Jarkko Laine » Writing

What’s Boiling?

Jarkko — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:10:44 +0000

It has been almost two months since my previous post on this blog, so I thought it’s about time to make an update and talk about what’s been going on during that time. A lot has happened, both online and inside my head. And even more is about to happen as time goes and I get all my plans put into action.

First, if you are reading this in a RSS feed reader (Special thanks to each and every one of my RSS readers who have faithfully stuck around though this quiet period!), you probably want to drop by on the site and check out the new theme I built tonight. I did it at one go, in a total state of flow, in about two hours of typing. It’s not a master piece, and it’s not meant to be one.

I call this theme “The Simplest Theme of all Time” and its only purpose for existing is to allow me to post quick updates on this blog while I’m working on the next version of JarkkoLaine.com.

On Having Two Blogs

Like most of you probably know, around the time of the last update on this blog, I started a new blog called Insanely Interested. More accurately, I moved this blog’s original idea to that new blog and started over — from scratch.

Insanely Interested is a blog about curiosity, creativity, being insanely interested in everything. The very things that this blog used to be about. But it does it in a new (and in my opinion, improved) style, striving for longer, more in-depth, maybe even magazine-like articles that I try to use to reinvent blogging.

I know that’s quite a big goal, and I have a long way to go, but you’ve got to have ambition, don’t you?

So far, I have published the following 6 posts at Insanely Interested, and more is coming at a pace of about one new post every 1,5 weeks.

In my next post at Insanely Interested, I will be talking about the building blocks of a community, and more precisely, the bright future I see for the site. I hope you will be there too to participate in building a vibrant community of people who can’t get enough of life by just focusing in one clearly-cut focal point. This will be interesting.

But while I am really happy with the direction I’m taking with Insanely Interested, and can’t wait to see the ingredients that you guys will bring to the mix, there is a lot to improve here at JarkkoLaine.com.

When you have two blogs, it doesn’t make sense to make them too similar.

That’s why, I am making a clear focus division between this blog and my new one, Insanely Interested.

JarkkoLaine.com Will be about Jarkko Laine

That’s it, in a nut shell. Exagerating only a little.

Insanely Interested will be about you. The community. Sharing our ideas about being insanely interested in everything. Getting to know other insanely interested people. Learning to cope with the personality trait. And making the most out of it.

Now, when the blog is freed from the restrictions set by bearing my name, all of that is possible.

And on the other hand, it means that I can turn the web site named after me to be about me. So, although I have been quite open and personal about my own thoughts already in the past, there will be more of that in the future.

I will talk about ideas that come into my mind. Sometimes the posts might only be a few sentences long. Sometimes much longer. Just as many characters as the thought will take to be put into words.

I will talk about things I am working on. In this sense, this will be my portfolio: the place where I share links to the things I have created. Things I have always wanted to share with you but never had a place to do it.

And naturally, I will still talk to you. If you decide to stick around (if you don’t want to stay here and read about me, please consider moving over to Insanely Interested instead), I will always welcome a comment, question or thought. And there will always be room for discussion.

After all, I wouldn’t be blogging if I wasn’t thinking about you: the reader.

Things to Check Out

Thanks for reading! Here are some links in case you are interested in seeing what I have been up to lately:

Twitter: Check out my Twitter profile and send me a “Hi” if you tweet!
North x East: A new article of mine was published just last week.
GoodReads: I’m listing my books read here. Send me a friend request and let’s compare books!
Nettuts: My first-ever NETTUTS tutorial went live today, on Friday. It’s about making WordPress plugins.

And some interesting things happening around the world right now:

The Power of Less: Leo Babauta from Zen Habits is releasing a new book around new year. This is going to be big.
Outliers: Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers, takes a close look at success and shows that we are wrong about its sources and reasons as we love the story of the self-made millionaire.
The Firefly Manifesto: Jonathan Fields is sharing a free ebook that talks about how the economic meltdown might well be the best thing that ever happened to you.

What Have You Been Up To?

That was my hello. Now it’s your turn: what have you been up to these two months? Let’s chat! And don’t forget to check out Insanely Interested, if you haven’t yet.

Will You Lead Us Out of Poverty?

Jarkko — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:00:20 +0000

When sitting inside my safe four walls, working on my blog posts, I often forget that not everyone is this fortunate. When I share my dreams, I forget that there are people who couldn’t even imagine dreaming of such things. When I lament on my busy schedule and not being able to spend as much time home with my kid as I’d like to, I forget that there are kids out there who need to work days far longer than my eight hours.

