All The Good Names Were Taken

Hi. To the one or two people--probably my wife and my friend Brian and the occasional colleague who goes through my web site and makes it this far--who read this blog--I've decided to alleviate my guilt and just say right here, that I'm suspending writing this blog until mid-October. As some of you may know, I'm in the midst of revisions on a book, which I have to turn in to my editor by mid-October, and it's hard enough keeping up with my other blog, chronicling mostly parenting misadventures and questionable insight, than to do two blogs. I don't want to give up on the idea of having a business blog. I like the idea. But right now, I can't devote the time to it. So if you occasionally come to this blog, I wouldn't waste your time until the last half of October, when I revisit the idea of re-starting this blog, or--sigh--ending it. In any case, if you've read the postings on this blog, or my other one, thanks. And if you've enjoyed any of the postings, thanks even more.

OK, I admit it. My business-writing blog is not turning out the way I'd like it to, and that's probably because, for starters, I'm not sure what my goal is. With the parenting blog, I have a lot of content that some people read, and with this business blog, I have almost no content that presumably a few people read... something has to change.

At any rate, I did some research on business blogs and found some great advice from the University of Massachussetts Dartmouth. Their Center for Marketing Research put out a paper, "Behind the Scenes in the Blogosphere." In case anyone wants to check it out, the link is here (let's see if I do this right):

But if you don't want to check it out, here are some tips (paraphrased in my own words, except for quotes) that I picked up from the study. My thinking is, is that if I follow these guidelines, it should be quite easy to make my blog more popular and relevant.

So according to the study, if you want to have more people visit your blog, you could:

Add additional authors to your blog. That's not a bad idea. Instead of maintaining one blog, you could have several maintaining it. That's what Entrepreneur magazine does, and many companies, and then you don't have one person solely responsible for it, and if numerous people are blogging on your blog, presumably more content is going up, and managing a blog is a little less overwhelming. Still, that doesn't hit the problem of attracting readers, but try this next idea.

Offer your own comments on other people's blogs--and this is key--who are covering the same subject matter. I watched that happen with my wife's blog; she's often commenting on fellow birdwatcher's blogs, and as it happens, she has quite a popular birding blog. As one reader said in the study, "Grow your blog by being cited by other more popular blogs." This makes sense. I could do this.

The study also recommended publicizing yourself, using a link in your email to direct others to your blog. I usually do that, and sometimes don't, knowing people will find a lot of old, not-so relevant information in this blog. But, still, it's a good idea. I could do that even more. Say, this is going to be easier than I thought.

Quality counts. And the study concluded that the growth of a blog depends on not just the number of postings, but that they have to be well-written and interesting.

Quality? Sigh, I knew there'd be a catch.

So I'm sitting in McDonald's, watching my kids run around in their indoor playground, thinking about what I might blog on my admittedly more-robust parenting blog, when I start looking at the artwork on the side of a Happy Meal. The caption--and I don't have total recall--says something like, "Where would YOU go if you had a hummer?" And there's a map of the mountainous countryside, with arrows showing the hummer driving from one spot to another with captions like--and I'm paraphrasing--that if you come to a creek that's two feet deep, don't worry, you can drive through it! It suggests that you might want to camp underneath the stars, and if you come to a swimming hole, it suggests that you personally get out of the car and swim because it's good for your heart. I figure they had to throw that in there, so they couldn't be accused of not having an important message on this Happy Meal box.

Well, anyway, my girls are running around the indoor playground--I'm not out to totally trash the Golden Arches--the playgrounds are great, and the Apple Dippers are fantastic. I get those for the girls, and I share my fries, so we at least manage to get some sort of nutrition among our caloric-laden feast. And in case it matters, I should put it out there that I wrote a feature story about McDonald's Hamburger University a year ago or so. Again, this isn't an indictment of the restaurant--just the stupid idea of promoting a gas-guzzling, environmental disaster of a car to young children.

But then it hit me.

They're not after the kids. They're after the parents.

We all know that by the time preschoolers and tweens are driving, the Hummer is probably going to no longer exist, unless they've made some Hummers that are fueled on vegetable oil or some other alternative fuel. No, they're not trying to market the Hummer to kids. Not really. They know that parents buy the food, and parents are going to be looking at these.

For a moment, I almost admired General Motors' savvy in getting themselves to team up with McDonald's. (The boys all receive toy Hummers with their Happy Meals; and stereotypically, the girls get some sort of tiny action-figure doll, which Isabelle and Lorelei loved, I must say. But every Happy Meal has the Hummer "ad.")

