What’s the Problem?

I think part of the problem with blogs is that they are too static and dull. We need to infuse new life into blogs and make them more dynamic. Just as Flash added a freshness to web sites when it first appeared on the scene, we need to do something that will change the game for blogging.

The other part of the problem involves the incredible shrinking attention span of readers/viewers. Hollywood learned long ago that motion pictures need to reach out and grab the audience right away within the first 10 minutes or else its opening weekend will be its last. That’s why most movies look and feel like music videos these days. Quick cut editing and special effects reign supreme. Even the publishing industry has taken its queue from the movie industry and insist that its authors write tighter and more exciting stories.

What’s the Answer?

I believe the answer could be the same one that’s being touted as the potential savior of newspapers and magazines: The Apple iPad and similar devices, plus the new digital newsstand that it will usher in. Yes, I am suggesting that we look at blogs the same way we look at newspapers and magazines. It’s not a coincidence that many blogs have experienced increased subscriptions after changing to a more magazine-styled theme. Imagine providing your content in a more dynamic and exciting manner, like Wired’s demo iPad app:

Kiss Your RSS Goodbye?

Some pundits predict that subscribing to RSS feeds will become obsolete, thanks to technology such as PuSH (PubSubhubbub) and the proliferation of mobile applications. This could be why many blogging professionals have already started making their blogs available as iPhone apps. Their reasoning is that they want their work to be accessible and available to as many people as possible, and if it means porting it to a new platform, then so be it. The good news is that these same iPhone apps will also work on the iPad. Another factor in the increase of “blogs as apps” is the continuing decline in the cost of having an application developed. Pretty soon, releasing your own app will become as common as launching a blog.

Content is Still King

I’m not suggesting that glitz and glamor are better than substance and message. On the contrary, I firmly believe content will always remain the most important aspect of any blog, newspaper or magazine. I’m just saying that we cannot ignore the obvious truth of today’s readers and viewers. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and hope that the quality of our content alone will win the day. We need to deliver our best work (be it blog post, article, movie, book, etc.) in the best packaging available if we want to give it a chance to be consumed/digested and, ultimately, appreciated.

The new generation of mobile devices such as the iPad and other tablet computers will become ubiquitous and will help us deliver our message in exciting new ways. We should not lament this changing of the guard; instead we should embrace it and adapt to it, and take our blogging to new heights.

What do you think? Could iPads and similar devices usher in a new age of blogging?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.):

Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits Right Notes

In my quest to better understand why and how we use the term “social media,” I began at Wikipedia:

Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.

I can’t say the above definition is wrong, but it seems too narrow to me. The first questions that come to my head when I read that social media is just about publishing and broadcasting is “But what about Web 2.0 technologies? Where do they fit in? Aren’t they a part of social media?”

The Wikipedia definition of social media continues with:

Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.”

The definition continues to focus on content production, and I say that the narrowness of that definition is wrong. I see social media as being more than just publishing and broadcasting, and I think that the word “media” in social media may be misunderstood or misused.

What is Media?

In our haste to label things — in this case the tools we are using for communication and interaction — someone forgot that “media” has multiple meanings, so some of us took the term “social media” to mean one thing, while the rest of us understood it to mean something completely different.

For consistency’s sake, I went back to Wikipedia to check how it defined “media.” Of the multiple definitions, here are the ones that I thought applied to the word “media” in the term “social media”:

In communications: In communication, media (singular medium) are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data. It is often referred to as synonymous with mass media or news media, but may refer to a single medium used to communicate any data for any purpose.

A medium (plural media) is a carrier of something. Common things carried by media include information, art, or physical objects. A medium may provide transmission or storage of information or both. The industries which produce news and entertainment content for the mass media are often called “the media” (in much the same way the newspaper industry is called “the press”).

In this light, the limitation of the definition of “social media” to publishing and broadcasting falls apart.

A few years ago, I began using the following diagram to encapsulate the many media — or tools, platforms, channels — that made up social media:

The diagram above reflects the more expansive view of social media; using “media” to mean “the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data.“

So is this wrong? If you are going by the narrow publishing and broadcast definition, then it might be incorrect to say that Cloud Working (by that I mean producing work using cloud-based SaaS tools), for example, is social media. But then again, to work in the cloud, one must publish something on the web that is consumed — or collaborated on — by others, often producing new forms of the original content, right?

And what about widgets and RSS feeds? These are tools for distributing content produced elsewhere, but they aren’t tools for actually producing new content. One could argue that these tools aren’t social. However, they are the conduits of content from social sources such as social networks and blogs. So are they social media tools or not?

How about a content rating site or bookmarking site? While Digg and Delicious aren’t exactly content production sites, they allow users to rate, comment on and aggregate content in a more “social” interactive environment so, in a sense, they are social media tools because there is “social” and “publishing” involved.

The Evolution of the Term “Social Media”

How did the term “social media” evolve, and how can there be different understandings of this globally-used term? I think part of the problem is that some people believe that social media “replaced” Web 2.0 as a term while others believe that social media is a “subset” of Web 2.0.

For clarification, Wikipedia’s definition of Web 2.0 is:

…web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web.

If one believes that social media is a subset of Web 2.0, like this:

Then social media would be the social tools and channels that fall under the broader Web 2.0 landscape of tools. That would mean that we should probably still be using the term Web 2.0 (annoying as it is) to refer to the “not exactly social” tools we’re using on the web.

Alternatively, one could see social media as an evolution of Web 2.0 tools, like this:

But if social media is an evolution of Web 2.0, then what do we call the “less than social” tools we’re using?

So, which is it?

1. Social media is a subset of Web 2.0, so anything “not very social” are still Web 2.0 tools.
2. Social media is an evolution of Web 2.0, so its definition includes peripherally social tools or tools ancillary to social tools.

I continue to gravitate away from the definition that social media tools must involve publishing or broadcasting because it is too narrow.

Who Coined the Term “Social Media?”

In 2007, danah m. boyd of the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley and Nicole B. Ellison of the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University, published the paper “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” In it, the first mention of “social media” was in this sentence:

Furthermore, as the social media and user-generated content phenomena grew, websites focused on media sharing began implementing SNS features and becoming SNSs themselves. Examples include Flickr (photo sharing), Last.FM (music listening habits), and YouTube (video sharing).

By their definition in this paper, social media was focused initially and primarily on social networks.

In a February 2009 speech, boyd goes on to say this about social media :

Social media is the latest buzzword in a long line of buzzwords. It is often used to describe the collection of software that enables individuals and communities to gather, communicate, share, and in some cases collaborate or play. In tech circles, social media has replaced the earlier fave “social software.” Academics still tend to prefer terms like “computer-mediated communication” or “computer-supported cooperative work” to describe the practices that emerge from these tools and the old skool academics might even categorize these tools as “groupwork” tools. Social media is driven by another buzzword: “user-generated content” or content that is contributed by participants rather than editors.

