The World is Flat?! My World is Cracked! Ha!
(cartoon adopted from weblogcartoon.com)
Remember one of the famous scenes in the Matrix series, that the people in the real world can’t get back to the virtual world since the “entry point” (the telephone set) is destroyed?
I had similar experience: for I had been detained in the real world these few days, trying all means to knock at evey door and still couldn’t find my “entry point” back to the internet world.
In fact, my boardband connections had all gone wrong and I had been shut up from the internet world totally. I havn’t been fully recovered my connections yet and my service contractor would need to come to my home to fix the problem tonight. I hope that everything would go fine real soon.
Let’s see how desperate I was during my “detention” in the real world:
- I was totally cut off from my businesses, couldn’t manage the websites and couldn’t respond to my clients.
- I could not align and confirm offical appointments and meetings.
- I was not able to discuss with my business partner late in the night through mails and msn as we did every night.
- I could not update my blogs nor reply to my visitors.
- I could not get connected with my friends on line and through msn. I did not know whether they had sent me any thing or any invitation that would require my urgent attention.
- I could not get updated on what’s going on in my variuos networks and communities.
- I could not even read news on line or to search for the information I required.
- Not to mention all those transactions, personal accounts, payments, bookings, mails, etc. that are all web based and I just couldn’t manage any one of those without the connections.
For the night I found that my boardband services were out of order, the deperate me was just sitting in front of the computer and was getting to no where. The experience was so terrible for me, and I think you would all understand how upset I was when I learnt that it would take a few days before my services could be brought back to normal.
I have kept thinking these few days and was ashtonished by how drastic the internet world and the web 2.0 have changed our lives and our daily practices. No matter we aware or not aware, no matter we intend or not intend, the internet world and the web 2.0 are re-shaping and re-forming our our everyday activities and practices. I really can’t imagine how I could survive without the internet supports.
Where all the things we need and more and more activities are now web based, the Matrix world is definitely a prophet that comes true to us.
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Related posts:
- Networking, net working?!
- My New Blogging Life
- Blogging as Branding
- From Casual to Serious Blogging - what makes the differences and what does it mean?
Networking, net working?!
Thanks Armand for tagging me about “My social profiles”, which makes me think about the networking opportunity in blogging and on-line activities.
We build up network through “net-work”, it is so true nowadays, where the stage of networking activities has moved towards the internet. We chat with and communicate with our friends through mails and msn, we participate in various newsgroup and forums to share views and comments, we meet new friends through various communities on line, we set up our own blogs / websites as a show window for ourselves for promotion and create new relationship, etc.
Do we ever notice how many on line networks we have created and how many on line communities we have joined? For a newbie like me, I do not have many. If you are also members of the following network, do find me around and get connected!
This round, I would like tagging: Black Jack, Thira, David, Kumo, Miki, Arik and Rolando. Wish we could meet somewhere else in the net!
Filed under networking, blogging | Comments (9)My New Blogging Life
nothing more to say, but it’s my everyday life now, ha ha!
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related post:
- Blogging as Branding
- From Casual to Serious Blogging - what makes the differences and what does it mean?
Blogging as Branding
I have been thinking of branding myself for a long time, not until I’ve found out this blogosphere, or what I call “serious blogging”, I do not have a single clue on it.
What is “Personal Branding”?
Personal branding is the process whereby people and their careers are marketed as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging. The term is thought to have been first used and discussed in an 1997 article by Tom Peters.
The makeup of a personal brand has four main elements: personality, appearance, competencies, and differentiation. An individuals total perceived value takes into account these elements and is considered to be his or her core message or elevator pitch to an audience.
It is common to divide branding into tangible and intangible. Tangible branding involves associating an individual’s name with some specific advantage that they are presumed to offer, while intangible branding involves creating a more general positive feeling about them.” - Wikipedia on Personal Branding
What we talk, how we behave, how we dress, how we interact with our friends and colleagues and customers, etc., all constitute to our branding. We are building up our own brand everyday no matter you are aware of it or not, and no matter you like such activity or not.
Why ”Personal Branding”?
We are not “selling” ourselves, we are not doing any business, why we care about branding? The answer rests with whether you have something in mind you would like to promote? Whether there is something you are good at and you would like to show to the world?
By doing personal branding, we could establish our fame and reputation in the aspects we are good at and for the things we are interested in. With our own brand, we could attract and meet more friends who have similar interests and thoughts as we do and build up our network in a particular aspect. We would be able to expand our opputunities for achievement.
