How Successful is your Blog ?

First of all, I would like to apologize for the long gap between my last post and this one. I was compelled to sacrifice my on-line time for something else. I’ll get to it in a short while. But first, I’d like to thank you all for responding so zealously to my previous post. It’s good to receive flak and/or appreciation for my views than to have a passive reader, whilst it also broadens my ken of understanding. This kind of dialogue helps me see the flaws in my argument as well. So, I would encourage all of you to share your thoughts and opinions.

The reason for my absence here, is that I was hooked to the hit television action drama 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland. I became so addicted to the serial, that I ended up watching 48 episodes(season 1 & 2) in 7 days. I couldn’t help it, each episode ends with a to-die-for suspense string, that I had to watch the next episode. Well, I’ve snapped out of the 24 reverie for the time being. And I’ve decided to watch seasons 3,4, 5 at a future date. As of now, I’ve got my social and on-line life back .

Coming back to the topic at hand, me and many other bloggers out there, are trying to figure out the recipe for a successful blog. What does “successful” mean in this context ? It means to have a regular and growing stream of readers; readers who not only cherish reading the blog, but also contribute their views, ideas and thoughts for each and every post. Successful also means that the readers either hate or love the author’s ruminations. There is no scope for mediocrity. Everybody likes mediocre products, but not necessarily love it. A great product always evokes extreme emotions from its users, they either ‘love‘ it or ‘hate‘ it. Similarly, readers of a great blog will either swear by it or will try to abolish it. A successful blog also converts it’s readers into passionate evangelists who spread the word to others, and before you know it your blog feed is being subscribed by several thousand RSS clients.

There are many good features of a successful blog, but the one’s which stand out are:

Original Content:

Every topic discussed, every idea written in your blog should shine with originality. There are gazillion blogs out there who just plagiarize each other. In their quest to jump into the blog bandwagon, many just copy paste ideas from other sources. The key to make your blog stand out is to always have original thoughts. Dare to take a dive into unknown topics, who says you have to be an expert to discuss anything. Just think aloud, type out your thoughts and you’d end up with ideas nobody else thought of. Try it, it is not as difficult as you think. Try brainstorming your topic of discussion, write down as many random words, sentences that come to your mind during this session. Then re-wire these random words and sentences into something meaningful, try connecting the dots to get the complete picture. The end result would be a highly original version of the topic ever written.

Make it worth reading:

Whenever I write a line or a para in my post, I imagine a fictitious parrot sitting on my shoulder, asking me “Is that line really required? Do the readers give a damn about it ?”. Validate everything you write before posting it on your blog. Ask yourself again and again, whether this will make the readers care. If your answer is yes, then your blog is in safe hands.

But, if the answer is no, then do something about it.

Keep it short:
Again, this formula manifests itself in many of my previous posts. I’ve re-iterated this idea here, because I’ve read long posts which lose their momentum half way through. The writers start to deviate from their central theme and eventually the readers attention wanders off with the theme. So, in general, it is best to have short and precise posts with strong and rich content. Though, there are few exceptions like Paul Graham or Steve Yegge.

These are the few basic characteristics that I’ve observed in many successful blogs. And if you want your blog to have that kick-ass element to it, try to inculcate these basic features.

If you’re successful in doing this, tell me how .

What they don’t teach you at Engineering College ? : Part I

image source: Chema Madoz

It’s been almost 3 years since I’ve completed engineering. I hold a graduate degree in Computer Science. To be frank, I didn’t learn half the things at college that I practice today in my professional life. As a matter of fact, I had to un-learn many skills that I picked up during my engineering course. Real life work is so much different, than the petty assignments that we laboured on, at graduate level. I have few things to share to ameliorate the college education and to prepare students for the real world.

No Bulleted Presentations :

Presentations during those care-free engineering days was something we ought do as part of our assignment. We used to create a presentation using powerpoint with lots of bullet points, loads of information on the slides, gaudy pics in the background to grab attention. The final outcome was one painful journey for the listeners, who, most of the times were bored to death by the presentation.
But, in real world, presentation is all about communicating your idea, your views to your audience. And take it from me, presentations are taken very seriously by professionals. The art of presentation involves understanding your target audience, preparing slides with great visuals(which must fit the context) with minimal text, large fonts and most importantly: no bullet points. At college, nobody taught us that when you give a presentation, what matters most is, what you say and how you say it. The slides are required to support your talk, and not to talk for you. So, don’t cram your slides with information that you’d otherwise dispense verbally.

One of the best examples of disciplined presentors is: Steve Jobs. He engages his audience till the end without ever losing tempo. He builds up to the conclusion so effectively that you end up buying his idea, no matter how wild it is. His slides are simple, elegent yet powerful in its message and content.

Correct presentation skills should be infused into students, so that they’re ready to present, when they come out of grad school.

