Coffee heat rising

Comment Killers

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What is it with sites that seem purposely designed to discourage readers from commenting? Have you noticed that more and more comments functions are set up to deliver your remarks to utterly irrelevant forums or to force you to identify yourself as a persona that’s not relevant to the community you’re cruising and that you don’t care to use for the purpose? And to ride my favorite hobby-horse again: are you aware of the extent to which these things invade your privacy?

Lookit this:

WordPress.com is especially egregious in this respect. Here, I wrote a comment on a favorite blog, hit post, and up came this. I am not logged in to WordPress right now, or at least, I don’t intend to be. But WP has decided I will identify myself as a WordPress blogger, whether I want to do so or not, and I will not identify myself as Funny about Money, which no longer is hosted there. The initial offer I get is to identify myself as the irrelevant “pvcccourseseng102,” a moniker that will make no sense to the blogger and that is utterly irrelevant to the PF community to which the blogger is holding forth. Nor will it pass any sort of recognition along to my blog.

But if I prefer, instead of surfacing as a WordPress.com blogger, I could post my comment to Twitter or Facebook.

Well, in the first place, I’m not talking to freaking EVERYONE IN THE WORLD WHO SUBSCRIBES TO FREAKING TWITTER, dammit. I’m addressing one blogger and maybe three readers who have commented on her site. And I’m not even faintly interested in commenting to everyone in the world. So the answer there is “No, thanks.”

Nor am I interested in posting my comment to Facebook, where it will be read by various friends and “friends” who have little knowledge and less interest about the blog in question. Why would I want to post an irrelevant message to my Facebook account?

And in the second place, why on earth would I or anyone want WordPress to “read Tweets from my timeline” (WhateverTF that is), see who I follow, see when I follow some new FaM admirer, update my profile for me? The answer to that one is NO, but hold the polite “thanks.”

Moving on, we arrive at Blogger.

OpenID is another service that forces you to sign up before you can comment. It has been shown to make users vulnerable to various kinds of malicious attacks. Even if it were safe as pablum, as with “loyalty cards,” I have “signed up” with quite enough acquisitive and inquisitive websites and merchandising scams, thank you, and I’m not signing up for another one. Nor am I signing up for LiveJournal (the pencil), Typepad (the cloud), or…or the American Institute of Mathematics (???? which is what “AIM” signifies to me). Here, too, Blogger thinks I’m pvcccourseseng102, a meaningless identity I have no intention of using on anyone’s blog or any other website. Other than my freshman comp website, of course.

Blocked from two of my favorite websites, let’s visit The Huffington Post:

Here you’re given the option of signing in to Facebook, Twitter, or AOL. The “more” options include Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, or Hotmail. Again…why would I want a random comment I make on some random news site to be linked with and presumably displayed to readers on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn? Select Google and you’re told that Huffington wants to access your real-world name, your country, your language, and all your Google contacts!

And once again, the answer is NO / replace “Thanks” with an unprintable expletive.

Then there’s Disqus. The makers of this thing, available for WordPress as a plug-in, apparently are trying to make it ubiquitous, and they’re not doing a bad job of that. It tracks every comment you make, anywhere and at any time, under the persona that you first registered with. Nevermind that you might want to post as Melete of Adjunctorium at one site and as Funny of Funny about Money at another: you are who you aren’t. Nevermind whether you’re logged in or not: this little gem tracks you as you wander from site to site. It knows your IP address, the version of your Web browser, what page you came from before you landed on one of its sites, and where you go when you leave.

The information Disqus collects, which has been shown to be “de-anonymizable,” is shared with third parties. And with lots of other folks: Disqus publishes your entire commenting history, along with a list of blogs and services you frequent, on a publicly viewable profile page. Not only that, but you can be banned from commenting on your favorite Disqus-powered site for no reason whatsoever, as has happened to me with The Atlantic. As it develops, publishers can ban entire blocks of IP addresses, and if yours happens to be in that block, tough nougies—we don’t need no steenking First Amendment!

