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What Makes an Effective Blog?

What makes a blog effective? I've been looking at good blogs in an effort to answer this question, and I've noticed that the blogs I admire tend to have certain characteristics in common.

• Focus The best blogs have a well defined focus (unlike this one), which they stick to. Look at Beyond Bullets. It's about one thing: better PowerPoint. Now maybe you don't care about giving better PowerPoint. In that case, you're not a potential consumer of this blog.
  
• Content Just having a blog isn't enough to make it interesting. Links to other sites are nice, but not enough to make a blog compelling. You need to include valueable content for your readers. Look at Koly Parnell's tech blog. All the content is useful. Some of it is technical content of use to developers. He also includes personal observations and insights gleaned from his experience in the development world. It's the latter that really puts this blog over the top. Technical information is nice, but experience is gold.
  
• Conversation Your blog isn't your private podium from which to hold forth. It's a conversation. Not only does this mean you should respond to comments, but that you should highlight good comments in your posts, even if they are critical of you. People may visit for content, but they'll return for conversation. Hugh MacLeod, among others, does this very well.
  
• Truth This one's last in the list, but first in importance. I don't mean you should slag your friends and slam your employer, rather that you should strive tobe truthful (if tactful) at all times. Scobel is the king of this. That's how he came to be recognized as an extremely credible source while working for the software company that people love to hate. He doesn't hesitate to praise Microsoft's competition when it's deserved, or to criticise his company when they deserve it.
  

That's not an exhaustive list, nor do all the points apply to every blog. My blog violates point one all the time. That's fine though, because this blog's about my interests and is targetted at my friends who share those interests. You can bet that when I publish a book, it'll have it's own blog, because that's the right way to promote a book.

I want to emphasize that these opinions are based on observation of the blogs that I admire most. You can probably (maybe) find great blogs that break these rules, but if you do, I'd like to know.

Seattle is Earthquake Country

The Seattle Times: Local News: Pinpointing devastation if Seattle Fault ruptures

By the time the shaking stops - 30 sickening seconds later - 1,600 people are dead or dying. More than 24,000 are injured as brick buildings crumble, freeway bridges buckle, ferry terminals slump into the water and the Alaskan Way Viaduct collapses.

Over lunch yesterday, we were talking about Seattle's traffic problems and what they're doing about it. It was observed that Seattle seems to have a history of failing to identify problems until they are critical, and then arguing about it. Transportation and engineering problems take years to solve, and you have to start solving them years before the crisis point. The Alaskan Way viaduct is a case in point. For all you non-Seattlites reading this, the viaduct is an elevated highway across the Seattle waterfront. After our last earthquake it was condemned, yet it still supports thousands of cars a day. Yet Seattle argues about the viaduct and does nothing. The kicker? The viaduct was first built as a temporary solution. Apparently, no one bothered to come up with a permanent replacement for the temporary solution.

arbitration

Attacks of Opportunity Returns

Some of you probably know that I was a heavy contributor to the Attacks of Opportunity game design blog, and its descendant, the Attacks forum hosted by Shootingiron Press.

Well in the wake of the collapse of the forum, Philaros and I have resurrected the blog. Sadly, all the comments are lost.

We had a great conversation going at Attacks, and I know a lot of us miss it. I hope we can get it going again with the blog. In the weeks ahead, I'll be reposting some of my own posts from the forum (which I kept), as well as a look into the inner working of my own PBEM game Sea of Stars.

Beyond bullets

Beyond Bullets is a PowerPoint blog that hates PowerPoint. Crazy? Beyond Bullets taps into the anti-PowerPoint aesthetic popularized by information design scholar Edward Tufte, but it goes beyond critique by turning around and reaffirming PowerPoint as a tool.

Today's posts include a real world example of bulletless style and a look at how the Republic Party is turning PowerPoint into a grassroots political tool.

And the site promotes the blogger's book. The combo of blog and book is pretty powerful. I wonder if it's time for Attacks of Opportunity, the book?

Hunter Thompson Dead

Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself Hunter S. Thompson, a renegade journalist whose 'gonzo' style threw out any pretense at objectivity and established the hard-living writer as a counter-culture icon, fatally shot himself at his Colorado home on Sunday night, police said. He was 67.

