Craig goes to Blogger Kindergarten

One of the only negatives of owning a reasonably successful business is that I get inundated with phone calls from people that I don’t know, who generously want to help me grow my business.
The answer to all my professional problems.
How nice.

People who have never met me, know nothing about me, have never set foot in my business and apparently have some deep-seated, burning, selfless, desire to help little-old me be all that I can.
Giddyup.

Fortunately for me, Kim my PA is well trained in the art of deflection and evasion. If people can get through the twenty-five question phone interrogation then she may, or may not, put their call through to me. One person who survived such a grilling is a bloke named John Hopkins.

I spoke to him for sixty seconds, told him I was too busy to see him but to call me back one day in the future; knowing that he probably wouldn’t.

He did.
A lot.

Bugger.

After a month or so of dogged persistence, I succumbed and ‘graciously’ agreed to a fifteen minute meeting (such a giver). Apparently he wanted to talk to me about web-site stuff (not a passion of mine), something called podcasting (who cares?) and some other mumbo-jumbo, cyber-tech crap that I didn’t really understand.

And of course, if I don’t know about it or understand it, it must be crap and it can’t be important.

Lesson 1.
Don’t let your ego, attitude, ignorance or arrogance hold you back personally or professionally (men, pay attention).
Not that I would… but I’ve heard some do.

So on October 13, 2006 (82 days ago) the boring techno-cyber-fluff geek and I met.
The fifteen minute meeting went for two hours and much to my surprise, the geek turned out to be interesting and kind of clever.
Decent and likeable even.
Bugger again.

He introduced me to the concept of a blog site; apparently like an on-line journal, diary, magazine, soap-box.
A place to voice your thoughts, ideas, philosophies.
A place to share and exchange ideas and information on the cyber-highway; the blogosphere.

Okay, he lost a little ground when he used the term, blogosphere.

“You already write professionally, you already do media stuff, you already stand in front of business groups and students, this is another way for you to connect with an audience and get your message out there”, he told me.

He showed me a blog site (set up by one guy) which had over one million visitors per month!

That freaked me out.
“So you’re telling me that some guy jotting down his thoughts on his laptop in his lounge room on the other side of the world is being read by over a twelve million people every year?”

“Yep”.

Hmm, no editors editing.
No producers telling me what to talk about, who to talk to, or how long to talk for.
No dead-lines.
An international audience.

Okay Johnnie, I’m in.

And a blogger was born.

So I took my first wobbly blogging steps late October 2006 and I’ve been attending blogger kindergarten ever since.

Lesson 2.
Sometimes the best opportunities and lessons come from the least likely places.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s happened in the last 82 days:

* Johnnie the annoying geek has turned out to be neither, annoying or a geek.

* He now works with me full-time helping me manage my hectic professional life and more importantly, he is the engineer, the architect and the driving force behind the site (he even has his own office at the Harperdome).

* I write the content but Johnnie makes the site look good and function well.

* Johnnie has patiently answered my 14,782 questions at blogger kindergarten over the last 82 days. He is a good teacher and I am an annoying student. I want to know everything by last Tuesday.

* I have spent on average three to four hours per day working on the site; primarily writing content.

* The site has gone from zero to just over 5,000 visitors per week and it’s growing by the day.

* I have learned terms like post (an online article or diary contribution), Google Analytics (some techy thing which tells us all about the traffic to our site) and Technorati. As well as I can understand, Technorati is a type of ranking system for blog sites. When other sites link to this site, we climb the rankings. Apparently there are over 55 million blog sites and as I write this, craigharper.com is ranked at 89,588 which ranks us in the top 0.2% of sites. Three weeks ago we were ranked over a million.

* At the moment we have 38 other sites linked to ours, and that figure is increasing by about 2-3 links per day (Johnnie tells me this is good!).

* Johnnie has received more hugs from big muscular men in the last 82 days than most people would in a lifetime. He feigns embarrassment and annoyance…. but he really digs it. He teaches us about the blogosphere and we teach him about his intimacy issues.

* He has dropped 7 kilos (15lbs) since his debut at the Harperdome and is the most rock-hard web-freak on the east coast of Australia.

* I have had the opportunity to meet and chat with people from all over the world (on-line) and I love every second of it.

* I have regularly sat up until two am blogging after working a fifteen hour day.

Lesson 3. (An oldie but a goodie)
Every successful endeavour (business, program, web-site, book, project) starts with an idea. The vast majority of people do nothing, and then complain when others turn their idea into a reality.

Do nothing; you’ll get nothing.

I don’t tell you any of these things to impress you, but rather to impress upon you how possible is to learn, grow, create, succeed and have some fun when we step out of our little bubble, put in the effort, take a chance, overcome a few fears, fall over, get up and keep going. Many times I have been frustrated over the last eighty two days. Many times I have made significant mistakes… but they are usually my best lessons. Some of what I have written has been quality, some has been mediocre but every day Johnnie and I are learning together, growing, adapting and working at creating something amazing.
Something that will make a difference.
Something we can both be proud of.
Something that gives us and hopefully, millions of others, motivation, inspiration and joy.

Lesson 4.
Whoever said ignorance is bliss was lying.
Ignorance is a handicap.

Imagine if I hadn’t let Johnnie in the door.
You wouldn’t be reading this now.

And I wouldn’t be attending blogger kindergarten.

Johnnie and I appreciate you visiting the site and would love your feedback, ideas and suggestions. It is a work in progress, we are both learning (okay, mainly me) and we are both committed to making this the best educational, motivational and inspirational resource we can. Let me know what you would like me to write on… If I don’t know anything about it, you know I’ll make it up!

P.S. Much to his very vocal disapproval (you really need to work on that swearing) I have included a photo of the bald man lurking around the Harperdome. What are you doing in the gym Johnnie?… Get back to your computer you geek!

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