Blog Notes

For the next few weeks, Wednesdays with Nic will be doing some blog cleaning. 

Since the middle of 2012 when  I accepted being the CEO of Omnicom Media Group in the Philippines, I have to had much time to update this blog.

I would like to come back with an improved blogsite, So bear with me. 

This is this blog’s 49th day

 

This post serves as a documentation of my blogging experience since June 28, 2011 when  I  posted by first entry…

I have published 14  posts in this work-in-progress blog. The blog has now 76 tags and 9 categories.

The first post was about the pointers I got before starting this blog.

The next two were earlier works:

  • Alon – a Filipino poem I wrote in 1979 and was published together with other art and literary works of various Davao born and Davao based artists and/or writers. I selected this  because was looking for a personal literary work I can type quickly,  but good enough to show readers.
  • A Homecoming Speech was an attempt  at copying and pasting an existing word file, then inserting an image  from the media library.  I used a speech I delivered in December 2004 during the 50th annual alumni homecoming of St. Michael’s School of Padada. Later on, I discovered that the same material was posted in a website about my hometown ( http:\\www.padada.com).

Kanin CLub at UP Ayalaland Technohub talked about  a most recent dining experience. Here I tried to insert images I posted in Flickr. Unfortunately, I was not successful in making the plug-in  work. Which tells me that I should spend more time reading the WordPress tutorial or I hope I could get some pointers from friends on how to do it better.

I could have written on similar categories/topics  as the blog about P-noy’s  first year in office  but I don’t want this blogsite project to become political. Or maybe, not at this stage, yet.

I also started posting articles or speeches of some people’s life stories. I always liked sharing these types of materials since I want my readers to pick up some life’s lessons out of it. In fact, this is the same reason I write about some anecdotes about my life.

The ones that generated the most number of reads so far, are the puzzles. The blog ideas came from a recollection of those logic twisters I encountered through my TV-less days in my hometown. So, I posted puzzles about “the missing peso“, how best to bring “a cabbage, a cat and a rabbit” across the river using a limited capacity boat, etc.

I have also been experimenting on various themes for the site. I also toyed with some plug-ins and widgets.  Indeed, for somebody who has no idea about the various blogging program’s languages, I oftentimes end up in a dead-end. And my search for the best theme and design is still ongoing. Would I try buying premium themes? Which one has the best fit with my site?

I have started to invite some friends to view my blog via facebook and twitter. I specifically used the posts containing puzzles and invited them to answer. This upped the site visits, although most of those who answered the puzzles did it in my facebook page. Only a few used the reply section of the blog.

So far, the blog has 811 views over the 49 day period June 28 to Aug 16.  I could definitely increase this using some inbound marketing strategies but I want to manage the traffic number slowly until I will have learned more technical aspects of maintaining a blog.

Moving forward, I will start insert media into my blog – pictures, video and slide presentations among others. How best to do this is something I should be reading about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello world: My blogsite’s first steps

This is my first attempt at blogging.

My notes indicate the following things I initially planned as blog entries:

  • My take on anything that catches my attention during the week. It could be about people, places, things, and events. It could also include success stories and inspirational tales. My own story and other people’s stories.
  • I may also want to include here some of the own works published and unpublished — literary, my columns in a business daily and a monthly marketing magazine, staff memos during my stint in a think-tank institution, and speeches and lectures I was privileged to deliver to various groups.
  • How about the press articles about me? Good or bad, some of those write-ups have to be put in context.
  • And the notes’ last entry is this:
    • Define your audience. Write to and for them! Be genuine. Provide Value. Build a Culture!

Another set of notes summarizes what were discussed during my meetings with people I consulted before I started setting up this blog:

  1. The domain name: which is what I will  call the website or my blog.  For me, it’s wednesdayswithnic.com, for the simple reason that by Wednesday of any week  I could have written and uploaded at least one blog entry.
  2. The web host: some servers will have to host my website on the internet so that people can visit it. Funny, but I chose HostGator because it was the first hosting site I read via Google that doesn’t have that many  negative comments about its quality of service. (Of course, this remains to be seen. And I am sure to write about my personal experience via this blog!)
  3. A software that will help the blogsite – something that will allow a non-techie to add, edit and delete pages. I chose WordPress because it appears to be the biggest such service and besides, the HostGator package provided a quick install option in its control panel.

Today, June 28, 2011 I will have started my blogsite. I don’t know where this new hobby will take me. But for sure, I will work first on the appearance, background, themes, menu, etc…  of the pages in my site.

Another exciting beginning for somebody who planned to and succeeded in retiring from being an employee before the age of 50.