Postcards from the Funny Farm

If you are a high achiever who has 110 things on her/his to-do list today, this post may not be for you.  If you want to be a high achiever but get overwhelmed at times, this might be more suited to you.

I was talking to a new friend, Justin, the other day through emails about how we can get over indulgent in work and actually be less effective.  That conversation made me think up a challenge post to my readers:  I want to tell you to focus on only three things today. You decide what they should be.  You’ll be tempted to focus on more, but limit yourself.

As a teacher, I tend to get bogged down in all the demands from the district and parents.  Sometimes, it can sap my energies.  The professional solution is to focus my energies with an almost tunnel vision on no more than 3 things.  I can still do other things, but my success for the day will be determined on whether I got those three things accomplished.  For example, tomorrow my 3 are: 1) Multiple meaning words, 2) Finalize my parent conferences calendar, and 3) Teach the final 2 math concepts we’ll be testing next week.  There are many other things I could/should be worried about, but these three are the most important.  I will name the day a success when these three things are done.

It is the regular attention to goals that makes me feel like a great teacher.  I wasn’t born great and I do not remain great just because of what I have done.  My puritan upbringing cringes at calling myself “great,” but I am simply referring to the data that says: I set goals and achieve them.  To me, for any occupation or endeavor in life, that is greatness.  What do you think this challenge could show you?

I have had 3 days of the best Fathers’ Day celebration on known record for my brain.

This afternoon at 2pm after enjoying myself with my two lovely daughters and genius son I find myself brimming over with inspiration in need of sharing with the anywhere from 40-200 people that visit me on any given day. I was sitting out by my pool listening to some truly amazing music by Maroon 5 and I decided it was time to give back. I learned to do this from my good internet friend, Derek Semmler. With the “Amazing Visions” contest coming to a close I thought the only post I could publish would be one that gives back. So, I thought, what do they really want? A coupon? Money? Opportunity? Then I came to my embarrassingly simple conclusion:

My readers should know how I am making 200-300 dollars a month and shown the way to do it themselves.

Consider it done: Even though I publish the results and sources of my income every month here at the Funny Farm, I might as well just summarize it again so you can benefit. Here’s the mainstay of my online income folks, sign up and get on board. The first one does contain a referral fee for me of $15 paid to me (by PPP and it costs you nothing) when and if you publish your first paid post. The second one has no referral fee. I just wanted to be up front about the first and ask that you use the graphic link provided when you sign up.

1. PayPerPost, The application process takes a few days. After that you are given writing job choices. The better your PR is, the more opps you get. Please know this may reduce your PR, but it pays cash whereas Google doesn’t pay you anything. I currently have made 85 dollars in June already on PPP.

2. PayU2blog, these guys are great. I am so pleased with their payout and the way they run their business. It involves putting links in your posts. You have to do all assignments and you get $5 per link. Like PPP, there is an approval process so good luck with that!

Ok! I hope that helps you guys out. Why not have extra cash every month for your blogging?

I’d like to challenge you to make tomorrow the big day, or, the day you got serious about making money with your blog! best of luck. I am always here for support.

If you are browsing for the articles on psychology and inspiration and baffled by this throw off course, I apologize for this momentary indulgence in helping my blogging friends. I will return tho the brain and cognitive therapy tomorrow so please stop by. Remember the tagline here is: ” … posts on psychology, inspiration, and BLOGGING.” Maybe you should start one! Message me if your need some help doing that.

To close, let me just say to all the dads out there: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY, your role is so important to your kids and to society. Keep on keepin’ on, dudes.

postscript: Here’s a link to some amazing songs that inpsired me to give you this post today:

Daughtry: Feels Like Tonight

Michael Buble - Everything (A Must Listen!)

This article is Part I of my series “Finest Hour of Social Networks” where I examine social networks and their effectiveness in raising real traffic (low bounce rate/readers who stay more than the duration of two ckicks!) This goal is important for monetization and for building a following to your blog. If these ideas are something you’re interested in, this series will help you achieve those goals.

