It’s always interesting when a neighbor has an open house.  I (not my wife at all) want to go and check it out.

This webpage has been sort of an experiment and I’ve been having a ton of fun doing it.  Months ago I met with John Saddington (Human3rror) to talk about this concept.  It has grown and changed over the last few months.  One of the opportunities that materialized was the chance to do a breakout with John about this page at The Orange Conference.  The topic of the breakout is blogging and we’re using this blog as a case study.  I knew absolutely nothing about blogging a few short months ago and John has been guiding me from day 1.  So, I thought it might be fun, if you like to follow this sort of thing, to give you an update on progress and thoughts on what I’ve learned each week until we do that breakout.  This is literally a “Blogging for Dummies” sort of situation.

So…If you’re one of those neighbors that wants to come to the open house just to see what is going on in the house and how much their asking…Welcome.

If you are considering a blog, I hope this, and the posts like this in the future are helpful.

Come on out to Orange and we can put a bow on this thing and talk about all we’ve learned.

Week 1 Report Here

Some Quick thoughts and stats:

• Site visits as of Jan 25: 2383    RSS subscribers as of Feb 1:  18
  
• Traffic has slowed at first but now seems to be consistently on the rise.  I’m guessing the local interest in “what the heck is Shef doing” has waned.
• I learned what a Google PR is.  It’s how the web grades your site.  I’m guessing I’m a 1 out of 10 right now but I hope to move up the list.  Still have a lot to learn about this.
• I got “search for” in the last couple of weeks…which is fun to see.  I wonder who that was?
• Got one of my most encouraging comments Here.  It’s good to see the stuff is being used to move things along.

Things Coming Up

• I downloaded the WordPress App to my Iphone.  I am going to try and manage some comments from there…just to see if I can.
• I’m off to South Africa on Wednesday so I’m setting some posts up to go out on a schedule.  I hope to be able to manage all while I’m there…but if I go “dark” know I’m just disconnected.
• John and I are talking about some strategy.  Gotta get my Twitter followers and RSS feeds up.  I’ll let you know what he comes up with.

If you have any questions…post them below.  I’d love to know what you guys are thinking.