Starting a Conversation Offline

This spring I’ve made it a mission to reconnect with the people doing business outside the Internet. They represent most of the people on this blue planet. It only makes sense that to grow my business, most of my customers will come from that group. I want to understand how they view the Internet. So I started finding gatherings where I could have conversations and learn things. I went looking for patterns and what they seem to reveal.

What I see is a huge gap.

You’ve probably seen it too.

Many business people I met seem to see the Internet as interactive TV. They imagine it works something like a television news room. The virtual connectedness and the personal / business relationships don’t come through. What they describe is an endeavor separate, possibly equal, but unrelated to what they do.

They still hear the word blog and the look in their eyes gets a little glassy. So I’m off to BlogWorld to give a presentation. Sure hope to meet you there, but be prepared, I’m going to be asking . . .

How do you tell people of the benefits of blogging?

Sure am interested in your answer.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

History Has a Way of Repeating Itself

A recent article in the NY Times went on in detail about the digital sweatshop — bloggers who work at home paid to write by the post. It held up the deaths of two bloggers and the heart attack of a third. Then it followed that with quotes by big-name bloggers to underscore the point that blogging isn’t good for our health.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

It distressed me to read this, because I see the reality behind it.
But it distressed me more, because I see the misperceptions glaring back.

We need to see reality to make healthy choices about stress.

Though it uses the word, emerging the article makes blogging sound like a fully grown industry. It’s not.

Business Pioneers — A Blogging Gold Rush

Blogging is not an industry no matter how we dress it up or talk about it. An industry has a structure that has established itself with conventions and models that prove themselves time. We’re still living in “carve a path” pioneer times. The business of blogging is still trying to prove viability.

Lately it seems I meet three sorts — blogging gold rushers, business pioneers, and those who watch.

During the gold rush, some folks went with dreams of striking it rich by panning the water and having luck. Some folks chronicled the adventure. Some folks watched. Business pioneers — folks with plans and business models — built places for people to eat, sleep, buy goods, and get entertained. Fewer folks, business pioneers with determination and long vision, built railroads, communication systems, dams, and business empires. Some folks worked for companies who were doing those things. Some of those workers got paid well. Some did not. In between them all were shysters who came to make fast cash and run.

Some folks won. Some folks cheated. Some folks reported events. Some folks lost. Some folks didn’t participate at all.

Where are you in this blogging gold rush?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Have a plan! Work with Liz!!
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