John O’Farrell (apparently an author and broadcaster) [for the Guardian newspaper, I've discovered] decided to write something for a Labour party email bulletin that arrived in my inbox yesterday. I foolishly signed something on the Labour website last week and have winded up on their mailing list. The previous emails weren’t too bad, but this one really annoyed me.

He writes:

At this stage in the campaign I think it is very important that we avoid sinking to personal insults and name calling of the sort that we’ve been getting from those unprincipled scumbags in the Tory Party

I expect this is meant to mimic humour; however it simply resembles much of what we already hear flying between the political parties – personal attack and name-calling.

There should, of course, be more to an election campaign than just being negative about the Tories. That Charles Kennedy is a waste of space as well.

Yes there should be more to a campaign than beiing negative, like talking about real issues. I suppose it is in the interests of fairness that you are personally slagging off the Liberal Democrats leader as well?

Crime went up under the Tories (not surprising when you look at all the senior Tories like Archer and Aitken who ended up in prison)

So you are tarring an entire party based on personal attacks of two people? I am sure (in fact I know) we can find people in the Labour party with criminal activity in their past. This, again, is just a cheap dig for effect rather than getting to the root of issues and policies.

These are either the views of the Labour party, in which case I don’t want anything to do with them, or they are the views of one individual (which wasn’t expressed in the mail) in which case they should be more careful who they give an open mike to.

I loathe all of this ‘political banter’. Many people are sick of it. We rarely hear the real issues debated in a mature, adult way. Many politicians, particularly senior ones, hogging the media, are simply content to engage in personal attacks without having real substance to connect with the British public.

PS I had to undelete the mail message from my email Trash folder, which is where it firmly belongs.

Having just scanned through the list of Sitemeter’s top-ranked blogs, I set about thinking what makes them get tens of thousands of visitors each day.Here are my thoughts:

Content

• be interesting in what you write, or
• have a good knowledge about your subject matter, or
• be able to draw together information on a subject from across the web/offline and present clearly and in good time.

Possessing all three qualities is a distinct advantage.

Consistency

• aim to publish content regularly
• find your writing style and stick to it
• ensure your site is easily and consistently navigable

Construction

• ensure your pages are well structured, uncluttered, and separate style from content using CSS
• ensure your title tags, and to a lesser extent meta tags, are accurate and complete
• ensure that your spam defences are up-to-date and effective.

Connection

• automatically ‘ping’ blog and aggregator services when you update your content
• write genuine comments on other blogs, with a link to your blog, and trackback to articles you have commented on in your blog, where appropriate.
• join selected promotion services, without cluttering your site, whilst avoiding ‘link farms’ and activities that could be considered spam.

Community

• make it easy for people to comment on and trackback your writing.
• be personal towards your readers and contributors
• add extra features to your site where they enhance your content rather than cluttering it.

I haven’t been inspired to write anything about work for the last couple of days as it hasn’t been that interesting, even for techies, to actually describe what I’ve been doing in any great detail. For the sake of completeness, here’s an overview of the past couple of days.

Corporate Head Office markup.

In other words, scanning through a large spreadsheet of companies either marked as head office, that shouldn’t be, or not marked as head office, that should be. It has also involved changing relationships within Raiser’s Edge, and using MINT again to check head office addresses and subsidiary information.

Sometimes it is just easier to do things manually than mess about trying to write queries, global changes, and the like. I did a few relationship updates on the larger record sets (Barclays Bank and Asda Stores spring to mind) but it took longer to create the import file and set up the required fields and import IDs that it really wasn’t worth it.

Fortunately, most of that work is now done; the spreadsheet has been submitted to the Corporate team and they are reviewing it, feeding back next week. They have already said that it’s much easier to find the correct records with this method, which is of course the overall aim.

Sometimes a working day is dominated by one or two tasks, and today I continued sorting out the company relationships/head office markup for the corporate data. I decided it was easier to dump the whole record set into a spreadsheet – some 23,000 records – with the appropriate level codes, and work at it that way.

