The Rise Of The Phoenix

WordPress – it’s a content management system, a blogging platform and “that place you put your blog on”. It’s often thought of in relation to blogs, but have you ever thought of it as a “place to put your site on”? Thousands have, and many of them are big brands. WordPress is a flexible, viable solution for many, and it might just be the right one for you, as well.

WordPress for Website Developers

Any website developer worth their salt would raise their noses at a program (sneer) that helps them code. However, many a developer has some sort of bare-bones, wire-frame template they use to speed up the coding process.

WordPress is simply that wire-frame template, with the added bonus of a friendly user interface. If you’re a coding guru and know how to create that UI type of thing, you may not find anything worth using on WordPress (other than the fact that it can save you time). If, however, you learned your coding skills through reverse engineering and haven’t quite gotten around to creating user friendly interfaces, WordPress is something worth looking into.

Some of what WordPress provides website developers:

• Complete content management system with database integration
• 5 minute initial setup
• Wire framework for a complete website
• Thousands of templates for inspiration
• Thousands of plugins for inspiration (or quick, added functionality)
• Easy “hooks” for creating your own plugins with the Plugin API (split between filter hooks and action hooks).
• Out of the box blog and site integration

The above is just a short list. We’d be remiss if we left out the fact that it’s developed through open source, which is one of the biggest reasons why WordPress is in wider use than Drupal or Joomla. Open source allows the platform to grow in leaps and bounds beyond the “competition”.

In fact, if you use WordPress in the right frame of mind, it can be an excellent tool to speed up your coding time and reduce costs. The key, however, is to use it in the right frame of mind, which brings us to the biggest con for developers…

The #1 Con of WordPress for Developers

Stay Away From The Crutch

Like any tool, WordPress can quickly become a crutch. –And, like any crutch, it can change the way you design and code. What often happens is developers get stuck in an, “I’m going to create a WordPress site,” frame of mind.

The problem is that WordPress sites have a WordPress feel. Once you’ve seen a few, you really have seen most. Oh, colors may be radically different, and layouts slightly different, but all in all, you know when you’re looking at a WordPress site.

The “trick” to using WordPress is to use it like any other tool. “I’m going to create a website. One of the tools I’m going to use is WordPress.” With this frame of mind, you really can do anything you or the client imagines (although that’s not always a good thing).

WordPress for Website Owners

“Anything?” the website owner asks. “Anything,” we reply. –And that’s one of the biggest pros for website owners. WordPress is extremely flexible, allowing for a variety of site types, functions and designs. Don’t take our word for it, though. WordPress is used by thousands of sites; each uses it the way it was intended – as a simple platform, with ultimate design freedom:

Bedford Hotel

Appleton Estate

Ford Auto Shows

Platinum Games

Flippa K

Yess BMX

WordPress Pros for Website Owners

There are so many pros, when it comes to using WordPress as a site owner, that it would take a book to list them – or at the very least, an eBook. With that in mind, we chose a few out of the many. The number one, however, is usability.

WordPress, for the non-coding site owner, is extremely easy to use. If you know how to use a document editor like Microsoft Word or Open Office Docs, you’ll quickly learn how to use it. In fact, a brief WordPress walkthrough can get you blogging and creating site content in a few minutes time. Another guide on widgets and plugins will help you customize your site like nobody’s business.

If you’re using the platform to host a business site or blog, we highly recommend using a WordPress developer. A developer will be able to give you exactly the look, feel and usability you need to properly showcase your business.

However, if you have limited funding, or are using the platform for a hobby business or just for fun, there are:

• Hundreds of thousands of free themes
• Thousands of affordable premium (or paid) themes
• Thousands of plugins and widgets
• Five (at least) choices of WordPress
  • WordPress.com – for those without a hosting provider
  • WordPress.org – for those with a hosting provider
  • WordPress Multisite – for those that need to create a network of sites with separate themes and information, but want to manage them all from a single point
  • BuddyPress – for those that want to create their own niche social network
  • bbPress – for those that want to build a forum
• Thousands of resources to learn how to create, build, manage and use a WordPress site, including:
  • WP Beginner
  • WordPress TV
  • WP Candy
  • WP Designer

Instead of going on, we’ll just finish the list by saying: there’s a whole WordPress world out there. Search for anything you want, need or would like to see and you’ll find tons of resources, examples, themes and how-tos. If you have the time to learn, and don’t have the funding to hire someone to build your site, WordPress (free) is an excellent program to use.

