends in the business card design game!

Memories of cards past

I’ve had a lot of business cards in my time, first in the public service once I reached a level of seniority where it was deemed appropriate for me to have a card, and then in business. In the public service I think it was a status thing, kind of a right to show off my title once I reached the executive level.

When I started in business, getting a business card was one of the things  you did. And you went to networking functions or meetings and exchanged cards with the other people there. I think the theory was that this was a way to attract business, although as I reflect on that now there is no single instance that springs to mind where I could say my business card did in fact ever play a key role in attracting new business.

That reminds me of the gag I heard a few years ago: “Did you hear about the consultants’ Christmas party? They all had a drink and exchanged business cards.”

I didn’t have or need a business card when I was a school teacher or when I drove a taxi. No point. I believe I needed one as a consultant and coach. I am pretty sure I still need one.

But what kind of card am I going to have? What words and other information will it have on it?

I’ve done some online searching for ideas, with mixed results (some links at the end of this post) and the realization that I have to figure out what will work for me, rather than rely on others’ ideas of what “should” be done. My ideas on that have changed in recent years and in fact my thoughts on the subject are still changing (evolving I hope).

My pre-conceived notions challenged: Bob Burg on the uses of cards

My ideas about business cards and their value for business started to change when I read master networker Bob Burg’s book Endless Referrals. Bob is not big on cards, or at least on how cards often get used.

He certainly doesn’t have time for the way they get used often at networking functions. If you have ever been to a networking breakfast where a person you’ve never met arrives and sprays their cards around the table like a dealer at a casino you will get the idea. Waste of time.

Bob says there are three uses for a business card: 1) you could win something (you know, the fishbowl thing at the local restaurant, or some other “email address catcher” receptacle at an expo); 2) you could get a lead (he is less than enthusiastic about this one); 3) you can get others’ cards. This third reason – to get others’ cards – is, Bob says, the only one that matters. “As far as I’m concerned” he writes “this is the one truly valuable benefit of business cards…”.

Although he is not what you would call an enthusiast, he’s not completely down on the idea of business cards:

Although I make light of business cards, and generally find they are not worth much more than the paper stock on which they are printed, they can have some value when used correctly.

Another challenge: The Case of the Disappearing Cards

I’ve started asking myself and the occasional person who will listen “Why do so many people not have cards any more?”

Because increasingly I’m noticing that people don’t have them, especially people in Internet/social media related business, with the notable exception of people who are in that arena but more in design, advertising and marketing fields.

Is it because business cards are so 20th century, so analog, so uncool? Is it a sign of a quiet revolution against the tide of newsletters, promos, last chance offers, exciting news that flood our email boxes in response to all those cards we’ve given out at breakfasts, in the bowls at expos, at business gatherings?

Or is it because a lot of us feel that we and our contact details are now so findable online that we don’t need the expense and inconvenience of having cards designed and printed and then having to carry them around, against the moment when someone at a function says “Do you have a card?” Or say we meet a business person from Japan.

Awkward thought: am I at risk,  if I fall in with a bunch of geeks, of looking like a real doofus if I ask for or produce business cards? Oh the embarrassment!

And what about the planet?

No doubt because I work mostly online, I always seem to have these days more business cards than I need. And the ones I have are now out of date, using a title I no longer use. And with that thing of it being only marginally more expensive to have a thousand printed than five hundred, I hate that moment when, sooner or later, I have to ditch about 600 cards I’ll never have use for again because the information on them is out of date.

Not to mention the speed of change in technology and business

Business cards, it seems to me, used to have a longer life than they are likely to have now. Twitter didn’t exist when the first version of my current card emerged and when I updated it in 2007 it did not occur to me to put my Twitter handle on the card, whereas now I’m doing so with my next card.

I also used then the title “Blogging Evangelist” which I don’t use now, not because I don’t promote blogging for business – I decidedly do – but because it’s not the focus of my business in the way it was back then.

The new card project

Taking all those considerations aboard, I do believe that, for the time being at least, I still need a card. But I’m going with temporary and home-built design, using some basic tools to get a result which I believe will work for me.

These are the principles I’ve applied:

Front of card

• include photo (a feature of the older and current card commented on positively, many times)
• my name in a font size easy to read at a glance
• my preferred contact details: mobile (cell) number | Twitter @ handle | email address
• primary web/blog address
• tagline
• no title (I find using titles triggers pigeonholing)

Back of card

• what I do in social media – strategy
• a quote about the importance of strategy
• room for recipient to jot a note
• matt finish (current card I had foolishly made gloss – no one could write on it!)

What’s not there

• other blog/web sites (potentially confusing)
• landline number (not always at base but usually have mobile)
• fax number (no discernible usefulness)
• coaching information (again, potentially confusing – thinking about a separate card)

Design and printing I’ve used Microsoft Publisher for the card design, Irfanview to adjust the picture, Click Business Cards (based in North Sydney, Australia) for the printing.