It’s time for another series because I have a lot to say and I don’t want to burn out trying to say it all in one article. I hope you get something out of it. As always, your discussion is invaluable to the series’ evolution throughout. I really appreciate your comments. Ok, well here goes: One common thread that seems to run through every site I run across these days is the topic of building blog traffic. “How can I do it!” Whether you are growing your internet business or just trying to get more readers for your online publishing, it is the burning question in everyone’s mind. There are many ways published out there that you can take and use and make your own. Most of these ways really do work. Depending on how much a blogger puts into it, (including sometimes unholy amounts of time at the comp away from your family) they can work astoundingly well. At the same time, I myself have tried others of them only to come up exhausted and without a shard of new traffic. In the year and a half that I have been blogging, I’ve tried almost everything. I have tricks up my sleeve that I could share until the cows come home. I don’t get to them that often these days because there is other content I need to get to, content about psychology and inspiration and education. The stuff I am passionate about is my favorite stuff to share on here. At the same time, my primary audience here (as measured by visits and referrals) has always been innovative bloggers and noobs. Social networking can literally explode the traffic of my friends ad cohorts out there. It behooves me to share what I know about blogging. With content on this site it is a lot like my family and my work, I try to find a happy balance.
Because I have so much to share about social networking and traffic for bloggers, I am penning this series which will ultimately consist of IV parts as outlined below:

Series: Finest Hour of Social Networks
Part I
BlogCatalog
Entrecard

Part II
Facebook
Fuel My Blog

Part III
Twitter
Social Spark and other monetized social networks.

Part IV
Final Thoughts

Taking these on in ABC order, today’s part focuses on two powerful social networks: Blog Catalog and Entrecard. Join me as I analyze how these 2 services can increase your blog’s traffic no matter whether you are a noob or someone who’d been doing it so long you are starting to burn out … or maybe you are somewhere in the middle. I believe these services can revolutionize the traffic of your blog.

Blog Catalog has been around at least as long as 2005 when I first started checking them out. They have been through normal gradual changes for a company run by young guys and they have emerged in 2008 to be a daunting force for the Technoratis and MyBlogLogs of the world. Blog Catalog has stayed solid at listening to the customers and at innovating the marketplace as best they can. They have come up with some really fun widgets that I use along with so really helpful services in their site for bloggers. The end result is a giant set of tools to increase your blog’s traffic. Here is how I use Blog Catalog to reach out and increase my blog’s traffic:

1. Friend’s list - This is such a great feature. When someone decides they like my blog they add me as a friend on BlogCatalog. I get an email alter and I check their blog out. If I like their blog I can add them if not, they remain my one-way friend anyway. This is a great way to access networks of bloggers with your like-minded favorites etc.

2. Discussions - I hang around BC Discussions daily. It is an excellent way to promote your blog and get help or givehelp with blog issues. more important than anything, it’s a way to sample people and their blogs so you can develop relationships that last. I have commented on blogs through this service years ago and to this day they are still visiting my blog and I theirs.

3. Widgets - BC offers incredibly designed blog widgets. You have to try them all to see which work for you. For me, I like the discussion widget because it shows where I have been talking out in the sphere for those would be interested. I suppose it’s a status message kind of like Twitter or Facebook that way. The difference is that there is no limitation of characters and the thread can interact indefinitely (as many do!)

Through using these three facets of Blog Catalog I have met hundreds of people but just between 15-20 people who remain friends and/or fans of mine and who frequent my site. I get backlinks (this refers to when another site links to you) that bring in traffic perpetually and that increase your ranks with the search engines. I highly recommend you join Blog Catalog, pimp out your profile there and then take part in the three amazing service I listed above. You will see an increase in your traffic.

Now for the second and newer of the two in our discussion today: The sophisticated looking Entrecard.