Link Love

A Side Note, A Question and Some Link Love

This is, of course, our opinion, based on three years of consistent WordPress use, design, development, and coding. Like any platform, WordPress has its problems (mainly in the area of third-party plugins); it’s not perfect. Yet, when you’re talking about a platform with a high number of pros for both the coder and the site owner, WordPress makes the grade.

Here’s a question for you, and a chance to get some link love: do you use WordPress? If you do, we’d like to see what you’ve done with your site. Drop your site link in the comments below. If we get enough respondents, we might be able to create a voting poll on “best WordPress site”!

We’re buried in the Internet day in and day out. Being surrounded by the very things we talk about, it’s hard to remember sometimes that some people don’t have so much as the basics. Today, we’re going to walk you through one of the foundations of traffic building – a company blog. From the concept to the reality, here’s a step-by-step process to creating a company blog for traffic generation.

I want to start a blog

Blog Conceptualizing Stage

It’s easy to say, “I want to start a blog”. Without taking time for the conceptualizing, however, you’ll end up with just another blogging graveyard. As with anything else in business, it takes planning.

#1: Decide how often you can afford to write blog posts.

Tip: Be realistic. We strongly caution our clients on the number of blog posts they plan to write per month. Many companies – especially SMBs – don’t have the resources to write every day, even if they wanted to. Our rule of thumb is to start conservatively. You can always add in an extra post here and there; what you don’t want to do is miss a planned post.

#2: Create an information schema / content layout.

It's Imperative

An information schema is simply a layout of your blog’s information structure. How will you provide this information to your readers? What drop downs will you have, if any? What categories will you have?

Tip: When it seems that you have too many categories, make sure some of the categories can’t be combined under a more general one. For more information and help about creating your blog’s information schema, read: Information Architecture: Content Layout is Everything.

#3: Choose a design that supports your business niche.

For example, if you have a portfolio and want to use your company blog as a way to showcase that portfolio, some designs will support this better than others. The same for showcasing specific products, photographs and so on.

Tip: Spend time searching through free WordPress themes before contacting a designer (we’re strong supporters of WordPress as a blog or site platform). The slowest part of starting a blog is the designing stage; if you come to the designer with something tangible that can be modified to fit your needs and brand, it’ll go a lot faster and smoother.

Blog Creation Stage

You’ve followed steps one through three, and now it’s time to start blogging, right? Wrong. It still has to be built. If you already have a business website and you simply plan to add a blog, you can move on to step 6. For everyone else, read on.

Step #4: Choose an appropriate domain name.

Your domain name is your URL, like http://example.com.

Tip: Make it easy to remember. People often try to stuff their domain name full of keywords. That’s all fine and dandy, but you want to make sure people will remember it enough to type it in.

Choose wisely...

Step #5: Choose your hosting provider.

Hosting providers are the landlords of the Internet. They have the online homes, and you have to rent them.

Tip: Do your research! There are some reputable hosting providers. However, this is one of the niches that call to scam artists and con men. If you can, get a referral from someone you trust. If you can’t, research, research, research!

Step #6: Give your web developer access to your servers to upload your fresh new blog platform and design.

This isn’t a difficult process but, if your hosting provider doesn’t have a one-click install process, you need to know what you’re doing.

Tip: Many hosting providers allow you to set up a login for website administrators. If you don’t want your web developer to have your account information, you can either:

a)      set up an account for them to access you site or

b)      call the hosting provider’s customer service and ask them to do it for you

Step #7: Walk through the finished blog setup.

What's wrong with this picture?

Before you go live, you want to make sure everything looks good – no errors, no issues.

Checklist:

• All links are working.
• All images are visible.
• The design isn’t skewed in any way.
• The blog looks the same across a wide variety of browsers. Tip: you can use Browser Shots for this.
• Your social network links are immediately visible.