My intention is to do another version before my next overseas trip, with the international phone number (country code etc). In the US, I’ve found the people at Overnight Prints really helpful: but I had to learn the hard way that “Overnight” was a brand, not a literal promise – it was still speedy by the standards then (and perhaps still) prevailing in Australia and very economical.

Both Click Business Cards and Overnight Prints provide really helpful online tools. With each, you can use one of their templates or use their blank format and upload your own image/text, as I’m doing with the new card.

My new cards will not be certainly not as elegant as the old ones, but I am confident they will be more practical in helping communicate what I do in the social media space.

I quite liked the old black background but it was never part of an overall branding and in fact the card I’m producing now is more aligned with the very plain style of my main web/blog sites.

Some links for stimulating card design ideas (some fairly zany, which could work for some businesses):

• Neil Patel has a great post on really creative cards.
• David Airey has a thought-provoking post and comment thread on the question of good and bad design for business cards.
• Jacci Howard Bear offers on About.com a  list of the 11 Parts of a Business Card.
• Some good ideas are also in the article Business Card Design and Printing, by an Australian graphic design company.

I welcome any suggestions as to how, within the parameters I’ve indicated above, I could improve on my new design or comments on how I’m proceeding with this project. As there is no cost other than my time in any re-design, and a fairly modest cost for another print run, I’m quite open to practical suggestions. And anyway I’ll be doing a new run when I’m next planning to travel internationally.

As part of the process of getting back into blogging more frequently, more regularly, I’m giving some consideration to dictating my blog posts, or at least the first drafts, rather than typing them up from scratch.

To that end I’ve just re-installed a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS) (version 7), which I purchased a few years ago, tried for a while and gave up on because I found I could get my thoughts down faster by typing.

So if it didn’t work before, why am I going down that path again?

It’s a combination of reasons. I’ve identified five for starters.

• I’ve found lately that sometimes I seem to be able to get moving on a train of thought when I speak into a recorder than when I sit down to type on the computer.
• Last year I read a very positive review of Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 9 and in fact toyed with the idea of upgrading at that time.
• I read some time ago a column in a local newspaper where the columnist, who has it seems a large readership, declared that he never wrote/typed his columns: all were dictated.
• I recall that the computer I was using when I first tried DNS was perhaps not up to the task, in terms of system configuration. I now have a better-equipped machine, which seems to have specs up to the challenge. At least for the version of DNS I’m testing at the moment.

And the fifth reason is the conversations I’ve had with business owners who were interested in blogging, were diffident about writing but when I asked could they talk about their business and/or their industry for ten minutes or so, three to four times a week, all said they could.

So if this experiment works, it could be helpful not only for me but for others who like blogging but are inhibited, to a greater or lesser degree, by the writing/typing aspect.

I have to say the experiment almost did not get off the ground. The re-install of DNS 7.0 was not a straightforward matter. It got to a certain point and then there was a window with a blue background but no text. I tried to uninstall so I could re-install but the uninstall process stalled also! So I initiated the install process again and when the blue window came up just closed it, hoping for the best. In fact I was able to then start the program and do the hardware and reading tests and the tutorials without further incident. Not a perfect solution, perhaps, but nothing seems to have blown up or melted down yet.

So now I feel I’m ready to start.

Yes, I know DNS is now up to Version 10, but before I lash out on an upgrade I want to test the version I have to see if that works for me and on my computer.  Then if I decide to upgrade, I have worked out, based on my research on the subject last year (when DNS 9 was the latest version), that the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred model (vs Standard or Professional) is the most appropriate for my requirements

In all of this I am mindful of the advice of a colleague who is very knowledgeable about speech recognition software and the need to have system requirements adequate to the task. I certainly don’t want to put something on the computer that is not only not going to work properly but create a risk of the whole system coming unstuck.

From what I can read on the Dragon site, the computer I use on my desk, a notebook which I use as a desktop machine most of the time, which has Windows XP installed, will work for Version 10, but experience tells me to go cautiously.

For now, I will see how I get along with Version 7 and provide some progress (I hope!) reports here as I go.

Advice and helpful hints will be received with gratitude!

Update: May 12, 2009:  I tried to use DNS 7 but got a bit frustrated, then, encouraged by the comments here decided to go for the latest version.  Bid for one on ebay but clearly someone wanted to pay more. Then took the suggestion of
Derek from Nuance (see comment below) and ordered the upgrade, which is at an excellent price and is now, according to Nuance, winging its way to me. I will report further, probably in a separate post, once I have installed and started using it. Thanks to everyone for the helpful comments!

I admit it. Keeping email under control is not my long suit. I know it’s important and I have listened attentively while experts told me how to manage it, but I have not had great success in applying the theory.

Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that I am not one of those people who always has everything in order. Every now and again I blitz my intray and general desk area so that I know where things are and am able to work more effectively. But as for following a really ordered system, I don’t score highly.