What is really telling is when boyd explains how we got from “Web 2.0″ to “social media:”

But for the last few years, everyone’s been a-buzz with the idea of “social media.” Right now, those who want VC backing need to bake the “social” into any Web2.0 app they create. There are many new genres of social media that have gained traction here: blogs, wikis, media-sharing sites, social network sites, social bookmarking, virtual worlds, microblogging sites, etc. These tools are part of a broader notion of “Web2.0.” Yet-another-buzzword, Web2.0 means different things to different people.

So perhaps we can blame — or credit — those who wanted VC backing on the convoluted use of “social” in everything that was formerly known as Web 2.0. At least we have an explanation for the (over)use of “social” in social media.

What do you think? How do you define “social media” and what tools do we use that are not social media tools?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Social Media in the Enterprise

Photo by stock.xchng user kindhelper

As I’m watching all of these events — mostly via streaming — I’m struck by one thing in particular: The athletes represent the consummate niche professional. They do one thing (or sometimes two or three, but all under the same basic umbrella) and they do it very, very well.

In the past, I’ve written about the importance of being a jack of all trades as a web worker. That remains a good strategy for weathering the storm of economic uncertainty, but in more stable times a specialist will always be paid more than a generalist, and likely have more opportunities at hand, too. At least in some parts of the world, signs of recovery are good, so it follows that now is a good time to look to the example of the Olympian for inspiration.

The key to Olympic success is choosing your sport and focusing on it to the exclusion of almost all else while in training. Depending on the sport, that focus doesn’t necessarily need to be a lifelong aspiration, but while an athlete is training for it, they go all in. No half-measures are involved in competing an an international level. The same is true for the best and brightest web professionals. Take Toronto-based social media expert Scott Stratten, for example. I’ve never come across anyone with quite the same degree of tunnel vision regarding their career and specific niche.

The major differences between a web professional and an Olympic athlete (besides, most likely, level of fitness) are two-fold: First, you likely don’t have a dedicated coach or coaches. Second, the line between training and event is never as distinct for web workers as it is for competitive athletes.

A lack of coaching means that you have to emphasize praxis, meaning you have to observe and take into account both the theory and practice sides of your work. Athletes do this too, but they can focus on the doing while the coach emphasizes the thinking, reflection and analysis that leads to improvement. The best way to go about this is to keep detailed records and work logs. Improving how you work is just as important as improving your product; the two are inseparably tied.

As for the training/performance distinction, this is actually an advantage web working specialists have, depending on how you feel about pressure. Every time you get to flex your muscles, you’re probably doing so in exchange for pay. It’s a good idea to practice when you can with unpaid work that won’t necessarily by seen, or with pro bono work for charitable organizations, but by and large your training will take place on the fly. To simulate the effect of training for a major event, rank your upcoming projects and engagements when possible and treat the smaller ones as lead-up to the big ones. This should help you excel when your work is garnering the most attention.

Unlike Olympic athletes, you might not get a chance at the podium, but you will get a chance at being recognized as among the best in your field. Especially as companies begin to have more money for highly focused projects, sharpening your focus and being the best at your niche could play huge dividends.

Are you a generalist or a specialist?

Maybe it starts with the long-awaited end of a project, a move, or even the reorganizing of a closet or the rearranging of a room.

For me, it started with the re-installation of my laptop’s operating system. Simple, right? But fifteen minutes into the process, I felt relief, “Thank goodness this thing will finally work as it should.” I immediately wanted to re-install the operating system on my desktop computer as well, just to have a completely blank canvas to work on; how nice it would be to have both my computers functioning like they were new again.

I started thinking about clean slates. Imagine if you could make every part of your life feel new again.

Maybe you get back to exercising and eating better every day. Maybe you eliminate your debt and cut all the fat from your spending. Maybe you move to a place you’ve been thinking about or paint your office that bold color that always catches your eye.

Sometimes we need to hit the reset button on our lives, not to forget or undo where we’ve been or what we’ve done, but to get a new lease on life, a new perspective, or a breath of fresh air that’s just enough to motivate us to live our lives and run our businesses in a better way.

Spring is just around the corner, and what better time to make a little room to clean a few slates?

Start in the Most Obvious Places

For me, that was my laptop. I had been aggravated with its performance for several months and had gotten to where I rarely used it, because it was too slow. That meant I was bound to a desktop, which seems crazy to me as a web worker.

There are other obvious areas that need my attention, too. My desktop computer is probably next, as well as my archaic filing cabinet that’s filled with junk I don’t need or even use. In fact, I could almost take the entire thing to the curb to go out with next week’s garbage, yet I keep it, and it’s just another reminder of the various canvases and slates that need to be cleaned in my life and business.

Be Inspired to Keep Going

As you clean out one area, a junk drawer or your desk, you’ll most assuredly think of other areas that need your attention. Don’t feel like you have to tackle it all in one day or weekend. Maybe set aside two or three hours every Saturday or Sunday for as long as it takes to get to the bottom of it all. How motivating could that be to think, “What will I tackle next? What will be the next clean slate in my life?”

And, you know, it doesn’t have to stop with junk drawers and computers. You might need to clean up some relationships in your life. Maybe you don’t call your mom or siblings or best friend as much as you’d like and could make some time to make those relationships stronger. Then again, you might need to tackle your health, spirituality, or areas within your business.

So often, we become hoarders, hanging on to all kinds of clutter and excess baggage that crowds our lives and our thinking. Clean slates are very liberating and make you start thinking of all the possibilities that are available to you, if you only make room for them.

Sometimes I get on what I call my “crazy cleaning sprees” and get rid of all kinds of excess clutter and junk. What’s the most outrageous cleaning spree you’ve gone on? Were the results good or bad, liberating or costly?

Photo by Flickr user John Loo, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

In the study, bloggers cautioned PR professionals that traditional outreach methods would not be effective with them; they were adamant that a smart, well-researched approach would work best. The study goes on to say that “most bloggers tend to write about subjects they are passionate about. And most of the time, the product (blog) is wholly owned by them. Therefore, their blog and the subject matter are extremely personal endeavors.”

I haven’t seen a more recent study of a similar type to show what has changed, but as someone who engages both in blogger outreach with my company and blogging, I feel that the landscape has fundamentally shifted.

I’ve noticed a significant decrease, year over year, in how responsive bloggers are — or more accurately, are not — even to individualized, customized and thoughtful outreach. In 2007, response rates were between 20-25 percent positive (the percentage of bloggers who published information provided to them or responding to our outreach). Toward the end of 2009, I began to see a marked drop-off of in acknowledgments from bloggers, much less actual published responses to email outreach. In my company’s experience, we’ve found the response rate to decrease to less than 10 percent, even less than five percent in some cases. This poor response rate is even despite the fact that our relationships with individual bloggers have strengthened over the years.