Step #8: Make sure you know how to use the platform.

Tip: Your web developer should be able to give you a short training session on how to use the platform.

Step #9: Write your first blog.

Tip: Introduce yourself to your incoming audience. What will the blog be about? What kind of things do you plan on sharing? Make sure they know your blog is always a work in progress (every blog is).

Step #10: Publish your first blog.

With WordPress, this is as simple as copy/pasting the content from a Word document to the WordPress editor and pushing Publish. If you followed these steps in order, you already know how to use your platform.

Step #11: Make your blog visible to the public.

This entire time, your blog should be set to be ignored by search engines. It’s now time to change this.

Visibility is a must

Step #12: Link your site to your blog and vice versa.

Don’t skip this step! If you’re getting traffic to your company site, you want to use your blog to keep bringing that traffic back. When you start getting traffic to the blog, you want that traffic to also go look at your site, where your products/services can be found.

A Few Last Tips

Remember that a blog – even a company blog – isn’t a sales platform. Sure, you can use it to showcase some of your products and services, but people visit a blog for information, not to buy things.

Keep your tone personable. You aren’t selling your services here; you’re introducing people to your company, your brand, and the people behind that brand. Talk to your readers; create conversations. Respond to them when they comment. In other words, think of your blog as your PR platform… because it is.

We hope this step-by-step walk through gets you started on your way towards many happy years of blogging. Last but not least, don’t force it to grow. A blog is a living platform; when nurtured and cared for, it’ll grow on its own.

Company blogging - should you? shouldn't you?

For many companies, blogs are either a major point of interest or they get little to no attention. So what happens if your company’s blog is, in fact, potentially damaging your company’s brand?

Do you pull it entirely? Do you rework it in order to improve the company brand? Or do you just leave things the way they are and deal with it later?

If your company’s blog is leaving you with a number of question marks, here are some factors to consider:

• Is the blog offering major benefits to our company or not? – In the event you’re having questions, list the pros and cons of the blog. If there are more negative aspects than positive reasons for keeping the blog, you may want to can it;
• Is the blog taking too much time away from staff responsibilities? – Measure the time and effort spent on the blog. Is it costing the people running it too much of one, or both? You may determine that their resources can be better spent elsewhere, instead of on the blog;
• Is the blog potentially damaging our credibility as a company? Another factor to look at is the credibility of your blog. Is it putting your company in a potentially negative light? Are you getting complaints about it? With negative information only taking seconds to whip around the Internet, just one slip up on the blog could be devastating for your business;
• Is it wise to simply up and remove the blog? To just abandon the blog without any explanation could be more damaging – from a PR sense – than continuing it. Take the time to decide if removing the blog presents more issues than solutions.

Faceless company blogging

While your company may be or may not be ready to answer some or all of those questions, keep in mind that a bad blog can do quite an amount of harm to your company’s branding efforts.

Among the signs your company’s blog could be causing you problems are:

• You spend excessive time on your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and less time on cranking out useful blog material;
• You’re very intermittent when it comes to posting on the company blog site. To the reader, you’re pointing out that the blog is not a high priority with the company. Hence, what else may not be high on the priority list regarding your products and/or services? The dedication to the blog needs to be there from the start;

Confrontation Central

• You use the blog to confront customers. While some customers may take to your blog to comment in a negative manner on your products and/or services, it doesn’t behoove you to trash them in return. If you’re using the company blog to engage customers in a negative manner, it can certainly reflect badly on the business;
• You have a blog that isn’t search engine friendly. Make sure your company blog has solid headlines, keyword links and is updated regularly. The more you follow these rules, the better your blog will rank among the search engines.

A company blog is not rocket science, but it does take some solid planning and thought. Without both of those, your ability to profit from a company blog is slim to none.

One of many pings...

One of our favorite past clients, and one of our most loyal supporters, recently asked about pinging blogs:

“Do you find it beneficial to ping your blog? I have done it. I usually use pingoat, pingfarm and pingomatic. I didn’t see anything in your blog about it. Any thoughts?”

Thanks for the question, Carla. We do have some thoughts, as a matter of fact – lots!

