Eskişehir, Türkiye
Sunday 24 March 2024
“We are now at the 24th of March 1856 and from this point of time, my journal, let us renew our daily intercourse without looking back.
Looking back was not intended by nature, evidently, from the fact that our eyes are in our faces and not in our hind heads.
Look straight before you, then, Jane Carlyle, and, if possible, not over the heads of things either, away into the distant vague.
Look, above all, at the duty nearest hand, and what’s more, do it.
Ah, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and four weeks of illness have made mine weak as water.“
(24 March 1856, Jane Welsh Carlyle)
Above: Jane Baillie Carlyle (née Welsh) (1801 – 1866)
The aches and pains of living have roused me from my bed at the ungodly hour of 0300 and so to the duties nearest hand I turn.
Above: Robin Williams, Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
I am reminded that today is the 18th anniversary of the world’s first tweet.
Twitter is still derided by some (including myself) as overhyped, a vast wasteland of “I am eating a ham sandwich” irrelevancies and 140-character non sequiturs, almost as big a time sink as Facebook, but Twitter has also been credited with acclerating revolutions, spawning new forms of literature, acting a real-time watercooler for sharing snark during collective experiences like the Oscars, and generally acting as Humanity’s de facto announcement and early warning system for….
Well, everything.
Not bad for a service that started as the Twttr, a project that Jack Dorsey had thought up five years earlier but that never quite “solidified” until March 2006.
Dorsey pitched a now defunct Silicon Valley company called Odeo about his idea for a status-sharing service based on SMS.
Above: A 2006 sketch by Jack Dorsey, envisioning an SMS-based social network
That approach got him two key partners – Odeo executives Biz Stone and Evan Williams.
The three started a company called Obvious, which would become Twitter.
Dorsey, who would make the act of reflexively recording one’s status de rigueu kept marvelous historical records of his little project.
Coding began 13 March 2006 and eight days later a machine-generated tweet was issued from Dorsey’s account # 12:
“just setting up my twttr“
While some folks consider this the world’s first tweet, Dorsey and Twitter are adamant that “inviting co-workers” (meaning his Odeo colleagues) was the first.
Above: Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, in 2009
As of 2012, there were more than half a billion accounts.
The company is thought by some to be worth perhaps $10 billion.
Imagine that.
A potential audience of half a billion.
Above: Countries and cities with local trending topics in Twitter
The reality is that nobody will notice all your great content unless you scream and shout about it.
Publicizing your blog is an essential tool for gaining followers and creating enough buzz for advertisers to want to get involved.
As anyone building a road knows, it’s all about traffic.
As Matt Kepnes, the writer and founder of www.nomadicmatt.com puts it:
“Blogs are a dime a dozen.
Anyone (including the technically challenged like your humble blogger) can start a blog.
If you want to get noticed, you need to stand out.
That means having a well-defined niche and making sure your content is optimized.
It’s not sexy, but that’s what makes the difference.
Get narrower and go deeper.
That’s how you find your audience.“
Above: Matt Kepnes
The Digital Nomad’s Handbook offers the following advice:
- Be SEO friendly.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial in getting your blog to climb search engine rankings.
Ensure all your posts contain metadata, keywords and both external and internal links and use an SEO plug-in to monitor how pages are tracking.
Large images and video files can slow your site down, so use free apps to shrink files without losing quality.
2. Give users what they want.
Watching how users behave on your site can reap dividends.
Tools help you track the content that performs best and the subjects that resonate with readers, so you can consistently give users what they are looking for.
Do some keyword research to find keywords that are likely to generate clients.
3. Add subscribers.
Make it easy for people to return to your blog by inviting them to become subscribers.
You will soon build a mailing list.
Letting people know when something new appears on the site will bring a surge of visits each time you post.
Enable easy subscription with one-click checkboxes and reward subscribers with bonus content that isn’t available to ordinary users.
4. Get the word out on social media.
Promote each post on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social channels.
Make it easy for users to share your content with plug-ins that add automatic social media buttons to your pages.
Tag your posts with hashtags on relevant subjects to get your content in front of new people.
