Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

Latest posts from Danny Brown

Enjoy the latest posts from Danny Brown, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments after the post.

If You Enjoy This Blog, Want to Help Needy Children?

So I try not to use this blog too much for personal reasons (like ads, promos, etc), but for the following, I’m going to make an exception.

The Toys for Tots program?has one simple goal: to bring the joy of Christmas to needy children.

Its bigger picture goal is just as inspiring – “to deliver a message of hope that builds self-esteem, and motivate kids to grow into responsible adults that become productive and valuable members of the community.”

It’s a wonderful initiative that brings so much joy and happiness to kids (and families) that otherwise don’t have a lot to smile about at this time of year.

And I’d like to ask a favour.

Turning Content and Conversations into Toys

I’ve run this blog for almost 8 years now, and hopefully during that time you’ve found something that’s interested you, or made you think differently.

Additionally, there have been literally thousands of discussions, both in the comments and on social, around a post’s topic or idea.

So, here’s the favour.

If you’ve found some value in this blog, how would you like to “return” that and help my wife Jaclyn and five-year old son Ewan raise some funds and deliver a smile to kids this Christmas?

Not only that, you have the chance of winning some very timely (and very cool) Mary Kay products for men and women.

Interested? Here’s the skinny:

  • Make a donation of either $2, $5 or $10 or $20?to my wife’s Toys for Tots drive. This can be done by sending the amount to Jaclyn’s PayPal account
  • You could win one of three prizes (see main image below): Satin Hands Set (value $51), MK Men’s Grooming Set (value $53), or $100 prize certificate to spend on any MK product

Toys for Tots

  • Everyone that donates $10 or $20?will receive a free copy of both ebooks
  • The draw is for anyone, anywhere. My wife will ship the prizes out to you after the draw date (so hopefully they’ll be there for Christmas).

On the draw date – Tuesday December 8 – the winners will be notified by the email provided to PayPal (and I’ll update this post accordingly), and the amount raised tallied.

Then, a couple of days after that, my wife will take our son to the local Toys’R’Us and buy a whole bunch of toys to take to Halton Police, who’re arranging the Toys for Tots drive.

Help Make Needy Kids (and my son!) Smile This Christmas

So, that’s my favour. If you wish to donate and help, that’d be so awesome and appreciated like you would not believe.

If you can’t donate, no worries, but perhaps you could share this post (and Jaclyn and Ewan’s goal) with someone who can?

Either way, thanks for reading and considering, and I’ll leave you with some final words from my wife:

My 5-year-old is learning that there are kids out there who have nothing, and he wants to help. Please help me, help my son, help others. Every little bit helps! Thank you xox

Jaclyn and Ewan

Thanks, guys,

Danny.

Note: Donations should be in by 11.59pm on Sunday December 6th, 2015. DONATE NOW.

Updated:?the three prize winners were Diane Veveiros Kralj, Delton Alves, and Dawn Vanson. The final tally raised was $490.40 – woot!

Perhaps Tomorrow

Homeward bound, to the clackety???clack of the track.?Strangers all around, though not by sight. Tired eyes, looking for the landmarks that signal home.

The windows beckon, offering stolen glances of a landscape we knew much better in the light of half a day ago.

Muted notes from bands we?ll never know, headphones offering solace from the silence that engulfs.

Stolen glances. Untold stories. Lives crisscrossing, yet not.

The city lights near. The shuffled gait begins. Together we move, but as individuals.

Disembark and depart. The white lined boxes empty one by one, until as barren as the opportunity to connect.

Home. Sanctuary. Familiarity. Warmth.

At least for some.

Perhaps tomorrow we?ll learn another?s life. Perhaps tomorrow we?ll offer up a smile. Perhaps tomorrow we?ll unburden the burdened.

Tomorrow?s another day, after all. No need to change today what can wait until tomorrow.

It?s not like tomorrow will never come, after all.

Yes, perhaps tomorrow.

The One Simple Reason Against Switching Off Blog Comments

A recent blog post by Arik Hanson, that looked at seven trends impacting every blogger, caught my attention the other week.