Ping – The Go To Guy for Website Owners

If you’re used to IT lingo, it’s important to point out that this isn’t the same as pinging an IP address.
We’d like to introduce you to PING, your personal search engine notifier. PING, in this instance, stands for Packet InterNet (or Inter-Network) Groper. This utility is the go-to guy. Have you ever wondered how Feedburner, for instance, knows you have new content on the site to send out? Or how this RSS feed directory or that one knows your site has changed?

You send out a ping, he runs to the search engines or social bookmarking sites, and says, “Psst! There’s content over there!” Maybe he waves his hands in the air, jumping up and down to get their attention, whichever visual you prefer.

In other words, ping notifies the search engines, feed directories, social bookmarking sites, etc. that new content has been published. He invites their crawlers back for a read. Seconds later (a long time in Internet years), a bot from the site or search engine PING notified comes by for a visit to peruse the new content you put up.

New content crawled, newest page (potentially) indexed – et voila!

Why You Might Ping Your Site/Blog…

Google Crawl

Pinging is a way to help the spiders crawl your site faster. Not to say they don’t do their job, but some people, especially those with a short amount of patience, think it can be done better.

We often see Meta tags that try to tell the spiders when to come back to the site – i.e. how often they should visit. However, the “revisit-after” tag isn’t a command; it’s a suggestion. In fact, it’s a: “Hey. If you feel like – you know – maybe, sorta, kinda, paying attention to this sign that says ‘come back tomorrow’, would you maybe, sometime, possibly consider it?” Generally, this tag is just plain ignored.

Crawlers have a “how often”, a “how fast” and a “how deep” set of instructions when they visit your site. You can specify the rate you want the Googlebot to crawl your site (for example), but “how often” and “how deep” are up to the bot. All setting the rate does, is tell the bot how long you want it to wait between each page request. This setting is used to ensure the crawling doesn’t overwhelm your bandwidth.

As well, your site may not be set up in an efficient, “spider-friendly” manner (this is one of the reasons it’s a good idea to have a sitemap). Therefore, you might have some pages crawled and indexed, while others are left hanging out in the non-crawled, non-indexed ethereal NeverWhere.

The “revisit-after” Meta tag doesn’t work. You can’t tell crawlers to come back at a certain time. – And, since your site may or may not be crawler-friendly, you’re left with few options if you want your content crawled quickly and efficiently.

Before you start pinging, don’t forget a sitemap

This is an excellent time to mention sitemaps again. Having a sitemap on your site, as well as added to Google Webmaster Tools, helps in several ways:

• Ensures that pages within the sitemap are indexed
• Helps search engines better understand your site layout
• Allows you to tell the search engines how often you plan to update your content

Most importantly, a sitemap provides a user-friendly experience that can help visitors with little time quickly find what they’re looking for. Of course, you can use an onsite search function, but what if they don’t know exactly what they’re looking for? A successful site owner always has to take these considerations into account.

Offer Help when you can

When to Ping

There’s nothing wrong with pinging search engines, social bookmarks and RSS feeds. However, there’s a caveat to that. You don’t want to ping these places every five minutes; it’s called spam-pinging, and if it has “spam” in the word, you know it’s not a good thing.

So when’s the best time to send a PING? The only time you really have a good reason to ping a site is when you’ve a) put up new content or b) changed content so much it might as well be new.

Pinging in WordPress

WordPress has a built in PING feature, which means you don’t have to worry about manual pinging. However, it’s also an over-eager feature.

WordPress automatically notifies popular Update Services that you’ve updated your blog by sending a XML-RPC ping each time you create or update a post. [our emphasis]

Sounds good, right? Except… the bolded part of the statement above is a problem. This means, every time you update a post – whether it’s a single update (make all changes and save) or several updates (make changes, save, make changes, save) -, each “Save” sends a PING.

Could you be spam-pinging through WordPress without knowing it?

If you publish every day and are someone who makes changes, then saves and makes more changes, the answer is… maybe. Fortunately, some plugins will help you cut down on the amount of times WordPress unnecessarily pings; other plugins can help you keep track of where your site is pinging (list of WordPress PING plugins here).