Next to me, I see a brand new copy of Seth Godin’s latest book, Tribes.

It’s staring at me:

“We Need You to Lead Us”

I guess that means me.

Why me?

And I guess that means you, too.

Will we answer the call and help lead the world out from poverty?

Blog Action Day

Today, it’s time for the second annual Blog Action Day. This year, the goal is to get people talking about poverty. And through open, lively discussion, hopefully create some action.

After all, without action, what’s the point in talking? Words are cheap, so only actions count.

Lately, I have been humbled by seeing Mark Hayward take action.

In the true spirit of Tribes, he decided to take responsibility and not wait for it to be passed to him from above.

Together with Leo Babauta and Dan Clements, Mark started Train for Humanity, a non-profit organization that combines endurance training, social media and humanitary work.

Through this simple act of acting on what he believes in, Mark has inspired over 100 people to join the initiative, and I’m sure I’m not the only one blogging about Train for Humanity today.

He is leading us towards a future with more humanity and less poverty and suffering.

Are We Ready to Lead?

Mark is not the only one: Every effort towards changing the world starts from people who take responsibility and lead. Think Bono, for instance.

A rock star is pretty much the last person you’d expect to see talking to the leaders of the world and representing the poor. It’s a world where he doesn’t quite belong. But that’s exactly what it takes to lead: You need to be ready for some discomfort. And you need to be ready to be the new kid on the block, a bit unaware of what is going on around you, but always ready to take responsibility, and learn.

Or think Blog Action Day itself. At first it was nothing more than a handful of bloggers lead by Collis Ta’eed, thinking about how they could use the blogosphere to make a difference. Today, we are going to reach an audience of over 10 million readers.

All it took was for the small group of forerunners to take the lead and inspire the rest of us to make the idea come true.

Are you ready to take that step — and lead us?

Am I ready to take the step — and lead you?

These are big questions. But I hope that together, we can come up with even bigger answers. If we are to make the most out of this Blog Action Day, we need to read what others are saying, build on their ideas, comment on them, and create a plan that we think will work.

And then, it’s time for action. The world needs us to lead the change

Goodwill and Motivation

Insanely Interested Grows Up

Jarkko — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:01:00 +0000

I have tried to predict the future many times. And looking back at my success rate it’s rather clear that predicting is not something I’m very good at. (Luckily, according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I’m not the only one — you suck at predicting just as much as I do!)

Predicting the future is hard. It’s pretty much beyond the capability of the human mind. But still, we love to do it.

I have shared my ideas: how I was going to move my blog to a new domain, or how I was going to put out a book by the end of July.

But plans always change: I still haven’t completed my book (and actually, I’m not even doing my morning routine anymore — my brother is). I still haven’t made much money online (speaking of which, check out Naomi’s SEO School; it’s back, and definitely worth reading).

And the blog move didn’t happen quite the way I had planned.

As you may remember, for a few months now, I have been talking about how I would move this blog to a new domain, insanelyinterested.com, change the layout a bit, but otherwise continue pretty much the way I have been running this blog until now.

All the time, I was working towards making the move happen. I even bought a copy of the Premium News Theme and started customizing it. I imported all my existing posts, divided them into new categories and did some editing to make them fit the more niche way of approaching the topic.

But it didn’t seem right.

I didn’t want to give up on my existing personal blog, and at the same time I felt that I should try something different that would make the new blog more useful to the reader than this one has ever been. Just importing the posts and continuing from there seemed like the lamest thing in the world to do.

I needed a fresh start.

Once again, future had shown its face, and it was quite different from what I imagined back in June.

I gave up on the premium theme and started building a theme of my own with a vision in my head:

This will be a blog where content is king. The theme will provide the bare basics to support the idea that every post is laid out differently. Every single post will be of such quality that it can make its way to the Digg front page. In this blog, every post will be a piece of art.

This should also allow me to relax a bit on this personal blog and make this a new kind of an experiment on what can come out of a personal when it’s done in a smart way. More about that in my next post.

Today I’m happy to announce that my new blog is live. Insanely Interested has been launched, and it’s only waiting for you to check it out.

From now on, the new Insanely Interested is where the most important posts on being insanely interested in everything will be posted.

I plan to put out a new post once in every 1 to 2 weeks, so that I can make sure that each post brings up new ideas and information that is worth the wait. The first post is out now, talking more about what I believe blogging should be about: Text is Art, Content is King.

The next one is scheduled to go out on October 15th, and it will be the post about being insanely interested in everything; a post in which I collect all the ideas from the past 1.5 years and summarize what I have learned so far. Mark it in your calendars — you don’t want to miss this one.

