Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

You Are Not Alone

Bill Whittle has written You Are Not Alone for those of us who feel that our American civilization shows signs of rolling over and playing dead by being unwilling to defend the rights of its citizens.

Over 900 people have left comments and they show signs of creating an online community of sorts. It will be interesting to see where this leads.

Some of the high points:

Honor is really nothing more than your personal credit rating. It is a statement of your character, and like credit, honor has leverage. It can move large numbers of people: elevate them, raise their spirits and their expectations of themselves. Honor and Courage and Character are beacons in the darkness; they draw all manner of people toward their light.

Courage, character, honor – all the virtues – are derived and strengthened from interactions with the virtuous.

Throughout history, civilizations rise and fall. They fall for the same reason, by my reading of history: the lack of will to defend her, a cancer which starts not from the bottom but invariably from the top. A fish rots from the head, say the Russians, who ought to know.

If you feel you see it happening now, before your very eyes, well… you are not alone. A society unwilling to enforce the laws that civilize it, that is unable or unwilling to see the advantages of civilization, a society led by the pampered, the narcissistic and the corrupt, is not long for this Earth.

But there is something different -- just perhaps, something fundamentally different this time around. Because today, for the first time in human history, common people can communicate directly with one another. We are no longer dependent on spineless politicians and the jaded masters of the press to color our opinions of the world. For the first time in human history, we can reach out to each other on these gossamer threads of a world-wide web. 

I believe, as Bill Whittle does, that this ability for the everyday person of good will to communicate with other people of good will, will allow us to change civilization.

Read the entire article and decide for yourselves.

Spending Saturday in Floyd

There is so much to do and see in Floyd these days that you could spend the entire day within sight of our single stoplight and you would still barely scratch the surface.

After a morning spent planting Pampas Grass I took myself into town to pick up supplies, visit with friends, have some lunch and hopefully shoot photos of the afternoon's activities.

I started my day in town by visiting Wills Ridge Supply and chatting with Joe Gallimore and his friendly staff. This family-run company really makes customers feel welcome and they have always been very helpful in finding supplies for my off-the-wall projects. It is not every store that has a statue of the founder out in front and that deserves a post of its own in the near future.

I swung by the Floyd Country Store for lunch and tried one of their new specials, a Toasted Tuna Sandwich. It was almost as good as my all time favorite, their Classic BLT sandwich on toasted Buttermilk bread.

Those of you who know the Floyd Country Store primarily as the home of the Friday Night Jamboree would have been surprised to see the transformation they had wrought in preparing the store to host a wedding reception at 3:00pm this afternoon. The tablecloths and flowers looked very elegant in the newly redesigned Country Store. The caterer was creating magic right before my eyes and I think we will see more wedding receptions at the Store in the future.

My next stop was the new gallery called Art Under the Sun, which Gretchen and five other artists are opening in the newly built-out area under the Winter Sun Theater. Today's activity was a still life drawing demonstration and they pulled in a continuous stream of visitors. Yesterday was their first day of operation and visitors have been very appreciative so it looks like the venture has good potential for success.

Studio One next door is operated by Marsha Paulekas and she provides art instruction for students of all ages. For her opening day, her studio window was set up with markers so kids could draw on the windows while their parents visited with Marsha. The kids had a ball and so did I trying to capture their excitement. Marsha says, don't try this at home. Washing the window was an interesting experience as it included washing the wall and the floor too.

The Jacksonville Center had two classes running and a fine woodworking and furniture exhibit in the Hayloft Gallery.

Sue Pollins was offering a Watermedia Workshop for Intermediate painters or adventurous beginners. The class was full and students were being encouraged to extend themselves. Judging by their high spirits, the students were enjoying the challenge.

Out in the blacksmith shop, Sue's husband John Pollins III was instructing a good sized class of young and old blacksmith students in the fine points of Pretty and Functional Blacksmithing. It appears to be an exhilarating experience to heat metal to a red glow in a fire and then shape it to your will with hammer and tongs. It is probably some kind of racial memory that is passed down with our genes, because I have never seen such pure joy in a students eyes as in the blacksmithing classes. Both men and women students enjoy these courses.

My last stop was the Hayloft Gallery at the Jacksonville Center where some masterful woodwork was on display. A rocking chair based on a Sam Maloof design, a carved and stained door, and an incredible backgammon table were just a few of the elegant designs to be seen.

This exhibition will run until July 28th so you should have time to drop by and see it.

On my way home I passed the Winter Sun where they were in the final stages of setting up for Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, a Hammond B-3 organ-fueled blues-rock quartet from Vermont who play a spirited and inventive blend of blues, Americana and rock n' roll. I would have liked to heard them but it was time to leave and get some more work done.

UPDATE: For my out of town readers, here is a Google map of the places I visited today.

So this was a quick snapshot of a Saturday in Floyd. There are more things to do than time to do them and there are so many activities that five bloggers could barely cover them all.

I took 650 photographs this weekend along with 5 or ten video clips. Most go to the groups whose activities I document and I keep a few to illustrate these articles.