Crawled Doesn’t Mean Indexed

Before you jump on and start throwing pings around, understand that pinging doesn’t do anything for ranking; it’s not a short cut. It doesn’t guarantee ranking any more than crawling guarantees indexation. It doesn’t even guarantee traffic (unless you count bot traffic).

The only thing PING does is notify, so the crawlers will come. What happens then is up to your content and your site.

Jumping with your eyes closed

Therefore, before worrying about a ping, make sure your site and content is in good order. Make sure your current pages are being indexed; if they aren’t, deal with that issue first. Make sure your headlines are interesting and actionable, because they’ll be seen first – in the SERPs, in the RSS feeds and in the social bookmarks. Once you know everything is good, only then should you consider using PING.

Blog writing – it’s one of the hardest, easiest, most frustrating, most relaxing, creative, unoriginal thing you can do… ish. On the good days, you get an idea and golden words just flow from thought to fingers to keyboard to publish. On the bad days, every word you put down is an exercise in pulling teeth.

Sometimes they're just words...

At least for us, some of that frustration comes from needing to get the words right. We talk a lot about getting the right tone, being grammatically correct, having few errors… and it’s important, especially when blogging for business. However, that sort of thing can often inhibit the creative process.

Then, you have guest blogging and writing for clients, and that takes… well, work. For the most part, you aren’t free to just write; you have to match the tone and topics the site visitors are used to reading about. You need to research. You need to look at things like:

• Previously covered topics – you don’t want to be redundant
• Previously written articles – compare the different tones of the guest writers and decide whether you’re a good fit
• Their incoming links – a good indication of the type of visitors a site has can be found by looking at who is linking to them.
• Comments, if they’re allowed – you can gain a lot of insight into visitors by what they say

No matter what you’re writing, however – or who you’re writing for, the five ways laid out below are quick and to the point. If you’re new to writing, hesitant, or a veteran who needs a little reminding, read on, kimosabe!

5 Ways to Sharpen Your Writing Skills

Yes you can!

In today’s society, the demand for writers who can actually write and spell is much higher than it ought to be. Nowadays, it seems people get too caught up with the intricacies of the written word, which, sometimes, aren’t even accurate.

For example, what about the rule “i before e, except after c”? Well, that’s a bunch of bull. Being, weird, science, seize, height, weight, etc… All examples of where said rule is null and void.

People tend to pay way too much attention to the “rules” behind spelling and grammar. In turn, this ends with them spelling things wrong that they might have originally spelled correctly. That is, had they not been so caught up with what they learned in third grade English class.

Here is a list of five easy ways to sharpen your writing skills that hopefully, will help you steer clear of confusing the dickens out of yourself in the middle of a productive thought.

5. What the heck’s your point?

No one wants to hear you explain in three paragraphs how you helped an old lady cross the street. Instead of droning on and entering the redundant world of run-on sentences, simply say, “I helped an old lady cross the street.” If you care to add more color to your wording, you might say something along the lines of, “I helped a really old lady cross the street.”

Try practicing to reduce your blah, blah, blah, by adding no more than ten extra words to whatever it is you’re trying to say. There’s a reason Twitter only allows you to type 140 characters, people!

4. Be urban.

Whether or not it’s entirely socially acceptable to throw out words from the Urban Dictionary, do so from time to time. If you’re a competent writer and you use a word like “ain’t,” most people are going to know that you ain’t an idiot. Allow yourself a little freedom in your writing, and remember to always be yourself – originality is the purest form of entertainment.

3. Fact Check

When writing absolutely anything, it’s critical that you know what it is you’re talking about. For example, if you say something along the lines of, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” you’d better be 100 percent sure that’s when he sailed the ocean. There’s nothing worse than providing your readers with inaccurate information.

Need I say more?

2. No double negatives!

Double negatives are probably one of the most commonly used no-nos of the English language, no pun intended. Even if you’re a parent, you don’t have to say no twice.

Instead of saying, “He doesn’t have no idea,” you’re going to say, “He doesn’t have any idea” or even, “He has no idea”. If you want to sound like you know what you’re talking about in your writing, it’s a good idea to refrain from coming off like a character in the movie, Joe Dirt, or even worse, Joe Dirt himself. Know what a double negative is, and know that it’s never okay to use one.