Only time will tell what comes out of this new blog. I have big hopes for it, but if I am wrong in my analysis of what you guys want to read online right now, it’s also possible that Insanely Interested will be a total flop.

But I have to take the risk — that’s the only way I will ever know: When you can’t predict, you have to put your heart out there, take a chance, and see what happens.

Now, go check out the new blog. I hope you like it!

At the end of the week, we’ll talk more about the future of Jarkko Laine dot com. Right now, cheers! This one is for making your ideas come true!

Glen Allsopp Plugs Into his Identity

Jarkko — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:52:50 +0000

Just a bit over a year ago, Glen Allsopp was an 18-year old guy from England, working in a job he hated, doing college courses that bored him to death, and running his own business part-time. In my books, that’s already quite an achievement for someone that young.

But it wasn’t enough for Glen, who wanted to plug into his real identity and live his life to the max. So, he took a job in South Africa, left his old life behind and moved to a whole new country far away from everything he knew.

If you checked out any of the links to Glen’s blog I posted last week, by now all of this is old news to you. You know who Glen is, and want to hear him speak, don’t you?

That’s why I think this is enough background.

Let’s get started with the interview questions.

Your blog is about plugging in to your identity and being the real you. But who is the real Glen? (A drawing to represent your mind would also be nice)

I’m someone who’s just realised they are not the box they thought they were trapped in. Despite doing crazy things like moving to South Africa on my own at 18, my life had been lived relatively shy and script-like.

As soon as I started to realise this, I’ve completely turned my life around. I’m starting to become a very confident person, someone who goes for what they want and I’m really enjoying life. I see it as my mission to help others do the same.

To describe myself in 5 words:

Authentic
Passionate
Non-judging
Creative
Challenging

A drawing that represents my mind:

The pink is my brain / mind, the light-bulb is my core creativity and centeredness. The green-lines are my distracting thoughts and beliefs that sometimes consume me and the majority of the planet.

This blog is about being insanely interested in everything. Often it’s not that easy to let go of all the prejudices related to the right way to lead your life and really make the most out of your unique personality. How can someone like this plug into her identity and make the most out of it?

Being insanely interested in everything must be great; I guess it keeps life interesting. I assume the prejudices you are talking about are that people think you are a little insane and should stick to one core focus.

Stick to what is true to you, because deep down you know what is right.

If being interested in everything is enjoyable and makes you happy, why change for anyone? Accept the prejudices / judgments and thrive off them. Be proud that you aren’t following the social norms and you are leading your own life.

What makes this September insanely interesting for you?

September has been very interesting for me; I’ve been offered a few great jobs in New York which I’ve turned down for personal reasons. The main thing for me this month is focusing on productivity, my workload has increased the last few months and using tools like ToDoist have really helped me keep on top of my tasks. That and the great ‘what are you doing this week’ discussions over at My Tropical Escape.

Every month is interesting because every month is different. I’ve also been planning the adventures for when my family come to visit me in Cape Town, it’s been over a year since I seen them.

What do you suggest others to do to make their September more interesting?

Do something different, give something a try, and even just set yourselves a challenge. Try a month where you try to cut costs and see how little you can spend whilst surviving. Or, look at areas of your life you would like to improve and spend a month working on them, such as going for interviews or asking for a pay rise if you want to improve your career.

I would actually recommend people try blogging if they’ve never tried it before; it can be almost meditative and could possibly become a new passion for many readers.

What is the most interesting/scary thing you have done so far in your life? How did you make yourself do it?

By far it was quitting my job in England, quitting college where I only had 1 year left (of 3) and leaving all my friends and family behind to go to Cape Town on my own (at 18). I did it by looking at my life situation, seeing if I was happy or if I wanted to make a change.

It might sound like risky business, but if the job you are doing isn’t for you and you don’t plan on extending education in the courses you are taking, why bother? That was my mentality anyway. Thanks to the support of my parents I realised it was possible and ended up in South Africa a few weeks after being offered a job.

Let’s play a word associations game: I give you five concepts, and you respond with the first idea that comes to mind.

Pizza: chicken, sweet corn, food fights, messy furniture
Pencil sharpener: scratchy, metal, small, sharp, shiny, cheap, annoying
South Africa: violence, beaches, women, sun, adventure, challenge, experience
Water: cold, windy, splashing, birds, clean, refreshing
Plug: PluginID ;), energy, voltage, electricity, implementation, doing

Thanks, Glen, this was fun!

