Ramble 1
You may not have even noticed a difference, but you are now at MKinMotion.com. Okay, okay, so the URL still says blogspot.mkinmotion.com…but if you type MKinMotion.com into your browser you will come here. I bought the domain. I bought a couple of others that will be making appearances sometime in the future, too. I also secured hosting for the domain, so in the future I may move the blog entirely over to MKinMotion.com and have the blogspot address forward. I mention all of this because I want you to know there is a bigger future to this place I call MKinMotion, but also because the money that has paid for the domain(s) and hosting and email, etc. has come from people like you. With the AdSense ads, the iTunes links, the Amazon.com links, I’ve managed to generate enough revenue to get started. Pat yourselves on the back…the revolution has just begun to begin.
I’ve felt a certain level of disconnect between me and the blog world. I resist the term blogosphere because it’s currently on a list of words I currently hate. I feel like I haven’t had much meaningful to say, and I feel like I’ve been mailing in some of the weekly features. Maybe you haven’t noticed it at all. I really do have a couple of articles rattling around in my head, but I feel like I’ve got to elevate everything I put into this blog. I know how much other blogs mean to me and I want to become that to you. Through the magic of RSS feeds, I’m able to know within minutes when someone adds an article/post to their blog, making it very easy to keep up with hundreds. Mostly people I don’t actually know, but somehow feel like I know a little bit more about them from reading sometimes daily thoughts. Everyday I spend a little time in the morning and a little time in the evening reading through what people have been saying for the day. I may even have you on RSS…you never know. So I guess I feel challenged by the realization I’ve had over the last couple of weeks. This realization that this stuff means something to me. These blogs I’ve become attached to…what am I doing to contribute to that? Does what I have to say mean something to anyone out there? The challenge is to elevate what I preached a couple of months ago when I answered the question “How do I drive traffic to my blog?” that a reader sent in for Q&A Wednesday (though this happened to be a Thursday like today). I think I had 3 C’s but I think I have more than 3 now. Consistency, content, and connections were my original 3. I would add comments to that. The first thing most people do when I comment on their blog (especially if they’re a complete stranger to me) is the follow my link back to my blog. They may or may not comment on mine, but I know they came here. The more you read, the more you involve yourself, the more you comment, the more you form a 4th C “community.”
I’m often described as a quiet guy, and sometimes I agree with the description and sometimes I dispute it. In many situations I tend to be the quiet guy. I’ve always been a little analytic, the observer, the thinker. I think I have an odd self perception of myself, though. I think sometimes quietness gets confused with shyness; with arrogance; with indifference; with how do I say this…stupidity. I know I’m not stupid, so I can say it. I may make stupid decisions or have stupid opinions or laugh at stupid jokes, but I know I’m not stupid. I’m working in a job right now where I don’t have to talk if I don’t want to. Typically I put my ear buds in choose a playlist select repeat and tune the rest of the world out for two 4 hour segments of the day. I wonder sometimes as the others in my department carry on conversations about the weather, bad television, and whatever else they talk about if they think I’m one of those things…shy, arrogant, indifferent, stupid. I guess it doesn’t matter, because I’ve done more work each day over the last two week there than they usually do, so I feel alright about perceptions. The work itself is easy but there’s tons of it. Paperwork, literally; lots of paper lots of work. The work itself isn’t the least bit challenging to me, so I have to make creative goals for myself to be motivated to get as much work as I’ve been getting done. There’s no incentive for me to be faster than anyone else, there’s really no one keeping track, but I feel like I have to challenge myself or I would go crazy…or maybe just talk all day about the weather and Big Brother while listening to Kenny G and Nick Lachey.
I’ve been lurkily (MSWord doesn’t think that’s a word) keeping up with Robert Scoble via his blog. I feel pretty safe to assume that most of my audience doesn’t have any idea who Robert Scoble is…that’s fine (here’s his wikipedia entry). All you have to really know about him is he’s worked at Microsoft for the last few years and been plugged in with their blogging and vidcasting/vlogging. All these words MSWord hates. He recently left Microsoft to jump on board with a start-up down here in the Bay Area. The company is PodTech and they’re a podcasting/vidcasting company. It’s really inspiring to me. I listen to a lot of podcasts and watch a lot of vidcasts, as I’ve mentioned on here, and I really would like to get involved with something like that. I watched his last interview tonight from his MS gig. He interviewed Alexander Gounares, who happens to be Bill Gates’ technical assistant. Alexander said a lot of interesting things as you might expect someone who’s the technical assistant to one of the smartest people technically and non-technically on the planet. He prefaced one of his comments with, “This is gonna sound cheesy” when he was asked what he sees as his goal. His answer was “to make the world a better place.” Don’t we all have that goal in a way? I hope we do, but I’m convinced we don’t. After you get done gagging at Gounares’ comment, understand that he went on to explain that through some Microsoft and non-MS tools his father who owns a small business is now able to do business with people all over the world. It’s remarkable that at the top of a huge corporation there are core values in place. I’d love to be involved with something where at the core is to change customers’ lives and make their worlds as well as the world at large a better place. I’m sure you’ve seen the Microsoft commercials that show the kid playing piano on the table, the businesses filling in the gaps, the schools growing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Mac user or a Microsoft user or a Linux Nazi, people around the world use these things to create, to fix, to communicate, to educate…you can’t stop it.
2 comments:
corporations have no souls or heart. Corporations have one goal PROFIT - they will turn on their nation, they will cast out their national workers, they will make the country run huge deficits as they outsource and destroy the nation from within. Corporations are evil from their design and it is being proven every day!
Again, I think the issue with people who would agree with you, Euroyank is that the people involved with the corporation are taken out of the equation. You might think that Microsoft is evil, but Bill Gates has been the most generous philanthropist for years. And you're not too put off by this particular corporation that you aren't visiting using Windows and Internet Explorer.
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