I’ve given up envying the naturally – or trained to be – orderly people who, if you believe them, never have a piece of paper or any other item out of place.

And the days when I had a secretary to do this sort of thing for me are long gone.

But I still need to do something about the email “pile”.

Which was why I was very pleased to see in my RSS feed today a link to the post by Matt Cutts from Google on how to Start the Year with an Empty Inbox.

This is in the “not necessarily the most efficient in the long term, but fast and painless” category. Basically, Matt shows us how, in three easy steps, we can archive our current Gmail inbox contents (for me it was mostly stuff I know I will never get around to reading) but archiving it in such a way as to be able to find it all again in an “oldinbox”, work on individual items as we choose – and even, if the loss of our inbox contents grieves us, to undo the whole process.

I’ve used a similar process with my Outlook mailbox, for quite a while now.

Sneaky trick it may be and I’m sure it’s not in any “How to Manage Your Email” course, but it works for me.

And re-visiting my Gmail inbox just now, a couple of hours after clearing it, I saw just one item, which I did not need, and got great satisfaction from deleting it. Now the game will be to keep the inbox clear. I know that I will have to check out and deal with a number of items in the “oldinbox”, but I can’t see that being a problem.

Feels good.

The online application Wordle has been available for quite a while now, but until today I had not thought of a way I could make use of it, other than for its entertainment/distraction value.

Then I read a post by my friend Noric Dilanchian, a detailed “how to” on preparing proposals and reviews. Noric is very creative in using images to complement the words in his posts. In the particular post about proposals (which by the way is well worth reading and bookmarking for future reference), Noric had used an image generated by the online application Wordle.

That was a lightbulb moment for me: I realized that Wordle would be a very useful resource for blog posting.

I sometimes spend quite a lot of time looking for an image that will go with a particular post and whose use is not restricted by copyright. Which basically means either using my own photography or an image which has a Creative Commons licence. So if I don’t have a suitable pic of my own I go trawling through flickr, with the Advanced Search option turned on and the Creative Commons box checked, or through stock.xchange or use Zemanta, which basically does the search for me on flickr (Zemanta finds other content too). Sorting and choosing can take time.

The lightbulb moment was that with Wordle I now had another, quite speedy way to acquire an image which is covered by a Creative Commons licence. It’s literally as simple as dropping some text into a text box and pressing a button. Or you can enter the URL of any blog, blog feed, or any other web page that has an Atom or RSS feed, or enter a del.icio.us tag.

I tested the Wordle system, first by copying and pasting in the text of a blog post from yesterday on Des Walsh dot Com. The post focuses on social media expert Shel Israel, currently visiting China, and makes reference to statistics about bloggers in China.

The picture demonstrates how the software gives more prominence, through gradations of font size, to the words and phrases that occur more frequently in the blog post.

I tested also the way Wordle outputs an image based on the tags from a del.icio.us username, in this case with my coachdes account at del.icio.us Would you guess from the image below that I tend to do more tagging on the terms socialmedia, blogging, blogworld08 and, a bit less, SocialNetworking and Twitter, than on some others?

At first you might have to play around a bit with Wordle to get the hang of it. But it’s not complex and there is a detailed FAQ section as well as a forum.

You can also do a lot of manipulation of the image in terms of language, font, layout and color.

It is a condition of using the images that you provide a link to the Wordle site. One way to do that is to use the HTML code provided when you create an image. I had a problem with that and it may help someone if I share what that was and how I solved it.

The problem was that the image generated by the code provided was too small to be useful for the blog post. I could have put image size tags in the HTML but did not know the relativities of height and width and did not want to waste time experimenting, if there was a better way. To illustrate, the code for the image above made from the del.icio.us is:

<a href="http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/309690/Des_Walsh%27s_del.icio.us_tags"
title="Wordle: Des Walsh&#39;s del.icio.us tags"><img
src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/309690/Des_Walsh%27s_del.icio.us_tags"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd"></a>

When I embedded that in the code for this page I gott this:

That would have been ok if I had only wanted a small image, but I wanted a larger one.

The solution was staring me in the face on the page where I had created the image, but in fact I found the answer on the FAQ page, where it was pointed out that I could do a screenshot and save the image in that way. Note: that meant that for publication, as in a blog post, I had to take the extra step of including a link to the Wordle site at http://wordle.net – if you just use the supplied html code the link to the Wordle site is already included.

The image at the beginning of this post was made when I had completed most of the text, using some of the keywords from the text, then doing a screenshot of the image generated by Wordle, saving, adjusting and uploading it. Kind of a pictorial summary of what follows in the text.

There are several screen image capture applications. I use Gadwin PrintScreen, which is free to download, then save the image to Irfanview, also a free download, adjust the size to what I want, save as a jpg (jpeg) file and upload it to the blog site.

I hope you find this post helpful. If you do use Wordle to create an image for a blog post, please feel free to leave a comment here with a link to the post.