I can easily envision a future where 85% of your local news will come hot and smoking from the keyboards of neighborhood writers. There are a lot of really appealing stories that never see the light of day because of the limitations of newsprint and broadcast time. If every neighborhood had its own blogger, there would be very little that would go unremarked.

Right now blogging is a pioneering activity and we change the rules every month. If any of you would like encouragement to start blogging, I will be glad to help you out.

If we could use several more bloggers in Floyd, how many bloggers do you think your community could use? I think you would be surprised.

Hyperlocal Business Blogging - a new trend?

Australian Blogger and Business Coach Des Walsh read my post about the Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours event in Floyd and wants to see that sort of event in his community.

This is an excellent example of the cascade effect that occurs when bloggers start tossing ideas around. I thought of hyperlocal blogging as a news activity, but Des is a visionary and immediately seized on the potential for hyperlocal business blogging to transform a community.

He makes the point that one person in a small community can use this marvelous technology to communicate to a wider world about that community and its way of life and and about the particular challenges of doing business in small communities.

In the beginning, I thought hyperlocal blogging might be too confining, but I quickly learned that we can see the entire universe in a Chamber of Commerce event or in a potter's attempt to develop a viable business, if we care to look closely.

Vast concerns are sometimes best understood in the context of a local situation involving real people with a problem that we can get our wits around.

I think the next wave, or ripple if you care to call it that, may be this:

blog locally and be read internationally

We all have the same concerns, so sharing observations and solutions to local problems may be helpful on a much larger scale than we intend.

"Hyperlocal Business Blogger"... It does sound impressive, but I'm not sure how it will communicate on a business card. Just make your next Chamber of Commerce event special, and blog it!

What I write about and why

I have had some readers send me emails recently complaining that this blog is no longer about country life and retirement.

I have news for them. It never was.

You might say that I observe and blog about country life because that provides a background against which major ripples of change stand out in marked contrast.

There is a set of mission statements at the top of the right sidebar which describe my reasons for creating and continuing this weblog.

Why I write , Important Disclaimer , What Kind of Blog is This?, Why Ripples? 

Here are some extracts from the mission statements:

I write to stimulate thought and possible action, not to prescribe to others what they should believe.

I will be discussing everything from micro-businesses to artists, anything that can affect your future.

The purpose of this weblog is to share knowledge and make it as entertaining as possible.

I have spent a lifetime observing events and looking for reasons. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I have observed that there are precursors for every social change. I think of these precursors as ripples in the fabric of life. All you have to do is to observe an interesting ripple and keep an eye on it from time to time, and the next thing you know you are in the midst of a sweeping change that alters the course of your life.

Ripples lead everywhere, which is why my posts cover a wide range of topics. You are free to ignore the ones that disturb you or don't interest you. There are plenty of others which lead in directions you may wish to pursue. I don't necessarily follow these topics to completion either.

My interest is in pointing these ripples, trends, paradigm shifts out to those who may have need of the information.

If you want to read about bunnies and butterflies, Leslie Shelor does a fantastic job. If you want to read about tractors and farm projects, Sean Pecor has everything you need.

The lesson I should learn from any disappointed readers is that my branding needs work.  I'll do a survey to find what phrase communicates what to expect from reading this blog. You are welcome to contribute your thoughts.

Broken Business Models

Telemarketers, publishers, and politicians take note:

It's tough to accept the fact that your business model is fatally flawed, if it has been producing results for many years, but things have changed irrevocably with the advent of Internet forums and blogs.

The marketplace is now so well-connected that positive and negative publicity can reach the furthest corners of the globe overnight. You have to face the fact that your "newsworthy" activities will become known to more people than you can imagine and there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle after word gets out.

Any business model that produces negative reactions to the initial contact is no longer viable in a "connected" marketplace. The bad news spreads faster than you can find new prospects.

We can also include any business model that produces negative customer reactions as a result of the interaction of staff and customers.

I think telemarketing is broken and so does Rosa Say, of Say Leadership Coaching.

By the same reasoning, I also think that newspapers and other mass media which insult a significant percentage of their readership are doomed to extinction. We don't write letters to the editors now, we send emails to advertisers.

In the bad old days of the 20th century, customers might fume and complain to their friends about the treatment they got at the hands of a corporate ninny.

Today they blog about the experience or log complaints on a forum and the corporation experiences a veritable s**tstorm of complaints and the ninny gets fired or promoted out of sight.

I think politics as we knew it is going to change in the same way. The voices of the crowd are as loud as the voices of those in "authority".  Tomorrow, they may be louder still.

Elected representatives of the people will be getting feedback on their actions as never before.  Whether they are skirmishing with an intern, violating the law, or just being stupid, there will be no evading the comments of thousands of concerned citizens.

Welcome to life in a fishbowl...

Jim Zumbo - object lesson for bloggers

This is not about guns or gun ownership. It is a tale about the power of blogging and what happens when you use your online publishing power unwisely.