Blogging as Branding
We want to brand ourselves, we know that there are some aspects in us worth presenting to the world, we want to build up our fame and reputations, what are we going to do? Opening a shop and put ourselves inside the show window? Printing ourselves some leaflets and distribute them on the street? Hiring a commercial time on the TV to speak to the audience?
In the past, writing a book and knock on the publishers’ door would be an good idea. But this process requires lots of strength and patience. We could also write some articles and try to submit to the newpapers’ editor. If we are lucky enough, we could meet some editors who like our writing and let us write for the newspaper as freelance writers.
With the growing popularity of blogosphere and that more and more serious and professional bloggers have emerged and there are more and more blog readers, it is now possible for us to brand ourselves, to set up a shop for us, to place ourselves in our own show window, to display and present any articles, thoughts, work of ourselves totally out of no cost (or at the minimum cost of getting a host).
This little on-line shop for ourselves could be reached by all international readers 24 hours throughout the day. We could manage the shop and keep contacts with our readers everywhere everytime whenever we have the internet connections. What can be more easy than setting up a shop of ourselves by creating a blog? What can be more achievable than branding ourselves by becoming a serious blogger?
To brand your thoughts, to brand your characters, to brand your interests, to brand your lifestyle, etc., there is always something good in you that worth branding. Branding ourselvse, by way of blogging, is a way to build up our fame and reputation.
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related post: From Casual to Serious Blogging - what makes the differences and what does it mean?
Filed under self improvements, Success, career, blogging | Comments (7)Blogging - Tagging Game vs Reflections
Thanks Shine for tagging me.
To be frank, in the very first beginning, I am not that keen on this kind of tagging game. However, after reading the questions, I have found that they are quite interesting and could help me to do some reflections. I then ask myself “why not”.
Dear friends, I am also tagging you and really would like to know your answers to these questions, ha!
3 things that scare me
- people bad mouthing others
- people with bad intentions
- people who are not loyal and not trustworthy
3 people who make me laugh
- all my beloved ones and friends
- Charles M. Schulz: Charlie Brown and Snoopy, they are my first comic idols since I was small
- Stephen Chow: my favourite comedian director in Hong Kong, his films are classic!
3 things I love
- All kinds of beautiful things
- Good friends
- Good wine
3 things I hate
- Do stupid things
- Don’t know that I was doing stupid things
- Enjoy doing stupid things (ha!)
3 things I don’t understand
These things I am still trying hard to understand, but not yet …
- How to love myself
- How to love “you”
- The aim of this life
3 things on my desk
- My mini notebook computer
- A 20′ LCD screen
- Japanese books, French books, Astrology books
3 things I’m doing right now
- Thinking
- Writing
- Listening to music
3 things I want to do before I die
Woo, I have many things on my list, just to pick 3 of those is really a difficult task.
- To love all my beloved ones and bring them happiness
- To travel to and live in those places I love
- To win fame in both my work and my life
3 things I can do
- Be loving
- Be “royal”
- Be positive and happy
3 things I can’t do
- Betray others
- Stop improving myself
- Live in a boring life
3 things I think you should listen to
- “Love and let go”
- “Self fulfilling prophecy: what is likely to happen in the future would become true because you have expected it to happen”
- “Believe in yourself and love yourself”
3 things you should never listen to
- “You are not as good as others”
- Gossips and bad words
- Your own negative thinking
3 shows I watched as a kid
I remeber that I only watch movies when I was a kid …
I am tagging:
- Maartje @ Behind the Page
- Santa @ Santa Mail
- Jon @ Chimeric Day Dreams
- Shay @ Sparkplugged
- Justin @ Push a Pixel
From Casual to Serious Blogging - what makes the differences and what does it mean?
I have been writing my personal blogs for years, if it was not my good friend shine (this talent and pretty lady has become a serious blogger in 2 months time, starting from ground zero) who had introduced this world of blogging to me, I would have no idea of what serious and professional blogging could be.
“You rent a server to write diaries?”
“Why are you doing blogging?”
“What do you want to achieve?”
“What do you want to earn?”
These are the most common questions I have come across when my friends know about my new started blogging life.
In fact, blogging is very popular nowadays, and many people are owning and writing their blogs, some even own more than one blog at the same time. There are tones of service providers out there for us to create our blogs to share our thoughts. However, most of the bloggers, including me before, are casual bloggers only. What makes the differences between casual blogging and serious and even professional blogging? What could be achieved through blogging? Why are some people doing so seriously? These would be some common questions that casual bloggers would pretty much like to know.