1. Get it right!

One of the most annoying things a writer can do is misuse to, too, and two; their, they’re, and there; and it, its, and it’s. When using any of these words, remember – it is how it sounds, literally. It is = it’s. They are = they’re. If you’re confused about how to spell any of these divisions of said words, look it up. -And remember, Google is your best friend!

So remember, when writing an article, an essay, content for a website, or anything else that you want people to take seriously, know your stuff. -And if you don’t know, ask! There’s nothing better than being well informed, and there’s nothing wrong with doing what it takes to get there.

In Conclusion

We’d like to add a few things that, although they aren’t mentioned, are prevalent throughout this guest post. The first is humor; don’t be afraid to add a little fun into your posts. Just because you’re blogging for business or writing guest posts doesn’t mean they all have to sound like a professor wrote them.

The second is formality. Contractions aren’t poison, people. Yes, you can use them and not ruin the professional feel. In actuality (unless you’re writing a formal research paper or something for college, etc.), a lack of contractions can cause an article to sound stilted. The most laid-back individual can come across as a stuffed shirt and know it all.

Maapu's Candles

Your web presence is up and running smoothly, the visitors are swarming, and even buying your products or services. The next step is to start a related blog.

Your blog might be a place for your customers to ask questions, to talk to other customers, or to find more detailed information about your company, services and products.  Whatever the purpose and intended goal for your blog, there are a few generally accepted rules, which apply to all company or business blogs, that will keep visitors coming back.

Don’t promise anything you don’t plan or aren’t able to deliver.

Blogging about your company is comparable to new parents talking about their child. The tendency to brag is natural and often hard to control. However, making claims about how early baby learned to read is a completely different level of “white lie” than claiming that your product can cure cancer.  No one is going to get hurt or sue you if baby hasn’t really learned to read yet.

Do post regularly and relevantly.

A blog that has useless, unrelated or outdated information is not going to keep readers coming back to find out more. Keep up with current industry trends, updates on your business and other things that might be interesting to your customers.

Don’t make accusations or complaints against the competition.

Your customers don’t want to know about what’s wrong with the other guy; they want to know what’s right about you. Cutting down the competition is petty, unprofessional and immature.  Even if the other guy is trashing you, don’t sink to his level. If you can’t ignore his bad mouthing, then find a way to reply that negates his accusations, but maintains your integrity and respectability.

Do read over, proof and edit all of your posts before you post them.

One of the best things about blogging, over face-to-face communications, is that we can completely avoid that trait – the one where we sometimes forget to check what came from our brain and out of our mouths.  We’ve all done it, opened our mouth so that something we’re going to regret for a long, long time can spew forth all over an unfortunate if not undeserving victim. Always rethinking a post before you post it can really help prevent that from ever happening on your blog.

What tips would you have added for blogging businesses? Share them with our readers!

In the 1940s, a creative man in his early forties helped create the most devastating byproduct of human inventiveness.  When this invention was first tested, he said, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”  Although this man didn’t regret his part in the invention, he did worry – continually – about the affect on humanity and society.  His name, if you haven’t guessed, was J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the Atomic Bomb.

How does this relate to the topic?  Have patience, readers, and read on…

We spend a lot of time surfing the Net, reading blogs and articles, keeping up with the trends and what others have to say.  It’s part of our job, after all – staying “on top of things”.  Every once in a while, however, something comes along that we don’t want to stay on top of.  Something we downright want to squash.

Lately, I’ve come across a disturbing frame of mind in pieces of writing from people that use the Internet for a living, from individuals in areas of Internet Technology to those in Optimization and beyond.  Brace yourselves; it’s a doozy.

To be brief, here’s a list:

• The older you are, the less tech savvy you are.
• The older you are, the less you know.
• If you want to know if your website is user friendly, pick somebody old to look it over.
• If you don’t have a cell phone, don’t like to text and prefer to talk on the phone, you’re either:

1. a)     old
2. b)    out of the loop or
3. c)     both

Let me clarify that “old” seems to be 50 years old and up.

