For some time I have been blogging and writing articles – for a number of years I wrote about being an expatriate living in Asia.  Some of my articles were published and syndicated on the internet.  When I lived in Hong Kong I wrote for the American Women’s Association.  However now I just maintain my own blog and have had a lot of delight doing so.  As a result I have had to know how to blog.

Kathryn Collins MD new this and she has been wanting to break into writing and has some very cool book and eBook ideas.  To facilitate this I recommended blogging.  We have talked many times on the subject but today Kathryn gave me a great gift.

She told me about a workshop she had just done on finding your Authentic Voice.  She saw an advertisement in the paper for a workshop at the library where she lives and called about it to find out it was already booked full.  She told the present that just two nights before she had had a dream about packing suitcases and a train coming into the station.  When the train arrived she boarded the train only with a notebook and pen.  When the presenter of this workshop heard Kathryn’s dream she said she would make room for her to be there.

Kathryn learnt from the workshop about getting in touch with your bodies, her heart and meditate to have your writing be mindful.  The presenter explained that all deep writing is a connection from body and soul it is rooted in your experience.

The workshop was a sharing and supportive environment and one of the instructions for the day was to only have positive comments.

As part of the TUG (The Ultimate Game) environment we have discussed many times looking at our network and seeing who supports us in our goals.  Kathryn found this community through a newspaper advertisement and connected with a group that has her now inspired and in writing mode for her blog.  The process for her has begun and on top of that she is now connecting with like minded people. 

I for one can hardly wait to read her blogs at www.lifestyledr.com , bravo Dr Kathryn for taking the step towards blogging and writing.

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The best part about a blog of any kind you can start to share about what you have learnt.  We all love to learn, whether we think so or not.  I would challenge you that we do enjoy it.  We may not all like math or history at school but most of us have a class we took we just loved.  We couldn’t get enough of it.  In fact I can remember thinking “I wish Art was everyday”.  Years later I made that class into a full time course, just about, I took up photography at college. 

You can use your blog as a way of sharing about what you have learnt and educate others.  Is it not great to be inspiring to others and make a difference to someone else? 

I love having children because with them I can share the little things I have learnt that make it easier.  One of my sons loves to take photographs too, he’s actually quite talented, and has a natural eye.  However, I still take the time to show him why something works and it doesn’t work. 

If by chance you feel that your ’style’ isn’t quite right find someone who is doing it ‘better’ in your opinion.  Most leaders in their craft or industry will gladly give you some lessons or tips on how to improve what it is you are so inspired to do.

Go out and find someone who is willing to share their mistakes and teach you.  Should you not know someone on the particular area that you want to get some insight into, hey search the library for a book.  There is always a way to find someone to inspire you, go for it.

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Your blog needs to have some spirit to it.  And I’m not talking about brandy, rum or scotch!  Though some writers might tell you their best thoughts come when they have had a few too many.  It’s as if the alcoholic spirit has inspired them to write about something they would normally not write.  I know for me I get my best ideas in while having a shower. 

So each writer needs to find his own spirit and to develop their sense of difference.  No use being the same as the last person who wrote an article on the same topic you which to write about.

There are loads of good advice out there on how to blog and what to blog about.  It’s my intent to use this blog as a way for you to discover your own style, your own little niche of the Internet you are so looking for.  Your space in your corner of the world.

For a number of years I have written about my life as an expat in Hong Kong.  I always tell people when I first was asked to write about life in Hong Kong I had no idea what I would write about.  I toyed with the idea of writing about where I went and what I did.  Thinking a travelogue would be of interest to folks but truth is there are a lot of those out there.  Eventually I keyed into something that wasn’t out there in cyber space.  I started to write about the funnier side of life in Hong Kong.  I started to observe and then incorporate that into my articles.  I would go to lunches and hear other expats tell me funny stories and I would ask their permission to write about what they just told me.  After a while it became really easy and people would even tell me ‘hey you have to write about this’.  Others would give me new ideas.

Find your own spirit and may it be a good one.  I personally prefer a single malt scotch.

