Danny Brown's Blog, page 19
November 24, 2015
The One Simple Reason Against Switching Off Blog Comments
A recent blog post by Arik Hanson, that looked at seven trends impacting every blogger, caught my attention the other week.
I’ve read Arik’s blog for a good few years now, and his content is always informative, and not afraid to poke the bear and challenge standard thinking when it comes to content. This blogging trends post was no different.
It covered topics like RSS being retired soon (which I agree with), the changing face of content presentation, and social sharing losing tra...
November 21, 2015
November 20, 2015
Why I’m Loving the Pure Blogging Project
Earlier this year, as summer started to get into full swing, I published a couple of posts that talked about getting back to pure blogging.
These posts – Why the Real Driver of Traffic is Content That Matters to You, and Pure Blogging and the Experience We Give Our Readers – saw me taking a step back and looking at how the chase for traffic, shares and monetization was making us forget the reason we started blogging in the first place.
Not for glory. Not for fame. Not for fortune....
November 17, 2015
The Only Thing That’s Dead Is Your Everything Is Dead Spiel
I’m a little tired. Not physically. I could always do with a little more sleep, but then so can everyone.
No.
I’m more tired about the constant “The End of PR”, “The End ofMarketing”, “The End of Blogging” and “The End of Advertising” missives that seem to be flying about at the minute.
I can’t open my email subscriptions without the latest link shoutingout “The end of…. Where now for Industry X?”.
It seemsthat there’s an “End of…” blog post for every *normal* one at theminute.
Why?
Why do we...
November 16, 2015
The Difference Being First Off the Train
Each morning, I commute from my home in Burlington to the office where I work in Toronto, and each morning, I pretty much follow the same routine.
Because the commute is about two hours each way (I need to catch two trains because of where the office is located), I tend to have a relaxing time on the first train.
This means settling back, reading a book, looking out the window, or just sitting there, eyes closed, listening to my iPod’s “Commute” list.
When the train pulls in...
November 13, 2015
One Way Conversations While Sitting on Park Benches
When I had just turned 30, I lived and worked for a while in a place called Thurso, at the top of the Scottish mainland.
It’s primarily a fishing town (or, at least, it used to be) and, as such, has some wonderful parks and coastal areas lined with walkways and benches.
One of these areas lies on the road out of Thurso to Scrabster, which is a small harbour town that helps connect that part of the world to the North Sea and all the trade that comes from it.
Every weekend, I’d jump...
November 10, 2015
Those Random Memories (Or How We Craft a Life)
Recently, I’ve been having a running “battle” with my five year old son, Ewan, around the topic of age.
You see, last month, I turned 47, and to Ewan, that’s really old. Like, really old.
So old, in fact, he can’t wrap his still-innocent head around why it’d be wrong for a 47-year old man to be with a 15-year old girl – the age he thinks his mum is.
But I digress…
On the way home from the train station tonight, after my wife had brought the kids...
November 6, 2015
The Teaser of Uniqueness
In 1947, a businessman from Idaho named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine strange disks of light in the sky while flying above the Cascade Mountains in the US.
While his experience wasn’t the first time unexplained objects had been recorded, it was the first time that they were recognized as alien craft. The myth of the UFO was born.
In 1934, one of the most famous photographs in supernatural or unexplained history was taken by Colonel Robert Wilson in Scotland.
Showing what looked like th...
November 3, 2015
I Want To, But I Don’t
As you get older, you start to notice things that may not have been an issue when you had a body and mind that was 20 years younger.
I look at this as the “I want to, but I don’t” syndrome. For example:
I want to eat healthier, but I don’t.
I want to drink less, but I don’t.
I want to exercise more, but I don’t.
I want to lose weight, but I don’t.
I want to live a less stressed life, but I don’t.
That’s a lot of wants that I don’t do...
October 30, 2015
Outgrowing Success and the Question of Scale
Success is a funny thing.It means you’re doing something right, and that people are enjoying your product, service or (possibly more importantly) your knowledge.
Success means people havejoined your tribe and they want to help you grow.
Success also means that where you started probably isn’t where you are now – your garage band has moved into a recording studio. Your bills aren’t as daunting and your car starts in the winter.
Yet success also brings its own challenges.
You outgrow your goals...
