Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: In Context Blog

I am pulling this link up from the distant past (last August), to share with you an interview between two of my favorite bloggers. Seth Godin answers questions for Hugh McLeod of Gaping Void. (Yes, two posts in a row with links. I spent a lot of today reading the archives, so sue me.)

Anyway, the first question and answer:

1. QUESTION: Your latest book, “Small Is The New Big“, is not a narrative or a thesis in any sense, but a collection of your favorite writings from your blog and your old Fast Company column. A collection of synapse-firings, the way I see it. Is it important to you to have your work “immortalized” on paper? Do you find the internet and magazines just too ephemeral, and wanted to created something more “lasting”? Or was it just simply because, as you say, you wanted your ideas to reach beyond the blogosphere?

ANSWER: It’s important not to underestimate the totem value of a book. The same way a white lab coat makes a placebo more likely to be effective (or a witch doctor’s hat for that matter), a book delivers an impact that a blog can’t.

While there’s certainly some ego in wanting your thousands of posts not to disappear, there’s also a real desire on my part to give my existing readers the ability to taunt their co-workers by handing them a book instead of emailing them a link. If my job is to make change, I need to use the best tools that are available.

It’s also hard to read a blog at the beach.

I want to be clear about something I just discovered though–that there IS a theme. The title really captures what the book is about. I’ve been amazed that reviewers (professional and pro-am) have seemed to find something that I didn’t when I was busy writing it… that acting small, treating people like people, changing like an individual, not an organization… these are attributes that are essential now, and they’re on every page of the book. I think I picked the right riff for the title.

Read the whole interview. Then get ahold of the book, it is fantastic.

There is a lot of talk about professional blogging these days, and everyone is trying to get in on the act. This very blog is a ‘journal’ of my own effort to break free of the “veal-fattening pen” that is my meatspace job, and help you to do it too. Chris Garrett has written a short e-book entitled “Killer Flagship Content” that is a basic guide to putting together a blog or website that will become the go-to resource for your particular interest.
As I mentioned previously, everyone is an expert on something, and you can leverage that expertise into creating Flagship Content for your site that draws in readers again and again. Garrett is careful to differentiate Flagship Content from Linkbait, in that the Flagship Content provides long-term value. It is useful and original material that stands the test of time, because others will refer back to it, and refer more readers to it.
Now why would they do that? What are people really looking for? Well, people (and that means you, Dear Reader) are busy, or lazy, or confused, or lost. What people want is “one trusted resource, that fully answers the question, in language we understand, in a place we can easily find.” Now who does not want something like that?
Garrett gives other reasons for sitting down and working hard to create this Flagship Content as a firm foundation for your site, among them:

• Brand - Your blog gets known and known for the right reasons (quality content). It is far easier to get across all the great things your blog can do for people by showing rather than telling. Give people a great resource, demonstrate your value and expertise, get your blog known for doing good things.
• Authority - There is so much value in being the source, tool, service or expert. Search engines love authorities as much as people do. When one resource stands out above the crowd it is that resource that gets all the attention, is seen as the go-to article and whose author gets media attention.
• Value - Some websites are liked. Others are loved. The most successful though are needed. Wouldn’t it be great to create a blog people can’t do without?
• Marketability - On occasion you will need a “portfolio piece” - something representative of your blog or your work, pro blog gigs, book deals, media appearances, press releases… You don’t always want to use your most recent post for this. A great flagship can sell a blog or your writing skills far better than asking the person to subscribe and read a while.

Creating flagship content builds value in your site or blog, and creates context for your readers. Building value is one of the most important aspects of selling anything, and we that blog are definitely selling our points of view. Garrett advocates creating quality writing, through which one can enhance their credibility, which in turn will drive traffic deeper into their archives. It will encourage visitors to subscribe and use the tell-a-friend feature.

I am not going to give away all of the goodies in this e-book, I do recommend that you read it for yourself. Click over to ChrisG.com and follow the instructions. This is some of Garrett’s Flagship Content, and it is valuable and useful.

Remarkably, from CNN.com:

By David E. Williams
CNN

(CNN) — Management consultant David Allen is a best-selling author, runs a multimillion dollar company and travels the country teaching executives to be more productive.

Allen, 61, is best known for his book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.” The book, published in 2001, was the 46th most popular book on Amazon.com on Thursday.

He may seem like an unlikely Internet hero, but legions of bloggers have embraced his timesaving methods. A quick Google search for David Allen and “Getting Things Done” turned up more than 1.3 million hits.

Allen said “Getting Things Done,” or GTD, is “just advanced common sense,” but he said it took him about 20 years to figure it out.

This is first in a series of reviews on free PDF downloads that can help with your blogging and internet business. “Knock, Knock“ by Seth Godin is a set of instructions for setting up your website for maximum efficiency. Godin sets two “Big Picture” goals for the website:

Number one: A website must do at least one of two things, but probably both:

• Turn a stranger into a friend, and a friend into a customer.
• Talk in a tone of voice that persuades people to believe the story you’re selling.

What does this mean? Your website must be user-friendly and have a purpose. What is the logical purpose of a website? Well, to sell, of course. Everything is selling, whether you are selling ideas, products, services or just attention. Even a personal website for photos from your family vacation needs to be constructed so that people will “spend” their time looking at your photos. For a more commercial application, your website (or front page) needs to have a purpose, and that purpose is to prepare the viewer for the next step. The first ‘click’ that you get needs to lead to a place that does the exact same thing, it is a step in a process that leads to the next step.

“And soon (as soon as possible), your web pages lead people to do the thing you wanted them to do all along, the reason you built your web site in the first place.“

That reason can of course, be anything. Are you looking for email addressess? contact information to send a mailing or catalog? a donation for your charity?

This brings us to Big Picture number two:

“A web site can cause only four things to happen in the moments after someone sees it:

1. She clicks and goes somewhere else you want her to go.
2. She clicks and gives you permission to follow up by email or phone.
3. She clicks and buys something.
4. She tells a friend, either by clicking or by blogging or phoning or talking.

That’s it.
If your site is attempting to do more than this, you’re wasting your time and money and, more important, focus.”

This e-book is loaded with advice and guidance on reviewing your website and/or constructing your website to accomplish this goal. It’s a “less is more” philosophy that definitely applies. Just because you can have a spinning, flaming logo flash animation, doesn’t mean that you should.

Keep it simple, get to the point, and you will be able to lead your viewer where you want them to go.

Download “Knock, Knock” here.