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In talking to Michelle twitter.com/mmangen about blogging.  She is away on vacation at the moment and one of her goals is to work on creating a blog while she is away.  Which is great, great to work on goals while you are out of your own environment by the way.

We discussed the advantages of blogging and the the how search engines and spiders work.  Plus tips about how many words and content etc. When the question popped up about what should I blog about?  Michelle really wanted to blog about her life and where self development can be used to create the life you want.

This brings up the point - does your blog need to be solely about work? Absolutely not, however, like everything a blog needs a purpose and a direction.  You are looking for followers and like minded folks to read your blog. Similar to what you may do at other on-line communities.  You can still have a business account but talk about your children if that  is something you feel falls in line with your business - if you can bring back what you are talking about in a way to relate to your readers who are looking for the originally content.  However, if you feel you need a blog that is solely about children and the issues of being a mom then create a different account for that purpose.  The trick is to master your following and your readers and what they are looking for on line. 

Plus ask the question; How can I stand out from the pack?

Oh and by the way if you are looking for a book keeper - I highly recommend Michelle - she and I will be working together and her passion and enthusiasm and her kknowledge is great.  Plus she’s into personal development - check out her website and look for her blog coming soon.

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For many people just understanding the concepts of blogging is half their battle.  And now with Twitter available a lot of people are questioning why bother to blog in the first place.  Good thoughts, but truth be known just like going to the theater to see a Movie vs see it on TV there will always be people who want have it on the big screen vs 28 inches or in other words; read the whole article vs. the 140 charachters!  So remember blogging can still be the answer to some of your readers and your followers.

Blogging doesn’t need to take a lot of time in your day and if you are writing about something you are passionate about it most likely only takes you a few minutes to type something up and get your thoughts out.  And if you are really think about it you could actually have someone do the work for you.  You may have to pay for it but there are people out there that offer this as a service. 

To learn more about blogging and to understand it you don’t even have to read about it on line, at your local book store (be it Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Borders) you can find books on the subject.

Here is a book I highly recommend;

Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel

Actually what I consider a fun and interesting read - if you are into “how” and the “benefits” with some great company stories - this is an excellent read.  I have dog eared and underlined many parts of this book.  Fascinating read.

 I will have some other recommendations in the coming weeks

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I mentioned in an earlier blog that finding a topic to talk about is half the challenge to having your own blog. 

Naturally it is always easier to write about something you love, so you could choose to have your blog not necessarily about your product or your company but what you personally love to do in life.  There are enough bloggers out there that do exactly that, for instances they may be a CEO  or CFO of a company but choose to blog about travelling for their living.  It’s still within the context of their company but it’s about travel.

You may also find that you need to blog about what your customer base is looking guidance on.  So for instance, if you are a realtor there are so many areas you could blog about.  You could talk about the wearther in your location, you could discuss ’style’, the market, the cities you have sold properties in and what those cities offer.  Ask your clients what they want to read about and then cater to their needs.

Also another tip and something I have started for myself with one of the blogs I write for is start a file.  As I get mail or I come across another article that I find of interest or might inspire me to write something along the same lines I hold on to that article.  It’s my tickle file to aid my creative flow.

Another area you might fight a great source of inspiration are social network sites like twitter or linkedin.com where you can post a question and see what responses you get.

Blogging is easy once you know how and why you are doing it.

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Wow I could write a book on the benefits of both, and also the distractions of both.  They are the same but different.  Both systems have a way of targeting different people. 

Think of both systems as a tool, not an answer to an ends, but a tool.  What is it you want to achieve?  And how often do you want to use the tool? 

When you have a nail and you want to drive it into a wall you can use a heel of a shoe or a hammer, right?  Or you could use a large hammer or a small hammer?  One may work better than the other, or quicker.  So if you play around with either a blog or a twitter account you might find that one works better for you than the other.  They have different appeal to different people.  You may find some people who overlap and use both but you may find that some just want to use the twitter account to link to their blog and get out what they want to say in large bites rather than smaller bites like twitter.

