Instigator Blog

Steve Spalding is a blogging force to be reckoned with. He writes a fantastic blog over at How To Split an Atom. I encourage you to check it out, if you haven’t already.

And now he’s launched a new initiative — History of Blogging — of which I’m playing a part. It was great to be invited…

History of Blogging is a new kind of blog network - each member picked by Steve, each member tackling technology and social media issues from a different perspective. We’re loosely connected through History of Blogging where we publish links of interest (from our own sites but primarily from others), to bring you an assortment of top-quality content (hopefully!) I’ve already discovered a number of blogs and people absolutely worth tracking.

With that in mind, here’s the list of people participating in Steve’s latest project:

• Charo Nuguid, head geekette at The Geekette Speaketh
• Mark Dykeman, social media analyst of Broadcasting Brain
• Dan Rua, venture capitalist of Florida Venture Blog
• Elmer Thomas, navigating Web 2.0 for tech entrepreneurs at Thinking Serious
• Joseph Ferrara, real estate guru at Sellsius Real Estate Blog

I look forward to participating with this group and seeing where History of Blogging takes us. And I hope you enjoy all of these bloggers and the content they share as well!

Yesterday I launched a new design for Instigator Blog. The feedback has been great - some positive, some negative (to be expected), and all of it interesting and important.

In my post announcing the new design, I wrote, “And, I’m writing a much more detailed post explaining the process I went through in redesigning the blog, and that should be coming soon.”

And thanks to Darren Rowse that post is now available: How I Redesigned My Blog.

Darren agreed to publish the post as a guest piece on ProBlogger. I was glad to do it there and hopefully help shed some light on the grueling, time consuming and detailed-centric process of redesigning a blog.

Enjoy! And please post your comments there (and here!) to let me know what you think…

I thought I’d start 2008 with something new … so after many months and a few delays in-between, I’m very happy to launch the latest design for Instigator Blog!

If you’re reading this via RSS — come check it out…

This is a completely new design from my old one. And for this go around, I brought in some heavy hitters. I came up with much of the original design, but then worked with Francis Wu and Nicolas Pin to get it done.

I really feel this design does a great job of raising the bar. It adds a serious element of sophistication and professionalism, but continues to maintain an edge. It’s certainly a softer, more subtle design than before, but it’s still the Instigator Blog after all.

In redesigning the blog I examined every single element of it. This wasn’t just a facelift, it was reconstructive surgery. I examined every nook & cranny, and made a number of fairly significant design and information architecture decisions. Of course, there are still a few details to iron out, which I’ll be doing in the coming days. And, I’m writing a much more detailed post explaining the process I went through in redesigning the blog, and that should be coming soon.

But for now, please come check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks!

2007 was quite the year. So much so that it’s almost too intense to look back and reflect on it. But it’s a worthwhile exercise, especially in how it relates to the vast changes this blog has undertaken.

The biggest change (and challenge) has been the adjustment of focus. In fact, figuring out my niche has always been a challenge - one I’ve “given up” on. I realized at some point in 2007 that I couldn’t niche this blog to one specific subject because it’s very much a reflection of me and where I’m at in life. And since I’m not one-dimensional (as far as I know!) it’s impossible for this blog to be that way. As much as I recognize the value in having a niche and ultra-focused blog, this is not it. Nor will it ever be. And so 2007 saw a radical shift in subject matter.

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My blog has been too quiet of late - mostly because of how busy I’ve been with Standout Jobs. Everything is going very well with the company, and you’ll see more news here and on the Standout Jobs blog very soon.

In the meantime, I thought it important to post a quick note that I probably won’t be publishing any new content for the next week / week and a half. There’s just too much going on to really focus my thoughts well and say anything intelligent.

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