The week’s posts on a single page (most recent at the top):
Paperback Writer
When I was starting out as a TV transmission controller in 1999, I had to make bundles of notes on how to do the job I was now being paid for, partly because I’d come from years working in shops and warehouses and there I was, training to press buttons for a living.
Slightly unnerving, and I questioned my career change more than once around that time.
The idea was that I take quick, rough notes as I was being shown how to do something then write them up that evening so that I could read and understand them in six months’ time (and so could anyone else who wanted to use them).
It was a practice that served me well for years, not only when starting new TC jobs, especially as a freelancer, going into various places for a few shifts here and there, and not going back for weeks or months – ie, plenty of time to forget what to do.
These days, I occasionally write bundles of ideas in a single late-night or early-morning session, but there’s no point in doing that if
- I never go back to them in the cold light of day, or
- I can’t read them when I need to, long after the idea has disappeared from my head
Bang Bang You’re Dead
Article marketing is an outdated form of content marketing through which articles were often placed on directories including EzineArticles.com and eHow.com.
It worked well for a while, and even a young Pazza was known to use the method (click here to see eleven articles I submitted between 2007 and 2010 to EzineArticles).
Article marketing evolved, however, when social media began to dominate and following Google’s Panda algorithm update, which demoted low-value content, ‘content farms’ and sites with high ad-to-content ratios.
Changes
Google ranks pages according to 200 factors and makes hundreds of changes to its core search algorithm every year.
Most of those updates are minor and we users see minimal effects.
Some updates, however, are huge, and businesses have been known to suffer overnight as a result.
Why does google update its algorithm? Because Google, above all, wants people to keep using Google, so they have to stay ahead of the game (they own the game) and keep weeding out the rubbish, low-value content that appears in their search results.
For a history of major Google algorithm updates since 2000, click here.
Good Feeling
You’ll be delighted to hear that I’ve updated this site’s glossary, so there are now slightly fewer holes on that particular page.
Have a look here and fill yer boots.
For the Love of Money
So Trump doesn’t like Bitcoin, Facebook’s proposed Libra digital coin and other cryptocurrencies:
I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2019
The president reportedly criticised large tech companies, saying that they treat conservative voices unfairly. The Internet Association, which represents firms including Facebook, Twitter and Google, said: “Internet companies are not biased against any political ideology, and conservative voices in particular have used social media to great effect.”
Trump has also threatened a retaliatory move should France impose a digital tax on GAFA companies (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon).
These things matter because eventually they affect the money in our pocket.
Come On!
School mornings, music lessons, trains to catch: we’re often in a rush in our house but sometimes the girls’ urgency is, er, questionable.
“Come onnnnn!” I plead.
Then I tell them, for the hundredth time, about The Amazing, Disappearing Last Five Minutes – those moments when you’re getting ready to go somewhere and it feels like you’ve got so much time to play with that you start doing that non-urgent, unimportant thing that’s been on your mind. Then you check your phone to make sure Instagram hasn’t fallen offline again, before squeezing a quick episode of Stranger Things or whatever happens to be the latest flavour of the Netflix month.
Those last five minutes before you’re supposed to leave the house have a habit of suddenly going up in smoke, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
And then?
And then you’re late leaving the house.
The same’s true when a big piece of work needs your time and attention.
“Oh, I’ll do that next week.”
Next week arrives and you suddenly have another important job to do. And then a new client pops up and wants a quote for something.
There’s no time like the present because the present doesn’t disappear like those five minutes in the near-future.
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Eagle-eyed readers of this blog will have noticed that there’s a new item on the menu…
You know all those single pages that contain a week’s worth of posts?
Well they’ve now got a home. For your convenience. It’s here. Enjoy.
*Hat tip to Big Jon for the header image
>>>Playlist<<<
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