Entrecard works like this: You create a 125×125 “Entrepeneur Card” or Entrecard for your site. Then you upload it to your profile and pimp out the other parts of the profile. At that point you need to do two things for the service to get you traffic: 1) You need to “drop” your Entrecard on other blogs, and

2) You need to advertise on other blogs. These two actions are theoretically harmonious because every time you visit another Entrecard site and drop your card on it, you get 1 “ec” point. The site you dropped on also gets 1 ec in the process. It is good etiquette to return the drop, but not everyone does it. In your profile, there is a section called “Drop Inbox.” This shows the last 80 or so drops on your site. Many people use that page as the way to “drop back.” The idea of dropping back on everyone is really a foolish idea. It can take hours sometimes to go through them all. I have developed a way to drop every day that takes me less than half-an-hour and I drop over 80 a day. If you are interested in hearing how, just look at the button below my Entrecard that contains the words about “Above the Fold.” It’s something I am trying to promote and hope it catches on.

You get ads on other sites by paying for them in “ec’s” In other words, the more dropping you do and selling of your own space, the more ec’s you have to buy ads.

My traffic has grown nearly 50% through Entrecard which has felt really good. On the other had, the bounce rate for those hits is remarkably low so. People click through like wildfire just to get ec’s. I must admit however that I have received some ad business through Entrecard and many comments by new readers. So I can’t say it’s just empty traffic. I guess the higher the numbers, the better the chance you have of gaining new fans. In the same way, how can anyone know if they like you if they never see you? Entrecard can be a little complicated and clicking through all those sites can be cumbersome. It works for me to raise traffic and to get my 125×125 “Messy Marvin” PostCards avatar out there. I’m not sure if one day’s link actually registers with the search engines, but that isn’t really why I do it.

Social networks like these are exploding traffic for many people I know. If you want more people coming to your site, to read the words you write or buy the things you sell, I doubly encourage you to start with these two. Get registered and begin to explore what works for you. If you have questions, contact me or leave a comment. I firmly believe these two social networks can and will revolutionize your traffic records. Let us know how it goes. I’ll leave you with this: We spend a lot of hours on the computer with internet businesses our and blogs: why not try and make each one our finest!

Next time in my series: Finest Hour of Social Networks

Part II
Facebook
Do people actually use this blue book? If so why? Can it help my traffic?

Fuel My Blog
Somethings Cooking! Will it help my traffic?
And much more to say on these two services I have used for some time now.

What do you think using Blog Catalog and Entrecard to build traffic?

Scott at Karmaville has a great post where he gives tips on how to complain. It inspired me to ruminate on the issue and I came up with 7 “headchecks” to make before you throw a Molotov cocktail into the building. This is what I came up with:
Did you ever sit down to write an email complaining about how you were treated by an employee only to find yourself delete it several times and revise? Did you get so tired of thinking about it that you decided to not even send it? Well, I’ve done that plenty and it is frustrating. The more frustrating thing though is when it happens again and you never said anything.

Society is dependent upon its citizens to speak up about bad treatment. Remaining silent, while admirable and probably better for your blood pressure, only allows the bad treatment or services to continue and that hurts all of us.

Through the years I have had success with a few complaints. I have also regretted a lot of them (not necessarily because I was wrong but because I was ineffective at getting resolution). Here’s what has worked for me:

1. Go to the Better Business Bureau. They aggressively follow-up with you until the complaint is heard and responded to.
2. Take a little bit of time (5-10 mins.) before you email anything in anger.
3. Ask a close friend’s opinion. Ask them if you are overreacting.
4. If you email, keep it short and only give the details that pertain to how an employee acted wrongly.
5. Keep a running record of the problems as they occur. This really wields a lot of power with complaints.
6. Stay cool. If you have a valid complaint they will either make it right by you or you can take it to the next level … and … there is always a next level.
7. Last, don’t complain unless you have to. Life is too short to complain too much. If you calm down and think you still need to complain, well then: do your duty.

