Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

I am beginning to wonder if anyone even works for technorati or if David Sifry just set up some server with some software and let it go, slowly, very slowly.

Don’t get me wrong I think technorati does a very decent job of tracking what’s new in the blogosphere but do they have anyone to answer emails. Their publishing ads on their pages now so one would guess that money has to go somewhere besides Sifry’s pockets doesn’t it?

My dilemma started about 4 months ago when none of the links coming into my blog were showing up in technorati. It was about 3 weeks since I had gotten about 20 links from various blogs about several of my useful posts and not a one of them showed up in my technorati ranking. I then decided (which I strongly suggest against doing now) to delete my claim and start over. As it turns out, once you delete a claim, no one can reclaim that blog. I then proceeded to send technorati at their suggested contact email about the technical difficulty I was having.

No response.

I resent that email about 10 times and still got no response from their service people.

Well now it has been the 4 months that I was talking about and decided it was time to reclaim my blog. Maybe, just maybe giving it time to settle was all it needed. Wrong. Still, erikvossman.com comes back unclaimable. I then tried contacting them again, last Thursday and after 4 business days, 6 altogether, I have yet to get a response.

Have others had a similar problem. I Googled the issue and didn’t really come up with any conclusive links in the blogospher and technorati’s results came back not even close to saying technorati wasn’t good at their job (filtered???). Let me know, let us know if you’ve have trouble contacting technorati or reclaiming a blog or if you know of some magic way to get ahold of the technorati team.

Learning how to become a better leader, a better manager, or a better manager of time can be a tough thing to do when your on the job. Most of the time the management you have is busy trying to manage you rather than preparing you to advance. The people who do advance are those either given a golden opportunity or those willing to go the extra mile, put in the extra effort, to make themselves a more desirable candidate for promotion.

If you are one of the ones who doesn’t want to wait around and be given the golden spoon than you might want to check out MindTools.com. Mind Tools is an online resource of tons of articles related to furthering your career.

Articles range from building yourself as a leader, to bettering your time management skills. Becoming a good leader takes practice and opportunities. Realizing when the opportunities present themselves is half the battle. The other half is knowing what to do when the opportunity is arises. Mind Tools’ leadership section has multiple articles about finding your motivational skill set and how to use it.

Another big part about furthering your career is getting things done. Being able to better manage your time can allow you to accomplish more tasks at work without putting out more effort. Believe it or not supervisors notice when you get a lot done without expounding that much energy. It makes you seem more experienced and better suited to lead.

Now although this site exclaims that it is for bettering your career those of you looking to get out of your career and become independently wealthy can stand to learn something from this site as well. If you want to do it all on your own without having employees then the time management section is where you want to focus all of your time. Worrying about leadership skills and management skills won’t do you much good.

But those of you who really want to be truly independently wealthy then focus a lot of time on the management skills. You’ll need to learn about how to get people want to work for you even if you think they can do the same things you’re paying them, by themselves. You’ll need to learn to build a strong team, a strong system, and Mind Tools can help you do that.

One last thing about the site is that it allows you to download almost all of the articles via PDF format, for free. That’s always a sign of a great site.

I was recently digging through Steve Pavlina’s Goal setting category and came across and interesting post about goal free living. I have been writing a lot about the goals that I set for myself and marking down when I finish them and trying to allow everyone to follow my progress and learn from how I set my goals, high or low. In Steve’s article he discusses a book he had read called, Goal Free Living.

The view the book puts forward, as Steve states, is not to go through life living without goals, but rather not live in accordance with rigid goals that shape your life too much and could take away from valuable experiences otherwise had. Both Steve and the author write about having goals that define your life too much and don’t allow you to respond to certain situations that present themselves to you.

This is one reason why having short term goals, and goal setting can help you in the long run. Allowing yourself to have small short term goals that you can easily let pass without too much hurt to the overall picture will help you adjust to what life throws at you. Goals that are long term seldom ever get done and won’t keep you motivated to work towards them. You begin to feel restricted and eventually do nothing rather than working towards and accomplishment.

To put in into perspective that some of you bloggers and Internet entrepreneurs may find useful, think about all those goals you’ve set for yourself to get websites published and blogs into the Google rankings. Those stores you want making money passively and those AdSense sites that are beginning to pile up. You may be working feverishly trying to find the next tip to get you on the first page of Google Search Results when something even better could have been on the next thread in that forum you were reading. Your mind could be too closed because you’ve set a goal to get 500,000 visitors in a month (who would do that :)). Keep your eyes open and even though you said you wanted to make $100 a day blogging, maybe someone already offered you a solution to make $1000 a day doing nothing. You were just too busy working towards your goals to realize it happened.

As promised I will continue to give blurbs about each blog that I have launched or will be launching in the near future. We haven’t settled on a network name quite yet, and I would love to co-post these at a dedicated network blog but for now this is what you get.

As you may or may not know one of my goals is to become a scratch golfer. Since making that goal, I have realized that it takes a lot of free time to get good at such a sport, and a lot of patience. I have bought many books, read tips online, and hit the driving range plenty of times. Since doing that I’ve become somewhat knowledgeable about the different golf strokes that are out there and to the physics of golf. My swing has improved and if I get a few weeks in a row to work on it, the scores show huge improvements. I just need to stick with it for several months.