Now, make sure to check out Glen’s blog if you haven’t yet. And even if you have, there is something big you just might have missed: an always up-to-date Personal Development Blog ranking list (too bad we’re not listed ;) Insanely Interested ranks 47th).

Insanely Interesting Links, Glen Allsop and a Book Recommendation

Jarkko — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 04:00:50 +0000

Right after posting my previous batch of insanely interesting links, I found out that Glen Allsop had founded his blog. Because he’s a great guy, I promised that in my next update, I would link to him.

Well, it wasn’t really because of that. Sure, he is a great guy, but his blog also speaks for itself. His posts truly deserve every promotion they get. Well, now it’s the time for that update.

But before we go any further, I just have to share a book recommendation.

As you know, I tend to read multiple books at a time (right now, if I haven’t forgotten some book, the number is eight). But since my latest Amazon orders arrived last week, I’ve been ignoring all my other books and concentrating on Barbara Sher’s “Refuse to Choose!”

It’s a book about us, the insanely interested. Sher uses her own term, Scanners, but the description sounds just the same as the one we have crafted at this blog. In her book, she tells that it’s perfectly normal (actually bit better than normal) to be like this way, and provides tips and tools to make the most of this special way of being.

I’m only halfway through the book, but I’m already willing to bet that you guys would like to read the book too. If you do read it, let me know what kind of ideas it raised in you! Once I’m done with it, I will also share some more of my thoughts in form of a full review.

But now, it’s time for the links:

Seth Godin writes about the financial crisis and how we don’t have to worry about it. If we are In search of value, that is.
In a guest post at Dumb Little Man, Steve Errey provides 5 Ways to Get Your Spark Back. At his own blog, The Confidence Guy, Steve provides an interesting and educating take on being more confident.
The Perfect Pitch: How to Land a Gig or Job Every Time is the topic of a recent post at Write to Done. I’m in the process of pitching a few new magazine articles, so this came at a very good time for me.
Skellie shares insight on Transforming Your Blog Into Really Big Business and strikes a chord at least in of me. This is bound to happen here too, at some point as we are slowly but steadily moving towards the new domain (insanelyinterested.com) and blog design.
When you want straight talk about running your business, you go to Trizle. This time they talk about risks: Why Take Business Risks?
This has definitely been one of the highlights from the past weeks. Ravi Vora returned to blogging after a nine month break. Hear him explain the rationale behind his hiatus.
How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci is a post from LiteMind, full of inspiration for a insanely curious mind.
Jonathan, I just had to link to this post because of the disturbing photo you used in it. Seriously though, every single post in Jonathan Fields‘ blog is full of wisdom and inspiration. No exceptions there.
Scott Ginsberg reveals his single most important secret for success. I’m not sure if I agree 100% but it’s still a good one.
And before we get to Glen, here are some images to make you wish you were rich: Rooftop Gardens in Manhattan.

And finally, Glen Allsop.

Glen is a UK guy with an interesting life story: at nineteen he has already moved out from not only his parents’ home but his home country too, and lives in South Africa from where he blogs about plugging in to your identity. We’ll be talking more about Glen in a few days when I post my interview with him.

Glen’s blog is called PluginId and here are some highlights from the past weeks:

Enjoy! As a side effect, you might well find a deeper connection to the real you.

Training for a Bigger Cause

Jarkko — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:10:22 +0000

What do you do if you are a fanatic blogger and athlete who wants to use those talents to leave the world a bit better than it was when you got it?

When faced with the question, Mark Hayward decided to go ahead and start a non-profit project to combines these interests: “Getting fit + social media + blogging = social good.”

Together with bloggers Leo Babauta and Dan Clements and with help from a bunch of other compassionate people, Mark launched his new project, Train for Humanity, on September 9th.

This must be an insanely interesting time for Mark, so let’s hear what he can tell us about it.

How did you come up with the idea for Train for Humanity?

The inspiration to try and do something to assist with humanitarian crises came many years ago while I was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Papua New Guinea. However, the idea to create Train for Humanity, which combines getting fit (training for endurance events), the internet (blogging & social media) to raise awareness and funds for people who are suffering, came to me a couple of years ago while I was out for a run after having watched a CNN story on Darfur.

How did you know this was an idea you wanted to implement?

I have known for a long time that I would implement, or undertake some type of humanitarian initiative…it was the WHAT that I didn’t know.

When thinking about new ventures I try very hard not to jump into projects too lightly or on a whim. Back around March of this year I started a self-imposed challenge to try and make money online. Really, I wanted to try and stimulate some ideas for generating passive income online.

