Adam’s Peace

This is not part of the Peaceful Virtues series…

The purpose of this post is to get feedback about the series that doesn’t fit within the topic of the virtues, and to share some thoughts that just don’t fit within the series.

For instance, you can leave comments about the posting frequency, the wording, content structure, etc.

For those who were hoping to have another lesson on peace, I urge you to spend the next thirty minutes studying this image, provided by Vitor of Fractal Forest. As I mentioned in the conclusion to the series, I am already planning my path for future growth, and this is the first step.

I urge everybody who wants to leave a comment to stop reading when I tell them to, scroll to the bottom of the page (or follow the link in your feed reader), and post your immediate impressions of the series.

First impressions are just as important as the impressions you form after gaining further insight. Countless times, people’s impressions change as they gain more information about what goes on behind the curtain, and they look at the impressions that other people have expressed as well. I’m hoping to catch as many of the “raw” thoughts about the series that I can.

At this point, I’m looking for comments about presentation, pacing, posting frequency, and any improvements that I could make in any future series that I write.

So, here’s the point to stop reading, head over to the comments, and leave your raw impressions.

When I first started writing this series, it came immediately after a huge breakthrough in my personal development. I was finding that I was able to slip into a peaceful mindset easily. This realization dawned on me very quickly, and when I took the time to study it, I found that there were four pieces that needed to be in place before I could find inner peace. These, of course, formed the four peaceful virtues.

As I studied the virtues more, I found that they were also attached to the past, present, future, and were timeless in scope, with honesty, of course, being timeless. Since I was posting two articles per week in the series, and there were a total of six articles, this gave me three weeks of additional study between the first and last post. I also noticed my mood change as I wrote each new article… When I wrote the introduction, these virtues were still a very new realization, and I was approaching them with wonder. As I ended the series, I was more concerned with giving analogies to help people understand, more than I was in awe at the realization. I’m not certain if that helped or hurt the series, only you can tell me that.

Also, towards the end of the series, my thoughts started turning towards what was to come next.

I experimented a lot with the way that I write the articles as well. Normally, when I write, I commit the cardinal sin of simply sitting down at the computer with a vague idea, and I just let the words flow out onto the keyboard. This is, admittedly, a very disjointed way to write, and often produces my signature posts, which I describe as bent monoliths. Each post is large, and often goes off in tangents that are sometimes unnecessary before I finally arrive at the point.

After some feedback, I attempted to outline some of the posts before hand… I already knew what points I wanted to make, but I almost never know how I want to support those points until I start writing. Unfortunately, this didn’t work out quite the way I wanted it to… For the final posts, I made one third of the outline, then just started writing without consulting the outline at all.

Right after writing the introduction, I saw a post on ProBlogger.net about how to build RSS readership… Darren’s point was to make people want to return by pointing out that there were going to be more great posts that people simply would not want to miss. Ironically, having a series of posts was one of the ways to increase this anticipation, so I began tracking my RSS subscriber numbers more closely. The results were great: Previous to writing the series, I had an all-time high RSS subscriber count at 41, and within 11 days, I had a new all-time high of 49… My weekly average before the series was 34, and now that average is at 42. It looks like I picked up 8 more subscribers, which really might not seem like much. Considering that this about a 19% increase in three weeks, though, this is very dramatic.

So, to those of you who subscribed while I was writing this series, welcome.

Another trend that I noticed, traffic wise, is that some of my posts were submitted to StumbleUpon. To those who submitted articles, thank you. I did indeed notice, and I am appreciative.

I am also noticing more and more traffic coming through search engines, which means that I’m starting to be seen as an authority, according to Google.

Now, I’m going to say something that may surprise some people:

I am not going to concentrate on StumbleUpon or search engine traffic.

The reasons are of quality and laziness. In order to concentrate on SU and Google traffic, I have to change my posting style… I would need to write shorter posts that appeal to the first time visitors. There is nothing wrong with first time visitors… In fact, everybody who is reading this either was or is a first time visitor. Something about the way that I write caught your attention though… Perhaps you appreciate my bent monoliths of posts, and enjoy seeing the unexpected twists. I know that I enjoy them when I see them.