HST was a madman to be sure. I was never one of those who thought his best work lay in the past. His late work was uneven, disturbing, occasionally brilliant, and always flawed, just like his early work, just like the man himself, just like all men.

pimps run free and good men die like dogs
Goddam, talk about filling up your concentration camps
There are many cruel rooms in the mansion

Italo Calvino Vladmasters

Philaros sent me this link this morning: Italo Calvino viewmaster slides: Italo Calvino Vladmasters

This set consists of four handmade Vladmaster reels and a charming box in which to keep them. The reels feature 3D images of dioramas and characters designed, photographed and hand-assembled by Vladimir. The disks and boxes are printed and die cut by Pinball Publishing. The four cities included in the set are: Zirma, a city which mysteriously repeats itself; Valdrada, a city built on a reflective lake where every person and action is mirrored; Argia, a city with dirt in place of air; and Baucis, a city elevated high above the clouds on thin stilts.

Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities is among my favorite books of all times, one of the few that I read over and over.

Gaming: The Color of Technology

I've had some bad, but not unexpected news lately (see below), but the brain doesn't stop working. It occurs to me that it might seem strange that I'm talking about game design after news like this, but that's just how my brain works. I can't stop thinking about this stuff, and stress just pushes it into overdrive.

So...

Recently designing a space strategy game called Sea of Stars. A big part of Sea of Stars was to let the players define how the game would grow, so I used a freeform tech tree, allowing players to invent their own tech advancements. The player assigns a science team to the project, and they have a chance for a breakthrough every turn. This isn't that different from Civilization, which in my opinion is the standard for tech trees.

I'm not entirely happy with how this worked out, but I didn't have a better idea at the time. Since then I've been thinking about some design goals for a tech model that diverges from the standard.

Here are my goals:

• Divergence: Players can differentiate themselves radically according to the techs they choose to develop. A standard tree can do this by branching (like Civ) or having broad tech areas (like Space Empires IV), but I've never been happy with that solution.
  
• Culture: I'd like a tech model that comprises cultural choices as well as technological. Civ does this by having things like "Democracy" and "philosophy" be tech advancements. This is OK, but it basically weds things that aren't technology to a technological analogy, which I don't care for. Maybe that's because I was a philosophy major, not a science major.
  
• Gameplay: I'd like tech to drive gameplay options a little more. Civ III does this by making you get a supply of certain resources in order to use a technology. I think this is one of the weaker areas of Civ III. Despite the appearance of choice here, the gameplay around tech is still basically "more scientists = more tech". The resource are just a hoop to jump through. Ultimately, it's an attempt to graft gameplay into a milieu where it doesn't belong. Some day I'll write a whole essay about the difference between challenging and thwarting players, but not today.

I've got a new model that solves these issues more to my satisfaction, and in a later post I'll lay it out, but right now I have to do some work.

No work = no pay.

Lesson: Preparation

OK, I'll keep this short and sweet.

I had a meeting the other day. I knew the material, but I didn't bother to prep (because I was busy). I didn't come in with any insights, and I was short a coffee and a lunch.

The result was a rather lackluster meeting.

So the lesson is to do the work and prep for your meetings, especially if, like me, you're not the kind of guy who can do it off the cuff.

Tonight I received some rather bad news from home. My father is very ill. He has lung cancer. As always with such things there is a great deal of uncertainty around the potential for treatment, remission, and so on, but the bottom line is that he is not expected to live for long. I will be traveling home sometime within the next couple of months so that he can meet his grand-daughter and to spend some time with him.

More Cat Cartoons

Lesson: Control

I realize my blogging has shifted. Since my layoff, work has taken over a larger share of my creativity. On the other hand, I've found there's a huge reserve of creativity that was untapped before. I guess this is a sign that my life is improving, though I'll wait and see if I can make a living six months from now before I hand down a ruling.

I do have a new idea for a nomic-like RPG combining blogger and wiki that I'm going to post later this week, I promise.

In the meantime, my tip for the day is this: when you're working in someone else's work environment, try to have direct control over the resources you need to do your job. If it's a document, keep your own backup. If it's hardware, know that the hardware has been set aside for you or have access to your own. Wasted time is an annoyance to a salaried employee, but it's slow poison to an independent.

Dealing with Staffing Agencies

For those of you who don't know, I was recently laid off from work. Since then I've been working very hard hunting down jobs, be they temp, contract, or permanent. One creature I've run into quite a bit in my travels is the staffing agency.