The decrease in blogger outreach effectiveness can be attributed to a myriad of factors including

1. The recent FTC rulings on marketing firms and blogs
2. A glut of PR requests to bloggers, so most no longer get opened
3. The realization by many bloggers that they now hold an increasing degree of power and influence in terms of information distribution, so they are becoming more selective
4. The fact that many bloggers are still not businesspeople, and don’t even look to PR as a source of fodder for their blogs
5. A continued misunderstanding about blogging culture and what bloggers need or want by marketers
6. There’s a misconception that all bloggers want to be approached by PR reps or to receive press releases, so firms keep throwing stuff out there to see what sticks
7. The fact that not everyone who blogs is open to blogging about things other than their own lives or work, especially products they don’t actually use.

Putting On My Blogger Hat

As a professional blogger as well as a personal blogger, I find myself drowning in pitches from PR firms. On the personal side, I find that unless they use the correct email to pitch me and keep the pitches very short, to the point, and on target with my blog topics, I pretty much ignore the emails. I simply don’t have the bandwidth. Plus, my personal blogs aren’t really commercial endeavors.

On the professional side, I look for a prominent mention of the blog they’re pitching me for (such as WebWorkerDaily); exactly what they are pitching (a new application to help web workers do something better, for example); and how familiar they are with what I write. There is nothing more effective in pitches to me than one with a highly targeted phrase like “I noticed your blog post about RSS feeds last week and wanted to let you know about my client’s new app that would really benefit web workers by helping manage their feeds.” Bingo!

I can’t say that I read every email pitched to me — it is just not humanly possible. I can say that the PR people who politely but regularly nudge me several times to gauge my interest in their pitch have gotten a lot farther with me than the ones who threw a pitch at me like spaghetti to a wall. Kindness and consideration along with persistence wins the ink. Getting annoyed that I haven’t responded, or that I’ve had to switch a demo call at the last minute isn’t going to win any brownie points. We’re all just people trying to make a living, and we all have a life.

The other thing I find incredibly effective in terms of pitching me on behalf of a client is not only the thoughtfully targeted pitch but regular pitches that can provide me with ideas for new blog posts. I look forward to those emails and count the PR people who help to make my professional blogging life just a little bit easier as important contacts. That’s the power of relationships. You care, I care, we work together, everyone wins.

Alternative Ways of Engaging Bloggers

Because of the decrease in effectiveness of blogger outreach carried out in the manner of traditional media outreach, there needs to be alternative ways to engage bloggers to help produce valuable and educational content for our clients; build greater awareness of client brands; and have a measurable impact in the blogosphere. Some of these tactics include:

1. Blog panels. Select bloggers who are knowledgeable in a given area to provide guidance on a company or organization’s blog editorial calendar that can be syndicated on their own blogs in a coordinated fashion. This is a more credible and effective tactic when the participation is a voluntary and non-compensated position; however, there must be a mutual exchange of value and all value exchange must be disclosed.
2. Blogger pools. Select bloggers who can be guest authors of a company or organization’s blog by identifying a pool of qualified, expert and diverse bloggers who can contribute content – with or without compensation – for the exposure. Again, if compensation is involved, it must be disclosed.
3. Blog sponsorship. Identify key blogs and bloggers reaching the “right” audience and offering to pay them to sponsor content that meets particular guidelines. For the bloggers who are in the business of blogging, this can be a more attractive relationship, and both parties must make sure a paid sponsorship is properly and prominently labeled as such.

As the blogging landscape continues to change, it is important for us to engage bloggers in the conversations about best practices in blogger outreach and continue to build more meaningful relationships with bloggers similar to the way we’ve cultivated relationships with the media but realizing the differences. If I feel we have a strong base of blogger relationships in a given industry or area, I may recommend blogger outreach to a client in the future. However, building a targeted blogger list from scratch without relationships solidly in place is proving to be a less effective and more expensive endeavor than it was three years ago.

Do you engage in blogger outreach? Or are you a blogger being approached by marketing types? What are your thoughts on the topic of blogger outreach as an online marketing tactic?

Maybe you’d think I was crazy, but almost two years ago, we speculated that the web workers of the future may begin taking their digital designs and producing tangible items to sell, using online fabrication and production services such as Ponoko. Since then, the infrastructure of personal manufacturing has become gradually more accessible and affordable, suggesting that boutique production could become a viable career choice for many of us.

Last month’s issue of Wired explored some of the culture around  personal manufacturing, noting that “global supply chains have become scale-free, able to serve the small as well as the large, the garage inventor and Sony.” Wired’s piece drew some criticism, with Gizmodo suggesting that rather than being the the “future of American manufacturing,” the developments of the last few years are really only affecting hobbyists — who are actually just outsourcing work to China. Despite this, it’s clear that everything from open-source car designs to customized LEGO parts are just a click away.

“Thing” Directories and Fabrication Services

Companies such as Ponoko and Shapeways are providing end-to-end services that enable product designers to submit designs, have prototypes manufactured for review and then listed in online stores where customers can customize them, place orders and have items shipped.

Other services such as Thingiverse act as open-source directories of “construction files” for items as diverse as engagement rings and light-duty pliers. Elsewhere, Flexible Stream is offering free, downloadable portfolios of designer’s work for use in rapid manufacturing devices such as 3D printers and CNC machines. The company’s catalog includes objects as esoteric as collections of wood joints for making furniture.

Other creators are offering their designs as direct downloads from their own sites and blogs; designer Julien Madérou’s downloadable papercraft iPhone stand is a great example. Indeed, rather than printing such a design on paper, services such as Ponoko or Shapeways enable such designs to be fabricated from tougher materials, such as wood and metal.

3D Printers and Rapid Manufacturing Fabrication

Where the likes of Ponoko enable hobbyists to submit a design file for fabrication at a remote facility, for the more adventurous designer who’d like to make things at home, tools such as 3D printers are becoming more affordable and accessible.

New York’s MakerBot Industries are producing 3D printers that cost less than $1,000 and can purportedly manufacture any item that’s less than 4″x4″x6″. Though currently limited only to ABS plastic as a material, the price point and capability of these devices will only improve over time.

In parallel with these low-cost fabrication devices, networks of fabrication workshops are emerging as a kind of “coworking for machine shops.” The most prominent of these — TechShop – is concentrated in California. More recently Ponoko and ShopBot Tools (a manufacturer of CNC tools) launched a joint venture — 100kGarages — to bring together creative consumers and local fabricators in a global network of “garage workshops.”