I understand that WordPress would like readers not to publish naughty and mean-minded comments on the sites of its mostly newbie bloggers, some of whom may be children or teenagers. But Akismet, which comes with all WordPress.com sites, does a fine job of blocking spam, and most WP webmasters can figure out how to block unwanted commenters. It’s really very easy.

As for the others, obviously they’re intent on gathering personal information. I’m just as intent on not sharing it with them.

These annoying devices bring a dead stop to commenting on blogs and news sites, as far as I’m concerned. And I think that’s too bad. It’s kind of fun to jump into the commenting fray at a news site.

But the whole point of blogging is to invite comments…that’s what blogs are for! The comment-killing gimmicks just stymie me. I can not understand why anyone would deliberately want to discourage readers from commenting on a blogsite. If you want reader comment, choose a host that doesn’t try to extort information from your readers. Or configure your comments function so readers can choose to identify themselves as their online personae. If you don’t want reader comment, then for heaven’s sake, save bandwith and use a spiral notebook to write your journal.

Grrr! Am I the only person in the world who hates these things and refuses to leave comments on sites that use them?

 

Networking Groups

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Does anybody belong to Business Networking International (BNI)? How effectively is it working for you, in terms of rainmaking?

Three people have recommended BNI to me. It seems a little pricey. On the other hand, one or two good jobs presumably would pay for the fees. But of course…you’ll need to generate more than one or two jobs to put bacon on your plate. It looks like a lot of work…and it also looks like it’s a profit-making enterprise for the gent who founded it. On the other other hand, do either of those things matter if it’s actually producing business for you?

I’ve joined a local Chamber of Commerce group. As a vehicle for meeting other business owners, it’s awesome. And since my business proposes a b2b model, it’s the perfect venue for networking. I’ve already met some very interesting people, including a woman with a start-up that sells a program—not an app—that causes a website to adapt automatically to whatever device a visitor is using. It creates a really neat page for a cellphone (for example), and does so by using code on your site, rather than running it through an app. Also have run into a graphic designer who specializes in print only, lawyers coming out the wazoo, and the usual array of mortgage brokers, insurance agents, and financial advisers. Plus the Chamber itself has some pretty neat offerings, including free air time on a radio show, space in its newsletter for articles, and plenty of ad space.

However, Wednesday at the Chamber meeting, one person told me he gets about 60 percent of his referrals from BNI and 30 percent from the Chamber. If that’s so, it could be worth the cost. Or maybe not, if he’s talking about a total of three referrals…

Yesterday one of the guys at the Scottsdale Business Association recommended the National Organization of Women Business Owners. That appears to be an extremely active group, at least in this part of the country.

It looks to me like one probably needs to pick one’s networking groups with care. Most of these outfits are not cheap: annual dues plus $15 or $20 for breakfasts or lunches add up to a hefty fee. One or two such organizations might pay for themselves, yes, with a single successful referral. But a half-dozen of them could mean the proceeds of half a dozen jobs would be consumed before you’d make a profit. Probably it’s best to focus on one or two, spending more time there rather than less time at a larger number of meetings.

The question is, which groups to pick?

Do you network? What types of networking, or which specific groups, seem to be the most effective?

 

A 10-Minute Post: For Plantar Fascitis: Freeze Your Shoes

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Ten minutes before I have to race out the door to another networking meeting. So here’s an amazingly short post:

Got plantar fascitis? Hurts like the dickens, doesn’t it…and it takes weeks and weeks and weeks and then some more weeks to go away. If it ever does.

Among the various things you can do to help yourself is to apply cold to the pained foot. This is not every practical if you’re on your feet for hours at a time, as, say, yours truly happens to be. But…I figured something out.

First, take your gel heel cups or your orthotics and keep them in the freezer. If you have several pairs, you can pull out a fresh pair and stuff them in your shoes as you’re about to hit the road.

But…second, and better yet, FREEZE YOUR ENTIRE DAMN SHOE!