Staffing agencies make their money by finding people to fill jobs for other companies. Microsoft seems to use them quite extensively. The staffing agency gathers qualified people, send resumes to the client, and brings people in for interviews. In return, the agency gets a fee.

Now some of these agencies are good, and some are bad, but most have a mix of both. I'm starting to learn that there are a number of tips and tricks that everyone who deals with staffing agencies should know.

I have to stress that I'm a beginner in being an independent agent, and my insights probably reflect my inexperience.

1. Know the difference between contracting and staffing: Staffers fill a job description. Consultants solve problems. If you're talking to a customer, diagnosing their problems, and designing or implementing the solution, you're really consulting. Consultants typically get paid more and are expected to apply a higher level of expertise, insight, and commitment. Also, consultants need a higher level of control and autonomy to be effective. The people you work for may not always understand these distinctions, but you definitely need to.
   
   
2. Know your Job Title: A job description corresponds to a title, and a title corresponds to a rate. The titles are usually things like "Developer II", "Project Manager", "Senior Technical Writer". One way to figure out the job titles is to look at job ads at large companies in your area and industry. Find the jobs you are qualified for an note their titles. If you're a Developer II, don't be too quick to accept a job that looks like a Developer I position.
   
   
3. Know the Rate: Every job title has a corresponding rate. In my market, the descriptions and rates are largely defined by Microsoft's job titles and rates. Every time you learn that a specific job is offered at a specific rate, that provides a clue as to what the going rate for that job is. Eventually you'll have a good idea what you can charge.
   
   
4. Negotiating a Rate: Don't be afraid to say no. Better yet, say yes to a higher rate. Most companies don't mind paying a little more for something better. If you're prepared to tell the recruiter why it is that you represent a better value for the money, the recruiter may be quite happy to pass that information on to their client, and you may end up being hired for more than was originally offered.
   
   
5. Talking to Recruiters: Some recruiters haven't the faintest clue what the job they're trying to fill actually requires. They job description may say "knowledge of technology X", but the recruiter doesn't necessarily know anything about technoloy X. Some recruiters may even ask you to help them figure it out. I'm divided on this, but I'll usually spend some time talking to the recruiter if I think I understand the job better than they do. I figure if they have the good sense to know the limits of their knowledge, they're a good contact.
   
   
6. Know how Recruiters Work: I don't know anything about this from the recruiter's side. What I have observed from my side is that a job that's underpaid tends to come around again. I've been called about the same job as many as three times from three different agencies at three different rates. If anyone out there knows more about how the recruiting business works, I'd appreciate any insight you can offer.
   

These are just a few things I've learned over the last couple of months. This is by no means a complete list. I'd be happy to hear from others about their experiences

Memory yields

'I have done that,' says my memory. 'I cannot have done that' -- says my pride, and remains adamant. At last -- memory yields. --Nietzsche

Howard Mann, on his blog Dig Tank has been talking about truth. Why truth? Well, for one thing, yes men are cheap. You can charge more for truth.

Taken another way, if you live the lie long enough, you come to believe it. That might be great for your career right now, but what are you going to do when the company tanks/you get laid off/the blame starts flying?

Or, as Hugh MacLeod says, it's not about being good, it's about being totally *#$'ing amazing.

I've been reading these guys a lot lately (add Scoble in there too, among others), and they're making a lot of sense.

Ultimately integrity is a necessary complement to competence.

Catapult

The Indivisible

If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only on sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis ... that all things are made of atoms - little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied. --Richard Feynman

I'm reading a biography of Feynman right now. I'm reminded of the first book of philosophy I ever read. It was an introduction to early Greek philosophy by someone named Miller.

I remember being astounded that the early philosophers were led to posit the existence of atoms in response to purely theoretical questions.

BBC - Coventry and Warwickshire Features - Polish Valentines

BBC - Coventry and Warwickshire Features - Polish Valentines

The Red Couch: Dinner with the fired Google blogger

The Red Couch: Dinner with the fired Google blogger

Robert Scoble had dinner with fired Google blogger Mark jen. The resulting blog post is a good quick guide to the hazards of blogging from work and how to avoid them. Good words for all those of you with jobs. ;)

Repairing the Democratic Tent

Repairing the Democratic Tent

According to the National Committee for an Effective Congress, Democrats lost 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties in America. The National Election Pool's exit data show that between the elections of 2000 and 2004 we lost ground with a wide array of voting groups, including Catholics, Latinos, African Americans and married voters. Four weeks ago I entered the race for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship to address these disturbing trends and to talk about the issues that affected voters' choice between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry.