One thing that I have noticed, out of those who leave comments, is that each person tends to enjoy reading and inner reflection. This might not be true of everybody, and it’s unfair of me to generalize anybody, but this is the overall trend that I see. The people who leave comments are used to reading until the climax of a story, and enjoy the twists and turns that people who don’t read don’t enjoy. (For instance, where is Tom Bombadil in the Lord of the Rings movies? He’s not there, because he’s an unexpected turn that doesn’t entice people who watch movies… but he certainly intrigues people who love to read.)

I don’t think that I could be a new reporter. They write away from the point, out of necessity. They start by explaining exactly what happened, then they move on to points that apply less and less to the main event. I’m too used to reading stories, and so that is how I write. I try to start by describing what the story is about, of course, but then I quickly move off to a tangent, and pull that tangent into the main idea.

And now that I have pulled back the curtain a little, explaining my process of writing, please feel free to read everybody else’s comments, and leave another comment, this time knowing the full story.

I have to admit, posting this is kind of selfish of me. I’m hoping that people will take my advice and apply it here…

Fortunately, though, the advice here doesn’t only apply here. It can be used for almost any website, especially those websites that provide information as their primary product. In fact, there is only one difference between how to support an information website and how to support a product-based website.

Alright, that’s enough rambling off-topic from me… On with the on-topic rambling!

Why You Would Support a Website

I really don’t recommend supporting just any website that you see on the Internets. First, you should ask if supporting the website will help you in any way. Ask yourself, are you ever coming back for any reason? If you say yes, then it is time to consider giving some support. Making a website is cheap… Technically savvy people can make a ‘free’ website, simply by using their own existing computer and the same internets connection that they would be paying for anyways for their private uses. I don’t recommend this, even for technically savvy people, because home-based computers and internets connections aren’t reliable enough, and if something goes wrong, you’re the only one to blame. (I hosted the precursor to this site on my home computer for a year, and I’d gladly pay someone else to manage the connection issues.)

Even with how cheap it is to create a website, it still has a cost. That connection to the internets still costs money, even if a person would pay for it anyways, and keeping a server running and connected eats up valuable time. Maintaining and updating the website itself also takes time, which could be used in creating a personal business or in advancing a career. In the early stages, a website eats up a lot of money, both in terms of maintenance costs and in terms of opportunities lost from spending time doing the maintenance yourself.

So, if you want a website to continue to exist, it makes sense to support it. If you want the website to improve, then it makes even more sense to support it. I know that I can definitely use the money, after messing up my finances these past couple of weeks. (Payday is today, and with our bills, and a complete lack of savings (which we could have had, if I didn’t eat out for lunch during the week, or if I hadn’t bought my wife the rug she wanted), we’ll have $14 to spend on groceries over the next two weeks. Yeah, I messed up big time.)

Once a website is profitable (i.e., a person can make more money maintaining their website than working at a traditional job), the improvements start to cascade… Now that the maintainer no longer has to balance their time precariously, updates and improvements can happen a lot more quickly.

So, here are five things that you can do to support a website:

Do Not Click the Ads

That’s right, I said don’t click them… It may sound contrary to the purpose of those ads, but there’s a very valid reason…

In order for advertising to work, people have to make purchases… Otherwise, the advertising becomes a hole that the manufacturer/reseller is throwing money into. If the seller isn’t making money through advertising, they drop the ad service, and the profits made by the ad company, as well as by the publishers, drop as well.

If you see an ad, and you think that there is a good chance of you making a purchase, then it is alright to click on an ad. Of course, honestly evaluate the company and product… Simply because someone has a good ad doesn’t mean that the product is right for you.

The act of clicking ads just to drive up a specific website’s profits does more to hurt everybody than it does to help that one publisher. Again, please don’t do it.

Donate

This is the one difference between a product based website and an information based website. With product based websites, simply make a purchase. Information sites, however, don’t have the luxury of having exclusive control over items… Information can be copied and distributed with very minor costs, despite its costs to make that first copy.

If you want to see more information, or see the quality of information improve, look for a donate button. (My button is at the end of each post.) The reasoning is the same as above: if a person can make enough money to survive simply by creating information, they’ll have more time and energy to work on it.

If you can’t find a donate button, find the contact form and send the webmaster a note… Few people will turn down a donation, and having direct contact with the publisher will help in other ways, as seen below.

