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Help Me Help You – Join the Instigator Blog Feedback Group

I love writing. Although I’ve struggled to write consistently of late, I always enjoy hitting “publish” and seeing the content go up live on the blog. I think the content is worthwhile for people, although commenting has slowly declined over the last few years. I think that has a lot to do with Twitter though, and not the quality of the content itself.

This blog has also shifted focus a few times. Of late, I’ve written a lot about startup accelerators since that’s what I’m focused on with Year One Labs. In the future, who knows … That shifting likely causes groups of people to be more or less interested over time, since the subject matter has changed quite drastically since I started back in 2006.

All bloggers crave feedback. Positive, negative or neutral – we all want to get a sense of what people like, don’t like, and how we’re influencing people and creating value.

With that in mind, I’d invite you all to join my “Instigator Blog Feedback Group.”

qidiqThe feedback group is powered by qidiq – a startup inside of Year One Labs. You can sign-up via email or download the iPhone application and then register for the “instigatorblog” feed.

qidiq is an extremely easy-to-use tool for soliciting ongoing feedback from a select group of people. As a feed owner you send one question at a time to people, instead of sending a full survey (that gets low response rate and irritates people). Recipients receive email notifications and can answer quickly, or they get push notifications to their iPhones, and can answer with a quick tap. People can also comment on each question and see results. qidiq is just launching in beta now, and experimenting with different market segments that make sense – think: events/conferences, associations, user groups, publishers, blogs, etc. There are lots of use cases for soliciting quick, easy feedback and making it a fun experience for everyone.

For my blog, I’ll send out questions infrequently, usually after I write a blog post, to solicit private feedback on specific questions I have. So you won’t be inundated with questions, and you’ll be helping me create a better blog for you.

Once again, here’s where you can sign-up: Instigator Blog Feedback Group

New Design for Instigator Blog – Lightweight and Simplified

Every so often I feel compelled to redesign this blog. The first redesign was in 2007, followed by another in 2008. It’s been a couple years since the last redesign, and this one is a big departure from the last. It’s still a work-in-progress, but I’d love to get your feedback.

I really wanted to go simple and lightweight. Strip out unnecessary elements and focus more attention on the content. I eliminated a lot of the sidebar noise; which I think most people ignore anyway. It’s still perhaps a bit too noisy over there – but I added a list of categories and a tag cloud in an effort to draw attention to older, but still valuable and relevant content.

The home page now only shows one post, with links to a few other recent ones. This is to shine a spotlight on the most recent post.

I put a “related posts” plugin back in, again hoping that it gets people digging further into the content. My bounce rate is quite high, and time spent on the site is low — I’m looking for ways to improve both those metrics.

I put the “subscribe” options at the top but also part-way down the sidebar. My goal is to increase subscriptions (via email, RSS or Twitter), and people will notice the colorful icons as they’re reading a specific post.

The footer (for now) has almost nothing in it. I’m still not convinced there’s anything meaningful you can’t put in the footer of a blog that increases key metrics like generating traffic, engagement, etc. But I’m open to suggestions.

I think the design is more personal, even though it’s a bit starker. The tagline is personal, my picture is more prominently displayed (although I need a new picture too!) The “contact” link is also more prominent. In some ways (at least to me) it feels more welcoming. Less can truly be more.

This wasn’t a rigorous re-design process. I went looking for a premium WordPress theme, found Minimal and decided to give it a try. I’ve made some modifications (I always enjoy hacking around in WordPress), but they haven’t been drastic. I do believe it’s important to have great design for your blog. In 2008 after redesigning Instigator Blog I wrote a guest post on ProBlogger about the experience. Design matters. But there are so many good premium themes out there that you don’t necessarily have to start from scratch.

I’ll be tweaking here and there for the next little while. I’m not entirely satisfied with everything on the site, but I’m very pleased with the overall look. It speaks very well to how I feel right now and to my near-term goals. I’m trying to simplify, clean up, discover, free myself and focus. Instigator Blog has always been a reflection of me; and I welcome you to its new look & feel.

All comments and feedback are welcome!

Write

old typewriter

Writing things down has an amazing impact. It commits us more. It serves as a reminder and marks our past. It allows us to get things out of our brains so we can fill them up with more cool ideas. It pushes us into the future. It helps visualize things. It creates structure. It acts as a public statement. It stirs debate. It builds awareness and brand.

Writing is an extremely powerful tool

I’m fascinated by pitch decks and executive summaries because they’re evidence of an entrepreneur’s thought processes translated through writing. The act of producing these materials is important and meaningful. Word choice and the organization of content matters.

Writing forces us to focus. In some cases that means simply scribbling ideas quickly (I’ve found Evernote very useful for this). But focus really comes when we look at our writing and challenge it to be more meaningful, honest and effective.

Startups need focus. Lots of it. Writing things down – hypotheses, problem statements, prospect lists, goals, etc. – encourages and drives that focus. Often when brainstorming new ideas or taking on new challenges I’m acutely reminded of the importance and effectiveness of writing. It provides a stake in the ground and a benchmark.

So write. Write often. Write freely. Even if it’s just for yourself, write.

image courtesy of shutterstock

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About Ben Yoskovitz
I recently joined GoInstant as VP Product. GoInstant changes how we use the web, making it shareable like never before.

I'm also a Founding Partner at Year One Labs, an early stage accelerator in Montreal. Previously I founded Standout Jobs (and sold it). I'm a hands-on startup guy, helping companies grow successfully from the idea forward. You can reach me at byosko at gmail dot com.

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The opinions and commentary on this site are mine and mine alone. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of my employer, GoInstant.

Instigator Blog runs WordPress and uses the Minimal theme by Curt Ziegler.