I just wanted to take a quick little opportunity to welcome Sara from Suburban Oblivion back to the online world after a period of being involuntarily removed from the internet for the past 3 weeks.
It’s good good to have you back, looking forward to the seeing those posts flying up on your blog again.
Wishing you all the best in what’s going on. Take care and welcome back.
I got run over by a deranged, dungarees wearing monkey swinging a bowling ball while riding a tricycle.
Fortunately, you my dear readers will never know about it because I’ve not given someone else access to my blog account, so that they can update and let you all know that I will never again post to my blog, unless I manage to figure out how to do it from beyond the grave.
You’ll all just be left thinking that I’ve become an unreliable old sod, who has abandoned the blog in search of greener pastures and sheep that can’t run faster than me.
You will be saved the mental anguish of knowing that I was shuffled off this mortal coil by a pissed primate.
See where I’m going with this?
How will your readers know if the unspeakable happens and no-one can pass on the word?
I had a great time interviewing people in Chicago and one of the most outstanding interviews was with singer/song writer Christine Kane.
This interview was really special for me because while Christine is first and foremost an artist, the conversation here is a unique take on a marketing and blogging.
Dawud Miracle had this to say about the interview when he posted the raw version of the interview on his blog:
At SOBCon08 last weekend, she sat down with Paul O’Flaherty from FuelMyBlog to chat about music, blogging, business and new opportunities for musicians using social media.
From the interview (below): “…blogging for me has enabled my creativity to reach people who wouldn’t in a hundred years go out to a club.”
I’ve posted the interview (less than 15 minutes) below so business owners – musicians and otherwise – can see a successful niche blogger share what she’s learned about social media that’s made her successful.
Christine has also posted the raw version of this interview and has expanded upon a brilliant little question that was raised in the middle of this interview on her blog.
If you were a real artist, you wouldn’t need a blog
…all you would have to do is paint in your studio, or hang out with your instrument, creating and creating, while the masses of adorers who are feverishly running around looking for someone to adore just continue to find you even though you spend all your time making your art. If you build it, they will come, right? If you were a real artist, they would come and they would discover you. Wouldn’t they?
Christines latest album "A Friday Night in One lifetime" is available from Christines site and is well worth checking out, I was lucky enough to get a free copy of it at SOBCon and you can check out a free sample track here.
The great laptop we had for recording these vidcasts was kindly sponsored by ERA London.
I hate to say it, but yesterday I had the opportunity to interview the infamous and incomparable Daddy Paper Surfer.
I would like to say that this was a coherent interview but honestly I just spent the whole time laughing and let DP take the show.
The show is in two parts because we had a little technical difficulty but is definitely well worth a watch.
Yet another great interview from Chicago, this time featuring Simeon Margolis from Utterz.com
Simeon tells us a little bit about Utterz which is a platform that allows you to add voice, video, pictures or text in to your blog, flickr or YouTube account from your mobile phone.
Of course I also hit Simeon with the same questions that I hit everybody else up with – what is a successful blogger and what separates the successful from everybody else? Simeons answers are unique (as were those from everybody that I asked) and the video is definitely worth watching just to hear them.
As a loop back a previous interview with Chris Cree (SuccessCreeations), we get into the whole notion of humanizing your blog and end up placing a bet to see when blogging, vidcasting and podcasting become mainstream.
I have a feeling I’m going to end up owing Simeon dinner!
Special thanks to the guys at ERA London for sponsoring the laptop for the vidcasting rig.
I was thinking as I lay awake last night (30 minutes total sleep and I went to bed at a shockingly early 11pm) that the room I was staying in last night was very much representative of many bloggers who don’t read other blogs (or who keep within a limited number of like minded bloggers).
The room itself is representative of the mind set of many people who like to surround themselves with people who think along the same lines and represents a self imposed wall of thought around the creative process behind blogging.
That’s why the best bloggers read a lot. Not just blogs, but newspapers, magazines, listen to the radio and build a much broader picture of their world that the narrow one which is just their field of interest.
They don’t keep the door to the room locked and only allow in folks of similar opinion. They make the room open to all and sundry to visit and actively trek outside to experience other rooms and place in order to build of a bigger picture of the world.
They pursue experience by challenging themselves to face to opinions of those who would not normally fit into their room.
What about you? Do you let fly the windows and doors and venture outside or do you remain inside?
Who wants to get together? This old fool is going to be in the Cork area for a while, so today I’ve been connecting with other Corkonians (both native and imported) on services like Twitter.
Not only do I want to get a sense of who’s, who in the “corkosphere” (please, please tell me that I didn’t just type that) but am looking to put together a blogger meet-up (or two) for Fuelmyblog over the next few weeks and to get the lot of it recorded and put up onto FuelTV.
So dear readers who don the “blood and bandages“, I’m open for suggestions to locations or events that we could gate crash.
All suggestions will be entertained and the nuttiest ones probably acted upon!
