Blogging – New Phase, New Theme

June 4, 2008

'arrow up' by Leo Reynolds Wow, what a wild ride the last few months have been.  I’ve been planning to refine the direction of my blog and revamp the appearance for some time and it’s finally completed!

Well, it’s almost completed – I’ve got a replacement for the About page almost ready to publish, and I’ve got one last page that I’ll add a little later.  Seems I just can’t get it to come out quite right in the past week while working on other things – so I’ll get to that real soon.

Direction

The great part is that I’m refining my direction.  Since I’ve come out of corporate, with a strong background in information technology, I’m going to focus on helping those organizations with social media.  I’ve changed the description of the blog to "social web & the enterprise".  I believe that to better describe the direction that I’m going. 

Friends

First, I really respect a number of bloggers for their work & influence on me.  So, instead of the old blogroll, or a list of links, I created a new Friends page.  This page is people I have come to know, respect, learn from, work with, and I wanted to do more than just link to them.  You’ll find a description of each blog and a thumbnail of their landing page.

Resume

Also page that can now be found in the top navigation area is the Resume page.  I’ve had a variant of this Social Media Resume up for about 9 months, but never advertised it on the blog.  I’ve revamped a number of pieces of the page as it used to be a completely custom HTML page forced into a WordPress theme template.  Now it fully fits the theme, with a special resume.php template that allows different sidebars and such.  Much better.  I’ve pulled the video that I had on it, but will replace it with another one to fit the direction of the blog shortly.

Advertisement

You’ll also notice that all advertising save two things have been removed from the blog.  While I make enough to pay for hosting, I believe that the ads detracted from what I’m here to accomplish, so they’re gone.  The two items I mentioned that remain are badges for Personal Branding Magazine, and for Avatar Consultants.  Their of personal interest to me, I’m involved in writing for one, and the other is my consulting firm.

Nowhere But Up

So if the picture in this post didn’t give a hint, my motto as I revise my direction and enter a new phase, is that there is nowhere to go but up.  Join me as we bring the benefits of the social web to organizations of all sizes.  Come along and help individuals realize the power and strength of their brand.  Let’s make each day the best it can be!

I want to give a special thank you to Mykl Roventine for patience, ideas, and a great design – I wouldn’t have gotten this completed without his work.  Thank you.

Got feedback?  I bet!  Don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts in a comment below.

Photo credit: Leo Reynolds

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Categories: blogging, personal brand

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  • Thanks Becky! SOBCon really motivated me to take the initiative to get moving. Something that I believe is shared by the SOB Biz Advisors group you created. Looking forward to our next meeting, and ways to help out.
  • beckymccray
    Rick, your redesign is terrific, well thought out, functional, and incorporates lots of the directions we've discussed since SOBCon. Excellent work!
  • Hi Todd! Thank you for your kind words, I hope we both have many great opportunities as we move into the future! I've been looking forward to taking a new direction ever since SOBCon filled me with ideas. Now I just need to keep on top of it all. Of course I'll be mentioning my friends - I hope to work with you as we explore this social media frontier!
    ;-)

    Rick
  • This is great news! Can't wait to see what's coming down the pike. Rick, you've got lots of energy here and experience. You're really going in the right direction I think. Best of luck. OH yeah, be sure to mention me once in a while.
  • Thanks Shey - I appreciate you stopping by! It turned out quite well, and I'm very happy with it.
  • Great looking theme Rick!
  • Steven, Joanna, glad that it meets with approval! Thanks!

    Joanna, I have to thank Mykl Roventine, a great web designer here in Minneapolis for the work. I've no eye for color (unless it's gray ;) ) so I really appreciate his work. I originally had plans to swap out the header on my old theme every month - even did so for a few. That one header pic was from Oct/Nov of last year, so I didn't keep up on that. I'm very glad to have you on my friends list - as you know that keeps evolving as sites I make time to visit and read. I just think it's important to share those blogs with more people.

    Rick
  • It looks great Rick, and it suits the sense of purpose and direction you're talking about too. I love these cream and chocolate colours - easy to read and soothing on the eye. Clear, friendly, professional. And I'm glad you've changed the header - the previous one always made me feel a bit dizzy!

    Joanna

    PS Thanks for including me in your 'friends' list. I'm very proud to be listed there.
  • nice look Rick - I like it
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