desperate for change

Perhaps the better question is whether your having a blog should be advertised to your current and/or future employers? On the one hand, this is precisely the kind of thing that might help you stand out when you are applying for positions. But on the other hand, you just feel like your personal life should be segregated from your work life. In the online realm, this is obviously blurred to the point whereby it is nearly one and the same; so much so, that people in certain fields (such as teachers and politicians) have to either live without an online trail or professionally manage their online image.

In line with the “doing whatever it takes theme,” we have to stand out in whatever we do in life to get noticed. So here’s to my current boss and future bosses: Google away, you’ve pretty much hit on the real Alfred Pang here.

There is something ironic about using intuition to decide that I should sign up on a course about intuition. This is a VSB course called “Intuition: The Goldmind Method”. This is a two week class and I was at the first session last Saturday.

(The teacher, Bryan Doyle, is familiar to me. A few years ago, I was in a class he was teaching at the time about entrepreneurship. I remembered that during last class, he was talking about auras, energies, and the like and how it helped in his own business dealings. I probably got hooked then.)

During the session last Saturday, he talked about many things. Maxwell Maltz. Visualization. Expectations. Creating versus uncovering. Being neutral. Beta, alpha, theta, delta brain frequencies. The Goldmind relaxation exercise. Auras. Source of truth and intuition. Healing. Soul, spirit, mind, body interactions. Dream interpretation (he interpreted some of ours).

Fascinating. I think that deep down, I’d like to belive that I have some Heroes-like abilities waiting to be unleashed.

“Blog more,” she said.

I know exactly what she was talking about – I mean, I haven’t had anything new since September. Was I uninspired? No, not really. Maybe it was the crazy hours of work that was sucking my energy? No, I had energy for my salsa class. I think that I was just in a bit of a rut. A kick in the pants was what I really needed.

Of course, the question is: Why would I even want a kick in the pants?  Why blog? Even Seth Godin admits that personal blogs really aren’t bringing home the bacon, so to speak.

While I am still inspired by the success of some bloggers, I realize that I am who I am. The world is already better off with a Steve Pavlina; I need to find my own blogging success as Alfred Pang, rather than trying to imitate or copy someone else.

What does this mean in terms of my writings? How will I define blogging success? For your information, I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of living off AdSense revenue through this website.

As an introvert, it is pretty difficult to get inside my head through conventional means. I am pretty sure that there are people who are similar to me. Writing is an exercise in getting ideas out in a clear and understandable representation. And for those of you that are keeping score, blogging is a “staying upwind” activity. (Upwind = hard, with an uncertain chance of success; forces you to think and become better as a result.)

All I want is for someone to read my blog and say, “Yes, me too. I thought I was the only weird one.” That is success for me. I don’t claim to have all the answers. I don’t even want to claim that I am adding significant value to your life through my writings.

All I want to do, is to let you know that this shiny InterWebs is full of strange and wonderful humans, just like you and me.

Micropayments have had several kicks at the bucket for as long as we could remember. A more recent attempt at it is tipjoy. You can read their FAQ and information to get a sense at how they are doing things differently than the other micropayment schemes. On the whole, I am enthusiastic about their user interface and approach.

While tipjoy was intended to reward content providers (i.e. interesting articles or useful software), I am interested in turning the mechanism on its head. In what cases would I be interested in rewarding my readers and users, instead of the other way around? The classic would be of course a lottery-based scheme to reward their patronage.

Of course, a higher-value reason why I would want to reward my readers is of course for market research. I still remember getting $100 for participating in something quite a few years ago.

So, in what case or scenario would you want to reward your users in a monetary way for their participation? Do you want more than just play-money karma? Penny for your thoughts…