Jim Zumbo was one of the "good old boys" of hunting. He was a well-respected writer, a life-long hunter and wrote an incredibly popular column for Outdoor Life until he revealed how out of touch he had become with his audience of hunters and gun owners.

On Friday, February 23, 2007, Jim wrote an article on the Outdoor Life website in which he categorized a large segment of his readership as "terrorists" because they enjoyed the use of semiautomatic weapons, which he called "assault" weapons. He apparently viewed his choice of bolt-action rifles as the only manly way to hunt. As of that Friday night he was employed by Outdoor Life and was the spokesperson for Remington Arms. The original article has been removed, but you can use Google News to find all about it.

Without going astray on classes of weapons, I'd like to point out that this was viewed as a betrayal on the large number of readers who own weapons that fire each time the trigger is pulled. These semiautomatic weapons have been common since the 1950's and have been used for hunting or protection in one form or another since then.

Jim Zumbo's elitist views on the subject of guns based on their appearance was made worse by the fact that gun control legislation is in the works and his words could give the anti-gun crowd another tool to use against legitimate gun ownership.

The number of angry comments on the Outdoor Life site was already in the thousands when I saw it Sunday. The anger was directed at Zumbo, but there was also some hard questions for Remington and Outdoor life as to whether they supported Zumbo's views.

By Monday morning, Remington's main web page was altered to announce the canning of Jim Zumbo. Gun enthusiasts all across the net announced their intention to buy Remington products in support of the company's actions.

Today, Outdoor life has removed all of Jim Zumbo's articles and there is a tactfully written notice of his resignation titled Outdoor Life And Jim Zumbo Part Ways.

It took Jim only three days to slide from the top of the trade to being out on the street, all because of what he had published on his blog. Ouch!

Now, before anyone hyperventilates about guns being bad, or necessary, I'd like you to consider the effect of any blogger with a following deciding that he or she would like to let it all hang out about those of their readers who don't seem to measure up in some way.

Creating imaginary differences has always been the work of petty tyrants. "Life would be so much better without those Liberals, or Conservatives, or Hippies, or old people...you fill in the rest."

Tyrants and politicians can make this game work for a while, because there are always some people who will believe that their troubles are caused by others.

For bloggers, firing up your readership about an issue can backfire badly. If you work for someone else, it doesn't MATTER that your blog is private. People will associate your words and feelings with those who employ you and it will be very bad for their business. If they are smart, they will fire you and move on.

Jim Zumbo still has his books and his website and his most loyal followers, but his credibility has taken a terrible hit in the general gun owning community.

It didn't help that his apology was seen as a defensive move and not as a sincere action. He may still redeem himself, as there plenty of people who are willing to help him rehabilitate himself as an authority, but his actions will be closely scrutinized for years to come. He will have to come up with a major amends project in order to put this behind him.

I hope he makes it. He has become a sobering object lesson for all bloggers. Don't mess with your readership!

Kimber has the final word:

You can mess with your own readership all you want, just don't mess with your boss' readership.

How NOT to use the Internet

I was talking with a local beverage maker today and she told me that she was in the midst of bottling last year's production.

That caught my interest, as it would make an interesting story about a recent startup that appears to be making headway.

I asked if anyone was writing about their operation and she said that they had been talking to some people, but hadn't made any decisions yet.

I asked if she would be willing to have me write an article about their operation with a few pictures of what was happening.

She said, "Not now, we are really slammed. Perhaps we could do something after the bottling is over."

Now, this is a company that spends a great deal of effort on promotion and maybe she thought I was offering to write a press release for her.

I didn't have time to explain that an independently written article on the internet is worth ten press releases and is an incredibly cost effective way of getting the word out about a company and its products.

I am sure this company advertises in Southern Living and Virginia Living to attract the attention of affluent customers with cultivated tastes. Perhaps the owner doesn't realize that an increasing number of prospects use Google and Yahoo to find products.

A mention of your company or product on the Internet stays live for years, while your ad in Southern Living is good for a few months at most. A Google search is more likely to show a mention of your company in a weblog than to show your website itself!

Weblog mentions rank higher in Google than all but the most heavily publicized websites.

If you have a product or service that is unusual or newsworthy, let your local bloggers know about it and invite them to experience it and write about it. You may be surprised at how many will take you up on your invitation.

This does not mean sending them press releases. I get those every day and they are rarely worth writing about as they are manufactured news. Bloggers write about things that interest them or provoke their ire.

Most bloggers write with passion about the topics that interest them. Readers follow certain bloggers because they write about things these readers find relevant. If you find that a blogger wants to write about you, I would suggest that you let them take a shot at it. All you need to do is to make sure they get all of the important data right, and you can do that by being prepared and having background material for them to take with them.

After all, bloggers are not reporters. They are independent publishers who will spend as much time on a story as they wish. They have no column inch restrictions and they will usually accept comments on their story after it appears.

If you feel they left something important out, you are free to make things right in the comments.

In short, if a blogger offers to write about you, take up the offer!