( Requirements) Change is Constant:

Requirements specification document handed to a developer, at the beginning of a project is the biggest illusion ever. In my 3 years of software engineering practice, I’ve come to terms with one bitter truth : Requirements always change. This fact is conveniently hidden from students at college level, which I think is not fair. They study software engineering concepts with blissful ignorance of one fact that can have huge impact on how they should design their systems. They must be taught to design systems which can handle the vicissitudes of spec change. Training them with skills to deftly handles changes in the spec will enable them to deliver a product of very high quality.

Design Matters:

Look around you, the hottest selling product is also the most elegant, most gorgeous looking product. iPod, iMac, Merc, BMW, Ducati, Google apps etc. People are ready to shell out more money, if they think it’s worth it. Great design is the soul of all great products( s/w or otherwise). But, I’ve never seen a single chapter in my college course extolling the virtues of Design. This must change. Concepts of good design, and ideas about how to base one’s work centred around design excellence, should be hammerred into a students psyche. This will empower him to create killer-apps or products, which’ll change the world.

To be continued…..

The book that ‘Reads’ you

I’am a voracious reader. I love reading. Books are my favourite pastime. Okay, enough emphasis…Well, I am no philosopher, and I don’t have any rigid or philosophical views about life. I live each day as it comes. I believe in living in the present moment. That’s why I don’t dig philosophical books. And I absolutely hate self-help books :How to get rich ? How to think positive ?

The most hilarious one is: How to read a book ? ( yeah, even I couldn’t believe, someone would write such a book…crazy ). The point is , my taste in books is not philosophical. But then, I came across Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Robert Persig. I still have no idea why I started reading this book. I thought the book would be about Zen( which I secretly admire ) and about Motorcycle maintenance( sports-bike were part of my wish-list then ). For the first 20 pages, I really struggled with the book, it was soooo boring, with the story following no particular direction. But then, I got hooked. Why ? The author started rambling about human rationale. He was trying to explain the one thing I thought was impossible for anybody to explain. And I became interested. I read diligently each and every idea putforth by Robert. But then, the book reached a point wherein it began a journey into the nature of understanding. And things started making no sense to me and I had to stop reading the book. This happened when I was in 2nd year of engineering.

After 4yrs I came across this book in Salisbury city council library, near my place of work. I said to myself why not give it another shot, and I borrowed the book with the firm intention of reading it through and through. This time the book made more sense. Probably, the four years somehow expanded by ken of understanding and my bubble of experience swallowed the wild but vaguely scientific theories in the book. And I could easily relate to what Robert was trying to say.

He talked about things like Quality, Systematic Analysis, being in flow etc. In latter part of the book, he talks mostly about Quality and his impossible attempt to define Quality in order to understand it. He says “How can we understand something, if we can’t define it ?”. He goes on to establish a counter-intuitive theory that Quality is the father of object and subject. Again I felt struggling with the ideas. The book won again; I said to myself that I am not ready for the book.

Books are an entity which you are supposed to read, to enjoy the word game created by the author. But there are some books which read you, trust me, this is what I felt when I read ZATAOMM. I could feel the author trying to get into my psyche, prove a point by making me vicariously experience it.

That explains the title of this blog. I have shelved the book again without completing it. But I will complete it, hopefully .

Getting Things Done

define : Productivity - 1.The relationship between production of an output and one, some, or all of the resource inputs used in accomplishing the assigned task. 2. Productivity is used to measure the efficiency of production, and is most often expressed as a ratio of outputs over inputs.

How do I become highly productive at work ? The answer to this question has always eluded me. We live in a world full of distractions. Ours is a generation with very short attention span. While at work, we are distracted by mails( most of them being irrelevant and unimportant ), by constant telephone (or mobile) calls. We also tend to procrastinate important, urgent tasks with the lame hope of getting them done ’some time later’.

I’m no productivity Guru or the most productive office gnome that you’ll ever see. But over the years I’ve become more effective at work, more efficient at creating quality deliverables. I am a voracious reader and have been reading about “Getting Things Done” for quite some time now. I had started reading about it during engineering days and started applying some of the principles at work now. I would share some of my learnings .

My tips for being productive at work are :

1. To-Do List :

This is an old school trick but it sure works its magic even in todays PDA lifestyle. A simple To-do list will keep you on track besides providing you a mental picture of the work that you have in hand. Also when you write down your tasks, you make a psychological commitment that you would accomplish them. As you complete the tasks listed in the To Do list, and you check them out , you gain satisfaction and a sense of achievement which gives you motivation to complete the unfinished tasks.

A smarter To Do List would be to break down your tasks to such a granular level that it takes few minutes to accomplish them. This will give you a positive edge that things are moving ahead. It also makes a tough job manageable. Try it out.