It’s all bull hockey, passed around by “young bloods” that seem to think the Internet didn’t exist until they found it.  To assume that someone isn’t tech savvy because of age is not only ridiculous, but incredibly idiotic.  Let us look at some examples, shall we?

Timothy Berners-Lee: Quick children – who is he?  For those that don’t know (and didn’t cheat by looking him up online), he’s attributed as the creator of the World Wide Web.  An English engineer, MIT professor and computer scientist, the man was writing the Hypertext Transfer Protocol language, or HTTP (sound familiar?), while those that are now 20 something were still in diapers.  And, my goodness – he’s ancient.  This year he turned 54.  You can read more on how this “old guy” and the WWW started out here:

Paul Gardner Allen: Recognize this name?  Maybe you’ll recognize another: Bill Gates.  As the co-founders of Microsoft, these two blazed a trail for the computers we use today, as well as a series of programs that have made our lives so much easier.  At age 56, Paul Allen is “pushing the envelope”.  Bill Gates isn’t that far behind him, at a venerable age of 53.

Carol Bartz: You may not recognize this name, but guaranteed, the people at Google do.  This woman has worked at companies such as 3M, Digital Equipment Corporation and Sun Microsystems.  She was the CEO of Autodesk, and served on the board of directors for several high-tech businesses, including Intel.  As of January 2009, Carol Bartz became the CEO of Yahoo.  At 61 years old, she’s still kickin’ butt and takin’ names in the “tech savvy” world.

Liz Strauss: She has been named to the Top 100 Social Media & Internet Marketing Bloggers Top 100 Most Influential Marketers of 2008, the 50 of the Most Powerful and Influential Women of Social Media, NxE’s Fifty Most Influential ‘Female’ Bloggers and her blog is listed on Alltop Social Media and Alltop Twitterati.

We Still Have Things to Teach

The main thing I want you young bloods out there to understand is that, by putting us in the category of “over the hill”, you’re denying that we have anything left to show, give or teach.  Look – if you’re a fresh-faced 20 year old, trying to tell me that you know everything there is to know about social media and marketing, I’m just going to laugh at you.  Have a little humility, people; you’re blowing off generations that have “been there, done that” long before you were a sparkle in your parents’ eyes.  Here are just a few things you can learn from us:

1. The phone is for talking, not typing.
2. Friends are people you hang out with, have conversations with and enjoy their company, not a featureless, faceless board that drops lines in 146 characters or less.
3. Clients appreciate respect; for that matter, most people in general appreciate respect.
4. There’s nothing wrong with shaking a hand and meeting people eye to eye.
5. Being rude, crass and disrespectful when you write doesn’t make you “unique”.  It doesn’t mean you’ve dared to “step out of the box”.  It means you’re being rude, crass and disrespectful.  To whit – an idiot.
6. It’s hard to respect someone’s opinion when it’s based on bull.  Do your research, and don’t take everything at face value.
7. When you “talk” (i.e. write) like you know everything, when you treat everyone like they’re inferior, you’re only showing how small you really are.
8. Life does not revolve around how many words you put out on the Internet, or how often you sit in front of your computer screen.
9. When you do use social media, keep your cursing and bodily functions down to a minimum.  As Rett said to Scarlett, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”
10. Last but not least, if some of us aren’t tech-savvy, it’s because we don’t choose to be.  NOT because we don’t “get it”

How does this all relate back to the Atom Bomb?  Just like Oppenheimer and the bomb, Timothy Berners-Lee worries about the impact of Internet on society.  So do many others.  In fact, scientists are actually looking into the break down of how society interacts due to social media outlets, connecting through email and programs like Yahoo Messenger and chat.  To sum it up, they don’t like the answers they’ve found.

By refusing to listen to the lessons given out by us, the “old” people, you’re turning your back on what makes us, humanity as a whole, the fantastic society we are.  You’re forgetting how to actually talk to another human being and interact in this great old world.  All the things you hate about society, all the rudeness you just “can’t believe”, all the respect that you “can’t get”, is being brought about (in part) by what you publish on the Web.

Don’t be afraid to live a little, children.  Step out of the box for real.  Talk to someone with your voice, not through text.  Most of all, realize that the older generations really have seen a lot, and still have a lot to teach.