279,000 visitors

Fired up the browser this morning and saw that the site meter was reading exactly 279,000. Nice!

Thanks to all who have dropped by. I'll try and keep the articles coming more regularly than in the recent past.

I have been making a few changes recently and will be doing more posting on topics relating to post-corporate life, especially in the area of marketing yourself and your products on the Internet.

Look for more pictures too. Southwestern Virginia is a treasure trove of images for photographers and interesting stories for bloggers. Those who do both have an endless supplies of material to work with.

Start off the year with some "pretty good advice" from Jane Chin

"pretty good advice" copyright © 1996 by jane chin

you are an intelligent, wonderful, and creative human being. in the face of adversity, you have learned to break through obstacles and embrace the lessons that challenges have to offer. you are beautiful, inside and outside.

you are a fighter. you have grown up with many ghosts and shadows, and yet fearlessly you step alongside and over them and hold your head high. you have the intense desire to motivate, to improve, to mold, and to polish yourself into the beautiful diamond you are.

you possess the gentle and pure heart that all children of the universe is given. you possess endless talents and abilities that only all children of god have. you dont expect your life to be blessed, you make a charmed life for your own, and then spread your joy and wonder to all those around you.

Jane Chin is another example of someone who has discovered more of their potential through blogging. Her weblogs proliferate in all directions, from medical science to digital art, each one mirroring the endless creativity unleashed by open communication with a nearly infinite audience.

Jane's personal transformation as an creative entrepreneur typifies the transformation of the blogosphere from a collection of technical tips on "good sites to visit" to an all-embracing experience involving art, emotional impact and shared advice to help us deal with the challenges of life.

You can get a an overview of her current scope of activity by visiting chinspirations.com. Her work is an absorbing blend of esthetics and hard-nosed business advice.

Scott Perry - blogging up a storm

He plays the Blues, he plays Roots, and now he's a blogger! Hot Damn!  I think Floyd County is in for some blogging excitement!

Scott Perry is the new blogger in Floyd and he is showing the same great style as a blogger as he does when he performs. The man is smooth and polished, with a boyish smile and a wicked sense of humor.

Drop in and welcome Scott to the world of blogging. Leave a comment to let him know that he has a whole new audience.  Bookmark his weblog while you are at it because you will want to return and see more of his writing.

His weblog address is ohpapamusings.blogspot.com and he has created a tasteful site design on Blogger.

Here is a new blogger who is well-known locally and he has taken a step which I feel will open new doors for him. I am very pleased that he has embraced a technology that can expand his circle of friends to the millions of Blues and Country music lovers all around the world.

Scott is already showing potential for becoming a top blogger and this blog is a fitting complement to his website, ohpapa.com which is a sophisticated presentation of the man and his music. The website design is stunning, but I never ran across it until I read his weblog. It will be interesting to see how they play off each other.

He shows the same talent for assimilation as a blogger as he does as a musician. His story about Robert Johnson as the Thomas Jefferson of the Blues may give you a new viewpoint on how to build masterpieces on the ideas of others.

Scott has a good head for business. I expect he will figure out how to build a following through blogging and leverage it to accomplish anything he sets his mind to. I am sure he will do it differently than I did, so I expect to keep an eye on him now that he is launched and pick up any ideas that are promising. We bloggers are always happy to borrow good ideas from others. :)

Go for it, Scott. You are in for an amazing and exciting adventure.

I've made it easier to stay in touch

One of my readers, Kare Anderson,  pointed out to me that I could make it easier for you to keep up with these weblog postings using Feedblitz.

As a result of her suggestion, I have added a Feedblitz signup button at the top of the right sidebar.

If you click on it, a window opens that lets you subscribe to this weblog and receive email updates whenever I post a new article. That way, you don't waste time checking to see if I have written anything new. You will be automatically notified.

I can also use it to keep up with blogs written by friends. I am so busy right now that I don't have time to surf the internet, but I can still read my email and see what is happening while it is still fresh.

Let me know if you find this feature useful.

Can you turn your blog posts into cash?

As the Head Lemur reminded me yesterday, not everyone can handle both creating content and marketing it.    

We are all artists in one sense or other. As bloggers, some of us are pundit/commentators who entertain as well as enlighten. Just as artists wrestle with the issues of "being commercially successful" so do most bloggers. Do we stay "pure" or will we become probloggers?

We will only achieve financial viability when we discover that we are producing a needed and wanted product through feedback from our readers and we package it in a way that we generate cashflow without diluting our message.

Getting an exchange is a matter of deciding whether readers will pay for reading us or advertisers will pay for space on our weblogs.

One of my young blogging friends, Jane Chin, has found a way to repurpose her posts on several sites which carry ads. 

Jane is already making significant income from her blogs. She is a multitalented professional with many papers to her name and and is now leveraging the blogosphere to launch a new form of paid publishing.

I think it bodes well for the future of bloggers with something to say. We don't have to write whole books anymore, we write post-sized fragments and generate income by placing them in online collections on ad-supported sites.

