Need some blogging inspiration? Look to yourself

Looking for inspiration for a blog post? Look no further than yourself.

You may be your best blogging inspiration. You and your blog posts to-date.

That’s right. You. Yourself.

1. Curve back into your blog. Look at your earlier writing. Revisit your earlier ideas.
2. Find the theme you were developing.
3. Find the content, the lists of tips, the lists of resources in your posts.
4. Add what you’ve learned to date. 
5. Use your sharpened writing skills.
6. Stir it all up.

Presto, a more complete idea or a more a complete articulation or a reversal. Reversals are ok. That shows we have learned. And, we show others it is ok to learn, too.

Here’s two benefits:

1. Impress your audience. Show them your growth. Engage with them and share this growth in this conversation on your blog.
2. Impress yourself. Show yourself how far you have grown. Prove to yourself and those around you another value of your blog.

What 'globalization' means for the future

Waving Goodbye to Hegemony is worth the read to challenge your assumptions of what globalization, global competition and a new world order, one where oil is traded using Euros not dollars, China absorbs Taiwan, and our time as the sole superpower wanes. As the article states:

The more we appreciate the differences among the American, European and Chinese worldviews, the more we will see the planetary stakes of the new global game. Previous eras of balance of power have been among European powers sharing a common culture. The cold war, too, was not truly an “East-West” struggle; it remained essentially a contest over Europe. What we have today, for the first time in history, is a global, multicivilizational, multipolar battle.

Plenty of Jobs....

In Tucson, Sue Foust was sifting through options for new jobs yesterday, having been laid off from an AOL software testing site, where she worked for the last decade. Ms. Foust, 41, had been making about $65,000 a year as a software quality assurance engineer, she said. Comparable prospects seemed poor, and she was growing resigned to finding secretarial work.

“There’s plenty of jobs if you want to make $10 an hour,” Ms. Foust said. “I’ll probably wind up taking something that pays half of what I used to.” - NY Times article Slowing Job Growth Seen as Ominous Sign for Economy .

Yep. Plenty of jobs being created in the economy. Fewer and fewer include wages that can afford health care. The average salary for American workers has declined this year.

The solution for our consumer driven economy's ongoing success is to find a way to develop jobs that don't come with a 60% pay cut.

Turning the ship...

Turning the ship...

That's what it felt like this morning in my head....After 3 days off, and only a few hours during that time working, it was like trying to turn that mental ocean liner back towards THIS shore. THIS shore being the work shore.

It's not like I don't like what I do. I do; I love it; I love the people I work with. But...3 days of relative silence in the mind....was tough to leave this Tuesday morning.

Bob Walsh at To Do or Else blog offers a simple solution for those of you who may face this same challenge today. It's on his post titled: Jumpstart your Tuesday . His solution? When in doubt, clean a drawer. It's something he heard on his GTD CONNECT ipod feed.

I loved it. Why? It was simple, effective, real. You could get results immediately. ( You could spend twice as much theorizing as doing; but why.) And he shares photos, BEFORE and after. Man of great courage. I wouldn't share a photo of one of my drawers even AFTER I'd cleaned it up...

Bob's passion in life seems to be getting things done. Besides his blog, he has a company focused on this goal.Safari Software.  40,000 people seem to think he's got a solution with that product. I don't know, yet. But...it's intriguing.

Disclaimer: Bob emailed methis morning; Wants to talk with me about blogs and how we use them at Conference Calls Unlimited; that's for his book. That's how I found his company and blog.  Regardless, had I found his blog through other means I'd still have shared it. Why? Well, today's post was spot on both for my general mental milieu and for the clutter on my desk greeting me this sleepy morning. And his posts offer solutions. I like solutions.

Technorati Tags: GTD, GTD Connect, jumpstart

Blogging, 5 x 5: How to Overcome Your Fear, What to Write

Debbie Weil offers 5 Tips to Overcome Your Fear of Blogging.

Andy Wibbels offers 5 Things to Blog About Right Now.

And a cup of coffee to jump start the synapses and away you go.  To show I'm helpful...the first non-blogger to leave a comment on this post gets a $10 Starbucks gift card.

WHAT, exactly are you waiting on?

A glimpse of one future scenario

Reading about Russia's dispute with the Ukraine over the price of its natural gas supplies I realized this is but the first of many similar, near-identical, scenarios we'll see as economies develop and the demand for energy resources grow. 

Granted, Russia's decision to increase their natural gas prices by 4-fold helped make the recent increases of 50% this year and 100% last year seem mild, tolerable, even kind by comparison.

But Russia's decision to cut their supplies pending Ukraine's bowing before them had a significant impact on...Europe's supplies of natural gas. And from there, their ability to drive their economy and heat their homes and feed their citizens.  It could have got ugly, real quick.

"This further underlies the need for greater diversity of supply and more storage capacity for natural gas," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Gas-importing countries will recognize the need to build in buffers."