One of my students, Michele Capots, from last week’s class, Blogging Basics, did a review of her experience of the class that I was very interested in reading.
I just wanted to remind everyone that the Blogging Basics Workshop is super basic, such as “what is a blog” and “how to I join Blogger?”
Anyone nearly as rock star as Michele Capots really needs to attend the Advanced Blogging Workshop or have your company hire me to come over and talk turkey, strategy, integration, promotion, marketing, outreach, SEO, optimization, social outreach, etc.
Otherwise, it is a simple introduction to blogging 101 for folks who still use quill pens and parchment. That said, I did post an amazingly defensive comment about which I am very ashamed.
So ashamed am I that I have included it below for your amusement! (Because I am shameless as well, of course!)
Blogging for Basics April 27th, 2007 by Michele Capots blogs
“Earlier this week I sat though Blogging for Basics, a course at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda. Being a writer, I’ve taken many courses at the Writer’s Center over the years and was thrilled that they offered one on blogging. But what I learned is I’m not a beginner.
I’m not an expert by any means, but I knew Technorati. I knew some of the buzz words. The lingo. The class touted that I would learn how to leverage my own personal passion, my own personal artistic voice and my unique perception of the world into this online organ.
But I didn’t. I learned how to construct a blog. Literally, through WordPress. Step by step. I learned a blog should be short. And to write a lot. I could have found that out online. I didn’t learn about the words. The power of the medium. As a PR blogger, I didn’t learn what I should or shouldn’t say and the women who were there to launch a blog for their company didn’t learn how to do that either.
Apparently, I could have gone on instructor Chris Abraham’s blog and saved myself $65. All of the necessary tools are on there. And then some. There’s Bloggers Can Ignore Basic Journalism Ethics and Blogging Needs a Code of Honor, Not a Code of Conduct. This would have been helpful when I first started blogging. The class wasn’t.
He could have said, ‘so I want to be a blogger,’ ‘here’s how to do it, what to write, rules of writing,’ and finally ‘how to be successful at it.’ Personally, that would have been helpful to me and probably to the stay-at-home mom who wants to blog about her sick child and the traveling woman who wants to blog about her exquisite journey. Instead, he was all over the map.
There’s an intermediate class next month, but I think I’ll sit that one out. I’ve decided the only way to blog is to get out there and do it. Going to other blogs, seeing what they’re doing right will teach me more than a brick and mortar class. Although I will say, during the class, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scobel on corporate blogging. From the looks of it, I just might read that.”
My amazingly defensive response, worth of shame and lots of weeping:
“I agree with everything you say. And you’re far from being a beginner. And I would rather eat broken glass and dance to ABBA than teach a beginning class that literally slows down to “how do I set up a Blogger blog” but you have to admit that the Writer’s Center is not the bastion of the bleeding edge. So, here’s some advice: in a world of education and training, Blogging Basics does literally mean “blogging basics.” Yeah, it maps directly. And, unlike, a class called Writing Basics, I also have to talk about “what a blog is” and “what makes a blog” and “what are some blog tools” and “how do I sign up for a blog” and “can you walk us through joining Blogger and joining Wordpress?”
That said, I also want you to check out some other free resources:
Ideas of Chris Abraham & Abraham Harrison LLC
That is basically wherein I give the entire shop away!
Cheers for the review!
If you have ever made a blog, know what a blog is, etc, I would recommend you attend only the Advanced Blogging class.
Also, although this is a gorgeous blog, I would recommend going to http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/wp-admin/options-permalink.php and consider changing your permalinks from “web URLs” to the “custom URL structure” which could change this article from http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/?p=252 to http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/2007/04/27/blogging-for-basics/ which might be longer but is a) easier to understand, URL-wise, as to its topic and it is also b) Google-nip. Also, you have lost an amazing opportunity to offer Meta tags (description, keywords, etc) and a number of other missing pieces.
Anyway, sorry to be showing off here but there is a lot more to blogging than learning how to blog and I would highly encourage you to consider attending the Advanced Blogging class.”
Comments (2)
You are definitely right about the meta tags, we are in process of upgrading Word Press to get tags (next month’s IT expenditure, life as a small business owner). Thanks for the compliments, and good to see another local blogger out there. Please come back.
GL
personally, i got a lot of the class. there is — indeed — a lot more to blogging than learning to blog & there’s where chris seems genius. if you don’t appreciate his biz/marketing expertise, then think maybe you’re missing the “advanced” part;)