While random people arriving here after a Google search don’t know me from Adam, I have a few friends and family members who note that they stopped reading CultureFeast.com because I no longer contribute on any regular basis. They don’t really care if what I write is relevant, so long as I write. As sweet as that is, I still don’t want to write.

It’s not that I don’t have anything to say. Trust me, that won’t happen anytime soon. Rather, it’s more a combination of freakishly busy and paranoid that keeps me from weekly blogging.  Busy is not something I can change. But there are way around paranoid… namely, the super secret blog or two.

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If you were to have told me, about a year ago, that I would be using social media on a regular basis, I would have thought you were insane. To me, social media was nothing more than Facebook and MySpace, nothing more, nothing less. I thought that blogging was just for nerds and people with just too much time on their hands. However, after one of my PR courses (Strategies and Issues), I found myself slowly getting used to using, and understanding exactly what social media and blogging were. The course was very social media heavy; understanding the use of blogs and social media sites, how to effectively use social media today, and about half way through the course, each student had to create his and her own blog.

At first, I could not be bothered, and my friend Dara and I would just roll our eyes with sheer boredom. As she became less and less interested in the class, I became more fixated on blogging and the Internet. I was one of the very few students who updated their blogs more than once a week because I was genuinely interested in what I was writing about (Public Relations and Popular Culture).

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 Today's panel is led by John Pozadzides. Panel members include Matt Mullenweg, Liz Strauss, Aaron Brazell, and Mark Ghosh. 

Note: the following are summarizations, not direct and/or complete quotes.

Why do you need a blog?

Aaron: Transparency is key in today's business world.

Matt Mullenweg asks the room, "how many of you read blogs?" Everyone raises their hand. "How many of you read press releases?" Six. Point made.

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Christ Smith has just taken the stage. We will begin coverage immediately. Please refresh this page to see more coverage as it unfolds. 

Chris Smith specializes in local optimization. He contributes to SearchEngineLand.com and WebProNews.com. 

Optimizing Your Blog

Beef up your internal hierarchical linking structure

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Aaron Brazell from B5 Media and Technosailor.com:

Categories and Tags can coexist. Aaron exclusively uses tags to help new visitors find valuable older content.

Can you have too many tags?  Many tags are more easily picked up by Technorati. It's easier to explore related content with more tags. It's easier to find various formats (podcasts, video, photos, text) with tags. You can't have too many tags.

What is GPL and why is it important to WordPress?

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We're live at Day Two of Dallas WordCamp.The WordPress Podcast is recording live from Frisco Town Hall.  On the panel is Jonathan Bailey, Charles Stricklin, Mark Jaquith, Lorelle VanFossen and Mark Ghosh.

Matt Mullenweg just showed up to join the panel discussion about WordPress 2.5 and plugin performance. 

Matt: To determine which plugins to use for which versions, be sure to review the ratings and number of downloads on the Plugin Directory and also check the Support Forum.

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Well, it's finally here! Several hundred bloggers from Texas and surrounding areas are here to network and learn from some of the biggest WordPress gurus. Everyone will be following @wcdallas to keep the twitter chain going during the conference. 

More to come.  

Below is where I'm live blogging from WordCamp:

So far, CoveritLive.com has not been functioning properly for me. You can check out my WordCamp updates on Twitter. 

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Mark your calendars. If you are a WordPress junkie and you live anywhere near the Dallas/Fort Worth area, you better be in Frisco on March 29th and 30th for our very own WordCamp. "The largest gathering of WordPress bloggers, podcasters, designers, programmers, and aficionados that Big D has ever seen." 

Saturday will focus on general user topics. Sunday's focus will be mostly developer topics. Did I mention it's only $20 to attend?!?!? Coffee, snacks, and lunch will be provided both days. Register now and you'll get a WordCamp t-shirt as well.

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While a lot of people are MySpace savvy, many MySpacers still don't understand the difference between a MySpace blog and a professional, public blog. MySpace is typically the place for random half-thoughts and copies of email spam and pics from one's latest night on the town or baby photo shoot. It's a place to share stuff with friends, hence the tagline: "A place for friends." But MySpace doesn't challenge people to fully develop their thoughts or share information in sensible stages. In fact, I'd say that the majority of MySpace bloggers are lazy, only posting anything when they have an inspirational blip, which typically disappears mid-post. 

