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This weekend I read two reports - the first is a report that all serious bloggers should
put on their must read list: Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008. Interesting
and informative as well as motivating reading. And what does it say to blog writers.
Well, I’ll share what it said to me and, after you get a chance to read it, please share
what it says to you.

The Report was organized serially as follows:

• Introduction
• Day 1: Who Are the Bloggers?
• Day 2: The What And Why of Blogging
• Day 3: The How of Blogging
• Day 4: Blogging For Profit
• Day 5: Brands Enter The Blogosphere

Who are bloggers? See if your information agrees with Technorati’s findings.

The Blogosphere Report provides a Global Snapshot of Bloggers with some
interesting if not surprising demographic data. Most bloggers are well educated,
upper income and younger. Globally, two thirds of bloggers are male. Women in
the US participate at higher rate than globally.

A segment snapshot breakout of personal, professional and corporate bloggers is
provided with an interesting add-on of the percentages of those with advetising on
their sites. A gender breakout is also provided with few surprises there. One to note
is that women tend more towards personal blogsand men to professional. On the age
front, bloggers (ages 45-54) represent 15% of the total senior bloggers (55+) represent
8%. If you confine yourself to writing to these two groups they only represent a total
of 23% of the blogosphere. Keep in mind that represents 17.7 million bloggers. Also,
other sources indicate the two older age groups (boomers and seniors) participation
in the blogosphere is growing at a faster rate than that of the younger ones.

On another note, while I was also doing some research on “long term care” this
weekend (my wife and I are 68 and 70 respectively), I came across some life
expectancy charts and related articles that made me rethink my blog writing audience
and blog mission. In 2008, the boomer generation was defined as being between the
ages of 44 and 62 (those born after WW II from 1946 to 1964). Seniors include
anyone over 62.and and and The generational (by age) breakdown helped my focus
my writing and blogging. My focus has been on seniors (alone) - however, after
looking at these charts (and with all of the “financial crisis” news all around), I realized
that the same issues facing seniors today are also there for the “boomer generation”.
Many boomers get a double whammy - they have senior parents who are ill prepared
for retirement and for the rising costs associated with aging. So for boomers the
perspective is a bit different but the issues are still the same: retirement income,
health insurance, long term care possibilities, and on and on. And some may have to
provide for the needs of their parents.

As if you needed another sobering thought these days, find out where you are on
this life expectancy chart and see what general statistics indicate is your present life
expectancey. If you have living parents, chart their stats. Good news - bad news!
The good news is that you have a lot more years to live. The bad news is that you
have a lot more years to live. I know, I know, that’s not bad news - it just means
that you have a lifetime in front of you, … so you better prepare.

Writers! That’s opportunity. That’s content.

Senior Bloggers and bloggers who write for an audience of boomers and/or seniors.
They have challenges and problems that you can help them with. They can use some
help in finding quality of life answers. Given these uncertain times, they can also use
some entertainment and encouragement. Humor can also help.

See where you and yours fit on this 2004 statistical chart of life expectancy averages
(Source United States Department of Health and Human Services) Note: life
expectancies continue to increase in the US and in many countries around the world.

Food for thought? Material for writing?

What do you think?

- Val

Link to: Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008.

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Thanks for coming back to my blog. Please comment and share any ideas, challenges or subject matter you'd like to see covered. Your contributions are valued! - Val

Need inspiration? Wish you could have been with me this morning. It was Grandparents Day at my grandaughters elementary school. Along with the end-of-month assembly where they gave out citizenship awards for “caring”, we were invited to our granddaughter’s classroom where we were allowed to observe their regular Friday assignment. This weekly assignment involves having each child write sometime during the week and then read their “story” or essay in front of the class on Friday.

The common topic for the assignment was “autumn leaves”. I was impressed - almost 100% participation with some well organized and written stories. The image I will take away from that experience is the one of a young boy who had to tack on extra sheets of paper to complete his “extra effort” story. There he was with arms outstretched above his head reading the last few lines on the bottom of the second extra sheet of paper (Everyone agreed he need longer arms!).

Think he will be a writer for life? I hope so - how about you?

On a more personal note - two items: first, my grandaughter was recognized as one of the citizens of the month for “caring”. She received a certificate and a plastic medallion that was attachable to her back pack. She was very proud of that and put it on next to the several others she had received in the past. Interesting how we can be motivated to do good things for so little. Kids too!

Secondly, the real highlight of the day was in Hannah’s classroom when the grandparents were introduced by each child. When it came Hannah’s turn, she said, “This is my Grandma and my “Spoofer” Grandpa. One of the great blessings of my life is the relationship I have with this beautiful, intelligent, creative young lady. The “Spoofer” part? We have a good learning time sharing our observations and stories with a bit of imaginative and playful “spoofing” (exaggeration or double entendre wordplay) to see if the other person is listening well enough (and smart enough) to “catch” it. Yes, this from a second grader - and even before that. Marvelous and very enjoyable.