After a couple of posts on the topic of ‘making money online’ I realized I just wasn’t into it.

All along I have had this idea to create a humanitarian project, so why not focus my energy on that and try to do some real good in the world.

How did you collect your team, and what was challenging about it?

Collecting the team of Train for Humanity collaborators was the easy part.

In fact, I found that people wanted to help. Leo Babauta, of Zen Habits, was the first person I contacted to see if he was interested in participating. About a year ago I did a guest post for Leo titled, ‘Removing Negative Thought: Tips To Overcome and Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone’ and that article was the first time I came out in public with the Train for Humanity idea and concept. So it was natural that I would ask Leo.

The next team member that I contacted was Dan Clements, author of Escape-101. I have known Dan via the internet and blogging for quite a while now and since he is a runner and has traveled quite a bit to various countries, I was really pleased that he too agreed to participate.

Once the blogger/athletes (Leo, Dan, and I) were in place it was then time for logo creation, legal input, and a website. And we wound up hooking up with Sean Hodge, Andrew Flusche, and Joshua Clanton.

Why did you pick Darfur, or genocide and civil war victims in general as the target for your project?

I can remember back to the Rwanda genocide and thinking that I did nothing to help or to try and change the situation. Also, every once and a while I would wonder, “What has happened to all of those children whose parents were killed in Rwanda?”

Darfur is the first genocide of the 21^st century. Over 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced. I might not be able to do much, but I am certainly going to try and do something.

The internet, blogging, and social media puts all of us with access on a level playing field now….you don’t have to be associated with a huge humanitarian organization. If an issue is bothering you (human rights, Darfur, animal cruelty, etc), there are so many tools available for free and when combined with a little creativity and persistence anyone, I believe, can make a difference.

How did you manage to stay focused and get the project launched?

I continued to read and get educated about Darfur, Rwanda, and to some extent the Holocaust. Two books about Darfur that I would recommend are:

Also, after I had asked the other collaborators to assist and participate, and notified Darfur Peace & Development Organization that we would be raising funds for them during the pilot phase, there really was no turning back.

Were there any surprises in the world of non-profit organizations and in launching one?

The biggest surprise came when it was time to open a bank account.

I never thought it would be so challenging. But, because I live on Culebra, a small island in the Caribbean, it was near impossible to open an online account. With e*trade financial I actually went through FOUR layers of customer service frustration over the course of three months and I finally just told them to send back all of my paperwork.

In the end, Andrew was able to get the account open.

Train for Humanity is about social media as well as training: how are you planning to use social media in the project?

Because we want to be able to provide Darfur Peace & Development with all of the funds we raise, at present we are operating on $0.00 budget. The natural fit for us to get our message out initially, and to continue to do so, was to focus on social media. On the day of the launch we started sending out Twitter messages at 7:00am.

Our goals is to be active participants in Twitter, Plurk, triiibes, and StumbleUpon. We are also in the process of setting up a Facebook page and hope to integrate more of a FLICKR and YouTube presence in the near future.

How has the Internet reacted to your launch so far? Has it matched your expectations?

The people on the internet have been very kind in helping us to get the message out and sponsoring the athletes. Leo, of course, has a huge following but the nice thing has been that it’s not just Leo’s audience…bloggers and social media users have been coming from all different places.

I didn’t really have any expectations…we have goals that we would like to accomplish, but the Train for Humanity pilot project runs until December 15^th.

We have had fewer page views than I expect after the launch but we lost a bit of momentum because my internet connection recently went down for three days…not the best online promotional strategy. :)

THANK YOU for this opportunity to dicuss Train for Humanity, Jarkko! Our message is quite simple: getting fit + social media + blogging = social good.

The program director at Darfur Peace & Development just emailed me a horrific story about how the first school that they helped to build was recently bombed and six schoolchildren were killed. Stories like the school bombing are what we are training for and why we are doing this.

Now, follow this link to sponsor Mark. Or if you like, feel free to give your donation to Leo or Dan – or why not donate something to each of them? Every penny goes to help improve the situation in Darfur.

If you can’t afford a donation, you can also help out by telling your friends about Train for Humanity, either online using your social network, or through face to face communication. t

Warning: Personal Development is a Punch in Your Face

Jarkko — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:30:07 +0000

(…or “How When You Think You Have Made It, You Are Just Getting Started.”)

Whoever said “ignorance is bliss” must have been longing for an easy life without knowing that things could be better. Most definitely, he (or she) didn’t want to be punched in the face by hearing uncomfortable truths about his path in life.