Yes. It doesn’t harm leather to put it in the deep freeze. And if you have a fairly hefty shoe, like a Dansko or Sanitas clog, the bulk in the heavy soles will keep the shoe cold for a surprisingly long time. Put your shoes in a plastic bag and stash them in the freezer. Let them live there. Take them out and put them on just as you’re ready to head out the door.

Or…put a fresh pair of frozen shoes on as soon as you come back in the door, after traipsing around on your feet.

It feels sooooooo good to slip your sore foot into that icy-cold shoe!

And I think it may actually help. The current episode I’m enjoying has been particularly stubborn–it’s gone on for about three months now. And lo! Since I came up with this idea, it started healing (heh!) up. Most of the time now, the foot hardly hurts at all.

Combine a frozen shoe with your usual stretching therapy and see what happens.

w00t! 6:41 a.m.! Got this done in less than 10 minutes. And….she’s off and running!

Is My Boss Watching?

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LOL! As if by magic, my excellent chair has been showering paid extra gigs on me this week! Did he read the last few days’ worth of rants and schemes to deep-six the teaching noncareer? Maybe he wants me to stay around.

Tempting enough, really. He is such a nice man! How many people can say that about their bosses? However many you guess, you can be sure many, many fewer academics can say the same about the chairs of their departments. A competent academic administrator who manages to retain his humanity is rarer than feathers on a cat.

At any rate, these little honoraria will help make up, in a tiny way, for the summer’s financial drought. And that’s nice.

Meanwhile, work continues to trickle steadily in the door. One long-time client has a publisher interested in (and the hook out for editors at another, even more prestigious house) a collection of testimonios, memoir-like essays by adult children of Mexican immigrants escaped poverty and ended up as academics and business executives. So far we’ve read two of them, both very interesting and in some places quite moving. And a newer client keeps manufacturing new projects. He seems to like our work, for which I’m duly thrilled and grateful.

If the editorial work keeps coming in, there’s no reason why the teaching endeavors can’t come to an end. You know, I enjoy the students, who are by and large interesting and good people. But the sense of futility aside—why are we jumping them through a hoop that teaches nothing for those who haven’t learned, after 13 years of schooling, how to write short essays or research papers and that is utterly unnecessary for those who have?—the amount of time a comp course requires makes it a huge distraction from the effort to get a business up and running.

Tomorrow, for example, I have to leave here at 6:45 to get to campus by 7:30 a.m. I have a meeting on the campus after class, so it’ll be 10:00 before I get back to the computer. Then I’ll have to turn around and race to a Chamber luncheon in Scottsdale, which will absorb a fair amount of the afternoon. Then we have choir practice in the evening. So that makes a day that begins at 4:00 a.m. (the hour at which I commonly write these blog posts) and ends around 10:00 p.m.

Today’s class starts at noon. That carves a huge chunk out of the middle of my day—obviously, I can work around it, but it breaks one’s concentration, and it means that whatever I’m working on will have to stop and start, and also that Tuesdays and Thursdays can’t be used for lunchtime networking. Thursday I have to give a dog and pony show at my 7:30 breakfast meeting, also in Scottsdale, then fly back into town for a doctor’s appointment, then meet the noon class again, leaving only the afternoon to do any editorial work. I need to go by a client’s office while I’m in Scottsdale but can’t do that and make the doctor’s appointment, too.

It’s not that there’s no time to work on the editorial business, but that a lot more time would be available without the constant interruptions for class meetings. On Thursday, for example, I could have made the doctor’s appointment later in the morning, allowing time to meet the client. Whether I can even get to the doctor’s office by 9:30 remains to be seen. In fact, as I think about it, it looks like I probably should call today and try to change that to a less hectic day…if any such thing exists.

 

The Great Escape: How to Make This Work

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Well, for cryin’ out loud. I just sat down and earned $240 for four hours of work.

Meanwhile, Friday the community college district deposited $486.60 for three weeks of work. Uhm…since they don’t count grading and course prep, that actually was for 18 hours of work, not for the de facto 54 hours of work I’ve put in so far this fall.

Do we need anything more to convince of the rightness of my proposition?