What is your experience with filing complaints?

There’s a lesson for business and communication in this sign.  The Cocky Bull is on a highway for truckers and travelers.  Therefore they cater to that in their slogan.  Can you imagine if they were catering to surfers? Miners?  I think you get the idea.  We need to reach out to the people in our sphere of influence, whether they are our “choice” or not.  I think this is especially true in writing to a blog or website audience.  Get to know who visits your blog and write to them.

I’ve been reading story after story about how Google has eliminated the PageRank ranking for thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of bloggers who have posted for PayPerPost.

At first, I felt worried: “would I lose mine next?” Mine may not be much, but its a 4/10 and it took me many months to work up to that. Then I felt guilty, like I was a spammer or something. After that I felt really pissed off. My wife and I have both worked really hard on our recent posts for PayPerPost and we selected the opportunities because we felt there was something to say about them. Meanwhile, I get trackbacks from junk blogs who have completely plagiarized posts of mine and their Google PageRank is higher than mine. I think villainizing PayPerPost folks, posties as they are called, is the equvalent of what Microsoft tried to do leaving capabilities out in hopes of squashing Netscape … unAmerican,

My Message To Google:

If you really want to eliminate useless blogs in a search, eliminating pagerank for PayPerPost writers is NOT a solution. I’m debating going back to using Yahoo as my search engine, taking adsense ads off my site, and using Sitemeter as my analytics choice. You can’t protect your interest by sabotaging your competition. Something better than PageRank is bound to come soon and I hope you relent this crazy and unfair practice soon before that happens.

Many people are starting to see the writing on the wall that Google is not as “open” and “user centered” as it would have us all believe. As for my work on PayPerPost, you can bet I am sticking with this new company. I’m always for the underdog in a good fight. If my page rank disappears, I wont worry about it. As long as you, the readers, keep reading … that’s what I’ll be ranking myself by.

Since I started teaching in 1997, I have had a love/hate relationship with copiers and printers. It can be so cool when you have a crisp, stapled presentation ready for 30 kids stacked flush on your desk ready to deliver. It’s even better when the print actually enhances the learning transaction and the standard is internalized as a result.

But more often than that paper sucks.

8 times out of 10 when I get my stuff to the copy room, there is a “jammed” sign on it. Other times it is out of paper in which case I have to use my valuable prep time getting cut on the box and opening reams to load in the machine. Even more frustrating are the times when there is a line of 3-? of my colleagues all holding their “holy grails” of lessons in their arms waiting impatiently for the one in front to gather her/his business out of the way. And let me assure you, you’ll wish you were in hell as better if YOU are the one who jams the machine with those lines watching.

I’ve often avoided the copier issues by printing the stuff at my computer. We have Brother laser printers and they often work well. It’s never mattered how many trees I massacred as long as the ink was dark and flowed freely, which up to now it always has. But alas, printers like people, get old I’m afraid. They need routine operations and I’ve been given two in succession this year that need to be taken to a nearby cliff (if we had one in the desert) and put out of their misery. I’m speaking of one-half printing, familiar? Lines streaking? Drum light flashing. Today I had all these wonderful road-blocks to getting my lessons taught. You know what I decided? I decided instead of cursing the darkness, I’m going to light a candle. Like an alcoholic in his bliss, I declared power over paper. It will no longer control me! I have set down a “what-if” scenario for every paper event I can fathom. I have decided that the wool has been pulled over my eyes long enough . . . paper and teaching . . . I can see so clearly for the first time in 10 years: I JUST DON’T NEED IT!

Van Gogh said art is done within limitation and not without. I will have to get creative at times. My students have a mother lode of printed material in their texts and their consumable books. I see no reason why I can’t pull this off! Stay with me as I try this path less trodden. Once again for the blogosphere to archive: “I CONTROL PAPER, IT DOES NOT CONTROL ME!”

p.s. ugh, what a day!