I have no idea who it was (it could have been Thomas Gray, but his version is more than just “ignorance is bliss,” and could be interpreted to mean the opposite: “where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise”) but it wasn’t a personal development writer, that’s for sure.

The more you learn about yourself and your current condition, the more aware you become of your shortcomings and all the things you still haven’t reached. Both in your personal growth and the world around you.

If it makes you do what you need to do to get where you want to be, all of this is a good thing.

But there should also be a warning label stamped on every personal development book or blog:

Warning: This book/blog/article/tutorial can make you unhappy

When you read The 4-Hour Workweek, at first you got excited, saying to yourself: “Wow, this is so awesome! I must try this right away” The first few days were pure joy, but then came the disillusionment: It’s not even remotely as easy as it sounds.

You realized that before Tim Ferriss was able to achieve the lifestyle of his dream, he worked 60-hour weeks building his business for several years — until he realized that he could leave it behind.

You realized that you couldn’t just go to your boss and tell him you quit.

You realized that you weren’t even close to the goal painted by the book.

But hopefully, you also knew that the goal was not impossible to reach — as long as you were ready to fight for it.

The same pattern is repeated over and over again with every book and blog you read: Reading Scott Ginsberg reminds me of how bad I still am at listening to people. Reading Leo Babauta makes me aware of the fact that my habits still are sloppy as ever. Reading Clay Collins tells me that I haven’t gotten any braver than I was yesterday.

But that’s good.

It’s how I want it to be.

I need to be punched in the face every now and then so that I won’t just conform to my happy but still unfinished state of being, wondering how come I’m not doing all the things I thought I wanted to do, and not being the person I want to be.

As Dren pointed out in the comments to previous post, becoming an expert in many things is no short trip at all. You need to keep learning, for years, only to realize that there is still more for you to learn. That’s where reading personal development blogs and books can help: in showing you that you still have a long way to go.

Unless this is what you’re after:

Take a look at what happened around mid-April. No, not the big fall, that was a Feedburner tracking bug. I’m talking about the rather stable 450-460 RSS readers period from April to August during which the blog subscriber count did not grow at all.

That’s what happened to my blog during the summer.

It’s not what you would have estimated based on the growth before April, is it? But it’s what you would expect to happen if you become too content with your current state. I was simply paying far too little attention to growing and improving the blog.

But this doesn’t apply only to blogging.

The same thing will happen in your personal economy, in your knowledge, and in your health, if you decide that you are good enough, and stop trying to improve.

Personal development will tell you this. It will tell you that you are in a bad shape and need to start running again.

It will hurt, but you will be glad it did — in the long run.

My next fight is to get back on track with my blog growth (you can help by subscribing and/or telling your friends about the blog, see Leo Babauta’s summary of how to help a blogger).

What is yours?

Face It, Not Checking Your E-mail All The Time is Hard

Best of July

Jarkko — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:19:48 +0000

Now that July is gone, and I’m no longer on my summer holiday, I thought it would be nice to share some great links from friends and colleagues around the world. Here at Jarkko Laine dot com the past month was slower than usual, but don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.

It’s time to get back to business.

But before that, here are some of my favorites from the past month:

Becoming the rainmaker: Generating fresh story ideas and approaches from Write to Done: A good article with advice on how to maintain a creative mindset that keeps you from running out of topics to write about. Make sure to read it if writing is your trade.
Life Laundry Day: Get Your Affairs in Order Each Week to Clear Your Mind from Zen Habits: I love the idea of having a life laundry day once every week to go through the little tasks that keep piling up throughout the week. I haven’t tried it yet, but it seems like something worth exploring.
What If You Have Many Different Interests and Cannot Commit to Any of Them? by Steve Pavlina: Steve Pavlina was the first blogger I subscribed to – ever – and one of the early inspirations that got me started in blogging. I don’t agree with everything Steve writes about (our views on spirituality, for example, differ quite a lot), but his articles on productivity and doing what you love are top notch, just like this one. And while at it, also check out this other post from Steve: Skill
Do You Have Entrepreneurial ADD? by Jonathan Fields: Jonathan asks if we suffer from entrepreneurial ADD, an inability to stick to just one entrepreneurial activity at a time. I think my answer would be yes. What about yours?
1,000 Posts and 5 Lessons in Dreaming by Jason Kotecki: Jason started blogging already in 2002, in the days when he didn’t even know the term blog. Six years and 1,000 posts later he shares some of the lessons he has learned in dreaming big, and making dreams come true. Extremely inspiring stuff.

