Ian M Rountree

Copywriter, Project Manager, Digital Marketing

  • Copywriting
    • Content Marketing
    • SEO
  • About
  • Contact

Blogging With Rock Skis On

May 6, 2011 by Ian 4 Comments

Rocky Mountain Chills - Zach Dischner | Flickr

When I was learning to ski for biathlon in the mid-nineties, I didn’t start with expensive, awesome tools.

My first skis weren’t full-capped Rosignols, my first boots weren’t high-end Solomons. My skis, boots, and poles were hand-me-downs. We called these hand-me-downs rock skis because they’d been chewed up with use, and having lost bits of their undersides to rocks on the nearly off-season tracks at the end of the previous year. They sucked – but using them convinced me I was worth better tools.

I spent the first season on that hand-me-down set of equipment, struggling through every foot of snow. Don’t even get me started on my rifle – cadet issue vostock .22 caliber rifle, the only left-sighted rifle the squadron had. It was a pain to sight in, and had a single-shot action, which meant I lost time reloading for each shot manually.

Learning to succeed without the benefit of skill-enhancing tools is important. I worry that not as many people go through this process as used to  especially for creating media.

When bloggers are new to the game these days, they’ve got access to ways to make themselves immediately awesome, like;

  • Premium themes
  • Self-hosted wordpress blogs
  • All the tutorials you could want
  • Expert advice in a plethora of LinkedIn communities, Facebook groups, and paid areas like ThirdTribe and Blog Topics
  • Plugins like ScribeSEO to handle their editorial foibles
  • With just a couple hundred dollars, today’s media creator can look like they’re launching the next Problogger or Copyblogger – whether they can back up the awesomeness of the design and platform with their content or not.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing.

Being able to set ourselves up to create excellence from day one is awesome – however, it’s incomplete as an experience. Some of the best bloggers out there have been around for a long time – experience counts for some of their innate awesomeness, but there’s another part that comes from having started with rock skis.

When I started blogging in the late nineties, all we had was LiveJournal. What we now call RSS, back then was LJ’s friends system. Those of us who spent a lot of time creating content created what we called a ping-free environment; because computers weren’t that great at running a lot of programs, we’d turn on Winamp, and turn off our messengers, and just write. By having nothing but our soundtracks and our text boxes available to us (we didn’t even have tabbed browsing back then – the horror), we were blogging with rock skis on. We were working with the best tools available, and gaining very specific skills because of that.

We can sill blog with rock skis today, if we try!

Some of the best new bloggers I’ve seen began on wordpress.com or blogger, before moving on to bigger and more extensible platforms. Working with these very tightly specified tools is like learning to write with the AP guide – you’ve only got so many chances to look awesome without artificial reinforcement, and you have to take every opportunity to be recognized as doing good work.

Blogging with rock skis on these days has to be intentional – the way not going out and buying a brand new set of Solomon boots is for new biathletes.

I’m not advocating for every would-be blogger to deprive themselves of great tools. However, there’s only so far those tools can take us without knowing what their functions are, and where the enhancements are actually coming from.

Every so often, turn off all the perks – write the hard way, ping-deprived – and see how much you can improve your practices with some rock skis.

How far can we take this improvement? What do you think?

Filed Under: Content Strategy Tagged With: blogger, Blogging, history, history lessons, livejournal, ping-free, rock skis, tools, training

Oh, for the Love of Obscure Services!

April 18, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

We love to complicate things – we use services like Flickr’s Creative Commons search to fill our sites with awesome pictures, like laughing mantises or rock platforms.

Sometimes, it’s awesome to find the simple things; like Placekitten. Drop by and check them out – it’s handy to have tricks like this up your sleeve when you’re working on things like blog posts, and need something simple and fast. Like a kitten. Or, in the case of placehold.it, the service which PlaceKitten was inspired by, empty boxes like the one below.

placehold.it - 550px X 150px, instantly.

Is it subject-appropriate visual interest for a blog post? Not necessarily.Handy for tossing something together quickly, for example, when you need to preview a blog post or ebook for layout? You bet.

It’s little things like these that can help speed up your production time and reduce the hang-ups in mid-action that so often cause procrastination.

… And here’s another placekitten!

Stop procrastinating! Place a kitten, save a blog post!

