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Lindsey and I are anxiously awaiting the pending arrival of our second child next month, a girl that will don the ever-popular name of Madison (Maddie for short). Despite my being a newbie dad, I’ve learned a few tricks in keeping a pregnant wife happy.

Here are five suggestions for doing just that.

1. This first one should be obvious, but just in case: Never tell a pregnant women she’s fat. She knows this. Also, her feet (and maybe even her legs) will inevitably swell with water due to the added weight of a baby. Don’t be a retard; avoid this one at all costs. (more…)

The wife and I were talking over the weekend about our corporal markings and how we got them. Breathtaking conversation, I know. But we both thought it was interesting how a scar is really just a physical story from your past.

With that, here are the stories behind my engraved blemishes in the order I received them. Some dates are educated guesses of course. Not that you asked, but I thought I would document them none-the-less: (more…)

Viral marketing goes by several different names — buzz marketing, disruptive marketing, guerilla marketing, annuity effect, long tail, media leverage and even word-of-mouth marketing. But adding the word “marketing” to viral or any of the aforementioned names is a bit of a misnomer as the act of marketing typically describes a direct and conscious act on the part of companies to pitch their products to consumers. Viral marketing is anything but conscious. It is indirect marketing managed by consumers and consumers alone.

By definition, viral marketing is a phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message, usually — though not exclusively — online. Like a literal virus, the product message gets passed along from one user to the next and is easily shared in rapid fashion. Hotmail’s mandatory “Get your private, free e-mail at Hotmail.com” message on every outgoing e-mail is widely accredited as the first viral marketing campaign. Its strategy included:

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What makes something the worst job ever? In my eyes, it’s a lack of excitement. The worst jobs in the world are boring. Yeah, Discovery’s Dirtiest Jobs Ever are pretty bad, but I’d like to think I’d pick one of those any day over boring work. Excitement = Happiness.

Before I describe the worst job I’ve ever had, let’s run down my list of employers and/or clients in chronological order: Chick-fil-A (first job), IBM (PC specialist), Lucent Technologies, Youth Soccer Coach (paid, baby!), Cingular Wireless (retail clerk), BYU Performing Arts (male secretary), BYU web developer, Griffio (my company, still male secretary), Combat Films (freelancer), Weblogs Inc (blogger), Provo Labs (incubator curator), Next-Generation (writer), GamePro (writer), and GigaOM (reporter/blogger). A large number of the latter gigs have been managed concurrently and are/were part-time.

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I’m 27. Married. And I have one little girl with one more (girl/boy) on the way due this October. I’ve been self-employed for over three years, I work from home, and I believe in God. Here are 10 things that scare/worry me at this point in my life: (more…)

One of the things the new Griffio website is lacking, outside of the all important content that is coming soon, is footer paragraphs. Footer paragraphs are a great way to increase your website’s usability, user goals, and traffic via SEO juice. Take this one for example that I use on a fan site I publish:

“Infendo is a gaming blog for gamers passionate about all things Nintendo. The site covers news, tips, cheats, rumors, speculation, reviews, culture, Wii, DS, GameCube, Game Boy Advance and a whole bunch more several times daily. Subscribe to our RSS feed, listen to Infendo Radio — the number one Nintendo podcast on the internet — or send us a tip! Infendo. Always informed.”

As you can see, the footer copy serves as a site summary and a call to action featured at the bottom of every page on the site. It’s keyword rich, it makes sense to humans, and encourages them to further interact with the site in a way we desire. Will your site see an explosion of traffic after implementing such an idea? Probably not. But it’s better than the alternative as analytics prove. White space and a bland copyright statement in your footer is a waste of space despite their clean looks. People like suggestions when reaching the end of content. Make sure you give it to them with well written, key word rich, and action-encouraging footer paragraphs. I promise you’ll see results, however small.

[Thanks, Nicholas]

Over the last two years, blogging (and social sites in general) have been big sellers for Griffio. The short answer is because they work in boosting exposure, influence, and opportunities. But sadly, the blog drop-out rate is ridiculous. I’ve heard as little as 1% of all newly created blogs continue publishing after only a short while. To counter that futile fate, here are (5) guidelines for building a successful blog should you decide to start one: (more…)

2007: it’s time to clean out your feed reader. I understand this article goes without saying but feel the majority of heavy RSS users don’t understand the importance or reasoning behind usubscribing from feeds. Why should you? Because RSS overload eats into productivity and phases out quality reading time, that’s why. Even if you click “mark all as read” you’re still wasting time.

Last year I let my total feed count creep into 400+ territory. I read maybe 20-30 daily with about another 30-40 periodically. Since then, I’ve reduced my total “active” feeds to 67 while constantly cycling in new ones and ditching old ones that no longer yield useful content for me. With that, here are some general guidelines I like to follow to keep my feeds clean and usable and my productivity at a healthy level:

• Determine which feeds you no longer use. You know the routine. You read an article you like and subscribe to the publisher’s feed. That’s what you should do. But maybe that was and is the only article that appeals to you. What if you’re no longer reading the feed, or better yet, pulling inspiration from it? You may be thinking: “But I don’t want to lose it.” Well guess what. You can resubscribe at anytime.
• Remove feed. Hit delete. Just do it. You’ll be better for it. If you must, save the feed in a backup OPML file in the unlikely event you decide to re-add it to your reader later on.
• Create high-, medium-, and low-priority feeds. Another helpful method in organizing your feeds is to use priority folders. “High” being stuff you enjoy reading daily and that yields solid inspiration, “medium” being the above average feeds you sometimes read, and “low-priority” being feeds you don’t use often but like to keep tabs on and/or read when you have some extra time. I’ve also seen some feeder users organize feeds by “updated often” or “rarely updated.”
• Add new feeds. If you aren’t cycling in new feeds at least once a month, you’re missing out. There is simply no way you have already subscribed to the web’s best content. Seek it, add it to your reader in a “pending” status to gauge its viability, then add it permanently if its producing consistent results.

Life, not to mention the work day, is too short to waste on stale feeds. And just think, while you’re mindlessly thumbing through “fast food” feeds, you could be treating yourself to a real literary entree; The Chosen or one of these business-related books quickly come to mind.

A blog can be an excellent tool for building “You Inc.” For those out of the loop, a blog is nothing more than an easily updateable Web site intended to inform or influence. Here are eight things to avoid while blogging to help attract site visitors, garner trust, heighten exposure and increase revenues. (more…)

I had a recent conversation with a colleague of mine who was asking about good design, specifically for websites. Here’s what I told him:

“Don’t try to make a website look good. Ensure that it doesn’t look cheap and that it wouldn’t hurt an audience from further viewing it. There’s a difference. By focusing on not making [a site] look bad, it will naturally look good.”

Over the past five years, that has always been my approach, and it has been a very successful one for me. I’m not the best designer, but I do know how to make something look clean and professional which is what it should be doing anyway. A website is to content as a glass is to water. Don’t let the glass distract from the importance of the water.

See also: Intelligent Design (May 2005)