The morning was spent updating as many company records as I had knowledge of, marking subsidiaries and branches appropriately, and using the MINT database to help with some of the more obscure ones. I’m sure I haven’t caught them all, but it’s a start.

The afternoon was spent importing these attributes back into Raiser’s Edge – that in itself takes time as the system chugs through several times, adding or updating codes as marked oin the spreadsheet.

There is still more to do, ensuring that the companies are explicitly linked together in the database. I am working out the import format required on the test database first, as getting these wrong would ensure a very messy database.

Most ‘blogmasters’ are now painfully aware of the problem of comment and trackback spam. Fortunately, at least on the front end, the latest blog authoring tools have very good in-built spam defences.

What remains a problem is referrer log clutter. I like to check my referrer listings to see who has linked to me, and what robots and engines are visitng my site. This is increasingly difficult thanks to the tirade of spam from many different spam referrers.

If you experience this problem, and have studied your access logs, I am sure you’ll have seen the same – myriads of domains with many different page references. These all shop as individual referrers.

I could knock my statistics software down a couple of pegs to only report overall domains, but this doesn’t solve the whole problem, and makes it impossible to view individual referral pages or search terms from legitimate sites.

A couple of thoughts occurred to me the other day, as to why the spammers continue.

Firstly, even for those blogs which block the spam, the webmaster may well have to sift through the referrer names, and may eventually visit them. This is particularly true with some of the ‘innocent-sounding’ domain name registrations that spammers use.

Secondly, if blog comments do get through, might they have the ability to influence contextual advertising such as Google AdSense? Possible, if enough comments get through.

Some of the spammers’ behaviour still baffles me.

I have contemplated the idea of being able to make a living from the Internet, be it in web design, web partnerships, or content production.

I have had some success with the web design option, though this has all been through word-of-mouth recommendations, and not from any advertising or promotion done on my part.

The idea that intrigues me the most is in that of content production. The increasing popularity of blogging means that anyone can be a publisher. Earning money from it, however, is quite another story.

Some considerations for the wannabe pro-blogger…

It’s important to know why you blog (or produce any form of online content). If the primary, or only, motivation is to make money, then you will probably fail. The motivation has to come from the love of writing, of helping or inspiring other people. Getting remuneration for this work is a side benefit.

It’s also important to consider what you would sacrifice in order to make money. What forms of advertising would you accept on your site? Would you ask for and accept donations? Will the integrity of your writing suffer if you are spending a lot of time seeking, implementing and promoting revenue streams, or if you gain advertisers that make demands on what you can and cannot write?

Do you have the drive and determination to stick with your projects? If you stop producing content, chances are your audience, and potential revenues, will quickly dry up.

Do you have enough to stand out in the crowd, and to maintain and grow your readership? As blogging becomes more popular, the noise levels increase. Why will people read your blog over anyone elses?

Most importantly can you write? Blogs take on many different styles and flavours, but the language must interest and engage your target audience, or they will simply pass you by.

Personal

I would love to be able to devote more time to writing about the things I am passionate about, for at the moment I work full-time and blogigng is a ‘spare time’ activity. My motivation is on freeing up time, not making millions of pounds. Nevertheless (unless I inherit a windfall or win the lottery), remuneration for writing is important if it is to become a full-time activity. I’m still working on the above considerations in my own blogging journey.

A great online resource is Problogger, full of free hints, tips and articles for aspiring pro-bloggers, from someone who is doing it and knows what he’s talking about – Darren Rowse.

There’s not much to report today as I only worked a half day.

I’ve been doing some more work on the corporate spreadsheet, and going through our Raiser’s Edge dataabase trying to match up incorrectly-coded companies with their parent. It’s quite a lengthy process, as for some companies I need to check Mint, our market intelligence software, to find the correct information.

I had my 256Mb RAM upgrade fittted today. Can’t say I’ve noticed any significant improvements at the moment but I’ll wait until I have some nice formulae-intensive linked spreadsheets to work on.