Between fabrication services, “thing directories,” low-cost 3D printers and “comaking” workshops, the opportunities for web worker careers is growing, moving beyond the production of digital value and into a new world of boutique physical items.

Have you considered adding making and selling boutique items to your portfolio of skills?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Report: 3-D Computing From Digital Cinema to GPUs

Read more: http://pro.gigaom.com/2009/10/report-3-d-computing-from-digital-cinema-to-gpus/#ixzz0f9XwNgkf

Some sites I’ve worked on have inspired commenting that I could only describe as pitiable drivel; others, like WWD, seem to inspire respectful, well-thought out opinions from informed readers. I used to think this was a matter of where the site pitched within the market, and who used it. The Engadget story convinces me that content topic also influences the tone, quality, and usefulness of comment contributions. But I’m sure there are other factors as well: the kinds of content you’re presenting, the degree of opinion included in that content, and so on.

Thus, for those working online, with a plethora of social media to manage, countless personal and direct messages to respond to, and, hey, a bit of work to do as well, the question arises: are blog comments worth it?

Comment Pros and Cons

When I first read about Engadget’s move, I thought “this looks like a step back to the traditional publication model, where the publisher controlled what was said. It negates the notion of free speech — of free broadcast — that the web was lauded for putting in everyone’s hands.”

The no-comment approach seems to say, “Yes, everyone can have a web site and publish their own content, but some of them aren’t prepared to talk about it, or support others in talking about it.” After all, one of the benefits of blog comments is that your users don’t need their own site, social network account, email address, or even greater awareness of the market space in order to connect with you. In an era that’s all about dialog, denying on-site dialog seems counterproductive and unsupportive.

The case against comments is usually that comment moderation is too time consuming to be sustainable. If, as Engadget argues, the commenting populace is only a small portion of the overall audience, those comments are unlikely to lead to significantly higher traffic levels or ad revenues. As has been pointed out by many of the people who’ve commented (via Twitter and other avenues) on this move, removing comments means less garbage, faster page load times, and a better user experience.

With the growing wealth of social media at our fingertips, site owners could find that avoiding a single channel that’s not proving advantageous is of benefit, clearing the decks and making it easier to focus on the kinds of communications they do best — and where. And if, like Engadget, the brand is big enough, and its following loyal enough, people will talk about, recommend, and consume the site’s offering regardless.

What About Your Blog?

In my view, there’s an interesting cultural difference between a blog that allows comments and one that does not. A blog that doesn’t allow comments seems to me to be saying “this is the final word on this topic.” To me it seems there’s something formal about such publications — they distance themselves from users; they hold themselves up as a paragon rather than engaging “on the level” with users.

In many cases, this could be ideal. Engadget, for example, isn’t like WWD. Here, we ask for comments, we want to engage, and we aim to build a creative dialog that enriches the initially published content. Engadget provides straight-up news and reviews of technology. So perhaps that site is less about community than about providing information. Perhaps facilitating on-site dialog isn’t central to the site’s strategy. Perhaps cementing the brand’s position as The Last Word on a given topic by relieving the site of comment facilities does, in fact, support that strategy.

What about your blog, though? Do you think you could successfully pull off removing comments? Would it upset your readership? Would it undermine your relationship with them? In short: how important are blog comments to your own engagement with your audience?

Photo by flickr user Desirée Delgado, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Related GigaOM Pro Research:

• Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

That’s not all I get from the experience, though. Dedicated gym-goers use some tried and tested methods to make their workouts more efficient and effective. As usual, what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, and a lot of these same strategies can apply quite well to professional workflows, too. What is work, after all, besides a prolonged workout of your professional muscles?

Super-sets

It’s understood that after a set of one type of exercise, you’ll take a short break before doing another. But that’s time-consuming, and it’s almost always possible to do another kind of exercise that emphasizes different muscles in between sets in order to be more efficient with your workout. This also has the benefit of keeping your heart rate up, which will help your weight training provide some cardio advantages, too.

Applying the super-set principle to your web working routine will help you make the most out of your working hours, minimize downtime, and open up larger chunks of usable free time for you to really enjoy yourself. To do it, break up your work into smaller, more manageable chunks. Work out small units of tasks and plan ahead, interspersing different types of work together. Block tasks you dislike back-to-back with those you do enjoy in order to keep your motivation level high, and try to ensure that things that are placed next to each other are different enough that you won’t become bored by repetition.

Plan Your Pace

People who are very used to doing extended cardio workouts know what their limits are, and are very good at planning how to pace themselves to make it to their time or distance goal. Marathon runners are a perfect example of this kind of energy conservation. Likewise, if you have 30 minutes to do a weights session, you’ll probably do it differently than if you had a whole hour.

Work is the same. If you don’t take the time to accurately anticipate how long a project or project component will take to complete, you’ll be much more likely to burn yourself out early by working too hard and then becoming frustrated when it takes longer than you’d imagined. Get a better idea of how long things take by monitoring your experiences as you go and logging them, and then do comparisons with your past projects when you take on new ones so that you can then pace yourself accordingly.

Journaling

Many workout addicts are also obsessive record-keepers. They track their progress with every visit to the gym, carrying around notebooks or clipboards for the purpose, or just using an iPhone app to log things. It helps you make sure you’re moving forward instead of back, and you won’t be doing the same work on the same muscles over again by accident.

Keeping a detailed record of the work you do will have the same effect with your online professional activity. It’ll help you make sure you don’t ever redo any work you’ve already done, and it’ll make sure you learn from your mistakes and grow and improve as a web worker over time.

Just like working out your body will help you live a longer, happier life, so too will working out your professional side allow you to enjoy a much more fulfilling and long-lasting working life.

What tips from the gym can you apply to your professional life?

As of now, the Kindle — although I find it professionally beneficial in the sense that I find myself reading more — doesn’t have a direct and measurable impact on my work life. I can think of a few ways apps could change that situation and make the Kindle a valuable tool in my web working toolbox. After all, the Kindle has always-on 3G connectivity and extremely good battery life, both very desirable things in a mobile platform.

A Twitter App

It’s an obvious pick. Basically any device that can have Twitter on it almost inevitably will have Twitter on it, eventually. But Twitter on a Kindle would be a good fit because it requires very little in the way of resources and processor power. It’s basically text, and if there’s one thing the Kindle does well, it’s text.

Sure, there are lots of images, videos and web links on Twitter, too, and some might feel that that was the most important aspect of the service. For my purposes on the road, though, I’m less concerned with deep engagement and more concerned with basic access. As long as I can read my stream, and, more importantly, post updates from my Kindle, I’ll be more than satisfied.

A Gmail App

Another mostly text web-based tech that would work on a Kindle is Gmail. The ability to browse your text-only email with a simple, light interface via the Kindle would actually be preferable to reading it on a computer, in my opinion, since it would make it that much easier to actually concentrate on the content of your messages.