As I said before it’s how you use the tool that decides if it’s productive for you.  There are many people who twitter who will tell you, you can’t use someone else to do your tweets (twitter messages) - however, I suspect there are people that do that for well known entities out there.  My answer to that is, fine let it be - if it works in the business model then let it be.  If it works for you that you have to be touchy feel with  your followers then you certainly are not going to hire someone to make your updates.  Same goes with your blog, remember there are people ready to do ghost writing for your blog.

As to what’s better? Twitter or blogging?  Hard to say they both serve their purpose, personally if you could do both then do both, you are now extending your network.

Go for it twitter and blog and while you are at it don’t forget Facebook.

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Some time ago when I wrote a post for the Ultimate Game letting players know about how to create a google reader page I wrote this article - I thought some of you might be interested in how to set one up;

So to set up a instant reader page - that means you can instantly see when someone has posted a new blog without having to ’search’ for blogs you want to  read now you can have one website this is instantly keeping a record of blogs you like and it lets you know when something has been updated.

1.  Set up a Gmail account

2.  go to www.google.com- sign into your new email account and you will see then various tabs that you might not normally see and search (look for) igoogle.com.  Here you can have any ‘boxes’ or auto links you would like to have for instance I have ‘weather’ ‘cnn.com’ ‘calendar’ etc.  Then look for ‘add a tab’ for anything you like i.e. Food, Technology, Children, Sport - create your own tabs.

3.  Click on your new ta ab see in the right side of the page the heading ‘add stuff’ - click on this

4.  to the right of the ‘igoogle’ window that says ’search homepage content’ you will see a link that says ‘add by url’

5.  go to a blog you like and hit the RSS Feed

6.  click on the “add” button

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Time and time again I see blogs at different websites, and naturally I’m interested.  I’m probably just as interested as everyone else is because let’s face it along with the words SEO, social traffic, social media, blogging is a buzz word on the Internet.

So if you are going to have a blog remember to BLOG, blogging doesn’t take long, you can belt out a quick blog in less than 1o mins if you have something you feel your readers would be interested in.  If your blog is about health, write about a recipe, a great new drink you discovered, an exercise program you did that day.  If it’s about spirituality, write about a book you read, a guru you look up to, a vision you had.  What ever your blog of choice or rather passion write write write or delete the idea of having a blog because having an inactive blog may not be the best marketing idea for your site.

There are many readers out there who go first to the blog to  find out more about you, they use the blog to get the real you, to find the authentic person.  Blogs are about transperancy just like twitter is about  time and reaching out to the masses.  Blogs are about people getting to know you and getting to decide if they want to be in your inner circle.

And remember if you haven’t got the time to blog or the knowledge about how to go about it hire someone to write your blog, someone who loves being in your inner circle.  Find a Ghost writer if that’s what it takes to keep your blog active, that doesn’t mean you can’t write at your blog it just means the blog is now being constantly updated which is what the search engines are looking for.

ps this blog entry took me 3 mins to write - what you looking at if you own a blog that is currently inactive? go write something

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Time and time again I’ve had friends and clients ask me what should I write about at my blog. Or they might say I don’t have  anything to say.  They marvel at the fact that I can always find something to write about.

At www.expatworld.wordpress.com- I have  written a number of blogs about  living in Hong Kong and life as an expat.  When I first started writing these stories ‘letters from Hong Kong’, I treatet  it much the same as a travelogue.  That became  boring, because let’s face it Hong Kong is tiny and there wasn’t much to do as far as traveling was concerned.  I then discovered if Iwrote  about the funny, bizarre side of living on an island that was known for ‘island fever’ I could find a different direction in my articles.  Many of the articles at this  site see the humor in living in Hong Kong.  I’ve talked about the ‘chop being the weapon of choice’ and how an expat forgot how to  iron her clothes because she had now had a maid for too long.

So find what you are passionate about and write  about that.  And if you feel you need a ghost writer for say a company business know that there are people out there that will  do that for a living.  There are also websites  such as elance.com or talk to the guys in India at brickwork.com.

Never think that writing a blog has  to be solely  your own work, like what we learn in The Ultimate Game of Life, life is a team sport!  Blogging can be a team sport.

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