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New DonationCoder, New Ideas
TucknDar:
I'd be willing to provide the occasional post or a few posts to a pool for publishing whenever, but couldn't possibly commit to something regular. I'm not sure my posts would be very interesting, however :p
I like the idea of blog posts from multiple users! There are so many interesting and helpful posts in this forum from a number of users, so I'm sure there would be plenty of great blog articles.
Shades:
That is always the problem...finding the topic you want to write about. even on a weekly basis that can give you a lot of stress already.
Many, many moons ago, I got a job as writer of daily articles for an internet portal. Got that because the people in charge liked the game reviews I wrote for them (when not working my day job in the Army). When my contract was up, they asked if could start immediately at their company. Writing at your own pace about things you like, that isn't difficult or a burden.
Dailies about things you like and don't like, that is whole different ballgame, though. Wasn't fun for me...and I ended up going back to game reviews and articles about computer-related subjects & news. Won't do dailies again, even if there was a salary in it for me.
A suggestion that might be fun to work on and read about: What if DC would copy the concept of xlcd's 'What if..." column? A person asks a question and the creator of xlcd will go through lengths to answer it in a fun/technical/entertaining way.
Having a pool of writers to choose from, that might result in interesting reads and the writer tasked with a specific question can have or take the time he/she needs to dig in and produce a nice article. Mouser then can place whichever articles he wants whenever it pleases him. Less stress on the writers and Mouser. Just a thought.
IainB:
It's all very well setting a goal/target for oneself or committing to a target number of posts per day/week/month, or something, but one has to ask How? and Why?, because:
* Goals/targets/MBOs (Management By Objectives) are, by definition imaginary and irrational constructs, and, as statements, usually neatly sidestep the question as to how one will indubitably be able to deliver/perform (Deming).
* Having no basis in statistical veracity, they thus become a rod for one's own back.
* What tends to happen is that the individual, having made some kind of a commitment to (say) make so many blog posts per week, for a fee, finds that there are occasions when actually there simply is not much of any interest to write about.
* However, the writing must go on (or the fees will stop). So, in a sort of "Never mind the quality, feel the width" approach, what the writer produces is something - anything - to fill the void, and mediocrity and dilution of quality of content is the result - e.g., "10 things you absolutely must do before committing suicide", or "The 5 things every CIO needs to know about Cloud computing", or similar.
* So, the readers - most of whom are likely to be relatively sophisticated if they are reading stuff online - might read the vapid drivel once, but next time they see one of these supposedly attention-grabbing headlines, they will go "Uh-uh. I'm not going to fall for that again and waste time reading that sort of drivel.", and are gone in a mouseclick.
Some classic examples of this can arguably be found, typically, in Lifehacker, MakeUseOf, and arsTechnica, to name but three. They were very good once, but seem to have gradually gone to the dogs, with AT seemingly having gone all religio-political ideological and sometimes ramming their PC POV down the readers' throats. However, apart from that difference, what they all seem to share in common is that they are become what are called "t#rd-eaters". For example, they may often pick up the same piece of current "hot" news from a news source, and they then seem to regurgitate it almost verbatim, with no particularly original input or added value - e.g., cogent, critical or investigative journalism - though they may sometimes imply that they are giving you the full beeswax, though, sadlement, this is more often than not likely to be self-aggrandizement BS rather than BW.
This (above) is really the other side of the coin to I what mentioned in another thread:
@Stephen66515: Well, if you are putting it like that in marketing terms, then I would generally look for a clear communications strategy, including, for example:
* What/who is defined as being the target market(s), and why ("everybody" or "anybody" would generally not seem to be a useful answer to that).
* What would be seen as the most desirable (for DCF) response/behaviour, required from the defined target market, and why.
* What specific and consistently articulated communications (from DCF, or third parties on DCF's behalf) ) would be necessary to be communicated to the target(s) that could be most likely to elicit those desirable responses/behaviours, and why.
* What communications media/channels would be most likely to enable the communication to effectively reach said target market(s), and why.
* When those messages would need to be sent via the media/channel(s) selected (co-ordinated message communications plan) for max effect, and why.
* Feedback + analysis: What the outcome of the communications plan was (measurement/statistics).
* Update/document the plan to include what needs to be done to improve the quality of the marketing plan for next time around.
This would be a deliberative method essentially following the Deming/Shewhart cycle for improvement of the marketing planning process.
(See image below)
Failure to take a methodical approach (i.e., no method) would generally tend to mean that the strategy was likely to be no more successful than the typical dog-eat-dog approach of most mediocre marketing efforts - refer book: Competing for the Future, by Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad (21 Mar 1996).
-IainB (January 14, 2018, 11:09 PM)
--- End quote ---
However, if this is all too hard/analytical or makes one's brain hurt just simply thinking about it, then one can always fall back on gut instinct, I suppose ... that would be Mr. Gumby's preferred approach, so I'm all for it. :o
A quick search of eBay might throw up some good digitised Tyrolean text rendering guns - of the sort apparently used by Lifehacker - that might be able to do the job of automating posting to the DC forum/blog. Real "productivity" tools. :Thmbsup:
IainB:
Coincidentally, re posting frequency/discipline:
In the 12 years I've been blogging, I don't think I've ever gone two weeks without posting something new, but today's post is the first in almost a month, the first this year. The break wasn't intentional... I just haven't felt like writing, I guess. But today I visited a cafe with coffee so unique — I'd never had anything like it — that it deserved to roust me from my blogging lethargy.
- Copied from: Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » Kafe Kosen: Quite the Unique (and Delicious) Coffee Experience in Kyoto - <http://regex.info/blog/2018-01-22/2845>
--- End quote ---
mouser:
I think we also have to figure out the best place to host the blog posts/articles, and using what technology.
For example, we could use the joomla article system and host the items on the HOME PAGE of donationcoder.com, and/or try to merge it into the donationcoder "blog" page (https://www.donationcoder.com/editorials/blog).
I think it doesn't make sense having multiple pages on the main website with different "kinds" of blogs, so I think it would make sense to merge them all into a single "blog" page, maybe even eliminating the separate blog page and merging the blog with the homepage.
Another alternative would be to put the blogs on the front of dcmembers.com website instead of the donationcoder website, and use wordpress. This would have the disadvantage of not helping increase exposure of donationcoder, but have the advantage of having a new separate site where there were less things pulling in different directions, and more like starting a new website..
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