I also enjoy, as I work towards my goal, keeping up with whats happening in the world of golf. As I read I also find myself wanting to voice some opinions and spread the word about how the game is evolving and who the new players to watch for are. This is why I have started the Golf Blog www.GettingToScratch.com. It’s a golf news and resource blog featuring tips on swing mechanics, club selection, rules, and general golf knowledge. Right now I am collection golf stories and will be featuring new ones as I get them in.

We will be implementing a featured Golf video as we collect them and posting it in the same video spot that this blog features it’s video. Look for new ones every couple of days. I hope to have a few up about the US Open and how it’s taking people down.

Head over and check it out if you like the game of Golf, or maybe if you want to learn about a new sport. Warning, golf can be addicting once you hit that first great shot. All it takes is one.

Now, I’m not a Cubs fan at all although I think their stadium and following are pretty cool (GO BREWERS!), I finally was able to find some Will Ferrell Harry Caray impersonations from when he was on SNL. I have been looking for them for the longest time on Google Video and YouTube.com but was unable to find them. I then did some fancy Google work (or just stopped being lazy and searched) and found them at myspace video.

For those who don’t know Harry Caray was the beloved Cubs announcer that seemed a little off his rocker at times. He announced games straight until his passing and was a blast to listen to. He was a regular on ESPN Sports Center and if you follow baseball you might have heard his rendition of “Take me out to the Ball Game.”

Will Ferrell did some pretty funny impersonations of him that you’ve gotta see. Take a look at my newest featured video (to the right if you didn’t notice it. It will play in the current window and doesn’t have any pop ups to annoy you.

Enjoy

Anyone who has set out on a path to accomplish goals knows that sticking to them is one of the most challenging tasks. I can sit here and write all I want about how I’m going to do this or going to do that but until I show my readers (that’s you) that I’ve been sticking to my goals they don’t mean jack.

Sticking to your goals is one of the toughest things to do and is why most people don’t accomplish all those lofty things they set out to do. I’ve written previously about setting intermediate goals and lowering your potential goals as ways to keep on track and avoid discouragement along the way. These are just a few of the methods I use to work towards accomplishing so many things with only 24 hours in a day.

I have also begun to write down my goals on weekly even daily basis that you can find in my Weekly Goals category. When I set these intermediate and even day to day goals and then come back to them at the end of the day I feel a sense of shame (yes I shame myself) when I don’t accomplish them. While not for everyone as this method can lead to some self pity routines that I wouldn’t want you to find yourself in, jotting down day to day goals can help you build towards the bigger picture in a more piece by piece way that doesn’t seem like you’re climbing Mount Everest without a Sherpa (not suggested). Instead setting small goals makes it seem like you’re climbing that little hill in your back yard. Simple!

Another show stopper, or goal stopper, is having the people around you tell you that your silly for trying to reach your goals, big or small. Most of the time these people are just trying to cover their own shortcomings or lack of drive and would rather you stay at their level than succeed and move ahead. If you have people like that around you either tell them to shut up and start supporting you or find others to surround yourself with positive vibes. Having people that will support your goal chase will help you keep up on track.

Yet another great way stick to your goals is to find people to join you. Athletic related goals are probably the easiest goals to find people to join you. Getting a gym buddy, someone to head to the gym with you, is one way that I keep myself going to 24 hour fitness. If I don’t have someone to go with it’s tough to keep up. Running and biking are also better with a buddy and can keep you sticking to your plan if you find someone with similar goals.

These are all great tips but you have to use them to stick to your goals. Unless you are gifted with great will power you’ll need to have some help to stick to your goals. Don’t think you need to go it alone all the time.

I made a quick switch today to the my blogs layout. For those who have visited some of the sites within my new blog network you may have noticed that the layout to all of these blogs is essentially the exact same. The only differences are the color schemes and a few of the ads to optimize for particular content. Aside from that they are the same. This has allowed me to spend more time on content development and promotion rather than worrying about all bells and whistles of the design. I am also using this method so that when people visit one of the blogs in the network they will know it’s a quality blog and know the publishers.

As for why I am switching from my previous rounded corners layout to this blog network layout?, the sweet video idea. I have been searching around Google Video, YouTube, and Myspace video recently for good world cup highlights and always noticed the embed video option. Wanting to put a video into my blog just cause you can I never could find the right time. Then an idea crept across the cobwebs of my brain and I decided that I would feature a new video every few days on my blog. Kind of a treat for those of you who visit often.

From there it just made sense to switch to the new blog layout. I like the advertisement placement that seems to be becoming standard on blog networks and also the square that is used for ads on my other blogs, will now be used for the featured video. You should be able to click on the play button and the video will just play. Don’t worry it isn’t advertisement, just a flick I thought you might enjoy. I’ll give a little blurb about it at the bottom and then let you decide if you want to play it. Since you have to click to play it the video shouldn’t interfere with load time and it has to be faster than the JavaScript rounded corners I was using.