Paint.NET

Microsoft has a bad habit of bundling, then scrapping image tools for Office, which always leaves me at a loss for a decent image tool. I inevitably end up using 3-4 different tools to do anything: 1 for scanning, 1 for editing, 1 for cropping and resizing (most do a lousy job of it), another for saving to the format I want.

Enter Paint.NET. It's got all the features I need (plus layers and some others), and it's FREE.

Something Smart - Commonspool

StarChamber is an onling CCG with board game elements, a fun game to play, has a great community, and is well worth checking out.

What really impresses me today is commonspool. The bane of CCGs is the cost of cards. So SC's community created Commonspool. Commonspool is a bot who hangs out in the SC chat area and trades free common cards to newbies. Vets feed their spare commons in, and newbies benefit.

The result is that anyone can acquire the basic arsenal of cards to play without any significant cash outlay. SC's sensible card strucutre also helps. Commons are truly the workhorse cards, with rarer cards having more powerful, but more specialized effects. There's even a weekly tournament where only common cards are allowed, so newbies can compete with vets on a level playing field.

If you really like the game, you can buy cards or subscribe. Subscribers can play in higher level tournaments and get free packs of cards periodically.

blogmap!

Reach for the Stars

Umbrella Angel

Google Maps - jfk to 350 5th, new york, ny

It was a dark time. MapQuest was slowly bleeding features. Citysearch was a shadow of its former self. Then, out of the inky blackness came a shining light: Google Maps.

Check this: you can drag the map as far as you want in any direction (well, you have to stay in North America). This weekend I'm going to pack a picnic lnch and drag the entire route from Seattle to New York City.

Main Page - Wikinews

Kolby Parnell's weblog put me on to Wikinews. Given how often I go to Wikipedia for breaking news (especially Huygens pictures, YUM!), this might be an idea whose time has come.

Thought for the Day: Microsoft's Changing Voice

Back when I started doing writing contracts for Microsoft, when you wanted to learn a new technology, you'd search MSDN until you found the right article. This was usually named "Getting started with technology X." I taught myself ASP entirely from MSDN articles.

Over time, these articles dwindled away. It's now much harder to find newbie-targeted user friendly content of this sort. That's frustrating if, like me, you're always having to learn new technologies on the quick.

Enter newtrain. The newtrain is "non-traditional" content delivery through blogs, webcasts and the like. The newtrain gives you content with a human voice. You can interact with it; ask questions, get answers.

On the other hand, you've got to work a bit harder. No, I take that back. You don't have to work harder, but you do have to be more engaged. That's only fair, though. The people writing the blogs are engaged with the technology every day.

I predict that this phenomenon is going to help Microsoft a lot as it grows. Not only does it mean more credibility, but I'm willing to be it'll mean better products.

So my thought for the day is to open up some RSS feeds. Get engaged.

.NET for Office Blog
Office Zealot

It's amusing to reflect that writing the title to this post caused a small thrill of transgression. The MS manual of style prohibits using company or product names in the possessive. Actually, it's not so much amusing as slightly pathetic.

Getting Started with VSTO - Thanks to Blogs

Office Developer Center: Getting Started with Visual Studio Tools for Office: Best of Blogs: Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2005: "Since we started aggregating blogs for conferences such as Microsoft Tech Ed and Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC), over 50,000 articles from more than 500 bloggers have passed through our system. "

This is a great place to get started learning about Visual Studio Tools for Office(VSTO). What's really cool is that it's not your typical MSDN article, it's a collection of blog articles and feeds.

Dig Tank

Dig Tank: "When you speak from truth... a connection is made. "

Dig Tank is a darn good iconoclastic no-nonsense kind of a read. His latest post is about truth.

I know that someone out there's going to blast me for this, but in all the years I've written content for Microsoft, I've never been asked to lie.

I'm not saying Microsoft is a white knight of truth. But every good PM I've worked with knows that if you wander too far from truth, the market will bite you.

Get Staffed

Would you hire a person who didn't know the difference between your product and a flour sifter? Who didn't care? Then why do you hire a staffing agency to find your documentation writer?