Feel free to email me, get me via the contact form or to drop a comment on the post.
Looking forward to meeting you soon!
While I was in Chicago at SOBCon08 I got an opportunity to interview some amazing people and the one of the ones that really stands out in my mind was with Lorelle VanFossen from Lorelle on WordPress.
We talk about the parallels between blogs and brick and mortar stores and how people like you and me are learning from those parallels to improve their blogs.
Lorelle address issues such issues as defining what makes a blogger successful, what separates a successful blogger from everybody else and how to achieve this for yourself.
Of all of the interviews I did at SOBCon, this was one of my favorites, it’s packed full of great information and great tips and is definitely worth watching.
Lorelle is such a funny and charismatic person and it just floods through the screen in this interview as she imparts some brilliant advice in this 35 minute episode.
As Lorelle mentions in the interview she is the author of “Blogging Tips – What bloggers won’t tell you about blogging” and you can win one of 2 free signed copies of the book by partaking in our quiz.
You can download the interview for yourself by clicking on the following link.
The interview itself clocks in at 112MB so is just too large and at 35 minutes too long for uploading to Youtube. Any suggestions as to where to upload files this big in the future so that we can embed them would be greatly appreciated.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post.
If there is one thing I always stress to people it’s that they need to build their brand both online and offline.
In the online environment it’s relatively easy to achieve a visual brand through the use of consistent avatars across services, site design etc..
Yet offline it’s not always easy for blogger’s or for small businesses to promote themselves beyond the tradition mediums of a newspaper, flyer or radio spot.
Yet there are ways and means to do it and there is nothing better than sticking your logo on some free swag and sending giving it away at meet-ups and events.
Empire Promotional Products offers a huge range of goods which you can order from their site and have delivered to your door and when you open the box and inspect the goods you’ll see your very own logo staring back at you.
For bloggers, or anybody interested in technology, there is a wide range of promotional tech items, ranging from mp3 players, mouse mates, keyboard accessories, speakers and Skype phones, all of which can be customized with your company or blogs logo.
Some of this stuff, like the radio’s and camera’s may even make great techy gifts for the the geek in your life. I would think it would be cool as a blogger to receive a gift with my blogs logo on it and I’m sure you’re better half may feel the same way.
Check out Empire Promos to see their complete range of items which you could get branded and delivered to your door, ready to distribute at meet-ups and events, or simply to hoard away for yourself.
Considering that for the next while I will be mobile, moving from house to house and country to country I felt yesterday that it was time for me to address one of the big issues which was outstanding with this blog, namely that it sucked in a mobile browser.
So, with that in mind yesterday I installed WordPress Mobile by Alex King so that everyone who visits this site on a mobile browser will get a cut down light weight and easy to read version of the content on O’Flaherty.
I have yet to tweak or customize the setup of the mobile experience, I’ll get to that later today, but it works well enough for now.
It’s been a bit of a weird morning for me today. I trying hard to get back to the nuts and bolts of being a consultant and a blogger today and am having a damn hard time keeping my current personal situation off of my mind.
It’s not that I’m being unprofessional and being melancholy about the fact that I have left everything I ever owned and all my friends and loved ones behind.
It’s also not that I’m day dreaming about the possibilities of a new future, new life, new start and all that it entails.
It’s more the basics of the little details. If I was at my old “home” I would be at my desk with all my computers set up and everything in place and ready to go.
I wanted to get some videos edited today yet find myself writing this post instead. It’s not that I’m not going to do the work, it’s because I can’t start yet, as I’m waiting for Adobe Creative Suite 3 to install on this new laptop, so that I can edit the images I need to insert in the video.
Even writing this post required me to download, setup and install Windows Live Writer (my favorite blogging tool) because I don’t like using the online WISYWYG’s in WordPress unless I have to.
You see what I mean, it’s the little things.
Like having to set everything up new before you can do anything. Like not having your “own” bed, or shower or being able to wander around the house in naught but your boxer shorts (or less) while working from home.
Every little thing that isn’t as you expect it should be, reminds you of the reality of the situation.
Yet, overall I think I’m doing okay.
Things are getting setup and I am moving forward. This last week has been a very hard one for me and I know the coming ones will also be difficult as it is a transition period. However, I will be transitioning into something far better than I can possibly express.
I know what lies ahead in the future will be great and that notion is a great comfort to me today.
I’ve posted my Irish mobile number here previously, +353 (0)85 2716228 but for the everyone back in Denmark I want to post this number, +45 36968985, which will allow you to reach me while I am here while only paying (at most) for a local call.
Before I go, I want to thank everyone again for their support and help since I’ve arrived in Ireland and want to extend a special congratulations to Sylvie D on her birthday.
Congrats Sylvie, I hope you have a great day. May you have many more to come.
Make sure Kevin brings you somewhere nice tonight!
© 2009 Paul O'Flaherty
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