It shouldn’t be that hard to include a simple composition component, too, since the Kindle has a full keyboard. The key to making this app really useful will be keeping it simple, so let’s hope all parties involved keep that in mind. For instance, just because the Kindle can now read PDFs natively, doesn’t mean a Gmail app needs to be able to display PDF attachments. Basic email is all I’m looking for.

A Word Processing App

I want to use my iPhone to write things on the road from time to time. I don’t want to have to get my laptop out just to jot down a basic idea, but I can’t, in all honesty, use the iPhone’s virtual keyboard for anything longer than a text message or a very brief email or tweet. It’s functional, but nothing more.

Despite the small size of the keys, I definitely prefer the hardware keyboard the Kindle makes use of. I use it all the time to make notes in the books I’m reading (a favorite Kindle feature of mine), and after an initial adjustment period, I now find it quite comfortable. A basic app that allows me to create even basic text files that I can then transfer to my PC for further editing and use in other documents is exactly what I need from a Kindle word processing app.

A To-do App

I know the iPhone (and other smartphones) sort of has this covered, but since my to-do needs are very basic, I think I’d actually prefer to do this sort of thing on the Kindle with its basic, paper-like e-ink display. It might not be as easy to navigate without a touchscreen display, but I might actually be more inclined to use something attached to my reading platform than to my phone.

No iPhone, But Not Without Merit

The Kindle isn’t an iPhone; it’s designed to be a single-purpose device. I don’t think Amazon ever foresaw a future in which it would begin offering apps for the platform when it conceived of the Kindle, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful. As a mobile device, the Kindle has a lot of advantages over media players and other platforms, and with the right kind of effort in the right directions by developers, it could be a very handy little web working tool.

What kind of apps would you like to see on the Kindle?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Evolution of the e-Book Market

I’m particularly skeptical that I’ll find it useful for work. No doubt I’ll find ample reason to use it for amusement and idle time-killing. The possibility of a larger-scale version of iPhone’s Peggle alone adds up to countless wasted hours. But will I also use it to enhance my productivity? I suppose we’ll find out next week, but before we do, here’s what I’d need for the Tablet to be useful in my work.

Connectivity

I’d like, if I had my druthers, 3G connectivity and Wi-Fi. It’s not something I think we’re very likely to see, though. There will be Wi-Fi, to be sure, but 3G or an always-on connection like the Kindle 2 has is probably just a pipe dream.

If that does turn out to be the case, then there’s one thing I will definitely require of an Apple tablet to get work done on the go: tethering. iPhone tethering is the single most useful thing, workwise, that Apple has done for me to date. If a tablet doesn’t have 3G, but allows me to tether my 3GS, which does, everything will be perfect.

Bluetooth is a must, and I doubt very much that it won’t make its way in. The key will be what Bluetooth profiles are supported. A2DP and hopefully file transfer protocols will be included, but the big question is whether or not Apple will get over its love affair with on-screen keyboards and include input device profiles, too. The ability to use a keyboard with the device would go a long way to making it more productive.

Better Browsing

Mobile Safari is a very capable browser, but there’s much more you can do once you start increasing the screen size of your device. With a 10-inch screen, which is what most of the rumors are saying the Apple tablet will sport, things like proper tabbed browsing become a much more reasonable proposition.

Beyond tabbed browsing, a version of Safari running on a larger, more powerful device can also take other cues from its desktop cousin. How about support for extensions? That would go a long way toward making this tablet a better alternative for when you can’t get to a computer.

Finally, my blue sky request would be that the tablet platform would support alternative browsers. Some Firefox or Chrome action would be just what the doctor ordered, but don’t hold your breath.

More Juice

If the iPhone is setting the standard, then it stands to reason that a bigger more powerful device with a better display will have much shorter battery life. Hopefully that isn’t the case. But how to judge? The iPhone has terrific battery life for a computer, but its awful if you’re thinking in terms of mobile phones.

Ideally, the tablet maintains the battery life the 3GS has, not scaled down proportionally as its size increase. That would mean true all-day use, pretty much, which would be a real boon to productivity on the road. Hopefully the slim battery tech Apple uses in its MacBook Pros can be refined and put to even better use in the new tablet.

Everything Else

These are the things I’ll need to truly incorporate an Apple tablet into my workflow in a meaningful and permanent way. They aren’t the only things, of course, but they are the less-obvious features that are not sure to be included. Great app support will also be a big factor, but that’s something Apple clearly doesn’t need help with, whether the tablet uses OS X or a modified iPhone OS.

What are you looking forward to from next week’s Apple announcement? Do you think it’ll have an effect on how you work?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Rumored Apple Tablet: Opportunities Too Big to Ignore

If the advances of the past couple of decades have told us anything, it’s that we probably can’t accurately predict the future, especially when it comes to technology. But that doesn’t mean we can’t prognosticate about general trends that might help us prepare for what’s to come.

Google Wave, but Better

Some would argue that Google Wave was the biggest online tech disappointment of the last year. It received a fair amount of hype prior to its launch, and at first just getting into the initial beta made people feel a sense of privilege and entitlement. That sense of entitlement quickly turned sour, at least in my experience and the experience of the vast majority I’ve talked to about Wave.

Google Wave itself may be a disappointment, but that doesn’t mean the hearts and minds of the team behind it weren’t in the right place. Thinking about the next step beyond email is a natural enough progression, and it’s likely that that next step will be more interactive, both between people and across media, which Google Wave most definitely is. People who think Internet communication reached its zenith with email are the same type of person who preferred the fax machine and the telegraph to their successors.

I imagine the future of the web to be built around context-based nodal communication, sort of like what’s starting to happen with Twitter and Facebook integration in blog commenting systems. I’ve no idea what the final shape of this kind of communication will look like, but it should benefit working only by emphasizing relevance and relationships over other concerns, like etiquette and immediacy.

Distributed Becomes De Facto

It’s already starting among call centers and other similar businesses operating in North America, at least, and pretty soon other employers will catch on to the fact that running a distributed operation instead of maintaining a physical office saves time and money.

That means we’ll see a lot more remote workers in the near future, culminating in a workplace that is completely home and coworking space-based by the end of the decade. It may seem hard to believe at this point, but think about how far we’ve come in this regard to date, and what people would’ve thought about it ten or twenty years ago.

Death of the Desktop

Well, not the surface itself, but the desktop computer, for all but extremely specialized usages. I realize the irony of predicting this while typing on my iMac, which I absolutely love and much prefer to my notebook computers. The fact is, though, that external monitors can now pretty much replicate all the convenience features that result in my iMac preference. I would much rather spend as much money as I can on one computer and have it suit all my needs, than spread it around to multiple, less ideal machines.