So right. So right is it that I even have an inchoate plan. It goes along these lines:

Create goals to be accomplished by quarters. Within each quarter, establish monthly and weekly to-do’s. This should break down some rather large, broad targets into manageable chunks.

How on earth would this look? Well, let’s look at some inchoate schemes:

Fourth Quarter 2012

• Develop plans.
• Lay groundwork to put plans into action.
• Begin marketing program.
• Begin advertising program.

 Looks pretty easy, but each of those four little bullets represents an amazing amount of work and hustle. The marketing plan alone, for example, entails these tasks:

Focus sharply on two specific networking groups.

• Become actively involved.
• Volunteer for specific roles.
• Revisit regularly to perform these roles.
• Gain recognition.

Develop a “presence” in Arizona business community.

• Local Arizona
• Better Business Bureau
• Rent space at appropriate business or arts fairs.

Volunteer actively for two carefully targeted groups that attract active business people and “old Arizona” elite.

• I’ve already identified those and moved to join them (in one case, to rejoin it).
• These activities will require considerable work, energy, and entrepreneurship.
• Set aside time to handle these projects.

Approach mainline national publishers and literary agents.

• Emphasize textbook publishers, since this is about the only part of the book publishing industry that’s still making a profit.

Develop “product packages.”

• This idea comes from our SBA counselor: lines of closely related services that could be delivered in packages.

Develop a social media campaign.

• LinkedIn
• Yelp
• Angie’s List

Launch a public relations initiative.

• CofC’s newsletter: ask about writing a column.
• PBJ: try to pitch columns to it.
• Send press releases to PBJ and other local rags.
• Track down [friend from long ago]’s magazine and try to get mentioned there.
• Try to get publicity for FaM, too.
• Ask clients to plug CED on social media sites.

Advertise.

• CofC’s radio program: get on it.
• Small local publications and websites.
• Update website!!!

Then we have a few other small schemes:

Improve revenues all the way around.

• Raise rates again.
• Market CED to mainstream publishers and major scholarly & scientific publishers.
• Design “packages” to sell at specific rates.
• Create e-books; market on FaM and Amazon.
• Develop social media campaigns for e-books.

Identify at least two types of subcontractors and establish reasonable pay rates for each of these:

• Interns
• Proven professional editors, writers, and designers

Visualize an organizational plan that will provide a way to handle more work than one person can handle.

• Establish amounts that subcontractors can be paid. For example, reserve project management to Tina and charge enough to make a profit on subcontracting her skills.
• Start lining up work for them.

Create a time management program that will accommodate all of the above.

LOL! That’s just for what remains of 2012. Don’t ask for much, do I?

Saturday Pick-ups

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Half an hour before I have to leave for choir, so this will be short. Videlicet: go here, read these!

At Planting Our Pennies, Mr. & Mrs. PoP ponder a major plant question.

Evan at My Journey to Millions reports on a California law concerning liability for interference in an expected inheritance, very interesting, indeed.

Ever take your car to one of those oil-change places only to have them try to upsell you to a bunch of other (unnecessary!) services? Over at Blue Collar Workman, TB explains how to get your car’s oil changed without  getting ripped off.

I suppose you imagine PF bloggers have no sense of humor, eh? Well, check out eemusing’s new “Open Letters” post over at Musings of an Abstract Aucklander. 😀 She promises to make this a series. We can only hope!

And there’s gentle humor in Money Beagle’s post on a new vision of NFL football.

101 Centavos contemplates the possibilities in second-guessing (or even first-guessing) the investment opportunities presented by the gun-owning public’s uncertainty about the future. Interesting pair of posts, of which this is part 2.

Revanche, a particularly evolved type of working stiff, reflects on the sociopsycho-ecology of working space in an entertaining rant at A Gai Shan Life.

The eternally peripatetic Donna Freedman is at FinCon, as is the lively Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff.

Mrs. Accountability drives her employer’s van home. Protecting her from herself, it kindly locks her out and creates a spectacular new annoyance.

I must fly! Have a grand Saturday!!