Posts in Blogging

Why Blog?

Blogging Meandering Genius 1 Comment

Some people use blogging as a poor substitute for advertising. They provide just enough detail to catch your interest and then they hit you with their book or business. Sometimes they want you to sign up for something “free” so they can spam the heck out of you till eternity.

This blog is not for you.

Why should someone blog? It’s not about who reads what you write…in fact if no one reads this, so what? I do it for free so if you read it great…if not, I’m not out anything. But the value for me is that I put my thoughts together, jumbled as they might be, and record them for all to see. It’s about sharing too much of your soul, because anything less just isn’t enough. It’s thinking through and idea and formulating the heck out of it. Misspellings and poor grammar are just the cost of the journey.

So, why blog? Do it for yourself first and maybe someone out there can take something from it. Possibly you come up with good future book or business idea. Or, maybe some corporate mogul out there will offer you millions of dollars to work for them. But do it for yourself and leave the adds to Google.

Content Marketing FAIL

Blogging Publishing Speaking Strategic Communication

What is content marketing? I’m sure you have heard the term and some know it really well, but many are getting it wrong.

If you have a business or are a professional with a blog, then you probably are touching on content marketing. There are many other ways to leverage content marketing.

Basically, content marketing is freely sharing of good information either through your business blog, in business documents (like a statement), in a free webinar, etc.

Here are some keys to it:

1. It is free. You don’t have to pay for it, you don’t have to sign up with your email to get spammed for the rest of your life, no one is going to psycho dial you to see if you are interested in buying their product or service. It is free.

2. It is information that you can use. The article is complete and good information that someone can apply. Not only does it bring up good points, but it is complete and has value. Posting a couple of sentences highlighting a problem, but not providing any advice or detail is not content–that’s a tease. All you are trying to do is convince me to ask for more information (see item 1).

3. Weaving in your product or service as part of the content is nothing short of an advertisement. It’s spam. You haven’t figured out content marketing. Having a bio at the top or bottom with infomation about your product or service is content marketing

I have seen a lot of this non-content marketing lately on LinkedIn and Facebook. Word to the wise…you are not doing yourself a favor. People are not stupid. If you want to share information, share it, if you want to sell something stop trying to disguise it as content when it is not.

Haven’t written in a while

Blogging

I would like to apologize for not posting in a while. In September 2014, I started a PhD Program with Walden. My first quarter was brutal! I find myself writing constantly in class and have little desire to write my blog. In 2015, I set a goal to get back into blogging, even if it was occasionally…not the blog a day approach I had before Walden. For those that follow my blog, I hope to ramp up my activities, but understand that time is precious. Thanks for reading.

John

A Continuous Improvement Culture isn’t built in a day–it takes strategy

Blogging Process Improvement

Building a Continuous Improvement Culture begins with the development of a strategy.  This blog continues our discussion with National Graduate School.  In this blog, I provide a strategic framework to help you develop your own culture change.  Although I can’t tell you everything you need to develop–I can help you better understand the strategic steps you need to take and why you need to take them.

http://ngs.edu/2014/05/27/building-culture-continuous-improvement-crafting-continuous-improvement-strategy/

Leaders set the environment for a culture of continuous improvement

Blogging Change Management Leadership Organizational Commitment Process Improvement

Everyone always wants to blame the failure to set a culture, or a bad culture, on leadership.  Leaders are responsible for setting the culture, but it takes more than leadership.  That being said, learn how leader set the environment that allows for a continuous improvement culture.

http://ngs.edu/2014/05/16/building-a-culture-of-continuous-improvement-culture-begins-with-leadership/

Blogging Weekly with National Graduate School

Blogging Business Consulting Change Management Leadership Meandering Genius Organizational Commitment Performance Measurement Process Improvement Strategic Communication Strategic Planning

john knottsHappy Cinco de Mayo!

I am now a weekly guest blogger with National Graduate School.  Please check out my blog there.

Follow us as we explore how to build a culture of continuous improvement.

Building a culture of continuous improvement isn’t easy and can take a considerable amount of time.  However, it’s very possible and results can be felt within weeks of embarking on the journey.  Over John’s 25 plus years of experience, he’s developed a model rooted in strategy and designed to build this culture in any organization.  Join John and National Graduate School as we weekly explore this model and ways to drive this type of culture.  We look forward to your thoughts and inputs along this journey, so join us and watch for our future blogs about once a week with the tag line “CIC.”

http://ngs.edu/2014/05/01/building-culture-continuous-improvement/

Powerful influencer — Jim Clifton

Blogging Business Consulting Leadership Meandering Genius Organizational Commitment

Readers,

I want to share this morning one of the most powerful influencers I have come across in a long time.

His name is Jim Clifton and he is the CEO of Gallup.

