For some reason, I've been shadowing Beth Kanter on the conference circuit lately. I've had the great pleasure of listening to her speak several times in the last few months -- with more to come! At some point during every presentation, one of the attendees, whose mind has just been blown by her awesomeness, asks "Do you have that written down somewhere?"

Beth's answer is always the same. "Just 'Google' Beth. My blog will be in the top of the listings. See?! Another reason to blog. It increases your search engine rankings!"

While I've always agreed with her -- blogging has clearly increased our own search rankings -- I now confess that I never truly understood why... until today!

Many thanks to Paul Hyland for posting this Wired Magazine infographic about the secret life of your blog post on his Facebook news feed. It sums it all up nicely. Next time I see Beth, I'll be able to agree with her whole heartedly.

I scan the nptech listings on Technorati once a day or so. Today I ran across this post, which led me to this post. I am really getting annoyed.

I'm a big believer in blogs. They are a great outlet for sharing, tips, tricks, ideas, experiences, knowledge, and INFORMED opinions. Lately though, I feel like there's a lot of UNINFORMED opinion sharing going on. There are more and more bloggers embracing the role of "watchdog" who are misprepresenting organizations (like my own!) who are just trying to do good. It's not right.

I'm the "accidental techie" at our office. Though I hate that term. But essentially, I have both the institutional memory and the crazy gene that compels me to manage most of our IT situation. (So yes, all our bad web form design is my fault, but I'm working on that, I swear!)

At any rate, two of the blogs I read daily are the DreamHost Support Blog, and the

Last Friday, I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of hours with the folks at the Community Technology Network of the Bay Area giving a bit of a presentation about how nonprofits can use blogging. I think my slides might be a bit cryptic because I try not to write too much down (lest I devolve into reading). However, thay may be of use to some, so here they are!

You should also note that I spent a fair bit of time looking at some actual blogs. You can see my example blogs at my del.icio.us entry for "blog".

I just got back from delivering a little ditty about the powers of blogging for nonprofits at a local event here in San Francisco hosted by the Community Technology Network of the Bay Area. It reminded me that I never posted about one of the greatest little gems to come along in a little while: Idealware's new report. Go get it if you're looking into starting a blog. "

Some usual and some interesting ideas from Seth Godin about getting your blog read, found on his blog. The most interesting one I saw was:

13. Write about your kids

I was just thinking about this on the bus this morning. I need to update my personal blog with some photos from our zoo visit this

"Anything that helps enhance democracy to give average people a voice is a noble and good use of technology," said David Sifry, a judge and founder of Technorati."

I just caught an article over at Wired about the Since Sliced Bread Awards. Kind of cool, but I was most interested in the last quote, from David Sifry. Call me crazy, but I don't see how this competition is enhancing democracy. The prize winners don't have to use their winnings

I just came across this post from Kevin Gunn on tech.memorandum. Another brilliant use for Gmail. Say what you will about the Google Empire, Gmail still rules the email world, and they've inspired this haiku:

flexibility
search sort

Excellent piece from Beth Kanter's blog today on translating RSS for the non-geeks among us. I love charts of any kind, and have taped this one up on my wall!

06NTC