Brian Clark shared another valuable post on strategic content development from his Innovative Content series recently. This is stuff that every aspiring blogger should read and every established blogger should revisit. Because regardless of our background and experience, it's easy to get busy and lazy and let the content of your blogging suffer. And let's face it, everyone loses when your blogging suffers. 

Rather than plagiarize Brian's content, go read the post for yourself. When you are taking on a new blogging project, it's good to begin by asking yourselves the right kind of questions. It can be difficult to break out of the generic mental vomitting style of MySpace, but just asking yourself these questions and following these three steps will prepare you to write a more informed, adult sounding piece. 

Always make sure you have fun with blogging, but part of the fun lies in doing something well. Nobody would pay Kobe Bryant if his shots were all air balls.  

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I've found through personal experience that you definitely CAN spread yourself too thin. You know all those professional bloggers who make five figures a month? They don't own as many blogs as I do. They know what they're doing. They focused on 1-3 niche topics where they would be able to blog and blog and blog without quick and easy burnout. Not me. Oh no. 

You see, I'm the type of guy who buys a domain name and feels compelled to host it with blog software as soon as possible. Some of these domains I thought I would sell, and eventually I will. But in the meantime, I have put this huge burden on my shoulders to maintain too many blogs on too many topics. Despite what my parents think, I simply do not have that much to say on a daily basis.  

So how do like me find a way to overcome overwhelmingly random interests? Pick three domains to be blogs. Make one your personal blog. You can take full credit for this personal blog if you want, or you can keep it anonymous. Use this blog to vomit all your randomness into. Who knows? Maybe you'll build a following over time. Beyond your personal blog, pick two topics max and dedicate yourself to covering them. Give yourself a full year of blogging on these three topics before adding another, and add only one new blog per year IF ANY. 

This may seem like it will take forever to establish yourself online, but you'll do far better than I started out if you limit the number of blogs you own and operate. It's okay to cover every topic under the sun as long as you isolate that blog from your niche blogs. There's really no reason to own and operate 7-11 blogs unless you miraculously build a staff of bloggers to do the heavy lifting for you. 

You'll do well to learn how to moderate yourself from the beginning. You'll save yourself a lot of stress and frustration if you do. Best of luck, and happy blogging! 

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I'm going to use a lot of generalizations here, so if that is your only comment at the end, save it. 

After a profoundly enjoyable evening with a local writer's group, I walked away with a newfound sense of appreciation for artists. I am an artist, though you couldn't tell by my daily production. Duty calls for marketing messages that compel readers to act. But at my center, I am a poet and creative writer. 

And while the tips from Copyblogger, Problogger and dozens of blogging, branding, and marketing experts are invaluable for corporate blogs, the same principles are stifling and unnatural for many strictly creative types. I call all creative types "artists", because anything creative can be art: words, paint, dance, sculpture, song, design, etc. 

I've spent the lion's share of this site's existence on marketing principles recommended by the experts. The danger there is missing the forest for the trees. CultureFeast will be two years old in November. Prior to this, the only writing I showed anyone outside the office was poetry, prose, or journal entries that I felt were worth sharing. 

You have to be careful not to suffocate your art with marketing. It happens all the time. You have something worth sharing, but in order to get the public's attention, you have to walk a fine line balancing marketing and artistic sincerity. 

My advice: read the tips and study effective marketing strategies, but realize that they must not overtake the art. Balance. It's not a fun word. It's not a sexy word. Balance is not a popular concept, because it's one of those responsibilities people don't want to take the time to mess with.

Be true to your art. Look for ways to hone your craft that can make it more successful without losing power. Whether you post words, photos, or video, there are sure-fire ways to improve your presentation without sacrificing content. There are also plenty of opportunities to focus on results rather than the message.

There are enough self-improvement gurus already. Guard your art with your life! If you don't, you'll discover that the purpose of your art has declined from the pleasure of creation to that of recognition. Recognition is wonderful, but it's fickle and fleeting. The first and foremost active ingredient in successful artistry is quality product. Preserve quality at all cost.  

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