I’ve read Arik’s blog for a good few years now, and his content is always informative, and not afraid to poke the bear and challenge standard thinking when it comes to content. This blogging trends post was no different.

It covered topics like RSS being retired soon (which I agree with), the changing face of content presentation, and social sharing losing traction, amongst other things.

One trend that stood out, though, was Arik’s belief that blog comments were “officially dead”.

Based on the examples of Copyblogger and others, Arik feels that we’ll see even more content creators and blogs switch off comments in the months ahead.

That may be indeed be true – but as anyone that’s read this blog for a while will know, it’s not something I buy into, and an approach I wouldn’t recommend for one simple reason.

You Care, But You Don’t Really

Imagine you go to an event where there’s a guest speaker. You pay your dollars to attend, and you allocate a certain amount of time to be at the event.

The speaker is entertaining, the topic is something you’re interested in, and the speech gets your mind buzzing with so many follow-up ideas.

Ideas that need answers.

Ideas that only questions to the speaker can answer.

So, you wait in line after the event so you can meet the speaker, thank them for their work, and ask your follow-up question that would expand the speaker’s talk.

Finally, you get your chance to ask a question, and…. silence. A blank stare. A look that acknowledges your presence, but nothing more.

Undeterred, you ask another question. Equally undeterred, the speaker offers the same response as before.

Suddenly, you realize that it’s not just you that’s being ignored – everyone is.

Everyone that wanted to publicly thank the speaker is being ignored. Everyone who wanted to add to the topic is being ignored.

Instead, there are various rooms that are roped off where you can go instead, with the vague promise that there may be an answer or two there.

Sound familiar?

Time is Investment Too

We have a lot of distractions. Both as content creators and content consumers, there’s a hell of a lot of competition vying for our attention.

Because of that, the readers that choose to visit your little part of the web are investing in you. Sure, they may not be financially investing – but they’re investing nonetheless.

That time that could be spent elsewhere. The exchange of knowledge that could be shared elsewhere. The referral of other readers in search of somewhere they can invest too.

All of that comes from comments.

Yes, the content attracts. Yes, the content educates. Yes, the content sparks ideas.

But the content eventually draws a blank – because it’s a finite resource.

Finite content

If the content on display doesn’t quite satiate the reader’s appetite, the comments after the post can. And usually do.

Because now you’re not just tied to the one-directional broadcast of the content creator – now you have the years of experience, wisdom and ?questioning viewpoints of other attendees.

Because of that, your investment is rewarded. You leave wiser, and you help others leave wiser too.

Whether the wisdom comes from extra knowledge about the topic at hand, or a new mindset about an offshoot of the topic you’d never considered, it’s return for your investment in that part of the web.

Spend Your Money Wisely

The kicker for many of the blogs that have switched off comments is the invitation to “continue the conversation elsewhere”.

This is followed by a link to that content creator’s Facebook page, or Google+ community, or Twitter stream, etc.

All well and good – after all, they’re not saying they don’t value your opinion, they just want to have it elsewhere (after all, that’s where all the cool chat is happening).

But then you land on one of these other channels, and the two-way dialogue is equally non-existent.

Instead, it’s a broadcast-fest of links to their content. You know – the very content they don’t want to talk to you about, but come to this channel you’re on now to continue the conversation…

And so the circle goes.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Switching off #blog comments doesn’t enhance a reader’s experience – it hinders it. ” quote=”Switching off blog comments doesn’t enhance a reader’s experience – it hinders it. “]

Look, I get it. As I mentioned earlier in this post, time is a commodity we have increasingly little of.

So I get that you don’t want to spend that time talking when you could just as easily be broadcasting.

Just be honest about it.

If you want to be a broadcast channel (whether that’s your blog, social network, email blast or whatever), go ahead and knock yourself out.

But let’s not pretend that blog comments are being switched off to “offer a better experience more attuned to the reader’s choice.”

Instead, if you really care about the thoughts of your readers, and the discussions they want to have, it’s a simple decision – leave the blog comments on.