Remember to share content from other people (including other bloggers) so they feel inclined to share content from you.
5. Build relationships
Invite other bloggers to guest post on your site and offer your services to others for free in exchange for a link back to your site.
This kind of partnership is a great way for both sites to grow referral traffic, without any money changing hands.
Connect with potential partners via social media, online forums and by connecting directly through LinkedIn and other industry channels.
I will be honest here.
The advice seems sensible and the spirit is willing, but I am a BC (before computers) man trying to comprehend an AD (age of digital) world he never made.
There is still a long road to go before I become cognizant and competent enough to apply the wisdom suggested here.
Nonetheless, the how is learned by the doing.
I am a Facebook user – what my students deride as an old person’s medium – but I have yet to connect to Twitter and have yet to learn how to navigate the shoals of Instagram and LinkedIn.
Feel pity for my virtual media mentor, for there is indeed a long road ahead of us.
My mentor, who shall remain anonymous to protect him from the inevitable laughter about his penance of trying to convert this technological barbarian into a civilized and savvy media man, is focused at present on the design of the methods I use to communicate to the outside world.
I am like a man using smoke to send signals while everyone else is text-messaging.
In plainer English, I am dressed in pelts while the world sports a tux.
The weird and wonderful world of website design is one of the first obstacles to be surmounted.
As website design is a planet far removed from my comfort zone I am instead considering the question of content.
As a blogger, you can simply begin blogging on any topic.
However, if you want to attract a lot of readers so an agent or an editor “discovers” you and your blog or blogged book, you need to do some serious planning prior to publishing the first post.
(Admittedly, this advice is years too late for me, but this is not to say I need limit myself to solely this blogsite.)
To ensure you build platform and get your blogged book noticed – by readers, agents and editors – prepare to blog your book before you write one word on that blank computer screen or post it on the Internet.
CHOOSE A TOPİC.
To begin blogging a book, first choose a topic.
While this step seems pretty obvious, there is more to it than meets the eye.
You can choose any old topic and start writing.
Or you can choose a topic that attracts readers.
Optionally you would choose a topic that interests you and many others.
In fact, it’s best to choose a topic you feel passionate about since you will be covering it for a long time.
You don’t want to choose a topic you will dread blogging about each day.
You want the writing to be both fun and interesting and your subject to motivate you to post.
Even better, find a topic about which you find a sense of purpose – a mission.
When you feel compelled to write about a topic because you are fulfilling a purpose, you also will feel passionate about that topic.
When you combine your sense of purpose with your passion, you will feel inspired to write.
This will come through in every post, in turn inspiring those who read your blogged book.
If your topic interest others – that is, it has a market – and is unique and necessary to its bookstore category, then you have chosen a winner.
So, how to find that topic?
Yesterday in my blogpost “Dear Diary” I suggested that keeping a journal was a great way to find your sense of purpose and to discover who you are and what interests you.
The only weakness in this notion is that you are limited to only that which is in your experience, that little world perceived by your senses and interpreted by your brain.
But as William Shakespeare wisely put it:
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
(The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act 1, Scene 5, William Shakespeare)
Above: English writer William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
Ronald Gross, in his The Independent Scholar’s Handbook, suggests the following:
We have all browsed – in a bookstore or library or though a dusty bookcase in a house we rented for the summer.
I am going to suggest an enhanced style of browsing that you can use as a way of finding new subjects of interest.
(If you are already interested in a subject, you may want to skip this step, though even the most advanced scholars find that wandering through the stacks of a library, dipping into a book here and there as the spirit moves them, offers a serendipitious intellectual stimulation that is not available any other way.
For this reason, many leading scholars and librarians are dubious about the so-called benefits of transferring library holdings to computers – a practice that will proclude this kind of browsing – though it may make new forms possible.)
By making the process of browsing a bit more self-conscious, you can conduct your own informed reconnaissance of the terrain of learning.
All you have to do is follow three rules:
- Pick the best places.
- Keep moving.
- Keep a list.
By picking the best places, I simply mean the best library or bookstore or collection of other resources that you can find for your purposes.
Follow F. Scott Fitzgerald’s advice:
“Don’t marry for money.