For example, the Head Lemur's collection of excellent remodeling posts would make a fine "Remodeling Tips" site and would be a natural site for ads about tools, construction firms, remodeling services, etc. His dry humor would distinguish his site from the "commodity" remodeling sites.

If you have so much original content and good advice that you stand out from the crowd, it is just a matter of time before you have so much material accumulated that you come up with a way of packaging it for ease of access and getting advertiser support.

If you choose the advertisers as in the case of Blogads or direct rental of adspace, you have a potential source of income related to any new sites you generate.

If your main site covers many different areas of interest, you may not see an easy or aesthetic way to incorporate ads. The solution may be to put ads only on your special-purpose sites.

If you want to see a truly amazing progression from quiet church blogger to "A" list problogger visit Darren Rouse and his many blogs. I have watched his progress from his early posts on LivingRoom to his current eminence as a problogger and he has set an example which almost anyone can follow.

On the other hand, most bloggers will look at these examples and set their own course for an entirely different destination.

Impending Blog Explosion

With my new job responsibilities and the greater number of people I interact with every day, I find that my story sources have multiplied beyond the capacity of a single weblog to present them in a meaningful way.

As a result, I will be spinning off some of these topics as weblogs of their own with feeds showing up on this weblog.

One of the topics will be Floyd County Live, another will be Floyd County Artists and there will be more to come. These images may give you a taste of what might appear on the Floyd County Live weblog.

The Country Store was jumping as you can see from the top photo above, meanwhile outside in the alley other musicians are jamming for enthralled visitors.

Earlier I had spotted the latest development of the "Crossways ATV on a Pickup" that I first documented in my Nov 2005 article, Cool Hunting in C'ville. If you check my earlier photo, you will see that the mounting technology has progressed mightily.

It still boggles the mind how one gets the ATV off the pickup without finding a high bank, but the presence of loading ramps shows that is is being done somehow.

A night out in Floyd would not be complete without a trip to Oddfellas for fine food and entertainment. We gave some out of town visitors the full treatment. They got to hear Kat Mills singing classic folk songs with her wonderfully expressive contralto voice and they had a chat with Rob Neukirch.

Yes, you can get up close and personal with the celebrities and entertainers in Floyd. It is one of the great charms of a small town with lots of talented people.

We finished off the evening at the Cafe Del Sol where local musicians took turns jamming for our pleasure and theirs.

You are welcome to join us while the sun is shining and the roads are open, because there will be many months when you can't get up the mountain to visit Floyd. So come now, enjoy our restaraunts and our entertainment and be sure to take home some of the incredible work produced by Floyd artists. It doesn't matter if it won't fit in your car, most of them will ship your purchases home for you so you can continue your vacation unencumbered.

Not everyone can live in Floyd or wants to, but you owe it to yourself to take home something to remember us by. That way our artisans and musicians are very likely to remember you fondly too.

Internal weblog as a staff bulletin board?

I have taken on a management role in a small organization and we have launched an internal weblog which allows us to share information. The weblog title is Staff Bulletin Board to make it less intimidating to our non-computer users.

Floyd area bloggers to meet Thursday June 8th

I will be hosting another gathering of bloggers at the Cafe del Sol in Floyd, VA on Thursday morning starting at 11:00am. It is open to all bloggers and would-be bloggers and will be relatively unstructured. This is not a presentation. It is an exchange of information and a chance to meet other area bloggers.

Floyd Blog Forum ends peaceably - no one hurt

Floyd bloggers and non-bloggers met at the Bambi Cafe (see last post) this morning and exchanged notes. Books were sold, advice was given, and a good time was had by all.

One potential blogger is trying to pick the right name for her blog. Thats how you know when someone is serious. This woman has a great story to tell and a worthwhile mission to accomplish. As soon as she decides to launch, you will read about it here.

I wore my limited edition gapingvoid t-shirt illustrated by Hugh MacLeod, a marketing blogger who writes about the Global MicroBrand .

Non-bloggers in the Cafe del Sol averted their eyes in case it was a political or religious message.

Doug Thompson told the bloggers in the forum not to believe the message on the shirt, since I was probably going to blog the meeting anyway. He was right.

Fred First, dean of Floyd bloggers, signed copies of his new book. He has gotten used to the idea of carrying a supply of books wherever he goes.

I keep a small carton of my books in the car. You never know when someone will say, "What do you do?" That kind of conversation often starts with an exchange of business cards and frequently ends up with a book transaction.

Fred looks quite natural signing books. I think he is already getting used to the idea of being a published author and freely promoting his book at any provocation. His book satisfies a need in this area because it provides a lyric description of a dream that many tourists are pursuing. I hope that he does very well because it will define a niche that other blogger/writers can help fill.

We are sorry that you could not join us but you might want to mark your calendars for the second Thursday of next month and the months beyond. Out-of-area bloggers are very welcome. If you have a really long drive, email me and we will see if we can find some accommodations for visiting bloggers.

