This is what you would see on my public Evernote notebook.

Here is a screenshot of my original digital ink note written on the Evernote application.

You will notice that there are some differences between what you see and what I see. This does not make digital ink a bad idea; simply, your writing has to be that much neater to compensate for the differences.

This return to handwriting for me is a short experiment. I often wondered if blog scrapers would go so far as to take posts entirely written in an image and try to represent them as their own. Also, do blog readers really care if my blog post is typed or written? Presumably, it’s the content that matters rather than the style, right?

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Woody Allen is quoted as saying that 80 percent of success is just showing up. In my experience, this has proven true in real life. This also proves true on the web. Too often, business owners neglect showing up on the web at all. Many who do make an effort to get on the web, only make a half-hearted effort, the equivalent of being a wallflower at a dance.

In life, you will find that there are conferences, mixers, luncheons, prayer groups, clubs, and all manner of social gatherings. Some are just for fun; others are jobs. Human beings are extremely social creatures. We notice things, like when you show up at events or do not. We notice the kind of person you are when you do show up. We notice what doesn’t happen when you do not show up.

If you have anything of value to offer in this world by your presence, it will become apparent when you show up. If you are a great motivator, others will notice when you are there to cheer the group on in their effort. If you are a great organizer, others will notice when everything runs smoothly thanks to your hard work. If, however, you don’t show up to things, then others can’t vouch for you.

If anything, one of the more valuable possessions we have in life are our reputations. We can only create a reputation for good things by being present. If we are absent, that is our only reputation. So, by showing up and being a part of what is going on, you help build your reputation.

This applies equally to your online presence. If you actively engage the online community, you will find that you can develop great friendships. However, if you are completely absent online, you’ll get the online equivalent of “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Make it a practice to go out and be around others for whom you can make a difference. Otherwise, they will never know you existed; and how can you be a success without their support? Go out and be seen.

Tonight I got to talk about web presence with some social media friends over dinner. We have all had experiences with clients who want a website or a social media presence; but they do not want to spend any time building it. By this, I don’t mean the technical parts; those can be outsourced. I mean, they do not want to spend any time building content for their web presence. They want to hire out the blogging, photography, social media interaction, and other aspects that require some inside knowledge of their business.

The first thing that is wrong with this scenario is that only somebody who is aware of the ins and outs of your business should be at the helm of your social media presence. Having a website is time consuming. One generally recommends that you spend time updating the site often with new content. Having a brochure website that simply lists basic information only will not cut it. It’s like opening another branch office in another town with a brochure rack inside.

The alternative is to at least put somebody on the task of fielding messages from the website. Open up that branch and at the minimum put a receptionist at that office. If you want a little bit better return on your branch investment, then put somebody at that branch that can handle communications and maybe even make a few sales.

The situation reminds me of a part in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, where the author relates that landscapers often get requests from people to create gardens that don’t require maintenance. Of course, the answer is “if there is no gardener, there is no garden.” Same with a website; if there is no content creator, there is no benefit to your website.

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I completely forgot to write a blog post yesterday for the 100 posts in 100 days challenge. Technically, I didn’t miss it. When you add it all up, I’ll probably have closer to 500 blog posts by the time the 100 days after January 1, 2010 are over. Currently, I am blogging here on this site. There are also some other blogging sites I have set up where I post material, listed below:

RGV Life
MissionTexas.net
ShaineMata.com
ValleyCentral.com

Some, I update more frequently than others. However, in the spirit of the challenge, I will consider this the blog that is facing the challenge. So, consider this a makeup post for yesterday. There will be another later today.

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When it comes to blogging, a similar approach can help. If you are writer blocked, you should probably go out and do something. Either your activity will form the basis of your writing, or it will jog a memory of a similar experience or idea that you had in the past, which you can write.

What you do is up to you. It can be something new; or it can be something you have done 1000 times. Even if something is not new, you may notice some nuance that you can use as the basis for your blog post. Again, do something. You’ll be surprised how ideas pop out of the strangest places.

I was just reading a post over at the Lifestream Blog discussing the switch people are making towards lifestreaming. There are many tools available online that make it easy to post audio, video, and photos to the web to tell the story of your life. Many of these tools are getting easier to use; and they are beginning to share your content with sites. Darren Rowse also has thoughts on whether blogging is dead in light of lifestreaming.

For me, the attraction to lifestreaming is that it is much faster and easier to produce content on the fly than to sit at the computer to compose, edit, and post something on my blog. Despite the ease of production, I would not consider pulling the plug on my blog. For audio, you can often times call a number, make your recording, and hang up. For video, a cameraphone is often sufficient to churn out a video post. The appeal is that you do not have to edit a lifestream. You can simply post raw content.

Not everything lends itself to on-the-fly production. Sometimes you want to start a piece, set it aside, and come back to it later. You can’t do that with video or audio lifestreams. Once they are up, you can’t edit. The best you can do is delete or replace completely. Once you start editing your audio and video, you might as well have gone ahead and blogged.

Lately, I have not blogged so much. Nor have I tweeted as much as I used to tweet. Nor have I been as active online. The reason for all this is the volume of information coming at me is tremendous. This sort of thing does not give you time to connect two thoughts together; much less organize a blog post. During these times, I lifestream.

Lifestreaming is not for everybody. You still need to have some kind of message or information to share. When you spend your day doing boring, repetitive things, it is difficult to come up with ideas for lifestreaming. For lifestreaming to work, you kinda need to have a life. So, if you are the type who doesn’t get out much, lifestreaming is probably not for you.

If, on the other hand, you are quite busy getting things done and are out and about, lifestreaming may be what you need to do.

Valley Tech Talk

As a result, I decided to move my blog to Wordpress.com and accept the themes available. I’m setting up hosting for other domains too, which is not exactly easy as I still have to deal with aliased domains to Godaddy servers. They also control my domains. I’m still trying to work with them. I purchased another hosting with Godaddy to get around waiting for their tech monkies to take care of my problem, but that’s not working either. If the problem is not resolved by tonight, I’ll have no choice other than to host elsewhere. It sucks when I’m forced to move my account elsewhere because of an “internal” problem over at Godaddy. I’m not really angry about it; shit happens. Rather, I’m pressed for time; I can’t stand around waiting for Godaddy to recover their fumble.

Mobile post sent by shaine using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3 ]]> http://www.shainemata.net/2009/01/18/still-working-on-rgv-community-after-a-meeting/feed/ 0 http://www.shainemata.net/2008/11/01/join-me-for-national-podcast-post-month/ http://www.shainemata.net/2008/11/01/join-me-for-national-podcast-post-month/#comments Sun, 02 Nov 2008 04:33:11 +0000 shaine http://www.shainemata.net/?p=906 Join me as I try to do 30 podcasts in 30 days for National Podcast Post Month, also known as NaPodPoMo. NaPodPoMo was started by Jennifer Navarrete and has dozens of members who are participating this year. Last year’s NaPodPoMo was a lot of fun.

Besides the personal challenge in coming up with stuff to talk about for 30 days, what makes NaPodPoMo fun is that you get to hear other people who have something to contribute. It’s a great way to find podcasts that you didn’t know about.

Be sure to visit the site and sign up for the challenge. If you don’t want to podcast this year, then at least listen to some of the podcasts. Make some friends.

You can listen to my first post of the month on Utterli.