Go where the money is, then marry for love.“
Above: American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940)
Go where the richest resources are, then let serendipity take its course.
Once you are in the right place, follow the remaining rules simultaneously:
Keep moving.
Keep a list.
You are brainstorming, not postholding.
You want to get a comprehensive glimpse and taste of a wide range of works.
And you want to keep a log of your discoveries along the way, with notes in case you want to retrace your steps and delve more deeply.
You are compiling your “little black book” of intellectual attractions – books, ideas, authors, points of view, realms of fact or imagination with which you want to make a date sometime, get to know better, and perhaps come to fall in love with.
Yesterday, I visited D & R Books in the ES Park Mall.
I bought the following:
- The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)(Thorsons)
“Dreams are made to be followed.
Life is meant to be lived.
Some books are meant to be read, loved and passed on.
“The Alchemist” is one of those books.
“The Alchemist” is the story of a shepherd boy from the Spanish region of Andalusia who journeys to the exotic markets of North Africa and then into the Egyptian desert, where a fateful encounter with the alchemist awaits him.”
“I never lost faith in the book or ever wavered in my vision.
Why?
Because it was me in there, all of me, heart and soul.
I was living my own metaphor.
A man sets out on a journey, dreaming of a beautiful or magical place, in pursuit of some unknown treasure.
At the end of his journey, the man realizes the treasure was with him the entire time.”
In a way, this theme is akin to the journey I will describe in The Donkey Trail.
- The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus (Penguin Modern Classics)
“What I touch, what resists me – that is what I understand.“
“The writings in this volume are all, in their own way, hymns to the physical world and the elemental pleasures of living.
Through the story of a man condemned forever to roll a rock up a hill, “The Myth of Sisyphus” argues that, in a meaningless world, freedom and happiness can be gained through an awareness of pure existence.
The other essays here include a lyrical evocation of the skies, shadows and silences of summer in Algiers, memories of street life in Oran and an exploration of beauty as our salvation.“
Camus’ essay “Absurdity and Suicide” seems like an aide to discussing teen suicide in Highway One.
His “hymns to the physical world and the elemental pleasures of living” should be quite inspirational for The Donkey Trail.
- Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way, Kieran Setiya (Hutchinson Heinemann)
“Life is hard – as the past few years have made painfully clear.
From personal trauma to the injustice and absurdity of the world, sometimes simply going on can feel too much.“
“But could there be comfort – and even hope – in recognizing the hardships of the human condition?
Might doing so free us from the tyranny of striving for our “best lives” and help us find warmth, humanity and humour in the lives we actually have?
Could it inspire in us the desire for a better world?“
“In this profound and personal book, Setiya shows how philosophy can help us find our way.
He shares his own experience with chronic pain and the consolation that comes from making sense of it. He asks what we can learn from loneliness and loss about the value of human life.
And he explores how we can fail with grace, confront injustice and search for meaning in the face of despair.
Drawing on ancient and modern philosophy, as well as fiction, comedy, social science and personal essay, “Life is Hard” is a book for this moment – a work of solace and compassion.
It draws us towards justice, for ourselves and others, by acknowledging what it means to be alive.“
- Flights, Olga Tokarczuk (Riverhead Books)
“Incomparably original, “Flights” interweaves reflections on travel with an exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion and migration.
Chopin’s heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister.
A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart.
A young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear.
Through these brilliantly haunting, playful and revelatory meditations, “Flights” explores what it means to be a traveller, a wanderer, abody in motion not only through space but through time.
“Where are you coming from? Where are you going?”, we call to the traveller.
Enchanting, unsettling and wholly original, “Flights” is a master storyteller’s answer.“
- The 1-Page Marketing Plan, Allan Dib (Success Wise)
“To build a successful business you need to stop doing random acts of marketing and start following a reliable plan for rapid business growth.
Traditionally, creating a marketing plan has been a difficult and time-consuming process, which is why it often doesn’t get done.
In “The 1-Page Marketing Plan”, serial entrepreneur and rebellious marketer Allan Dib reveals a marketing implementation breakthrough that makes creating a marketing plan simple and fast.