And if you’re a reader/commenter, choose better places to spend your investments – there are enough of them about.

And they really do care about your investment – you can trust me on that.

Why I’m Loving the Pure Blogging Project

Earlier this year, as summer started to get into full swing, I published a couple of posts that talked about getting back to pure blogging.

These posts – Why the Real Driver of Traffic is Content That Matters to You, and Pure Blogging and the Experience We Give Our Readers – saw me taking a step back and looking at how the chase for traffic, shares and monetization was making us forget the reason we started blogging in the first place.

Not for glory. Not for fame. Not for fortune. But for the sheer joy of writing (or video blogging, or podcasting).

The joy of just putting something out there, with no other agenda than to share your thoughts with the world, and see if anyone responded and started a conversation with you.

It’s the direction my own blog had been moving in for a while (from its initial premise of marketing and social media topics), and – going by the comments after each of the two posts linked above – many others wanted to see a return to the “pure blogging” approach.

So, after thinking about it for a while, and talking with some fellow bloggers whose work and style I admired, I launched the Pure Blogging project.

And it’s one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve been part of.

It’s All About the Content

When you land on the Pure Blogging home page, one of the first things you’ll see is the bold tagline, “It’s all about the content.”

This is something that was the driver of the project to begin with (and remains that way today).

Instead of worrying about creating the kind of “viral content” [*cough*] that many bloggers and content creators are happy producing, Pure Blogging is the antithesis of that.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Here’s to Pure Blogging, where the only thing that matters is the content. #pureblogging” quote=”Here’s to Pure Blogging, where the only thing that matters is the content. #pureblogging”]

No buzzwords. No clickbait titles that have little (or nothing) to do with the post. No easy listicles like “Top 50 Content Rules for Content Marketers”, blah blah.

Nope. None of that would be encouraged at Pure Blogging.

Instead, it’d be what moves you at the time of writing.

It could be a personal story. A story about someone or something that shaped who you are today.

It could be about personal battles, or supporting those going through battles of their own.

It could be a story about faith (or how faith was lost).

It could be something as simple as why someone has so many pets.

The only caveat that I gave the folks kind enough to be part of the project was simple – no hate, bigotry, bullying, or any of that crap. Everything else was pretty much good to go.

Because of this open approach, Pure Blogging has resulted in some amazing posts, and the kind of topics that more often than not get bypassed in lieu of “content this”, “social media that”, etc.

http://forbloggersbybloggers.com/1953-woody-old-spice/

http://forbloggersbybloggers.com/this-is-not-a-dress-rehearsal-this-is-your-life/

http://forbloggersbybloggers.com/a-question-of-faith-or-why-are-aliens-less-believable-than-religion/

http://forbloggersbybloggers.com/one-child-worth/

http://forbloggersbybloggers.com/wrestling-time-dinosaurs/

http://forbloggersbybloggers.com/the-day-i-died/

http://forbloggersbybloggers.com/a-writer-stops/

As you can see from these posts above, there’s a huge variety in the topics being discussed.

Some are funny, some are sombre. Some are introspective, some are optimistic. Others are somewhere in-between.

The one thing they all have in common, though, is they are written from the heart, and talking to you – the reader – as if you’re the only other person in the room.

In short, they’re pure blogging at its finest.

Rediscover What Blogging Can Be

There is absolutely nothing wrong with creating content for the masses. There is zero wrong with creating content that needs to be created a certain way to meet business goals.

That was never the reason Pure Blogging was started.

Instead, Pure Blogging came to be simply to counter the easy, lazy way of content creation that seems to be ever more pervasive today.

If shares, comment counts and page views are the goals by which you set your content strategy, then Pure Blogging is probably not for you.

Although, ironically, by ignoring all of these goals and simply concentrating on the content, Pure Blogging has a decent amount of each – go figure!

However, if you’re a fan of blogging from the heart; blogging that inspires; blogging that makes you think differently from when you first landed on the page… then I invite you over to check out the posts currently on the site.

