An Excellent Distillation of the Penguin Update
If you’ve got the six minutes, and you’re in digital marketing, you really need to watch this.
Stay Tuned…
NickBoylan.com is actually moving forward soon! I’ve got a nice backlog of content I’ll be pushing forward, as well as some fresh stuff. Re-launch on June 9th.
The Last Four Months
I have a new apartment. Stepstool has transitioned to an agency consultancy, and is more stable than ever. I’ve grown a Van Dyke. I’m the GM-CCA SEO Manager at SMG-Search. I’ve grown leaps and bounds towards my goal of being able to call myself an inbound marketer, and I now do.
Through all this, the brand with which I wish to convey myself professionally has also changed substantially. As such, this blog will change as well. I don’t want to make any predictions as to how, since whenever I set a calendar I always blow it off, but I think this will be a move for the better. More frequent posting? Of course. Targeted to inbound marketing as an industry? Yes. What, exactly? Who knows.
Writing Critique
Sometimes I hate writing web market analyses. Like right now, when I’m 4500 words into one and I feel like all I’ve done thus far is rip on the client. The last 2800 words have been a critique of the client’s website, and I’ve found nothing good to say about it other than, “navigation, while flash-based, is in a usable location, easy to identify, and performs without issue.” Every single other thing about this website is negative and poor.
The client isn’t paying me to write a report that bashes them for their last four years of web marketing effort, but when it is through and through horrible, scattered, piecemeal-ed, and never thought through what else can I say?
Competition
Well what do you know, kids, Stepstool’s recent Monroe, MI successes in web marketing have stirred up some competition. Seems some dormant organizations that were previously ignoring this market have woken up and smelled the opportunity.
For a few months now I’ve enjoyed relative alone-ness when it comes to being a marketing company in Monroe. Being a relatively untapped market, however, I’ve spent most of my time educating business owners about web marketing and advertising in general, and not making direct sales. With competition, however, that all changes.
No more waiting in the background. Now is the time to expose Stepstool to the greater market.
Productive Days
I love being productive. In addition to, you know, actually getting things done there is a great mental sense of well being that comes from it.
Today I set out to finally learn fully about the new project management system I had settled on. I have been testing it for a while, but never really dove in to it head first. My whole day was to be learning this system inside and out. Had that done in about 2 hours.
Once I decided to actually put my mind to it, Manymoon gave way and opened her loving arms to me. The extremely intuitive activity system, the function of milestones and tasks, and the just-right power of user configuration make for a pleasurable experience. So, I decided to start actually using the damn thing.
I created a new project, and input everything left to do for the Stepstool site re-architecture-ing. Then I got a great amount of the new tasks done! Wonderful, wonderful day.
Week Prep
Monday morning usually goes something like this:
Alarm goes off at 4:45. I lay in bed for what feels like 5 minutes, but is probably about 2 seconds, wondering what is making that noise. Realize it’s my alarm, then get out of bed. Showering, I tell myself this is the week I’ll put solid effort in. This is the week I feel out what I can really do with Stepstool.
Eat müsli, drink juice, make coffee. Fire up Google Reader, and catch up on the 40+ unreads from the weekend. Wonder why I chose a profession that requires me to maintain a superhuman level of knowledge currency.
Then I start week prep. I look at the production calendar. What should have been done 3 weeks ago, 2 weeks go, yesterday, so-on. Schedule times of day for production work, and times of day available for sales and other activities. Develop a to-do list for the week. Wow, hey, this might be the week after all!
Then when the first urgent e-mail comes in at about 10:30, and it will, disregard the entire calendar. Next week.
I Love This Game
Basically, you play as this little black stick figure ninja, collect gold, and get dohickeys to open doors and beat levels.
If you’ve never played, give it a download. You won’t be sorry.
Shoe Shining
Cleaning is mind-clearing. When I dust my office, pick up and sort the various piles of files that consume every bit of once-available counter, and generally keep things tidy, my mind sorts itself in the same fashion. My workspace is neat and efficient, my brain follows. For as much clarity as that can bring me, however, nothing is as restorative to me as shining my shoes.
It’s all just a giant metaphor, but shoe shining is really one of those things where when you take more time and care, the end product is legions beyond what a simple touch up would provide. Add that to the feeling I get when I’m dressed well from shoes up, and the confidence that inspires, and it’s something I feel I couldn’t be myself without.
Art of Manliness has an excellent primer on shining shoes. If you’ve never been over to the site, be sure to check it out!
Reconceptualizing Stepstool
Stepstool is in the middle of a re-brand. Well, not really a re-brand, but a brand enhancement. Stepping the game up. We’ve recently re-designed our business cards, gotten some fancy new letterhead, and we’re now re-designing and developing the website.
During this process of re-development, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about information architecture, and how I want to present an enhanced Stepstool to the world. Thinking along content lines, however, leads to thinking along structural lines and how I operate the business in the first place. Hence, the reconceptualization.