Delays. It’s been a while since my last blog. I traveled twice (once outside the US and once inside the US). I came down with Salmonella after one trip and an unusable shoulder/arm after another. But, I could still have gotten something accomplished if I had pushed myself. But I didn’t. Why not?
I started my blog, Technoglot, to fill a need that I saw to help general non-technical people better understand everyday technology that was continuing to migrate from interesting to essential. I focused on this for the first few years but received few comments and — more importantly — no suggestions as to what areas of technology people might want more information about. I slowly started opening up the subject areas — to talking about issues and things about which, perhaps, people might want to see another point-of-view. And this has continued.
This is my 300th blog and my first substack posting. I have been looking at moving over to substack for more than a year. I have had more than 175,000 (looks more impressive than 175K doesn’t it?) views over my 17 years of publications. While trying to gain a greater distribution, I tried to use some distribution schemes that didn’t allow “any marketing or commercialism” — so I turned off Google AdWords (turning it back on was a trial and tribulation). By the way, Google AdWords only produced less than $10 over the period of 17 years (what type of corruption were these channels worried about with GoogleAds?) — not enough for them to ever issue a check.
To summarize, working on my blogs has served my primary purpose pretty well — to give back to the world from whence I have learned things and have obtained support for my life. I might wish for better distribution and I recognize that, if I worked hard at it, that might have been obtained. But, if one’s name is not well known, a focus is needed for such branding/marketing. Joe Blow’s ideas about the universe has limited attraction (though Joe might have the best ideas around).
But that secondary purpose of supplementing my retirement (and general) income hasn’t turned out so well. For the present, there will be no difference between free and paid subscriptions within substack. That may change as I understand the medium and I get a better grasp on what the readership (if any) wants. But, if extra money is burning a hole in your pocket I am willing to help.
So, I enter the world of substack. It is one of those many areas where, once you know what you are doing, everything is plain and simple. Getting to that point requires a lot of looking, researching, reading, and finally — just making the leap. I apologize for all current, and future, idiocies I may do within the realm of SubStack. I truly am doing my best..
Does this blog/post have any purpose other than announcing a couple of milestones (300 POSTS!) and (175K VIEWS!)? And announcing a start within the substack world? Yes — back to that title about delays.
Every person has delays in their life. Every business encounters delays in their ongoing existence. They can be categorized somewhat. I will use terms that are more applicable to personal life. There are possibly other terms more applicable to business. These fall into the areas of travel, illness, procrastination, and trepidation. There is an additional area of resource blockage (not enough money, time, machine parts, delivery trucks available, …) but this isn’t really about general logistics (which can be a fascinating subject).
Travel changes things. You don’t have available what you had available before. You have additional things to do (sightsee, explore the area, learn to drive a traffic circle going clockwise rather than counter-clockwise (or vice versa)). Most importantly, schedules must change. These are all great advantages for some purposes (R&R, general enjoyment, etc.) but can really bother the mundane purposes that you may be trying to escape (write a blog, get a report ready, make a customer presentation). No matter how much you may (or may not) enjoy travel — it will cause delays.
Illness can affect in different degrees. A common cold may just make things a bit slower while food poisoning may prevent you from straying from the bathroom for days. While not called illness in business, such is still possible. An earthquake, fire, or other natural disaster can occur (this will also affect personal lives). Human-made problems also come up — hopefully relatively peaceful but one also has to allow for non-peaceful disruptions.
Procrastination and trepidation are closely related. Procrastination happens when there is nothing stopping you from proceeding — or you can handle anything that might hinder you — but you do not proceed. There can be many reasons behind such. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of loss of excuses. Many of the underground excuses arise out of fear.
Trepidation is associated with a particular set of fears — fear of making mistakes, fear of not doing well enough, fear of rejection, fear of retaliation (or active rejection), fear of being ignored. Starting a new business may easily arouse trepidation. (And starting within a new medium may also arouse such. Certainly, getting started within Substack has had a lot of challenges. Some have been achieved but there are sure to be a number in the future.)
Eventually, a decision has to made. Does the desired event have sufficient value to cause a desire to overcome obstacles? That is a question answered only by each person, or company, in their own way.