Casual vs Serious Bloggers
What are the differences between casual bloggers and serious bloggers?
For serious bloggers, they may not yet or they may not target to become professional bloggers, who could earn substantial incomes based on blogging. If it is not for / not yet for money / income, what is the difference between a casual blogger and a serious one?
The answer lies on the attitudes of the bloggers. For casual bloggers, most of us, are writing our dairies, our own stories, our own feelings, what ever we want to write, etc. We don’t care whether we have reader or not. The posts so written are circulated and read by our own friends. What most, in fact, we are our own readers. So, to a certain extend, casual bloggers write for themselves, and not the readers.
The story is quite different for a serious blogger. For serious blogger, they write for their readers. Their readers may or may not know themselves, or maybe even international and have different cultural backgrounds. It is what they write that have attracted and retained the readers. Therefore, what they write should not be related to themselves only, but to the readers at large. Posts by serious bloggers would be meaningful to their readers and their readers would find it worthwhile to read the posts.
For casual bloggers who write for themselves and not their readers, they may not write their posts regularly. Sometimes, they may write several articles a day, sometimes, they may not have any post for a whole month. They never think of their readers’ expectations nor habits. While for serious bloggers, they would write regularly on their own pace. Through regular posts, the serious bloggers are able to manage their readers’ expectations and habits. This is the basic but the most important effective way to build up readership, for the readers know what to expect and would not get frustrated.
It is also important for any serious blogger to identify their niche, areas in which they are interested and good at, and it would be a pleasure for them to share such experiences and knowledge with their readers.
Serious bloggers tend to plan for their posts, normally over a week. For sure that we would write according to our instincts or some new experiences, serious bloggers still have a plan to follow somehow. Well planned posts would garantee consistent quality, that is the magic.
Why become a serious blogger?
Every thing has a reason, blogging should have no exception.
By creating a website / blog, we in fact have created a platform, “an online shop”, which operates 24 hours around the clock and could be accessible from every corner of the world and we don’t need shop assistant.
On this platform, we could sell and diplay things which we want to. And what is most important, is to sell and advertise “ourselves”. We could form our community and networking through this platform. We could find someone who are with similar wave lengths as ourselves from everywhere on earth. This is the most important thing we could “earn” or “gain” through blogging.
Some important notes for new bloggers
To become serious bloggers, we would need to write regularly, even daily. This may be the most difficult part for a casual blogger to become a serious blogger. However, once you start writing and try to work on this, it may become your habits to write regularly.
Don’t hesitate that you may not have topic to share with your readers. Topics come from our everyday lives and we would build up our own habits to write when we do it day by day. You would find it more easily to write your posts after practising it for some time.
Quality posts are important to retain your readers. Never scrafice your writing quality in order to get your website updated everyday. Readers are able to tell whether you have hearts in your posts.
Identifying suitable readers is also important for serious bloggers. Joining forums and blog communities would be necessary activities for serious bloggers to build up the readership.
Want to create your platform? Want to build up your readership and community? Start as a serious blogger today and you would find out more fun and rewards.
Filed under Success, career, blogging | Comments (15)House Warming Party
Finally, I have moved to this new home. I thought I had got most of the settings ready, but eventually it was not. Last night I was exhausted in fine tunning the settings, from font sizes to the overall layouts, eveything needs to be worked on. The situation is just like moving into a new flat physically, everything in the flat is in a mess and need to be rearranged before life could resume normal.
Luckily, the basic work has been completed, at least I find it comfortable to resume my writing here again.
The last two weeks were extremely demanding for me: starting a new blog “we we wet wet”, writing a post everyday thereafter, joining the MyBlogLog and setting up my community, all are new experiences to me. Topping up with all these, I was also starting to register a new domain, get it hosted and build up this new website. The website stuffs are all brand new to me and I know nothing about writing html or php or css, even the hosting of a domain, I have no knowledge at all.
Working until late in the night, writing everyday in the “we we wet wet”, keeping up contacts with new readers, reading all “how to” forums in various service providers, doing trouble shootings by myself, etc., resulting in less than 2 hours sleep every night in the last two weeks. There are now two large dark circles under my eyes and I now just look like a panda.
“Love panda, love me, haha!”
There is nothing more relieving and pleasurable than taking some rest after a period of real hard work. Let me invite you all to pay me a house warming visit. Let’s celebrate the setting up of my new home and I hope you would enjoy here.
Cheers!
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