28 Days of Blogging

Since Scott is a marketing guy, he pays lots of attention on ways to get people to read a blog and he discusses what he is changing in order to better serve his readers.

I just joked to my roommate that I was cheating on the first day of this challenge by posting about being in the challenge itself, but I decided I can do better than that. I am going to examine why I blog and try to figure out if I care how many people read it.

I’m not trying to sell anything and I don’t insert advertising, so the number of readers isn’t going to put money in my pocket.

The major benefit of this blog is to get things off my chest. I’ve always heard advice that a person should write down what’s on their mind, perhaps in a journal of some sort. For some reason, I get more of a benefit out of it if there is the potential that at least one other person will read it. Blogging to me is a substitute for group therapy.

I must admit that I like it when more than one person reads what I write. And I like it when more people are reading the blog this month than last month. Increasing readership is a sort of achievement.

That being said, I am not going to do the things bloggers normally do to build big numbers:

(1) I am not going to stay on any particular topic or adhere to any particular style.

(2) Except for the duration of this challenge, I am not going to post on a regular schedule or at a particular time of the day.

(3) I am not going to post pictures of my penis.

I know there are more suggestions. I pretty much ignore those.

It’s not that I don’t care if you enjoy the blog, it’s just that I would prefer to do things my own way and along with my natural rhythm and see how it does. If I change what I want to do for what “works” then blogging becomes a job.

On the subject of a book: I appreciate the comments I’ve received from people saying that I should write a book and that they would buy a book, but I am suspicious that any such book would actually sell. Of course, I’m still working on an ending. 🙂

I do have an excellent idea for a non-fiction book.

What’s today’s embarrassing fact about me? There aren’t any because I can’t think of anything I am embarrassed about.

I’m not embarrassed about the event I’m getting ready to recount, but it was one of the lowest moments in my history of bad behavior.

When I was younger, I used to pretty much say whatever popped into my head and sometimes I was insensitive, sometimes I was just offensive.

In 1987, I was working for KMYZ Z104.5 radio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was a weekend on-air guy and during the week I was the “Programming Assistant,” which is basically an assistant to the Program Director. I did some computer work, I did some production work, and when there was a remote broadcast, I would drive the station van out and set up the equipment.

One night there was a remote at a big band nightclub. After the equipment was ready, I decided I would have a drink or two or six. Later in the evening, I ran into one of the news anchorpeople from a local television station.

That station had recently promoted their sports director to head anchor.

And then she proceeded to angrily but calmly inform me that the guy was one of the nicest people in the world and one of her best friends and that she wasn’t going to listen to crap like that from me.

I still can’t believe I said it. It’s bothered me from that day forward.

#2 stopped me from contacting the woman to apologize.

You know, you’re not supposed to try to make amends to someone if doing so would cause them more harm. I don’t think apologizing would have caused any harm, but #2 was right — there was no point in calling her and bringing it up just to make myself feel a little better.

I’ve since just accepted that I did it, that it was wrong, and I’ve moved on.

I do still try to figure out why I did it. I think I’ve narrowed it down to envy of his success. 🙂

That guy died not too long ago and Tulsa went into shock and then a period of morning.

RIP Jerry Webber!