Advice Worth Paying For

Like solving problems yourself? Me, too. We are problem-solving creatures, by nature. Without some problems, we lose spirit and spunk, and some of the real zest for life.

But what about those problems you just can’t seem to wrestle to the ground? Well, I’ve just learned (again) that it is sometimes worthwhile to pay someone to help you solve such problems. I’ll illustrate:

1. Keener is unhappy with lack of growth of the Keener Living audience: very little increase in the number of subscribers over the past year.
2. Attempts several design tweaks.
3. Experiments with writing different types of articles.
4. Repeats 1, 2, and 3 lots and lots of times.

After finally realizing I was getting nowhere in solving this problem, I paid $100 for a quick assessment by a pro. From this I learned that

• I have too much variety in topics: life management, technology, science, theology, blogging, productivity, guitar music, parallel universes, …
• Doesn’t do good job of pointing to most popular articles (apparently the sidebar links fail in this regard)
• Needs a logo instead of a text header.

There’s more advice, but you get the point: paying for professional advice let me see where my real problems are, not just what I perceived them to be.

So, if you have a problem that is just not going away, this is a reminder that it may be time for you to get some professional advice on it.

Ah, But There’s More

Another thing you can do is to just talk the problem out with others, even if they aren’t experts. It might not get you the best results, but will sure be better than beating your head against the wall trying to solve it yourself.

For example, in just thinking about how to share this topic with you, I learned something else. (That is, in talking to you, I learned something.) Specifically, while the pro noted that I should move the music elsewhere and focus on life-management + productivity + technology, I am thinking now that I should focus on life-management + learning + technology.

For example, when I have talked about parallel universes, it has been done with the intent of helping you learn about something new. Why do that? Because, while I don’t know if there is a life after this one, I do know that this one is short and that you stand a better chance of doing well with it if you keep learning all of your life. That’s something that is important to me, and I believe everyone should do it.

So, What Will I Do With This Site?

I will focus on life management, learning, and technology topics. I do not plan to blog anymore on blogging-related topics, unless there is a general educational theme that can be made obvious. While I enjoying blogging about blogging, I will try to write those sorts of articles for publication on other blogs, such as was the case with my recent guest post at Search Engine Land.

The music? Ah, I am undecided how to best proceed on that. Technically the pro was right: it doesn’t belong here (there is not even a link to it in the menu right now), in that it doesn’t fit cleanly with anything else. My initial intent with it was to share it (1) so that I didn’t die with my music in me, so to speak, and (2) to emphasize that we should make use of our talents, all of them, and not just let them linger. But, I have not done a good job in putting the latter point across.

So, I suspect I will set up a separate site for the music. Stay tuned (pun intended, snicker, snicker, snicker).

As to the design of the site, we’ll see. I’m kinda happy with the current one, but I am also open to change. I do want to make sure I am sufficiently pleased with the design before hiring someone to design a logo for the site.

And, of course, I am always open to your thoughts.