2.Avoid Distractions:

As a developer, I know how irritating and counter-productive unnecessary distractions can be. Your focus is 100% on the program, trying to debug a screwed up error, suddenly the phone rings or the computer beeps to announce the arrival of a new mail. If you attend to either of these, it leads to context-switch in your brain, and it is time expensive to regain the original context back.Context switch is good for your machine, but not for you. You cannot be productive while multitasking, no matter how good you think you are at MT. You’ll get things done quickly and effeciently only when your mind is completely attentive on the task at hand.

3. Kick Procrastinations ass

Procrastination is an all pervasive phenomenon. You have a list of tasks to do, you tend to complete all the easy ones first and try to procrastinate the tough ones. Even if it is important, you’re inclined to shift it down and down your To-do list(assuming you maintain one). But this procrastination leads to unnecessary stress and undue pressure when the task deadline approaches. You then over exert yourself on the task which you could’ve completed long time ago, in a systematic way.But then, it’s just a theory, and when it comes to implementation I know how difficult it is. I use a ‘Procrastination-Blues’ technique.More on this in my next post

These were tips from my experience, if you want the real expert advice, I suggest you read Getting Things Done by David Allen. This book is considered a bible of “Effective Time management tips and tricks”.
Read LifeHacker daily, or its productivity archives OR 43Folders, for that matter. But don’t just read it, try and implement the advice given in these books/articles.Reading is not enough.

Remember, if you want to have a life outside your work, try to be as productive and effective in your work as possible, so that you find time for yourself.

Ah well, I’ll sign off for now.
Chip in your comments ,thoughts on this post.
Cheers !!!

How to be a power web-surfer

Internet is being used by millions of people worldwide today. It has become a necessity in our day-to-day lives. Yet, very few can be called ‘Power Web-Surfers’. But, what IS power web-surfing ? You may ask. Well, when you are hooked to the net , you have the compulsive need to be online most of your waking hours. You just can’t resist the lure of visiting your bookmarked sites daily, to see your latest feeds, to see your favorites list grow, to chat and so on. That’s when you become an addictive web-surfer. You get addicted to internet surfing. And that is when you want to better at surfing i.e. to become a power web-surfer.

Here are my 5 tips to help you become the power surfer :

1. Upgrade your system:

No need to raise your eyebrows for this one. I know you are not into Gaming or hardcore Programming, but if you really want to harness the true power of internet , you ought to have at least 512 MB( 1 Gig preferable) RAM and at least 40 Gig of hard disk. This will improve the site-load time and reduce your frustration. Besides, if you multi-task like me, as in, watch a movie while downloading 3/4 other movies via Ares or Emule, having a top-notch system does gimme an edge.

2. Get a Broadband :

Duh !!!! This one is obvious and I’ve mentioned it for completeness. Dial up connection sucks…period.

3. Get Firefox :

Alright, this one is not obvious and many people aren’t aware of this latest Mozilla Babe. Download Firefox and you would understand what I am talking about. Besides the tab feature( which considerably reduces the window clutter on our monitor), it is a pseudo-tool for a web developer.

4.Get a Powerful Anti-Virus :

When you’re connected to the net, your computer becomes a target for many malicious viruses creeping through the Internet world. To reduce this vulnerability of your system, always protect your system with the latest Anti-virus. Norton and Mccaffe are strong contenders in the anti-virus market. Remember, anti-virus cannot guarantee your systems safety, it will only minimize the risk and it’s up to the surfer to exercise discretion while opening attachments in your inbox and/or visiting capricious websites.

5.Be Selective and Prudent:

Internet is a vast repository of information. It has data about everything and anything under the sun. You can be easily lost in this maze of information or you can be easily misled. It’s your responsibility to choose and select the stuff you surf on the net. You can be more productive, effective and efficient in your personal/professional life if you harness the power of the web correctly. Also, you can be pervert, immoral and psycho if you exploit this same power. The choice is yours to make.

I am pretty sure there are many more tips to improve your surfing experience. If you have any tips to share, please feel free to reply to this post.

Cheers,

Anup

P.S. The above pic is taken from Phil_G’s photostream on Flickr

My inspiration behind Blogging

I first got hooked to blogging when I came across the Head First Series by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates. They have an interesting blog called Creating Passionate Users. The blog is all about Passion, User friendly tech books and new-age marketing.

Then I found Presentation Zen written by Garr Reynolds. This blog not only talks about presentation, it explains the importance of Design, aesthetics and Quality in our day-to-day activities. The intriguing part about this blog is that it is simple yet effective. And yeah, I am convinced, Design is the soul of everything.

A long list of feeds followed. I started subscribing Tom Peters, Guy Kawasaki, Gaping Void, A List Apart.Reading all these blogs made me see things differently. Sometimes I disagreed with what they said and I would comment about it, which would lead to a conversation. This leads to a relationship where the reader is as much responsible as the writer about the content that he writes. I might sound a bit vague here. A detailed post about reader-writer dynamics in the blogging world will follow.

For now, my dear readers send me your favorite blogs, links or stuff you enjoy to read daily.

Ta,
Anup