If anything, people will move more and more towards a notebook/netbook or notebook/tablet working configuration. The slate is the hottest new form factor in computing today, and though we haven’t yet had a chance to see how consumers will respond to the new, super portable touch-screen devices, I predict they will catch on quite quickly.

Greater portability will mean that business and public spaces will cater more to mobile workers, and we should be able to find a place fairly easily to plug in and reap the advantages of being able to work from wherever we are without diminished capacity. Picture a Starbucks with secondary monitors built-in to the walls and surfaces.

No Flying Cars

These predictions may seem bold, but I’m not suggesting we’ll be zipping around on sky highways here. There’s already precedents for each of the things mentioned above, and all I’m really doing is following the current trajectory of a few trends to their natural endpoint.

Where do you see web working ten years from now?

Image Credit: Lugi Novi

What point? The point at which social networks have become sufficiently popular for entrepreneurs to recognize the potential of this as a market space not just for showing advertisements in well-defined sidebars, but through which they can actively generate sales by using and participating in the social medium itself.

Just as email became a forum for unsolicited sales pitches (spam), web sites for graphical ads, online article comments for the positing of promotional links (comment spam) and blogs for paid reviews and promotions, now paid and sales-centric tweets are on the agenda.

In each of these cases, users felt a certain cynical inevitability as a communications channel that was previously free of promotions — a source of pure information — became yet another forum for selling. But it didn’t stop us using those vehicles.

In the interim, though, confusion and disenchantment reign on both sides of the equation. Today, just as some people ask the question, “Would I tweet if somebody paid me to?”, Aliza and others ask “When is ‘free’ too much of a good thing?” It seems that those of us using social media to brand-build and self-market face real challenges in making social media pay. Perhaps the likely solutions to these problems are as much about our approach and philosophy as they are about the practicalities of using social media to sell.

The Challenge

Nathan Hangen, in “Your Dream is Under Attack”, bemoans the fact that when entrepreneurs break with their self-built tradition of giving away free content by using the same channels to actively promote a product they want to sell, their followers get shirty.

While in “When Is “Free” Too Much of a Good Thing?”, Aliza proposes ways to get around the uneasy feeling that arises when her followers try to take advantage of her professional generosity — the kind of generosity on which millions of online brands, corporate and personal, have been built.

To my mind, underlying these two anecdotes is a single question: Can we harness the enormous potential of social media as a direct sales vehicle?

Social Media in Principle

In his article, Hangen asks, “What is it that makes one place acceptable for commerce, and another ’sacred’?” Nathan is obviously one of those entrepreneurs who’s at the front of the proverbial wave, and has already perceived the sales-related possibilities of social media.

The thing is that most non-entrepreneurial users see social media as, well, a social forum. Yes, maybe they find your offerings interesting, informational and educational, but most people I speak to see social networks primarily as interesting and entertaining.

From the perspective of the consuming (rather than selling) world, the thing that makes one place acceptable for commerce and another “sacred” — or unacceptable for commerce — is its underlying purpose.

The first place — an online store, your company’s web site, your professional blog — is clearly and primarily built for commerce; the other — a social networking site, a friendship, a weekend barbeque — has fun, interest and enjoyment as its underlying premise. We don’t go to a BBQ hoping to buy a TV, nor do we go to a department store to make friends.

Trust is central to this differentiation. In a commercial forum, the consumer knows that you’ll be trying to obtain their trust so you can sell to them. They’re ready for it. In the second forum, their guard is down: no one’s expected to be actively trying to convince anyone else of their moral credentials. At the same time, though, the other factor that differentiates a social network from a commercial forum is that in a social medium, the user knows they have some control: they have a voice.

So in a real or virtual social network, the development of trust is more organic and more of a two-way street than it is in a commercial forum, since no one has a conscious, vested interest in being seen as trustworthy. People engaged in these networks take a more personal risk in trusting another individual, and invest themselves more heavily in the relationship in the process. They also have the power to make it known if someone in that forum does something to damage that sense of trust.

Is this too touchy-feely a way to think of your Twitter followers or your Facebook fans? If you’re the kind of entrepreneur who talks about your personal branding efforts as “giving back to the community you love”, and “fulfilling your passion”, some would say you’re using the same kind of rhetoric, but in a different field.

The issue of trust is ultimately the reason why, as Nathan testily observes, “when a passionate entrepreneur uses social media to create relationships and ask for money, that’s over the line.” Few of us believe that social relationships should be financial. In the real world, and currently online, these concepts do not usually go together. This may also help to explain the ream of responses to Aliza’s post from entrepreneurs hounded by followers who want usually costly advice for free.

Social Media in Practice

In the frustration of Hangen’s and Aliza’s posts, we’re reminded of that essential truth about social media: we don’t own it, and we can’t control it. Social media is a two-way exchange, so entrepreneurs will always be at the mercy of the crowd. Unlike traditional forms of promotion, social media talks.

Yes, this does mean that the more demanding of your followers can seem mightily demanding. But it also means that as we’re carried along on the inevitable swell of social media’s viral commercialization, we have to accept that the boundaries for those promoting themselves, as well as those hungry for information and advice, won’t always be clear. We need to consciously look for and observe them.

The concept of personal branding has done a lot to blur these lines. So perhaps one of the most important elements is for the entrepreneur to identify the boundaries for themselves before they start trying to sell through social media.

If you decide, for example, that you’re going to use social media to build your professional reputation, you may automatically assume that you’ll disseminate relevant information a way to demonstrate your expertise and passion in your field. Great.

But perhaps you should also ensure that you make it clear from the outset that you’re a business person who has something to sell, to help set the right tone for the relationships you build through your social networking efforts, and possibly keep the number of followers you upset when you promote a special offer, or draw the line on giving further advice, to a minimum.

The techniques entrepreneurs use to navigate the largely unchartered waters of casually dispensing professional wisdom in 140 characters, expressing their personal and professional integrity in posts on a company blog, and telling people about the products and services they’re selling will be as individual as each personal brand. Whatever the case, the entrepreneur must ensure that their approach to social media aligns with the way their audience sees and expects to use it. Once they understand this, if they wish, they can devise appropriate ways to push the envelope toward making social media pay.

Have you used social media to direct-sell your products and services?

If social media tools can enhance our various forms of more traditional marketing — including traditional web sites and email marketing — why do the social media presences we build get ignored and are rarely integrated into other forms of marketing communications?

There is only so much a social media marketing consultant who has been hired as an outside vendor can do to remind and encourage clients to mention and leverage social media tools. To have a better impact on marketing best practices, we need to first identify why there is so much resistance to a set of tools and a fresh, more interactive and engaging way of communicating with consumers.