It is literally a single page, divided into nine squares.
With it, you will be able to map out your own sophisticated marketing plan and go from zero to marketing hero.
Whether you are just starting out or are an experienced entrepreneur, “The 1-Page Marketing Plan” is the easiest and fastest way to create a marketing plan that will propel your business growth.
In this groundbreaking new book you will discover:
- How to get new customers, clients or patients and how to make more profit from existing ones
- Why “big business” style marketing could kill your business and strategies that actually work for small and medium-sized businesses
- How to close sales without being pushy, needy or obnoxious while turning the tables and having prospects begging you to take their money
- A simple step-by-step process for creating your own personalized marketing plan that is literally one page by simply following along and fill in each of the nine squares that make up your own 1-Page Marketing Plan
- How to annihilate competitors and make yourself the only logical choice
- How to get amazing results on a small budget using the secrets of direct response marketing
- How to charge high prices for your products for your products and services and have customers actually thank you for it”
Major intellectual journeys quite often begin with browsing.
As a teenager, Joel Cohen was browsing at his local bookstore in Battle Creek, Michigan.
He began leafing through the pages of Elements of Physical Biology by Alfred J. Lotka.
“Here’s a guy who thinks the way I do.”, Cohen recalled exclaiming to himself.
“Mathematics might be a useful way to make somesense of life.“
Cohen had been amazed to learn that the degree to which an earthworm turns its head in the direction of light is directly proportional to the logarithm of the intensity of the light.
“I had just learned about logarithms in school.
This simple organism was behaving in a mathematically lawful way.
It knew logarithms without school!
It seemed to me I had better learn some math.“
Another book, Abraham Moles’ Information Theory and Esthetic Perception, so captivated the youngster that he wrote the author in France, asking permission to translate the book into English and enclosing his version of the first chapter as a sample.
Moles granted the request.
Cohen then wrote to the University of Illinois Press, which subsequently published the translation.
Neither author nor publisher knew that their translator was 16 years old.
Twenty-five years later, Cohen conducted his research in “biology by the numbers” as head of the laboratory of populations at Rockefeller University.
Above: Joel Ephraim Cohen
As part of your super-browsing, you may want to take a fresh look at some of the important realms of learning, but from your own point of view – a way in which you have probably never scrutinized them before.
The exhilirating prospect here is to “come to ourselves” intellectually.
After years, sometimes decades, of learning for someone or something else – our parents, our teachers, the requirements of getting a diploma or a degree – we are now invited to begin using our minds for ourselves.
We are freed from being told what, why and how to learn.
We discover at once the first lesson of freedom in any realm:
Freedom is far more demanding than taking orders, but also far more rewarding.
Forget about which subjects you have already been told are important or prestigious.
Just let each one roll around in your head for a while to see whether it commands your interest.
Don’t worry about how formidable each one sounds.
No one in the world is a complete master of any of these realms.
The point of browsing is to realize the wealth from which you can choose and to start modestly to sample one subject or another that especially appeals to you.
Happy hunting!
It is freedom which I seek.
I long for the day that I need not be dependent upon a solitary employer but instead can generate income as a digital nomad through both online teaching and writing.
There are those who may suggest that a man of my age (59 this coming May) should act less foolishly and abandon hopeless dreams.
I don’t subscribe to this point of view.
I am only as old as the energy and enthusiasm I convey.
The how is in the doing.
Sources
- The Digital Nomad Handbook (Lonely Planet)
- Mad Science, edited by Randy Alfred (Little , Brown)
- How to Blog a Book, Nina Amir (Writer’s Digest Books)
- What Color Is Your Parachute?, Richard Bolles (Ten Speed Press)
- The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus (Penguin Modern Classics)
- The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (Thorsons)
- The 1-Page Marketing Plan, Alan Dib (Successwise)
- The Independent Scholar’s Handbook, Ronald Gross (Ten Speed Press)
- Life is Hard, Kieran Setiya (Hutchinson Hennemann)
- The Tragedy of Hamlet, William Shakespeare
- Flights, Olga Tokarczuk (Riverhead Books)