Wow, what an amazing start we got off to yesterday! You guys totally blew away my expectations in our discussion of yesterday’s post 31DBBB Day 1: The Elevator Pitch
There are also a number of lessons learned and observations I’d like to pass along to you. So, because today’s assignment is to write a list post, I thought I’d share those things in the form of a list post.
1) This is an amazing group. I have done several previous group blog projects, all of them very good, but this group will probably blog all the rest away. Not only did you introduce yourselves and your blog’s elevator pitch, but many of you went the extra mile of replying and giving feedback on other blogger’s elevator pitches. This has the makings of a real community where it’s not just each person out to make their own blog better, but everyone helping each other.
2) We shattered the record for most comments on a post. As I write this there are 171 comments on the Day. The previous record was 91 on the post Why Willow Creek and Saddleback are Losing Influence While North Point and LifeChurch.tv are Gaining Influence
3) Threaded comments are… awesome! It was only about 6 months ago that I installed the IntenseDebate commenting plugin, which gives us the ability to comment on comments (rather than one big long list of comments) WordPress itself now supports threaded commenting, but wow Day 1’s conversation would have been completely impossible without this.
4) IntenseDebate screws up links. I noticed a lot of broken links in yesterday’s comments. This was not the fault of those posting the links, but the fault of the commenting system. It doesn’t like any characters before or after links. When you post in the future, don’t put parentheses around links or periods after them. Make sure there’s at least one space on either side of a link. Or better yet, put a link on its own line.
5) Read all of our blogs in one place. William Dicks has taken (and will keep adding) all available blogs with RSS/atom feeds and added them all into one feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/31dbbb so that all you have to do is use this feed to see what the other bloggers on 31DBBB are blogging about. There is also a web page available to read the posts of our 31DBBB bloggers at http://bit.ly/31dbbb-cwt if you do not want to make use of a feed reader.
There is a quirky thing where when a new blog is added to the feed all the posts from that blog appear at the top, but over time this will settle out all new posts will be displaced chronologically. Way to go, William!!!
6) Conversations happen where they happen. The plan was that any questions about blogging you might have that were unrelated to the days specific lesson and assignment would be posted in the forums. I noticed there were quite a few questions unrelated to elevator pitches posted in that post’s comments. Those tangents didn’t seem to create any problems and most people’s questions got answered. So, as long as it’s working, there’s no reason to change it.
What did you learn from Day 1?
P.S. This is not the Day 2 post. You can find that here.
29 Comments
Doh! I just realized that all the lessons learned that I listed were about the process and the project. Thanks for bringing me back to reality and reminding me of what this is really all about – making our blogs better and becoming better bloggers.
Great point about the evolving nature of elevator pitches!
I expected the elevator pitch to be really hard to write because I've tried writing synopses of books before and short bios and found it exceptionally difficult. But it was easy. My blog kind of focused itself from day one, so I didn't need to pare anything down, and I'm sure that helped.
On the other hand, I expect the list post to be difficult. I'm tempted to do that in my art/pottery blog because it would be a breeze there. I'm not sure lists and hearing God speak to you go together all that often. 😆 There are lists in the bible, but I don't remember if He's ever given me a list, per se, in my quiet times. I'll try and get it done in a little bit and write back and let you guys know where it is in case you're interested in looking.
Blessings, Cindy
I agree, too. It's important to remember why you're blogging and keep on task. Otherwise, you wander off into little dribbles here and there and the river becomes a marsh. Marshes are nice, but they don't take you anywhere in particular.
That's a good analogy, Cindy.
That's a good analogy, Cindy.
That's a good analogy, Cindy.
I was rebuked for my lack of focus and driven back to making my blog something others might want to read!
This is really feeling like a community. Love the fact that William setup a reader feed for all of us, this will make it a lot easier to follow.
Has anyone setup a twitter list yet? I've been trying to add people as I find them, I know not everyone going through this uses twittter, but I am sensing a majority is.
Oooohhh, a Twitter list. That's a good idea. Ray, I have everyone's Twitter username. If I send them to you, would you want to create a list?
Oooohhh, a Twitter list. That's a good idea. Ray, I have everyone's Twitter username. If I send them to you, would you want to create a list?
sure, would love to.
I expected the elevator pitch to be really hard to write because I've tried writing synopses of books before and short bios and found it exceptionally difficult. But it was easy. My blog kind of focused itself from day one, so I didn't need to pare anything down, and I'm sure that helped.
On the other hand, I expect the list post to be difficult. I'm tempted to do that in my art/pottery blog because it would be a breeze there. I'm not sure lists and hearing God speak to you go together all that often. 😆 There are lists in the bible, but I don't remember if He's ever given me a list, per se, in my quiet times. I'll try and get it done in a little bit and write back and let you guys know where it is in case you're interested in looking.
Blessings, Cindy
It is great to be part of this vibrant community! I'm sure we will all learn a lot from each other through this process. Having the blogs listed under a feed will be fantastic. Thanks, William.
Well, here we are at Day 2. Time to make my list of what I learned from Day 1.
Blessings to all,
Janis
It is great to be part of this vibrant community! I'm sure we will all learn a lot from each other through this process. Having the blogs listed under a feed will be fantastic. Thanks, William.
Well, here we are at Day 2. Time to make my list of what I learned from Day 1.
Blessings to all,
Janis
Day 1 I learned that there ARE a lot of really nice and encouraging people out there and they all seem to be in our group. =)
Day 2 I learned that I need to learn more about WordPress' threaded commenting ability. I would really like to implement that in my own blog.
i am learning that I need to be definitive about what my blog is SUPPOSED to accomplish…like the elevator pitch
I am also noticing that wordpress blogs seem much better…need to move there…somehow from go daddy