Here are some thoughts as to why social media marketing is hard for some to understand and embrace:

• The learning curve. Social media tools require a degree of learning new technology.
• The adaption curve. Practitioners entrenched in the “old ways” of marketing are resistant to having to adapt what they know how to do well. Additionally, some people actually get complacent.
• The added work. Many marketers have their formula down to a well-oiled machine. Social media marketing requires paying attention and responding in ways that may seem too burdensome when one is used to pushing out press releases and making phone calls to the media, as opposed to truly interacting with consumers.
• The measurement factor. Even though social media marketing is far more measurable than public relations, for example, more traditional practitioners will use “you can’t measure it” as an excuse not to use it.

In order to bring social media marketing tools and tactics into acceptance, we all need to be careful about several things:

1. Avoid the hype. Don’t over-promise things that social media tools cannot deliver. You’ll fail, and you’ll make the rest of us look bad in the process.
2. Educate others. Those of us who “get” social media marketing need to remain patient and willing to teach those who don’t.
3. Support marketing. Don’t come in like gangbusters, saying that social media tools will replace traditional ones, but instead offer to help support other people’s work and help them look good.
4. Be persistent. Without being a pest, find ways to constantly remind clients and other marketers to remember to mention the social media touch points in all of their communications. They wouldn’t fail to put a web site URL on a press release. Four additional words — “Find us on Facebook” — can make the difference between a single web site visit and a loyal Facebook fan who wants to interact.

What other things are you doing to bring social media marketing tools and tactics into the marketing and communications mix with your company, organization or clients?

Now, my phone has more processing power than my first work computer, and I am always connected. This connection isn’t just for work, or even for productivity. I rely on being connected for many routine personal tasks: dictionary, looking up random facts, amusement, recipes, etc. I jump back and forth seamlessly and no longer really think of it as being online or offline. I take it for granted that I can always be connected on a moment’s notice.

Gartner’s Nick Jones agrees that the distinction between online and offline has almost completely disappeared:

Labeling time as “online” vs. “offline” is so last decade. For many of us that distinction already vanished. Many of the things we do at home and work mean we dip into web services continually throughout the day. We post updates to social networks, stream media, check information, stream feeds and tweet (not the latter in my case as I’m a twitter refuser). And behind the scenes loads of gadgets in our home and pocket silently and continuously communicate to access web services, updates, information…There is no “online” vs. “offline” any more, there’s only online.

I spent the last couple of days taking a long weekend off work to just relax at home. I finished reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross, which I had started reading a month ago; I started and finished Cory Doctorow’s “Makers,” a fantastic book; and I started reading Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash.” I stubbornly refused to do any work, but I noticed how often I kept looking things up on my phone or laptop:

• All of my recipes are in Google Docs
• I head to the search box whenever I want to learn more about something
• I play Words with Friends for amusement
• Twitter and Facebook help me keep up with news and my friends

Because I live in a place where Internet access is everywhere, I have stopped thinking about any distinction between “online” and “offline” in favor of an always-connected lifestyle.

What do you think about the distinction between online and offline, and is it still a meaningful distinction in your life?

Photo by Flickr user eschipul used under Creative Commons.

Unfortunately, though, the financial questions are often dismissed with the cursory thought: “It’ll be cheaper because I won’t have to travel.”

Even if you’re lucky enough to work for a company that will pay to set up your remote office, you’ll still need to take a range of other likely costs into account. So while you may save money, you may not save as much as you think.

It might be worth jotting down a simple budget to work out what the financial implications of working from home may be. If you’re already working remotely, this can be a good way to find aspects of your arrangement that are costing you more than they should.

The Budget

Here’s an example budget that I used to assess how much I’d benefit (or otherwise!) by working remotely. No, it doesn’t itemize my improved quality of life and decreased road rage. If I decided that I was going to use the extra hours in my day to do paid work, though — for example, by taking freelance projects while holding a paid job — I could certainly add those figures in.

I’m going to talk you through my own example, which will hopefully alert you to some of the unexpected elements of your own life that may impact on the cost-effectiveness of your decision to work remotely.

Travel

When I worked in the city, I caught buses, trains and trams, and spent around $275 AUD ($240) a month on public transport.

Working remotely, I travel to the city less often, but each time I do, I drive to the station, because the public transport in my local area is only available at peak times. The costs total around $34.75 AUD per trip.

That running figure was calculated using an average cents-per-kilometer cost provided on my local motoring association web site for a car like mine. On a monthly basis, assuming I go into the city six times, I now spend around $208.50 AUD on work travel.

I used to drive to the station about twice a week when I worked in the city, so the actual cost of work travel for me back then was actually around $553 AUD a month. As it turns out, I am making quite a saving on travel by working from home. Woo! I’m off to a good start.

Eating Out

I’ve heard many people comment that if they worked from home, they’d save significantly on eating out, because they wouldn’t have to buy lunch from a cafe every day. Of course, you don’t have to buy lunch from a cafe if you work on site — you can bring lunch from home. As an office worker, I spent more on coffees and snacks than lunch — around $30 AUD a week on average.

As a remote worker, I still find myself in cafes very often — each time I work away from my home office now, I’ll undoubtedly wind up doing work in a cafe, which costs me, at a minimum, the price of a coffee and something to eat. Frequently, I’ll meet up with other people socially for lunch or a drink when I travel to town, so I might end up spending $50 on food and drinks in an away-from-home day.

As a consequence, the $30 or so a week I used to spend on eating out when I worked in an office hasn’t decreased — it’s risen.

Gym

Some of my colleagues complain that they have to join a gym because there aren’t enough daylight hours after work in which to exercise. If they worked remotely, they reason, they’d be able to fit more into their day — including exercise outside a gym. And then they could save around $50 a month!

This may be true … provided you can find the time during the day to exercise. You may find you miss the gym equipment enough to join a gym close to home, which may negate some or all of the savings you expected to make.

I didn’t think my cost-free roadside running regime would be affected at all by working from home — until I bought a mountain bike to ride in the extra hours after work, which cost and additional $500 AUD.

Time

If you’re traveling for three or more hours each day just to get to your place of work, you’ll likely enjoy the extra time you have if you work from home. Those who commute know it’s not just the time you spend commuting that’s a problem — its the fact that it tires you before you get a chance to start anything else.

If you’re planning to obtain paid work to fill these extra hours, you might want to reduce your work-from-home expenses by the net income you’ll earn in that time.

Take care, though: it’s easy to overestimate this additional time you’ll have. Though you might be able to do a couple of hours of extra work here and there, you may not have the oceans of extra time you imagined.

Another pitfall, if you’re starting your own business, is to imagine that you’ll have three or more additional chargeable hours in every single day. If you’re starting a business, you’ll likely spend a lot of time initially on legwork, which may not add directly to your bottom line.