In addition to these top posts, you might also want to check out my NorthxEast post on the Top 50 influential women of the blogosphere, and Lodevijk’s new e-book on finding your personal core values. I have started reading the book and so far it looks promising. For a definitive review on it you will still have to wait a bit, though.

And speaking of recent product launches, Nick Cernis has launched his new WordPress theme site, Wordprezzie, using a quick and dirty launch approach that he calls the one month launch. Really good stuff, and pretty much as inspiring as it gets in term of launching new projects and doing business online.

One more link: The Green Routine, a blog about going green in your everyday life, is celebrating its first month by organizing a giveaway. Go check it out!

This is it, the summer is officially over, and Jarkko Laine dot com is returning to its normal programming. Tune in next week to read my thoughts on pens, paper, and erasers.

But before that, have a great weekend!

Insanely Interested Links: Where To Find Me Online

Jarkko — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:59:59 +0000

The image in this post would really belong to my next post, but I thought that I’d share it with you now to give you a sneak preview of what’s coming up. So, early next week we’ll be talking about green lights.

But before that I want to post a collection of insanely interesting links: some new and exciting stuff I have been working on lately, and a few great posts from the blogosphere.

The Internet is such a big place.

And I have lost pieces of me scattered all over it.

In some places, like this blog, you’ll find bigger parts of my online body. And at some other locations some tinier bits of me.

The Internet is a big place, so I thought I’d give you some coordinates for finding more of me than just this blog. Come and say hi!

Hear me think

JarkkoLaine.com: My main blog talks about being insanely interested in everything: curiosity, the entrepreneurial mindset, business, learning, maintaining your big picture, and reaching towards your dreams. You are reading that blog right now – which is already a sign of my dreams coming true!
Learning Judo (Maximum efficiency, minimum effort): The companion tumblelog for this blog. Actually, I started the tumblelog before this blog, so if you are interested in reading some of my oldest writings, scroll all the way to the beginning of the blog.
Retrocod:r: The latest addition to my blog empire is kind of a tumblelog running on WordPress – with some more original content than a traditional tumblelog. This blog tries to bring the fun back to programming by looking back at the times when we were all kids on a field trip to understanding how to command a computer.
SproutWire: SproutWire is not really a blog, but a place for finding interesting links about small business and entrepreneurship. It’s a project from Shane and Peter, and I am just one of the proud contributors.

Talk to me

What’s great about the Internet is that it’s not a one way medium. When you read a blog post that makes you think – either agreeing or disagreeing – you can talk back to the writer. You can tell what sites you like using StumbleUpon or Digg. You can send e-mail.

And then there is the whole new world of social media where people can share thoughts in a still much more interactive way making new friends and keeping in touch with old ones. If you haven’t tried these sites yet, give them a shot:

Plurk: Plurk is the new kid on the blog. With only thousands of users it’s still slick (and hopefully remains that way in the coming months and years as well). The communication at Plurk is lively and the UI is really nice, so it has quickly become my favorite stop on the web. Check it out and leave a note, if you dare. It’s addicting, you know!
Twitter: I signed up to Twitter already a long time ago, but never really got started with it. But when I got excited about Plurk, Twitter followed. So, if you are a Twitter user rather than a Plurker, you can follow me on Twitter too!

That’s it pretty much – for now. (Oh well, I could just as well mention Flickr and StumbleUpon too)

What about you, where are you surfing? Share your links in the comments so we can follow each other!

Insanely interesting links

And now, before we go and enjoy the weekend away from the computers, here are some of the most interesting links from the past few weeks:

It Doesn’t Have to Be All or Nothing With a Startup: David from 37signals writes about starting your business and how you can do it will even a small time investment.
Why the Law of Attraction is Wrong – But Why It Still Works: Leo Babauta writes his thoughts about the now famous law of attraction, and I couldn’t agree more.
Happiness and the End of the Working Week: I actually linked to this post already this week, but it’s such a great take on the popular problem of not being happy at work that I think it’s worth sharing again.
27 Reasons People Aren’t Listening to You: There is one thing that is quite special about Scott Ginsberg: he never writes bad posts (although he writes a lot of them). This one is no exception.
A Rookie Entrepreneur Looks Back at Lessons Learned During Year One: Mark Hayward shares the lessons learned during his first year of running a business at the Caribbean. Inspiring stuff!
DIY Internet Marketing – let’s play like adult! Internet marketing is a hot topic for me, as you have seen from my Make Money Online Challenge posts. Terence Chang has some good advice.