Contribute Value

If you don’t have the money to donate, or if you recognize that donating wouldn’t be the most helpful thing that you can do ($20 would make a huge difference in my life, but would make little difference to Steve Pavlina), then find a way to improve the value of the site directly. For blogs, this could be done by leaving helpful comments or submitting articles. Most non-blog information sites also have articles, even if they do not have a way for people to comment. Try submitting articles to those sites as well. Of course, some people like having absolute creative control of their sites, so this isn’t an option everywhere, but if you recognize that a rejection to publish an article is almost never personal, it doesn’t hurt to help.

Also, if you notice a typo, make a note of it and let the webmaster know. A lot of people get turned off very quickly by typos, so by helping the webmaster become aware of them, you’re helping the site retain visitors. The same goes for broken links… If you can, spend a minute to try and find the correct link, but just letting the webmaster know that a link is wrong is often much more than a typical visitor will do. (I had the link to KL’s blog up in my blogroll for months after she took her site down, yet nobody reminded me… I learned to never assume that the webmaster knows what he’s doing, because I know that I most certainly don’t have a clue on many aspects of running a site. )

Talk to the Webmaster

Okay, it doesn’t have to be the actual webmaster… It can be anyone involved in the website. I just can’t fit “talk to someone involved in the production, presentation, or content of the website” in a section title.

Probably the most important piece of information that any company can have is what the customer is thinking. If the company doesn’t know what the customer wants, then the customer simply doesn’t get what they want. There are, of course, ways to tell what people reading a website like, based on traffic logs… but it most certainly doesn’t replace having clear communication with the people you want to attract.

Link

With the way that search engines currently work, it really doesn’t matter if you say something nice about another website or not. In fact, you could completely hate the site, the company behind the site, and all of their products and services, but if you link to it, you’re giving modern search engines the impression that you like that site. Each link is a vote in support… and the more people who link to a site, the more that other people see that site. The more people who see a site, the more people who link to it, whether they’re saying something positive or negative. It’s a cycle that could easily send a terrible company rocketing towards the top of the search engine rankings.

Well, just like in election booths, use your vote wisely.

Currently, I’m working on supporting sites that I like by linking to them. I really don’t have money to spare (though I have enough to live), so I can’t buy from ads or donate directly. I don’t have extra time right now either, and won’t have extra time for a few months at least, so I can’t contribute extra content to sites other than the occasion comment. I already communicate with the webmasters of various sites whose content I enjoy improving, though with my recent crunch on time, I haven’t been able to communicate as much as I would like to. The option left to me is to link to sites like Jeff’s Druid Journal, make a hearty recommendation, and hope that other people provide the support that I’m unable to give.

And yes, I do heartily recommend Druid Journal. I would tell everyone to read his archives, if I had a loud enough voice. If you don’t want to support this site, then support Jeff’s site, at least.

30 Days of Waking at 4am status:

So far, complete success as far as waking up.

On Wednesday, the 23rd of January, the first day that I woke at 4, I spent about half an hour reviewing the existing code for Time Agent.

On Thursday, I researched how to use Berkeley DB, a way to store the tasks to disk quickly and efficiently. It is perhaps the most efficient way to store data, but its learning curve might be too steep to include in the Beta release in one month. I used the full hour and a half of extra time to study examples and begin planning on how to include it in the main program.

On Friday (this morning), I began piecing together the base classes and began firming up the details for the inheriting classes. I’m still debating whether to use a singleton for the ticker portion of the panel… After all, I truly will have only one ticker. Perhaps a future feature would be multiple tickers, though, so I want to re-think this plan before wrapping other code around it. Spent a total of 45 minutes coding, because my cats would not leave me alone. Good progress despite only using half of the alloted time.

Tomorrow and Sunday, I’m looking at having much more time, since I won’t have to run off to work at 6:30. Please, don’t let me decide to turn off the alarm and roll over… Although, I am confident that the desire to get a lot of progress done will push me out of bed. That, and I’ve got canned coffee in the fridge. With the coffee, my desire to get a lot of progress under my belt, and people’s expectations that I’ll get up early, I’ll be able to get up without too much trouble.

After sunrise, though, around 7:30, I’ll be working on unpacking the remaining boxes in the garage. Joy. (Okay, that’s only partially sarcastic. I’m not looking forward to unpacking, but I am looking forward to finishing )

I must say, I’m not very good at making either plans or goals.

I’m much too… scattered. I’m not really impulsive. I will think about something for a long time before settling down to do it. I am, however, very scattered in my approach to doing things. Sometimes, I’ll dive headlong into a project and get it done quickly… almost too quickly. Other times, I’ll slowly accomplish tasks that vaguely relate to the project at hand.