This morning every staff member of the Fundraising division attended a meeting about our centralised data management system. We have had similar meetings in the past, but this one was very much a ‘final explanation’ of the state of the system to date, what the future strategy is, and how people need to be and stay involved.

I was invited to present a small section of the conference, commenting on the recommendations I had put forward based upon the audit ‘Prompt Sheets’ which I asked each department to complete a few weeks ago. It was only a few minutes long, I narrowly avoided going into ‘waffle mode’, but I was told it was clear and successful, which is good. I will probably get other opportunities to present to both small and large groups, and whilst public speaking and presentations are not my strongest skillset, I think they’re improving. It always helps to know your subject, of course.

There’s the possibility that modifications to some of the central data tables will be required, for such things as data protection and mailing suppression codes, but that’s only to be expected as more departments use live data on the system and we find out what’s missing and what could be implemented better.

I haven’t been able to sort out some of the data feed imports as our partners’ website is not responding to the password at present. Probably just as well, it does tie up my machine as it’s fairly processor-intensive, and is best done early in the day.

I’ll likely look at the payroll giving import, or try to sort out the spreadsheet I need to create for Corporate team based on the meeting we had yesterday.

Every so often I start to think of a whole list of things that I would like to be doing more of, or be better at, or both. Here’s my latest list – many of these were probably on the last list I thought of; a list that I probably didn’t write down. Those are still here either because I haven’t followed through and done anything about them, or because they are still (in my opinion) lacking. Trying to be a realist, but at the same time not a defeatist, I probably won’t achieve these to the degree that I would like, but it’s good to get them in a list and make some efforts to progressing them – or abandoning them if they are without hope.

Take more photographs: At times when people have seen the photographs I have taken, they have commented that they are of quite a good quality, in terms of composition and output. I have sometimes daydreamed about taking photography further. I have always had a very modest camera – from the pre-digital days with a standard 35mm camera, to a near-equivalent now in the digital age. I don’t have the ability to take many different styles and types of picture, as to do this generally requires more sophisticated and configurable equipment, but I can still take interesting photos of the world around me. The problem is that I often forget to bring my camera with me. Yes, it’s another item to carry around, risking damage or theft, but I have often viewed scenes and wished that I had my camera to hand to capture the moment. I have dreamed of being able to sell my work, not purely to make money, but for the satisfaction of knowing my work is appreciated elsewhere. The Internet offers this possibility fairly easily and cheaply.

Create more music: I have become quite sluggish when it comes to practicing my musical skills. I have a fairly new synthesiser which IU have yet to fully appreciate. I want to learn more about sound formation, and how I can get the sounds I want from the array of knobs, buttons and sliders the keyboard offers. I want to work out how to use MIDI effectively to link up my sound module and the synth for greater sound and musical possibilities, particularly when playing live. I want to spend more time composing, both musically and lyrically. Sometimes inspiration, and a resulting song, comes quickly, but more often it is persistence and determination that brings the right words, melody and sounds together to produce something to be pleased with. I would like to explore more styles of music and improve my ability to integrate with other musicians in live settings. I need to take more time out from the busyness of life to allow creativity to flow. It’s very easy just to sit in front of the TV or do something easier (like surfing the Internet) – creativity doesn’t always come easy – even when the ideas do, there is discipline in polishing them to a finished product.

Improve my writing skills: I am well aware that my writing and language skills are far from perfect. I am not quite so bothered on my personal blog about this – a lot of the time it’s just a ‘brain-dump’ of my ideas and I write in a style that matches this. People who read do at least seem to understand what I’m saying. Even so, I am starting to get opportunities to write in different forums, on more specific subjects and with potentially different audiences, and I would like to write in a clearer, more consistent, and appropriate style. Much of it comes down to preparation and planning – composing an article and reviewing it rather than just spewing it out as it comes to brain. I’m also keen to develop more creative writing skills: prose and poetry. I have an idea for a novel which I had started to flesh out last year, but haven’t got much further with. Again, this requires discipline, and time.