As always, feel free to share your top links in the comments. If, because of the links, the comment gets eaten by my spam filter and doesn’t show up, just send me a quick e-mail and I’ll make your comment show up!

Photo by grendelkhan

The Second Year

Jarkko — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:00:13 +0000

Yesterday, I posted a look back at the first year of this blog’s existence, and highlighted some posts from every month to show the progress that has been made throughout the past twelve months.

This first year has taught me a lot about blogging, life, and what I want to achieve through this blog. Now is the time to switch to a new gear, and start the second year.

I gave some hints about my plans yesterday, when I linked to my new web store, the Insanely Interested Store.

But before I get ahead of myself, let’s look at the three distinct goals for the new year.

1. Moving the blog

When I started my blog, I had no idea what I would be writing about, so as I noticed that jarkkolaine.com was still available (for some reason, the other Jarkko Laine had picked jlaine.net for his blog) so the choice was simple, I used my name for my blog.

Another reason behind this decision was that I had just finished reading Scott Ginsberg‘s book, Make A Name For Yourself, and thought that having a blog bearing my name would be a great way to implement the things I was learning from Scott.

All the reasons were valid, and in fact during this year, I have been able to secure the number one position for the words “Jarkko Laine” on Google – so, in a way, I guess I have made some name for myself. But it’s not quite that simple.

A few days back, James Chartrand wrote a good post about why personal branding might not be the best way to go that summarizes some of the thoughts behind my new direction. In short, the name is limiting my options for growing the blog outside the boundaries set by my personal resources.

So, during this summer, I am making the bold leap of faith of turning my personal blog into a clearly defined niche blog for people insanely interested in everything. The topic will be the same as what you have learned to expect from this blog – just a bit better defined and marketed (the first signs of this change will be a new version of the about page and the definition of a person insanely interested in everything that are still coming up this month).

If you follow the blogging site, North x East, you have probably read my new post, “The Blog-Myth Revisited” about building a blogging system; working on a blog rather than working in one. I am now taking my own advice, and in a few weeks I’ll have the first version of my blogger’s guide ready for a test ride.

And for that, I need you.

If you enjoy writing, and feel that you have something to contribute to this blog, get in touch! I’m looking for two bloggers to write one to two posts following my blogger’s guide to put the guide to a test. And no, I’m not asking you to work for free: I will pay $50 for each post.

Right now, it’s just a test run, but I hope it will turn into something more permanent in a few month’s time.

2. Growing the readership

When I started the blog I had no readers. While this is no surprise as every blogger has to start from the bottom, what amazes me is that in just one short year the number has kept growing slowly but steadily, reaching the all time high today with 449 RSS subscribers. If you don’t yet belong in that group, now is your chance to become subscriber number 450.

For quite some time already, my goal has been to reach the magical limit of 500 subscribers. That still remains my first goal.

But that’s also something we should be able to reach rather soon, so it’s time to start coming up with new big hairy audacious goals:

Keep most of my readers in the move. Some of my favorite bloggers, including Dave Navarro, have made a blog move in the past months, and from reading their reports it has become clear that getting everyone to follow is not something easy to do. But I hope I can learn from their experience – and of course, you guys will help me.
Grow the subscriber count to 1000. Doubling the subscriber count during next year would mean continuing the same growth rate as the first year, so that should be doable.
But it’s not big and scary enough, so I doubled it for this second year’s goal. 2000 subscribers? It’s good to have some impossible goals.

3. Making money online

This is actually a topic for another discussion, and I’m already looking forward to writing the next make money online report. But as the new web store is a part of the new blog domain, I feel that I need to write some words about it.

At first, the new web store will contain the four books that I have already been promoting on the blog. Out of them, three are already up, and I’m adding the fourth early next week:

The idea of this store is to complement the offering of this blog by highlighting more quality content that I have found useful and interesting. Every product is something I have tried myself and can be proud to promote. So, first of all it’s about value to you, the reader.

But of course it’s also about making money. This month, I have sold seven products, out of which my affiliate share is about $50, which I hope to grow in the future months to enable me to outsource more of the writing and grow the blog.

I’ll write more about this, along with detailed reports of my May progress in the Make Money Online challenge at the end of the month.

Looking forward to another exciting year

This was it. It’s all still really high level, but I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on the ideas and the direction. Do you think I’m doing the right thing? Making a big mistake? And what makes you think so?

One thing is for sure: this second year will be at least as interesting as the previous one! Cheers!