But just as I started to admire the craftiness of GM, I decided that it wasn't admirable enough. After all, kids who can read are reading it, and the whole idea of promoting a Hummer as a great vehicle to take off a road through the countryside, throttling animals in its path and tearing apart grass and creeks and such--well, not so good. I'm not a tree hugger (though my wife is), but I am concerned about the environment as most people are these days... and so even if it helps to sell Hummers, I'm not sure what it does for the image of GM and McDonald's. It seems like a bad decision made by two good companies that should know better.

Well, last night, I was on the air. I did an interview for WGN Radio, and to my credit, I wasn't terrible.

Sigh. That's my new benchmark: I wasn't terrible.

The producer said I was good the next day. Maybe. All I know is that I wasn't terrible.

The first time I was ever on radio, I was terrible. And the second time, and the third and so on. Somehow, several years ago when I worked at a newspaper, I was asked to come in every week to a radio station to talk about what was going on in the city. The radio producer liked my column and thought my humor might translate well to her medium. Yeah. I hear she was demoted to working the night shift soon after that decision.

I did get better, but my big mistake when I first went on the air was starting off with a long, terrified pause. The DJs stared at me, as if they could see the future, and it involved them getting fired for having brought me into the studio. But then I started talking, and stammering, and then words and sentences came out, and awful as I was, they kept me coming in for about a year, amused, I think, at my amateur radio style. Or maybe they just liked that I was a ham and was pretty much up for anything. My hightlight, or lowlight, was when I went on location with the DJs, and they had a professional wrestler with them. I was talked into letting the wrestler try a few holds on me. I figured because it was radio, he'd go easy on me. Instead, he ended up flipping me into the air, so that listeners could hear a grown man scream like a little girl.

Then they heard the thud and agonizing moan, which I'm told made great radio. I wouldn't know, having lost conciousness about then.

Last year, I was asked to do a radio interview for another station, in relation to a parenting magazine column I write, and there must have been some growth in my radio skills, because I did the interview and actually--as opposed to my year-long stint--didn't hear any criticism from my friends and family.

And then last night, I spoke about travel getaways in the Midwest, in relation to a story that I have coming up soon at Entrepreneur.com. And, as noted, it went pretty well.

So now that I've given you my radio history, I thought I'd offer a few tips on being interviewed on the radio. Here goes...

1. Don't think of it as an interview. Think of it as a conversation. Granted, that's a little hard, because if you're in the studio, that microphone is right there, as are the DJs, but, still, just talk to them like you talk to your friends--friends who have superior voices compared to yours.

2. If you're doing the interview on the telephone, feel free to have some notes right there on the computer. Nobody's going to know, unless you accidentally lose your place when you're scrolling down with the mouse. (But I recovered.)

3. If you're representing something bigger than yourself--a business, your boss, whatever--be sure to try and mention that something at the start and end of the interview. I practically trampled over the DJ's words at the end when I said, "And be sure to check out our article on Entrepreneur.com." I'm sure he appreciated that like he appreciates tooth decay, but it's important to know who signs your checks.

This has actually been up for a few days, but I just learned about it. My most recent story is on Entrepreneur.com, and so if anyone would like to check it out, the first link is the entire article, the second link is part one of the article (but shorter and with photos, sort of a slide show) and the third link is part two of the article (but again, shorter and with photos, again something of a slide show).

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,328625,00.html
http://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshows/marketingstunts
http://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshows/marketingstunts

So it's Friday night, and I'm headed to a drive-through beverage stop, you know, one of those places where you can pick up cold pop, beer, pretzels and so on. Around here, they're often called pony kegs. Anyway, as I'm entering the driveway, I suddenly think, "Wait, did I bring my debit card?" I stop in the darkness of the parking lot for a moment, out of view of the person on duty, and I check my wallet, nod, and I drive into his establishment.

He looks a little stricken. I sort of realize that he probably wondered what I was doing, for those few minutes, in the darkness, not driving into his pony keg.

I explain that I was checking to see if I had money, and I wave my debit card at him, and I apologize for possibly seeming a little odd, for not driving right up into his pony keg.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter that I'm 36 years old, wearing my glasses, a perfectly nice Oxford shirt, that I'm driving a very middle-class looking car, and that I'm pretty sure I don't look like a thug. This clean cut young man, maybe about 20, is clearly keeping his distance from me. I tell him that I need some Coca-Cola and some diet pop, and he gets it for me, and as he starts to relax, he explains that he thought I might have been about to rob him.