It's all Fred's fault!

That's what I told our guests who ventured out into the cold and the rain to welcome us into our new home. If it hadn't been for Fred, we wouldn't be in Floyd, we wouldn't have built this house and we wouldn't be having a housewarming party. As you can see, Fred took this all very seriously.

You see him here signing copies of his new book, Slow Road Home. Gretchen and several other guests took the opportunity to buy copies for friends who keep asking, "What's so special about Floyd?"  (Click on images to enlarge)

The housewarming party turned out very well in spite of the cold rain. We had a cheerful fire blazing in the wood stove, a tent on the back deck, and guests kept discovering other people they hadn't seen in years!

One of the results of blogging is you get connected to people you would not otherwise meet. Fred First introduced us to Doug Thompson and the two of them introduced us to many other people in Floyd.

Once we started visiting Floyd, we met another whole network of people through Michael Shortt, our contractor and Betty Lineberry of Eagles Wings Estates.

When it came time to celebrate our housewarming, we found we had developed a lot of close friendships in a relatively short period of time.

Country living means potluck dinners which are a wonderful way to build closer ties with friends. You get a delightfully different view of someone when they bring food to share with you.
I smoked a turkey and it reached 180 degrees just before the first guests arrived. It turned out fine and the 16 pound bird was totally consumed by the end of the party.

Gretchen made hors d'oeuvres and guests brought all kinds of wonderful food dishes. We even had venison, thanks to Colleen Redman's husband Joe, shown here talking with Doug Thompson.

Animated conversations, happy people, and wonderful food. It was a memorable experience. If you look through the photos, you will see bloggers Fred First, Doug Thompson, Sean Pecor, Sean Sharp, and Colleen Redman.


An impromptu performance by Bernie Coveney, Sally Walker, and Chris Luster brought the house down. It was the most enjoyable party I have ever attended and it was all due to Fred First and his Fragments from Floyd blog.

As an incidental side effect of preparing for this party, I was prompted to finish the yard and my workshop. We are finally moved in and we are ready to begin the next phase of our lives here in Floyd.

Stay tuned...

Floyd Bloggers Forum May 11 at 11:00am

If you want to link up with bloggers in the Floyd County area, come to the Cafe del Sol this coming Thursday, May 11 at 11:00am. Grab a coffee and join in the discussion.

The forum usually runs for two hours. The first half hour is set aside for introductions and the rest of the time is spent on whatever topics generate the most interest. The forum was created to facilitate networking and exchanging of ideas between bloggers and prospective bloggers.

Blogging is a powerful way to get get your ideas across to other people in a natural and easy fashion. It offers the opportunity to engage people in discussions and to build relationships.

A weblog (blog)is much more likely to show up on a search engine than a standard website. If you have a business to promote, you might be able to leverage the power of a weblog to generate traffic to your website and to interest people in what you have to say.

Join us Thursday at 11:00 for some ideas on how you might transform your life or your business through blogging. There is no fee, but you are encouraged to take advantage of the food and drink available at the Cafe. Sally and Frank Walker and their friendly staff do their part to make you feel welcome.

If you cannot make this forum, mark your calendar for the next one. These forums will be held on the second Thursday of every month from 11:00am to 1:00pm in the Cafe del Sol.

Is there a civil war in Iraq?

It appears that one has been going on for many years.

Read Michael Yon's thoughtful dissertation on this complex subject. It gave me a different insight on what may lie ahead for Iraq.

To give you the flavor of Michael's writing, I have taken this image  and the following quote from Michael Yon's article:

When I asked this Yezidi headman when he thought the war began, he could not remember a time in his life when there wasn’t a war. Except for the past ten years, when the American military prevented Saddam from committing further atrocities upon the Kurds.

Read the rest of Michael's post, it will provide background material for understanding my previous post about an Iraqi blogger.

Indomitable spirit

I consistently find people who are trying to make things go right, even under the most brutal conditions. All I have to do is look for their stories, which mainly appear in blogs.

One of my favorite Iraqi bloggers writes of a tragedy that struck his household this week. His brother-in-law, a brilliant young doctor was celebrating the opening of a foundation offering essential services to the poor, when he was assassinated.

In his article, Kill us, but you won't enslave us, Mohammed shows the extraordinary courage that ordinary people exhibit when they continue to rebuild a country in which lawless elements are still roaming freely.

In a world filled with hate, it is encouraging to know that there are still men and women of good will who doggedly continue to build a better world, no matter what the cost.

It is a further testimony to the growing power of blogs that stories like this are available to all who care to look. These people are not "news" so their stories do not appear in a mass media focused on sensational trivia. No, their tragedies and triumphs are the real stuff of which our world is made. Understanding them is the key to staying sane in a world that is increasingly polarized by those with a political agenda.

If you really want to find out about an area of the world today, read the blogs of the people who live there. You will get all sides of every issue and will be able to make up your mind as to what is really going on there.

Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

More about trackbacks

Trackbacks are another way of inviting readers to visit your site.