She writes well - think there is any connection?

Well, enough for now. Thought a bit of 1st rate 2nd Grade writing and “front-of-the-class” story telling might be a bit of motivation for you.

Be well and enjoy the holidays.

- Val

PS: Is there a child in your life who could use a bit of writing or story telling encouragement? Think about it - a few words at the right time or maybe a “high-five” at the appropriate time? Mentoring?

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Whooda thunk it? Someone not only came up with the neologism: “viagravation” ahead of me but they also registered the term as a domain as well ( www.viagravation.com ). Next time I’ll check that out ahead of time - how solipsistic of me to not do that this time.

Perhaps my muses were amusing themselves with me and my solipsistic tendencies.  Muses bad. My bad.

Apologies.

- Val

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I woke up this mornng with the sleeping wordmeister still in my head. So feeling neologistic I stayed in bed and let my stream of unconsciousness flow. (one simple definition of “neologism” is a newly coined word). This morning I was reminded of one of mine: “viagravation” - the feeling senior golfers get when they can’t watch golf on television without being reminded of their impending or present state of (mind?). Not feeling like getting up, I stayed in bed.

Here, not necessarily in order, are some thoughts from that stream of unconsciousness: a lock of red hair and white wine; caliphate; Pote n Tate (brothers from the Ozarks); “viagravation” (see above); the dullest pencil (is sharper than the sharpest mind - a memory thing) - (damn, I forgot to put my pocket notebook next to the bed again); …

Is ideation easier when you are warm and snuggly or when you are cold and have to move around? Warm and snuggly for me. How about you?

When and where do you get the best ideas?

When and where do you get your best writing done?

Do your ideas come in clusters? Or, must you “cluster” to get ideas?

Can you be a good writer if you only have questions? I had a student surprise me once with his observation that, “What makes you a good teacher is your ability to ask good questions!”. ( I didn’t question his observation Must be I have something in my eye in this morning - I keep winking … or blinking … my way out of “nod”.

Question of the Day: can a solipsistic writer be successful?

You did read the title of this post, didn’t you?

Neologism of the Day: “solipsilly” - being so self absorbed, you can’t be taken seriously.

“Viagravation” came in a close second. However, because I took the time to look up the word “solipsism” I thought I would give the nod to the more serious (;-) neologism. There I go again with that winking … maybe later today, I’ll get more serious. Bet you can’t wait? Silly me.

- Val

PS: My excuze is that my muse is - nocturnal.

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Got a story to tell? Just want to learn this blogging thing? Like good writing and love to share your views on what is and what is not? Well you can do all that here and find out how to do it for your own blog. As the header note indicates blog writing is different. How different?     Let me count the ways …

With software tools for muses
It does reduce excuzes.
So write or publish others
Whatever is your druthers.

Over time we’ll take a look at the tools available to assist you in both blog writing and in identifying content resources, research how-to, SEO (search engine optimization), traffic building, monetizing your blog and how to manage your blog and your time to get it all accomplished successfully. ( Note that this writer has a tendency to write some longer than advisable sentences - bear with me and call it “style”.)

Note the quote above says “reduce” excuses. Writers can always find excuses not to write ( or why they don’t write well. We are going to take action here to reduce those excuses with tools, how-to, examples and models.

With regard to the “publish” part of the quote above, I learned a great lesson from Alan Bechtold, one of my early online mentors: Think of yourself as a publisher rather than as a creator of writing. Search engines, article directories, blog directories and other writer’s website and blog writing can provide you with more content than you will ever be able to use as a publisher. You can use your own writing if you have the time, skill and will to do so. But keep that concept of publisher in mind. Think of outsourcing (contracting with others on the internet or locally through Craigslist.

There is software available to find articles or blogs on most any keyword you can think of as well as Google and the other search engines. We’ll be taking a closer look at each of these resources in the days and months ahead. There are also alot of bloggers who write and blog about how to do this magical and mysterieous business of blog writing.

One thing about the World Wide Web/internet, it gives you access to human writing resources - there are scores of writers around the world who are available to write for you for comparatively small fees for their services. You as publisher can access those resources but you still have the responsiblity to edit the writing for quality and readability as any publisher would.

Well, I can go on and on - and I will but not now in this Welcome post. Almost all blog experts recommend keeping your posts to between 300 and 500 words. (This sentence makes it 461.)

So I will close in less than 40 words while giving you my heartfelt and sincere welcome as we embark on this blogging journey together. Let’s write and enjoy it – helping each other along the way (499).
Val