If you find a recruiter you can trust, that's as valuable as happening across a brilliant programmer or a gifted writer.

Your Web site claims that your company prides itself on its communications. Then why is your job ad barely literate? How do you expect to attract good writers this way?

I've had a lot of conversations with people from staffing agencies in the last three weeks. Many of them don't have a clue, but the good ones aren't afraid to admit it. They ask questions. I’ve had conversations with recruiters where we both went away with a better understanding of the job. I wasn’t the right person for some of these jobs, but if the recruiter understands both my qualifications and the technology better, then it’s more likely we’ll work together in the future.

A staffing agency is a tool, nothing more. It can't provide passion or brilliance. It doesn't solve any problems on its own. It helps you solve problems you already understand. If you’re not sure what to do next in your project; if you're experiencing friction and you don't know why; if things aren't working and you can’t diagnose the problem, then you don't need a staffer, you need a consultant.

If you know what needs to be done but lack the time or precise skills to do it, call a staffing agency.

If you're looking for someone who can engage your project actively and intelligently, don't count on a staffing agency to find them. You might get them, but if you do, hire them right away because you got a lucky break.

In most cases the recruiter is a middle man who understands less about the job (and the technology) than the people on the ends.

I've talked to 2 or 3 recruiters who seem to get it. I want to work with them again.

A lot of staffing recruiters think of you as nothing more than a resume or a way to fill a seat. They're easy to spot. Ask them how you can provide better value and you'll see it right away. They aren't interested in someone who goes above and beyond.

Yes, I've only been "out there" for a month now, but this stuff isn't very hard to see. I’ve had some good interactions with staffing agencies, and I’ve had some bad ones. I’m starting to understand that good recruiting is a bit of an art. Bad recruiting reeks of spam.

And I mean ULTIMATE!

I'm making an ultimate 80's mix for Orkgrrrl for Valentine's Day. Any suggestions? Great B-sides, obscure hits, and guilty pleasures and to be most valued. Philaros, I KNOW you've got some ideas.

Blogaversary!

I just realized, totally at random, that tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of my blog.

Blogaversary!

I just realized, totally at random, that tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of my blog.

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

Here, let's talk about what I mean. Today personal computers seem like a big idea. But, back in 1976 they were a small idea. In fact, Wozniak tells me he offered his bosses at HP and Atari the chance to make his Apple I. They turned him down. Why? Because it was a small idea.

Scoble on why he's decided to focus on the small things.

I Want my Sci-Fi Blog!

I met the editor of the science fiction magazine Neo-opsis at Norwescon last year and sent him a copy of one of my stories soon after. The other day it came back with a rejection E-mail. It was a personal note, however, and the editor was good enough to enquire how my novel was going and invited me to submit more work. So I did. 10 minutes later. Two hours after that I got a an electronic rejection notice that included the name of my story, its submission number, and personal critique with suggestions for improvement (hint: in the unpublished writer world, a personal rejection is a good thing; it means they bothered to read it).

This got me to thinking. Fiction magazines are routinely swamped with submissions. Editors resort to rejecting manuscripts outright on the most superficial grounds (wrong font, wrong size, first sentence isn't spectacular). I wonder if a savvy internet solution might not improve this situation. Wouldn't it be great if when a submission came in it was automatically given a ticket number and tagged with notes on past submissions and communications? What if the story was presented to the editor in the reading format of their choice? What if the editor, opening the story, immediately saw the history of their correspondence with that author? Would editors find this useful? Would it speed up the winnowing process?

While we're at it, lets publish our magazine online. And instead of trying to make it look like a print mag or Web Design 101 project, lets make it a blog. Instead of publishing once a month, we'll publish every time we get a good story. We'll invite the authors to correspond with readers in the comments section. For some reason, I haven't seen anyone doing this.

Periodically we'll publish a paper anthology for subscribers to generate some revenue, or we could try a premium search service, advertising, book sales, or Amazon associateship.

Right now I have the latest print issue of Locus in front of me. It's their annual "Year in Review" issue, featuring dismal looking charts of declining circulation of the major Science Fiction and Fantasy fiction magazines (hint: the lucky ones have only lost half their circ in the last 20 years). Yet the consensus seems to be that more fiction is being written and that people still want to read it. Do we need a paradigm shift? Anyone?