Used properly, your trackback appears at the end of an article on someone else's weblog and invites the reader to come to your site where they will see your positive or negative viewpoints about the original article.

Done properly, a trackback will attract visitors who will come back and read more of your writing.

Sometimes you will use a trackback and link it to a post unrelated to the original post. Consider what effect that has on the visitor who has followed the link to your site. It will feel like bait and switch because he is expecting more of the same topic and you have switched him to a post about your cat.

You may have the cutest cat in the world, but if he came to your site in search of more about Sharyn McCrumb, your cat just won't cut it.

Make sure you use trackbacks properly. Link to a post you have written that has something to do with the original post.

If you don't have anything to add to the original post, just leave a comment and make sure it contains the URL of your weblog. That way you can comment on any subject and readers can visit your weblog with no preconceived expectations of what they will find.

Area bloggers meet in Floyd

Bloggers and future bloggers gathered in the Cafe Del Sol in Floyd yesterday and networked enthusiastically for several hours. We had the usual suspects, listed later in this article, and several new visitors.

We got a first-hand view of how blogs make the world smaller from early arrival Ben Day, a visitor from Florida. Ben is a blog reader who has been following some of the local blogs and he decided to visit the open forum on blogging when he learned he would be in Floyd this week.

New Floyd resident Tom King and old Floyd residents Bernie Coveney and Abe Goorsky also dropped in to join in the discussion. Bernie got to see first-hand how being mentioned in a weblog creates a sense of familiarity for people who didn't know him.

We discussed how we deal with writing things that we would not necessarily share with friends in the past. Most of the bloggers say they write very openly about most subjects.

Blogs break down barriers of time and distance. People who read your weblog often know as much about as your family does. If you are sensible about what you write, that can be a very good thing, as it gives you a large group of people who follow your activities with interest.

You can ask this audience for advice and for information. Their feedback often helps you to improve what you present in your weblog.

Another of the topics discussed was how leaving comments on someone else's weblog will build traffic for your own blog..

We also discussed various methods for notifying people when we have updated our weblogs. Some of the bloggers use a hosting service that sends emails to subscribers when a new post is available. It seems to me that this has some advantages over RSS feeds which have to be read in a special reader.

The bloggers who attended have websites well worth visiting. Take time to visit Blue Ridge Muse , Loose Leaf Notes  , Going Up Cripple Creek , Greenberry House  , and Jamie's World

We will be holding another blogger's forum/scrum/get-together on Thursday May 11. That's the second Thursday in May. Mark your calendars and join us at 11:00 am for a couple of hours of networking and general discussion.

Think of a blog as a thought-transmitter

For untold ages, mankind has struggled to communicate its ideas to a wider audience. From earliest history until now, most of the effort was spent on shaping the ideas to fit the communication media available.

Only now, with the recent convergence of the Internet and blogging tools, can a writer be struck with an idea and make that idea available to people on the other side of this planet within a matter of minutes.

The idea goes from the writer to a waiting reader and may be passed on to others in less time than it takes the writer to finish a cup of coffee.

Blogging frees your ideas from the restrictions of earlier publishing channels. Your ideas get spread faster and they can stay in a form that you use naturally. This allows you to communicate the original thought, with almost no alteration.

When you blog, you are literally sending your idea to the mind of the reader as fast as you can type and hit the publish button. You have become that 21st century phenomenon, the citizen publisher.

You are no longer limited by location, age, gender, race, or distance.

Your message is spread by the power of your ideas.

You don't have to mix paint to put on a cave wall. You don't have to worry about font selection, page layout or bookstore shelf space. You get an idea and want to share it, BAM!, it's out on the Internet and you are off on your next idea.

Multiply that activity a million times over and you can see why newspapers, magazines, and the entire traditional publishing world is facing a future that is mutating almost faster than they can react.

In the traditional world, the publishing channel and all of the hoorah that goes with it is the big story. Millions of writers have only a few tiny openings to push their ideas through. There are only so many column inches or shelf space to go around every day and the big problem is selecting whose work is published. A writer's work is selected when the publisher feels that it will make money for the publisher.

After it is selected, it will take months, sometimes a year, before it is available to the world. This publishing model is under increasing pressure from electronic media like blogs, video blogs, and podcasts, where ideas are created and published within a matter of hours.

One final point. Your electronic media publication can be located by a search engine. Your ideas become part of history as soon as you click on the publish button.

Blogging opens doors to opportunities

Welcome, friends of the Manolo! We have no shoes here, just high-tech country living, Bluegrass music, and a lifestyle to die for. Check the category archives for something in your size!

In my last post, I used the Manolo as a superlative example of a blog which is entertaining to read and is like no other blog I have seen.

I did not explain why his blog is entertaining, I wanted my local area readers to discover that for themselves. Circumstances, however, make it desirable to point out that it is the Manolo's personality which generates the excitement for his many blogs. The Manolo practically pops out of your screen and shares your space with you. He may talk to millions, but he is talking to you as an individual.