[Hat tip to Chris Coyier at CSS Tricks for the unintentional new tool, via: “Faking ‘float: center’ with pseudo-elements.”]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Tagged With: Blogging, blogs, placeholder, placekitten, productivity, stop procrastinating, tools

My Platform – The Tools I Use

February 9, 2011 by Ian 4 Comments

overdrive - FlickrWhen you’re doing work online, there’s a lot to consider, not just about the work you’re going to do, but about the tools you used to do it.

This goes beyond just picking between Blogger and WordPress or Tumblr and TypePad – the tools for web workers to build their platforms on range from getting the right laptop and Skype-ready headset on the hardware side, to picking seemingly low-priority things like task management software, browser plugins, and Instant Messenger clients.

Very often, the things that seem to be the least of our concerns when setting up turn out to make the biggest difference in the long term.

It’s easy to buy a new keyboard for a desktop computer. But what about laptops? We look for good screens, good speakers… Maybe a good processor or large harddrive if we’re savvy enough – but how many of us buy laptops based on typing tests and the way they fit our hands? It’s virtually impossible to replace the keyboard in a laptop.

Choosing your tools wisely is important. Here are some of the ones I use.

Some of the hardware that gets me through the day:

  • Dell Studio 17′ laptop – I chose the beast based on screen size, keyboard, and capacity for graphical work. When you’re a writer, any old typing machine will do (If you can type on it) but storing loads of data – hundreds of pages of writing, images, photoshop files… Big data is making its way down to the individual, so having a large harddrive is a good idea. My Dell has a terrabyte of storage.
  • Sony MDR-XB300 Headphones – picked based on their range (they work for the music I listen to) and for their comfort. I listen to a LOT of music, in addition to podcasts
  • BlackBerry 8520 – I’ve got the WordPress app, as well as Twitter, Facebook, Google Talk, Live Messenger, and AIM on my phone. Oh, and Evernote as well. I use my phone as a backup publishing platform – mostly for ideation and review of ideas I’ve had. It’s astonishing how much having even a little access can increase productivity, and accessibility.
  • Razer/Microsoft Habu mouse – it’s a gaming mouse, really, but I got it based on ergonomics and high DPI, which is a boon when working in Photoshop.

That’s an incomplete list, but you get the idea I hope – if any of these pieces of my kit fail, it changes the way I do my work. All of it was chosen based on knowledge of my workflow,

Some desktop software I use for productivity:

  • iTunes for music – because… Well, it’s iTunes. And I have an iPod.
  • Google Chrome – because it’s fast, even though it has some issues with WordPress’ post editor. Also, add-ons like;
    • SEO Site Tools
    • Bit.ly
    • ScribeFire
  • Instant Messaging software, like;
    • Live Messenger
    • AIM – AOL Instant Messenger
    • Skype
    • Google Talk
  • Evernote – as mentioned above, because it lets me keep information on the move.
  • Dropbox because it keeps my things safe and lets me collaborate easily.
  • TweetDeck for Twitter management.
  • Adobe CreativeSuite software – it’s a standard, really, though mine’s outdated.
  • YNAB – You Need A Budget to keep things in order.

There’s also web software:

  • (mt)MediaTemple for web hosting – for reasons I’ve covered in a review previously. My domains register through them as well.
  • WordPress.org as a blogging software, because it’s infinitely extensible and powerful – I’ll get into more detail about WP.org later.
  • Standard Theme 2 which I developed my current site theme on top of, for reasons also covered in a review
  • Google Apps for my domain email and other tools – everything, at this point, routes through my Google Apps account

This is, of course, an incomplete list – in both cases. However, the trend is clear; I’ve chosen a set of tools that works the way I need them to. It’s not all flash and sizzle, but it does the trick, exactly as I expect, every time.

Picking hardware and software that works well in concert with your best creative workflow is of paramount importance. What tools do you use to get stuff done online?

Image by extranoise.

Filed Under: Marketing Strategy Tagged With: 2011 themes, audio, creativity, dell, hardware, new platforms, software, theme 2, tools, wordpress

Categories

  • Announcements
    • Event Notices
  • Blog
  • Communication
  • Content Strategy
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Personal
  • Reviews
  • Social Media
  • Technology

Archive

  • January 2016
  • June 2015
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • July 2008
  • February 2004
  • Copywriting
  • Blog
  • Reading Lists
  • Colophon

© Copyright 2023 Ian M Rountree · All Rights Reserved