Technology

While some of us can work with nothing more than a laptop and a chair, if you’re taking your remote working seriously, you’ll probably find that you need to obtain new technology.

Computer, phone and software upgrades can leave you out of pocket. In the first month of working purely from home I spent $180 AUD on unexpected but necessary software purchases alone.

Of course, technology also includes connectivity. If you work from home, you may need to upgrade your home communications service to a business account, which will undoubtedly come at a higher price. I’ve included the upgrade cost in my budget. You may also decide to use any number of paid web apps — security, storage, and so on — that add unanticipated dollars to your weekly outgoings.

When I started working from home, we had to upgrade our wireless Internet connection, and, since that hasn’t made an appreciable difference, we’re now considering paying to have a cable connection put in — not cheap. So far, the trenching has cost us $250. I’ve put this, plus the one-off software purchase, in my budget.

Home Office

The other expense you may not have considered is your home office — you have a chair and table, and think that’s all you’ll need. But you may find over time that you need a better chair, ergonomic devices such as wrist pads and foot rests, lamps, shelves, filing cabinets, reference materials — the list goes on. A few weeks after I started working full-time from home, neck and back pain indicated that I needed to upgrade my desk chair — at a one-off cost of $270 AUD.

As well as the one-offs, there are also ongoing costs like paper, postage, couriers, office supplies and so on. Make sure you include those in your budget, no matter how small the cost might be.

Believe me: These items add up. I left my nice cushy office job expecting to save money, and swiftly found that working from home wasn’t nearly as cheap as I’d expected. As you can see, working from home saves me just $154.50 AUD per month — I was definitely expecting to save more than that when I first considered it. Moreover, the unexpected expenses that have cropped up so far have totaled a whopping $1,200 AUD. Even if I hadn’t bought my mountain bike, I’d still be $600 worse off than if I’d stayed working on-site.

What About Tax?

It’s likely I’ll be able to claim many of these expenses as tax deductions, which is great news. Of course, as any business owner knows, it’s best to keep the expenses low in the first place, rather than rationalizing wild spending with the possibility of reduced taxation.

I’ve included a column in my budget to itemize my tax deductions, and as you can see, though I’m doing OK here, the deductions don’t come anywhere near my total expenditure. Traveling to and from client meetings isn’t a deduction in my country; nor are the coffees I purchase while working in city cafes. These costs, and the price of my expensive bike, come straight out of my pocket.

As you can see, before you make the leap — and start planning what you’ll do with all the money you’ll save by working from home — it’s worthwhile to do some quick sums to make sure your expectations are reasonable. Of course, now that I know what I’m spending, I can also think about ways to reduce my non-deductible expenses if I wish.

If you’re thinking about making the leap to web work, check out our free “Web Work 101: How to Escape the Cubicle” e-book.

How has working remotely affected your budget? What unexpected outlays did you face in establishing your work-from-home lifestyle?

What is a “ghostblogger,” anyway? The better-known term is “ghostwriter,” which is defined as follows:

ghostwriter: to write for and in the name of another

So one could assume a ghostblogger is one who blogs for and in the name of another.

There are number of situations where a ghostblogger might be hired and used, such as:

• A person hires someone to blog on their behalf, but the ideas and basic content comes from them and they are involved in the editorial process;
• A person hires someone to blog for their company and that person poses as them on the blog;
• A company/brand hires a professional blogger to blog as the “voice” of the company, without revealing their identity;
• A company/brand hires a professional blogger to blog, and that person “poses” as someone from the company.

Each of the above situations have sound business rationales behind them, but each can also create problems. At what point does ghostblogging become a bad thing?

Anyone who poses as someone who they are not is potentially crossing a line from authenticity, transparency and honesty into the muddy waters of deception. Regardless of intentions, if someone is pretending to be someone they aren’t, there will always be questions about integrity and credibility.

But there can also be good reasons to hire a ghostblogger, such as a language issue. That is aromatherapist Cristina Proano-Carrion’s situation. She has a blog on her company’s web site Aromandina, but says her greatest challenge is being able to educate her clients without the ability to write well in English. She found a writer via LinkedIn and communicates with her via Skype and email. Here is how Proano-Carrion describes her writing process:

“I write some words, and she (the writer) basically pulls out my mind and my heart what I want to convey. I don’t know what I would do without her, she has helped me have a regular aromatherapy ‘Tip of the Week’ and blogs and articles that I ‘write’ for some online magazines.”

Proano-Carrion provides content — sometimes in bits and pieces — to her ghostblogger who then compiles it into a cohesive, readable format and then edits for grammar and spelling. Proano-Carrion is actively involved in the editing process, although she cites Tim Ferris’ book “The 4-Hour Work Week” and its point about the importance of delegating in areas where you aren’t strong.

Says Proano-Carrion, “I know my work, I love to teach and create and formulate my oils, but I’m not good at writing, mostly because English is not my native language. So, why use the few hours I have to work and develop my line and talk with my clients fighting to write something nice, when someone can do that for me?”

Proano-Carrion doesn’t credit her writer on her site, blog or anywhere else that the content appears. Is this OK?

It seems that in the debates about ghostblogging, many people think that blog posts should either be from the person identified on the blog or at least some sort of credit — or disclaimer, explanation or other kind of text — should be given to explain who actually wrote the content.

Here are a few simple guidelines to consider:

1. If you hire someone to help you write your blog, give them credit on the about page — maybe something simple like “Thanks to Jane Doe who helps me craft and edit my blog posts because…” Give your reason for hiring the writer, such as “English is my second language.”
2. If you hire someone to blog for you and you just give them free reign, don’t let them pose as you. There isn’t a disclaimer in the world that could justify this. If you aren’t going to be involved in some aspect of the blogging process or content creation process, don’t pretend it is you out there on the blog.
3. If you are a company and have hired a professional blogger to be the “generic voice of company,” I think this is OK. I don’t believe you have to reveal their identity or the fact that they are a hired hand and not a member of your staff. This raises another issue, however, of giving credit where credit is due. Many professional bloggers are doing excellent work but nobody knows they are the ones behind some of the most popular brand blogs. My own company blogs on behalf of a number of our clients and in some situations, we are not given any credit at all.
4. Don’t hire a professional blogger to pose as someone within the company if that person has no input into the content.

I think it all goes back to authenticity, transparency and honesty. Any form of deception, large or small, intentional or accidental, could wreak havoc on your credibility. If you’re a professional blogger, you do deserve credit for your good work, but it may not be appropriate in all contract situations to give you that. Personally, I am happy to strike a balance between the credit and the paycheck.

What are your feelings about the ghostblogging issues? And are you a ghostblogger or someone who has hired one?