He is also quite generous, as he shares the stage with bloggers far out on the long tail of the blogosphere. This is an example for any would-be A-list blogger to study thoroughly..

The Manolo's attention is outward, not inward. He is interested, not just trying to be interesting. He spotted my mention of him and referred to it on his weblog. As a result, I have had a flood of visitors from the Manolo.

When you blog, you are only seconds away from almost anyone on earth. If say somthing that may be of interest to them, there is the possibility that your message may get through. The ramifications of this are staggering.

We could discuss this at length in the next Open Forum on Blogging at the Cafe Del Sol.  Drop by and join in if you happen to be in Floyd at the time. See you next Thursday at 11 AM.

Bring a laptop if you have one. The Cafe has free wi-fi, great coffee, snacks and hospitality.

How much do you have to know to blog successfully?

The answer to that is, it depends.

For those who are thinking about becoming bloggers, as in the case of attendees at our recent Open Forum on Blogging, I'd like to provide a quick overview to keep things in perspective.

The simple view

If you are going to reach out and touch people and get them to experience intense emotions from reading your work, you only have to know how to write, operate a web browser, and upload pictures.

Your writing and your passion will get you more attention than you can possibly imagine. On your pictures, your mileage will vary. Cute and humorous pictures get passed around the blogosphere in hours. Artfully crafted images get well-deserved admiration, but rarely make news.

Millions of people do this every day on LiveJournal, Xanga, and Blogger. Now they are even doing it with video on YouTube.

The point I am tryimg to make is that it is your writing that counts and it is your passion which makes this writing irresistible. Pictures are just a plus.

Making money or achieving some other goal

UPDATE: Welcome, friends of the Manolo!

Now, if you wish to move beyond writing about your cat, your love life, or your ideas about life, you start needing a vision and tools to help you achieve that vision. The power of blogging has barely been identified, but the limited view we have of it is already mind-boggling.

Blogs don't sell, they persuade. They help build relationships that let selling occur as a natural phenomenon between friends. This is as far from Dale Carnegie as you can get. Blogging is real and open communication and it is sheer magic.

When done well, it looks so easy that traditional marketing and sales types have a hard time figuring out what is going on.

It takes a thorough understanding of branding and an intimate understanding of the sales cycle to come up with a weblog that chatters along about tailoring details and famous people and sells $4000 suits as fast as they can be made. But that is what Thomas Mahon's English Cut does with style and grace.

There is a weblog which talks about yachts and it is a fantastic source of information about chartering, buying, or building yachts. It is Fenderkicker by BCR Yachts, a yachting sales and charter company in Antibes, Cote d'Azur, France.

Then there is Manolo's Shoe Blog that talks about shoes and celebrities and is one of the most entertaining reads in the blogosphere. Shoe sales must skyrocket whenever Manolo mentions his latest favorites.

Not content with shoes, The Manolo, as he refers to himself, has created Manolo for the Brides, Manolo's Food Blog, and a host of others. All are entertaining reads and completely unlike any magazine column you have ever seen.

These blogs are wildly different, but they all involve us and entertain us and the sales persuasion message develops naturally after a relationship is established.

There is much that can be learned about branding and the viral nature of blogs, but all of this information is at your fingertips. No need to take a course at the local University, just start reading blogs about marketing, branding, and online business and you will have the information you need with real-life examples to watch as they evolve.

What should you do?

My advice to new bloggers is, start blogging with a platform that does the heavy lifting and lets you concentrate on writing. Start with a basic mission statement of what you want to accomplish. Use that to guide you in your writing. Write posts every week, daily if possible, and keep increasing your knowledge of how blogs work and what builds traffic.

After you have been blogging a few months, you will be amazed at the changes that occur in your life. Blogging opens doors to opportunities and new friendships. It is definitely worth investigating.

Floyd Blogger's Forum - where does it go from here?

Our first forum...

Our recent open forum on blogging was deliberately unstructured in the hopes that no area of interest would be inadvertently omitted. I think that was a fortunate choice as some things came up which I would not have anticipated. Now that we have had our first forum, I think we can make it easier to give and receive information.

For example, there was strong interest in advanced blogging as well as beginning blogging. Fortunately, our senior bloggers, Fred First and Doug Thompson were able to provide sage counsel to bloggers who were looking for advanced blogging tools and tips on taking their blogs to the next level.

I had my hands full answering questions and demonstrating blogs and blog features that are of critical importance to the newer blogger. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one answering questions. There were plenty of helpful bloggers who pitched in and shared information with the would-be bloggers.

The most interesting part of the forum may have been the introduction to bloggers we had not met before in person. Bloggers are an interesting and varied bunch of people! So much talent and such a wealth of life experience! It is hard to conceive of a meeting that could bring together such a disparate group except for blogging. Blogging is all about communicating and we were there for the purpose of helping others to communicate more effectively.

What next?

Going forward, I would like to keep the forum as unstructured as possible so that it can adapt to the needs of the participants.

Perhaps it should become an unforum where the content of the