Welcome to the geek-free zone: A website missive from the ghost of Margaret past

Okay, I’m not the nostalgic type usually, but I was doing some pruning on my Websites for Good website and found my very first blog post. Get this: I wrote it in 2011, and never published it because I was so insecure about blogging at the time. I wouldn’t start writing regularly for three more years.

That’s right. The woman who encourages you to create and share as much as possible on your website nowadays. This is proof positive that I was once where many of you are now. “It’s too much work…it’s not good enough to share…I’ll just come back to it later…”

I thought I’d publish it verbatim now because, well, one of two things would happen:

1. somebody who needs a really good laugh today will get one from this (it’s not very good), or
2. somebody may get something out of the before-and-after, and may believe me when I repeat [ad nauseum] that blogs evolve, get easier, and get better, so DO it

Enjoy.

Welcome to the Geek Free Zone

When considering starting a blog here, I asked a local client what she might want to read about if I did. She ticked off a list of things she’d be interested in knowing more about.  Then she looked at the sky to think for a second and added, “But it has to be a geek-free zone. I don’t have time to Google every other damn word just to understand what the heck you’re talking about.”

So.

Welcome to the geek-free zone.  I don’t consider myself a technology geek, or a gearhead, or a gadget freak (confession: I don’t even own a DVR).  I would never criticize those who are — to each his own — but I just don’t fit that mold.

I’m just a person who kind of understands technology enough. And one who’s happy to talk about how it can improve someone’s life/work/business/income. But it doesn’t make me go all a-tingle to talk about tech stuff just because it’s the latest whizziest whatever. I’m about people, not things, and our business is centered on helping our people find & serve their communities…whatever it takes to do that.

The solution

So, in that spirit, in this blog I want to take some time each week to answer typical questions I get every day from my clients, who are brilliant, funny, curious people.  (Get me talking about THEM and I’ll bend your ear all day.)  These questions might include things like:

Why is everyone telling me I need a blog?  Is there any real benefit to that, and if so, how on earth do I make time for it?

There seems to be a new social media thing every day, things I haven’t even heard of.  How can I determine which ones are actually useful to me & my organization?

I want to be able to update my site myself, without needing some $500.00 software package and without learning to program.  What should I do?

I post new things on my website all the time, and want it to send out an automatic notification to the people on my mailing list every time I do.  Is that possible?

I don’t feel like my website is earning its keep.  It just sort of sits there and I am not sure anyone is even seeing it.  How can I improve so that it (saves me time, generates income, etc.)

Google doesn’t seem to know I exist, at least not for the search terms I want to be found for.  What do I do?

I’ll work at answering as many of these as I can, in plain, geek-free language, in the days and weeks again.  Please feel free to visit our contact page if you have questions of your own you’d like me to write about!

Thanks for stopping in.