On LinkedIn, he has a regular blog that highlights the problems that not only he sees, but that his companies measures.

His messages are extremely powerful. Please take the time to follow him and read some of his stuff.

My best blogging ideas

Blogging Meandering Genius

Lately I’ve been getting my best ideas for my blog in the shower. What’s bad iOS that the next morning when I’m sitting down in front of my iPad, I can’t remember the great ideas I had the day before.

When I would sit down to blog, the ideas generally flowed.

Then I discovered that I would have ideas on the ride home from work every day and sometimes during the work day. To capture those ideas I would quickly jot them down on my notepad on my phone.

That was working for a while, but lately, the ideas haven’t been cropping up at times when I can write them down. In the shower, I don’t have anything to write with.

As a matter of fact, this blog idea came from the shower yesterday and I have mentally reminded myself regularly of it since. I was sure I would forget it. 🙂

When do your best ideas come and how do you capture them?

Downside of blogging daily

Blogging Meandering Genius

If you were looking for my blog yesterday, I missed it too. I was a bit under the weather Monday and not able to muster up the posting strength yesterday morning…sorry. That’s what happens when you blog daily versus writing several blogs ahead of time and scheduling them.

If you blog every day, even if you have a set time that you blog, sometimes it can get to be a bit challenging to write every day.

Sunday, I normally have a leadership blog that I post, but this weekend was so busy that I never found the time to make it a reality. On Saturday; however, I did write a blog that I scheduled on Monday.

That was good because Monday I was pretty run down and stayed home and caught up on rest. I wasn’t feeling up to blogging, but I had already scheduled a blog for the morning, so I was good.

Tuesday rolled around, and even though I felt better, I was still pretty tired in the morning. I didn’t have anything scheduled and found myself out of time in the morning when I normally bog.

Thus, I wasn’t able to put something together yesterday. For someone that blogs daily, this is an issue, because I feel as if I let readers down. I’m sure no one noticed, but these little misses can quickly fall into routine if not brought into check.

A potential way for a daily blogger to deal with issues like this is to not schedule blogs, but write some blogs that sit in draft and wait for the day when you just don’t have it in you.

Consider the morning several weeks ago when I was being attacked by the allergy monster and I really couldn’t think straight. That would have been a perfect time to pull out a draft blog, brush it off, and post it as if it was written that day.

I think that daily blogging is a great way to engage the brain every day, but there are always going to be those days when you just can’t get to it or don’t have it in you. Preparing for these situations prevents little slips that no one but you notice, but are important just the same.

A way to better blogging

Blogging Meandering Genius

Do you blog often, or do you want to blog more often? Are you interested in blogging, but don’t know where to start?

There is a way to make blogging daily easier. It just takes a little work up front.

I have two running blogs that I write on Saturday and Sunday. I use this approach with them every weekend.

How do I do it?

What I have done is create a template in Word with key items that I want to happen every time I blog.

I have a title and subtitle for the blog. The title is something catchy and the subtitle is more descriptive. I actually have a blogging outline plan for each blog and all that is listed is the title and subtitle. That’s enough for me to generate my blog every week. An important point is to keep your title to under 75 characters. This ensures that when you tweet the title, the URL that is generated doesn’t cause the title to become shortened. Since all of my blogs automatically post to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, this is important.

The next section is a short synopsis of the article. I don’t write this until I am done writing the blog. After I publish the blog, I use the LinkedIn button at the bottom of the blog to share it with several key groups on LinkedIn. I copy the subtitle in the title blog and the synopsis in the detail block. This provides enough information to see if the reader is interested in the blog. Sharing my posts to these groups is what generates most of my readers to my blog.

Then I have the body of the message. Since I have a running blog, the opening and the closing are always the same and are prewritten. I link back to the first blog in the series so readers that come in later in the series can still follow the line of blogging.

The first thing, after the opening, is the subtitle. Then I write the body of the blog. This is where the magic happens.

At the bottom, I have a section for related links. If I don’t hyperlink items in the body of the text, then is find at least three related links for the audience.

Last, I have a section at the bottom for meta tags. I type in the regular tags and save the template, but then I add tags to the list after I write the article. This ensures I get the spelling right on the tags and I come up with as many as possible.

When it is time to write a blog, I open up the template and save it as the title of my blog for the week. Then I just start filling in the blank areas and updating information as required. After it is written and proofed, I copy it into WordPress, add graphics, and publish.

Makes the daily blogging activity pretty easy.

If you professionally blog, this will help you with daily idea generation, sticking to a line of thought and on topic, and ensure you keep a record of your blogs for potential use later.

For both of my weekend blogs, at some point, I plan to combine all the posts and put them into a book. Having all the posts helps to make this happen.