You may just find you have a new favourite blog. Well, apart from this one, of course… 😉

And if you’re finding you want a change from writing for social proof metrics alone, and you want to get back to creating the content that really matters to you, there’s an open invite to be part of the team, which you can find here.

Here’s to Pure Blogging, where the only thing that matters is the content.

The Difference Being First Off the Train

Each morning, I commute from my home in Burlington to the office where I work in Toronto, and each morning, I pretty much follow the same routine.

Because the commute is about two hours each way (I need to catch two trains because of where the office is located), I tend to have a relaxing time on the first train.

This means settling back, reading a book, looking out the window, or just sitting there, eyes closed, listening to my iPod’s “Commute” list.

When the train pulls into Toronto, I sit patiently and wait for the other commuters to get off, then make my way through Union Station to get to the TTC (the municipal transit system).

Because I’ve waited until pretty much everyone else is off, the walk through Union can be pretty crowded, as commuters from other recently-arrived trains join the throng.

But it’s a price I’m willing to pay to avoid the crush of trying to access the stairs?from platform to station upon arrival.

This morning, though, I did things a little differently – and it was like a different world.

Seeing the Same but Alternative Universes

This morning, the train I take each day was delayed, which meant that there’d be more than the usual number of people getting on at the station before mine.

So, instead of wandering upstairs as usual (because it’s the Quiet Zone, and silence is encouraged, which I love), I decided to sit at the first seat just inside the door.

I could still relax, and actually stretch my feet out because of where the seat was located, and with my headphones on, I didn’t really hear the chatter of the morning commute.

It was when I reached Union Station that everything changed.

As the train pulled in, I stood up and waited at the door to get off. When the doors opened, it was a clear path to the stairs – no crowd, no pushing to get closer to the door, nothing.

Simply a short walk to the stairs and down I went.

When I entered Union Station itself, I wondered if the train had taken a detour to a little suburban station, it was so quiet!

Whereas normally I’m just part of a bigger crowd all trying to find our place in the goal of getting out without injury, this morning I maybe saw about 30 people between leaving the train and exiting the station onto Front Street.

Oh, I knew the crowd was still there – but now they were behind me, out of reach and out of my way. The difference was staggering.

Even when I exited onto Front Street, the difference continued.

No throbbing mass of people moving in one coordinated sardine can of walking. No bumping into strangers (or being bumped into). No angry looks as you nip in front of someone just to avoid being pushed along a direction you didn’t want to travel.

It was a weird experience. The surroundings were the same, but the interactions were anything but.

And it was glorious.

We Don’t Always Have to Be First, But Sometimes It’s Nice

Of course, once I hit the TTC, everything was back to normal, and the crush of the rush was on again. So much for my calm sojourn from the previous five minutes.

But riding the TTC to the office made me think of the early morning experience and what it meant in the bigger picture.

You see, often we leave all the movement to others, and we’ll just go along for the ride, happy to be involved.

  • We see bloggers we want to emulate, so we post vacuous content that we think is like theirs, but in truth is a pointless exercise – because that blogger’s already done it.
  • We see brands we want to ride the coattails of, so we come up with lazy content and advertising that’s a second-rate copy of what could have been.
  • We see people on social networks sharing their perfect lives, and we try and compete in a competition that can never be won, because it’s a facade of what’s really their everyday lives.

In short, we don’t take the first step and enjoy that moment on our own and all that brings, because we’re so used to the so-called wisdom of the crowd and the places that might take us (but rarely does).

As actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein once said,

It’s a wonderful world. You can’t go backwards. You’re always moving forward. It’s the wonderful part about life. And that’s terrific.

How we choose to move forward is where we create the adventure.

We can go with the crowd and see where that takes us. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – I’ve yet to fail to make it to my office because of flowing with the crowd. I may be a little late, but I’ll get there.

Or, we can stand up once in a while and be the one that gets off the train first, and see what it’s like to lead.

The clarity. The wide open path ahead. The choice of taking steps A, B or C today, because no-one else has reached them yet.

We don’t always have to be first. But it’s nice to not have to worry about the crowd, and the direction it’s moving, now and again.

Try it sometime. You never know what might happen.