I have to admit, I'm almost flattered, since I've never been the sort of person to induce fear into anyone. At least I don't think so. I was one of those kids in middle school who was routinely picked on by bullies.

I apologize again, and he half-apologizes by saying, "It's a shame that I would think you might be out to rob me, but it's the world we live in."

I agree, and that's when the guy adds: "I've never been robbed, but we're always a little wary. That's why we have a lot of ammunition in the back."

"Oh, well, that's great," I say.

"Yeah, I won't show that to you, but I will show you this," he says, whipping out a baseball bat from behind the counter.

Part of me is wondering if he's being friendly, sending a message, or both. Either way, I'm definitely not planning on a second career as a robber.

Definitely not, because suddenly he's talking about nunchuks, and then showing me a police baton. Both weapons seem to materialize out of thin air. Now I'm the one who is a little worried.

And then he shows me his knife, one with a long gleaming blade.

I nod, and we make some more small talk as I sign the credit card receipt. I glance at my signature. It's a little shaky.

And the funny thing is, I think he was really just making his own small talk more than sending me a message. Because he seemed to look a little alarmed, once he realized how alarmed I looked.

In any case, I didn't stick around for long. I sped off, leaving him behind with his beverages and his survival weapons. I was a little stunned that he would show a customer his security methods, but I don't blame him for having them. In that any car could just drive up, stick a gun out, grab some money and speed away, he probably does feel more than a little vulnerable. And suddenly, so do I.

It's the world we live in.

1978, for some reason, is the year I think of, when I decide to take a look at the time I live in and be grateful for it.

There are plenty of reasons to think 2006 isn't a glorious time. Just watch the news and wonder if in a few weeks or months, you might be on the camera, shell-shocked and talking about the carnage you've recently witnessed.

But purely from a business standpoint, I'm deliriously happy.

I was eight years old in 1978, so, yes, I was around then, but every so often, I think about what my life would be like if I were a freelance journalist, working in 1978. I'd have no computer, no Internet, no email, no fax (oh, that's right, I got rid of my fax; if I knew how to do it, I'd link you to one of my first posts, where I talked about that) -- anyway, you get the picture. While 1978 wasn't the dark ages, its technology was a bit lacking.

I began successfully freelancing in 1993 (unsuccessful attempts were as early as the mid-1980s), and I'll always look back fondly at those days, because I didn't yet have email or the Internet, and I didn't yet have a fax machine. I have actual memories of driving to the library and doing research for hours on various articles, and seeing as I lived in Los Angeles and often drove to the Beverly Hills Public Library, I loved it. It made my job seem more glamorous, which I needed, given that I lived in a one-room apartment with a bed coming out of the wall, and months earlier had been poor enough that all I could afford to eat was peanut butter sandwiches.

At any rate, I've thought a lot about those times, and I'll sometimes choose a year like 1950 or 1980, but generally I always fall back on 1978, and I think about what my career would be like, if I were researching and interviewing and writing articles with 1978 technology, and I'm pretty convinced I couldn't do what I do. I wouldn't have written articles any faster in 1978, but the technology has obviously sped up research. What might have taken two days in 1978--for instance, searching something in an obscure book or aging newspaper at the library--is something I might accomplish in 20 seconds these days.

But there's something else that I've got going for me, that I might have not had in 1978. Even though they were the post-hippie, Disco years, I've always had the sense that the business community was more uptight back then, an extension of the workforce in the 1950s. And yesterday, I couldn't help think how lucky I am, to be in 2006, when my two daughters came into my office and started talking to me about a birthday party they were about to go attend.

"Ssh," I whispered to the girls. "I'm doing an interview."

Lorelei, my two-year-old who always wants to lend me a hand, asked, "Help?"

"Well, no, you can't help me do this interview," I said, hearing a chuckle on the other end. Fortunately, the businessman I was interviewing had a child of his own, and he works from his home, too. He couldn't have been more understanding, which was decent of him, given that we were in the middle of talking about a sensitive topic--insects had raided a food product that he and his business partner make. They caught the problem before their product was manufactured, and thus there was no danger of their customers eating it. But it was a dicey topic for him to be discussing, and here were my girls, raiding my office.

And he didn't care.

And I don't think most people would, these days.

But I'm not so sure the reception the business community would have given a work-at-home dad in 1978.

And so I'm glad to be working in 2006.

Now you know.

Not that anybody asked.