So, I have two related goals that I would like to experiment with.

First, I would like to see if I can finally get an adsense check. I have been averaging less than $1 per month for a while now, with a total balance currently just above $40. Yeah, it’s my own fault that the adsense checks aren’t rolling in, since I know that I have had more than enough time and resources to get the traffic needed.

Second, I would like to have an average of five comments on this site per day. Reader discussion is an absolute must in having a thriving, dynamic blog. Not only would people come to read the posts themselves, but there will also be gems scattered around the comments sections of each post, contributing new outlooks and further clarifications that are currently missing from each post.

In order to tell whether I have succeeded or not, I would like to set a deadline of three months. I plan to do all of this by my wedding anniversary on April 20th.

Here’s the plan. Obviously, in order to get an adsense check legitimately, I need more traffic. It’s time for a semi-passive marketing campaign. Here is how I currently plan to run this campaign:

1. Find new blogs and start discussions with the owners. These will be honest discussions, on topic, and hopefully adding value to the owner’s site.
2. Revisit “old” blogs and continue discussions with those owners. There is nothing better than having old friends to talk to, and while I may not get as many ‘new’ visitors, I know that these visitors are already of the highest quality.
3. Increase my response rates. This means keeping conversations going with comments, both on my site and on the sites of other people.
4. Feature high quality content on my site. No, I won’t steal people’s content… I’ll paraphrase it, generate interest, and link to the other person’s site.
5. Continue to be myself. There’s something to be said about being open and honest… It is truly a liberating experience. The more transparent I make my own transition into a responsible, joyful person, the more helpful my advice can be to others.

And finally, I have just one step, in addition to the steps above, that is specific to my goal of generating more readers comments:

• Ask Questions inside the post, looking for honest answers and engaging conversation.

Which leads me to my question: What else can I do to meet these goals?

The Inspiration

The reason why I’m starting this experiment is because I have a third, larger goal. That goal is simply to be able to consistently and effectively achieve my goals.

Since the best way to learn is to practice, I’m putting this goal into practice immediately. I will, of course, refine the implementation of these goals as I progress, which is why I want reader feedback. I’m too close to my own life… Just as I can’t see what is right behind my back without turning around, I realize that I have blind spots in my own life, and I would appreciate it if people would tell me when I should step back and take a look at my choices.

At his new site,Advanced Life Skills, Jonathan Wells started out with some powerful posts, and I would like to give him credit for planting the idea for this post in my head. His post titledGoals Are Not Wishful Thinking reminded me to look at my own lofty goals, and set a plan of action to each of them, so that finally, eventually, they’ll get done.

I found out the easy way whether or not Jonathan was a new blogger… Indeed, he is one of the experienced ones who is making a transition to a new topic. The way that I found out was simply by asking. He has three other blogs already, which focus on health related topics, including how our mental state is necessary for good health. He also has a couple of ad-copy sites, which he uses together with unobtrusive ads on his blogs so that he can continue to focus on providing value.

His other sites are

• HEALTHeFORUM
• HEALTHeNEWS
• Weight Loss Product Review
• Progressive Realization (online book, using “mind over matter” to help live a healthier life)
• Creating Powerful Health (online book, more information on using “mind over matter” in to affect your health)
• Lose the Fat Fast (three products which supplement diet and exercise)

Personally, I’m more interested in his blogs than his products, since I really don’t have much need in reducing my body fat, and I have been taught at an early age the powers of the mind over the body. I would, however, love to see some fair and unbiased reviews of his products, if anyone were willing to try them out. Jonathan says that he has been concentrating on health for a while, and I’m guessing it is because it seems easier to earn money while helping people through health related topics. He says that his true passion is personal growth and development, and from reading his start of his new site (which is, again, Advanced Life Skills), I can tell that he has a new perspective that will help many people.

For those who have lost track (and I assure you, with my attention span sometimes, I would be guilty of losing track as well), the question for this post is “What else can I do to meet the goals of earning an adsense check, and how else can I improve the number of comments made on this site?”

I’m looking for honest opinions. Even if you can’t find the most ‘diplomatic’ way of sharing your opinion, and you just want to call me crazy and stupid, please post away… All of the feedback I get, constructive or otherwise, will be extremely helpful. If we can get a true debate going, then all the better.

Here’s to a new year and all of the hopes and goals that go along with it.