Well there you have it. I am still working out all the kinks but I like the new look and I really think you will all enjoy the videos I select. This first one is the online Nike commercial featuring Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho Gaucho. Hey does some fancy dribbling skills at first and then appears to boot the ball off the cross bar of the goal several times returning it to his bottom each time. I have read several articles that claim this ad is bogus but it’s still a sweet commercial to get you psyched for the World Cup!

Go USA!!!

Blogging on Empty is a blog dedicated to helping bloggers find faster more efficient ways to generate blogs, content, and links.

With a full-time job and countless hobbies I have little time to search for link exchanges, generate content and keep up with what’s going on in the blogosphere. With BloggingOnEmpty.com I hope to share with my readers some of the tips that I’ve learned along the way. Starting a network of 2 blogs let alone 9+ is a tough thing to do, especially when you work full-time.

A lot of blogs get killed in their infancy even though the potential for greatness was sitting right there in front of the publishers. All people need is to know where to look, some time saving tips and a few minutes a day and they can have a successful blog.

Subjects include, development, design, traffic building, content building, and of course monetizing. Why reinvent the wheel when there are so many people out there spinning on perfectly good 22’s and telling you how to do it.

As with all the blogs in my network I would like to open this one up to all my readers who would like to guest post. Guest posting is a great way to gain exposure for your blog or blogs and build traffic from similar blogs that are already established. Even in the first few weeks of BloggingOnEmpty.com being live we’ve had quite a few people becoming regulars and new readers joining daily. BloggingOnEmpty.com would be a great place for you to share your wisdom.

We are also considering people for spots as regular employed publishers with great profit sharing. Contact me if you are interested.

As my loyal readers have come to find out, I tend to throw out some lofty goals; 4 minute mile, 500,000 visitors a month, 12 blogs in 12 months, become a millionaire. And it isn’t like I’m starting from world class physique, (24% body fat, no running for 2 years), no websites blogs or otherwise for visitors to visit, and I’m in pretty hefty debt, school, personal, etc.

With these lofty goals I sometimes get a little discouraged when things are going slower than planned. I see the big goal at the end of the tunnel and not the journey along the way.

Recently, as I’m now on my finance book reading kick, I read a great book in the Rich Dad Series titled Cashflow Quadrant. In it, amongst all the great motivation to become financially free the author, Robert Kiyosaki, mentioned a way to begin knocking off goals in quicker. He says to “Underachieve.” But shouldn’t you give 110%?, you might ask. Not necessarily.

He states the reason so many people get discouraged during weight loss programs or exercise routines is because they shoot for the moon, trying to loose 50 pounds in a year, or trying to run that marathon. It’s good to have long term goals but in the short term set goals that are so easy to achieve you could do them t0morrow. Because then you will do them tomorrow!

Too often we try set goals that are so high, giving ourselves so much to do that we don’t do anything. It’s like getting so much work at your job that you get nothing done. Or some might compare it to analysis paralysis. You get too much information that you never make a decision. With goals you look at all you have to do and never do a thing.

How This Applies to My Blogging Goals

First off a quick thanks to Darren for posting about blog goals and sending out some link love to all those who participate. His post spurred me to finish this underachieve to success post.

My current blogging goals are set quite high. 500,000 visitors a month, I’m not even close. 12 blogs 12 months, getting closer, I have 9 blogs in my network but working on getting content up on all of them and writers for some of them is a full time job in itself. Lofty goals yes, but attainable within the year time frame I have given myself.

While I was reading the Rich Dad book I was in the middle of a discouraging outlook on all the blogs I was working on and how I’ve become rather stagnant in my traffic numbers. Underachieving sounded exactly like what I needed to do. I need to begin to look at the upcoming week and compare it to nothing rather than look at the upcoming week and compare it to how I’m doing on a grand scheme.

Taking things week by week and setting goals that are way too attainable (underachieving) will give me more confidence to move forward because I will be knocking off my goals like wildfire.

Instead of saying, as my current goal states, write 2 posts for each blog per week, I am now saying I will write 1 post on 3 blogs. 3 Days of blogging. I will exchange links for 1 blog, and I will comment creatively on one other blog. Easy. I could do that in a day but I’m giving myself a week.

I am going to also revamp my Weekly Goals section to more accurately reflect my new found underachieving status and keep to my word.

As an added bonus I think this will relieve stress big time because I won’t always be worried about the 500,000 visitors or 20 posts I need to do.

Although we’re still working out the kinks on some issues of the Network, I would like to announce the first guest post for one of our blogs. Over at Fueling the World a blog about alternative energy news, technology, laws, politics, and everything else alternative energy, Tim Roth, a good friend of mine has posted a little intro to himself.

He’s a very smart guy and I’m a really psyched that he is going to be posting regularly over there. He runs is own blog Tim PAC where he writes some very interesting thoughts on politics.

Check out his latest post and find out a little more about him at Fueling the World in his first post titled “Why Alternative Energy?”

If you would like to become a guest poster one or more of the blogs in our network please contact me here.