Communicate better: I am appallingly bad at keeping in contact with distant people. Even with the array of modern technology that supposedly improves communications, I still struggle. It’s so easy to send an email, or be traditional and send a postcard or a letter, and yet I don’t do it as much as I should. I think this is quite a common failing.

Pray more: The classic “I’ll pray for you” line. Either I need to stop saying that, or I need to take all the steps I can to ensure that, if I say that to someone, then I actually do it. Generally, it’s not lack of caring that stops me doing it, but lack of organisation, and laziness. I hope that I get better at remembering and doing, rather than just not offering in the first place.

Take more exercise: I am so blessed to be living on the edge of countryside now, with ready-to-go cycle paths and walks abounding. Now I just need to get out and do it. I need to fix the flat tyre on my bike. I am also considering joining a gym again – given that my employer subsidises gym membership anyway, I have little excuse not to do it. I probably need to cut down on the biscuit intake too. Oh well.

Do more in the community: I like the community I live in, but I don’t particularly do much in it. I vaguely know my neighbours, and I have an understanding of what happens in Chessington and within the Borough of Kingston, I don’t particularly do anything for any individual or group of people in my locality. Part of it is about commuting into the City during the week, potentially leaving less time to do things at home. Part of it is laziness, and part of it is wondering particularly what I could do. I have previously thought about volunteering at a local kids or youth club, but this is when I had more time in the evenings. Given that I don’t get home until gone half-past-six of an evening, a lot of the clubs have already started. There are probably other things I could do on a less regular, but still committed, basis; become a Friend at Kingston Hospital, for example. I want to be able to give something to a people group that I feel some compassion towards: children, people with learning disabilities, others in marginalised sections of society. I’ll have to think about that one.

Develop deeper relationships: Sometimes I feel, even with close friends, that relationships can get quite superficial. Whether it’s through fear of being vulnerable, or looking silly, or a deeply held mistrust, or just laziness, there can be a lack of effort. Not always: my friends are great and I have a good solid base of them that I can be real with; but sometimes through my own failings and fault, I slip into ‘mask mode’. It’s easy, and often preferable, to do this with strangers and only brief acquaintances, but it’s important to have close friends who you can be real with.

Be more content: Whether it’s because I have so many things I have to do, want to do, the pace of Western (London) lifestyle, or just my temperament, I find myself getting frustrated and discontent with what I am doing. I am not generally so discontent with what I have, as I know I have a lot, however you look at it. Nevertheless, I often feel discontent with what I have achieved. Perhaps there is an element of that in the making of this list, although I am trying to keep them all in balance and not feel frustrated that I can’t do them all of the time or devote all of my energy to all of them – that’;s just impossible. I want to get to the end of each day and know that I made the best of it; not what I often feel that I didn’t pack enough in. Slothfulness aside, there is nothing wrong with doing ‘nothing’ – with rest, relaxation. It’s all part of the balance, and yet I find it quite hard to relax. I get frustrated if I am not doing something, and I need to get better at seeing the bigger perspective. I did not fail today because I sat down on the sofa for half-an-hour and relaxed. I may not have composed a symphony, written a novel, read a news article, ironed a shirt, cleaned the house – but I did not fail. (Do it for five hours a day, and that would be a different matter)

Appreciate creation: I am so thankful that my eyesight has been improved once again by the skill of the surgeon. Though my near-sight is still (hopefully) improving, my far-sight is very good, and it is wonderful to be able to look out across the fields, to see the trees and the birds,m the wildlife, the green, the sky in all its permutations. One of the biggest shocks when I realised that my eyesight had deteriorated a few weeks ago to such a point that everything my left eye saw was a foggy blur, was how much I missed being able to see the life in the woodland around our house. Of course, it was deeply frustrating not to be able to se other things, but that’s what struck me first. Possibly because I was out walking on a wonderfully sunny spring Saturday when I first noticed it, but there you go. I don’t want to get so tied up in the media and the manmade, that I lose sight of the glory and diversity of creation.

Well, I think that will do for now. This isn’t an exhaustive list but it’s what I came up with today, and now I am going to enjoy the sunshine pouring into the train carriage tonight.