A Year in the Blogosphere

Posted on Posted in Events, General Commentary, Shel's Personal Life

​​​​This blog was launched on December 29, 2004, which means it just
turned one year old. So allow me to wallow in a bit of reflection,
please.

I’d delayed blogging for a long time, because I’d
thought that to be taken seriously, a blogger needed to post daily. I
even tried to organize a group of non-blogging marketing pundits to
each take a day of the week in a communal blog. That effort went
nowhere, but I think at least three of us now blog regularly. Once I
realized that many bloggers post once a week or less, I knew I could
handle it.

I started the blog with a few agendas. I wanted to:

  • Create a platform for my ideas and rants, of course
  • Open a doorway to a syndicated op-ed newspaper column (a dream I’ve had for decades) Support the Business Ethics Pledge campaign
  • Become more widely known in the worlds of business ethics and progressive politics
  • Develop new readers who would then buy my books, subscribe to my newsletter, etc.

    And
    in fact, in the spring, I went through my blog entries, selected seven
    or so, polished them, and submitted them to four different newspaper
    syndicates–all of whom turned me down. But I’ll keep trying.

    The
    blog has veered away more often than I’d have expected from what I’d
    originally thought of as its core topic: business ethics. But I already
    have a platform to talk about that: my newsletter, Positive Power of Principled Profit.

    It’s
    also hard to tell what impact it has, or where people are learning
    about it. I get very few comments, and many of them are from people
    I’ve steered to the blog via a post to a discussion list or one of my
    newsletters.

    So, this year, one of my goals is to build more traffic to the blog, which will be mirrored both at blogger.com and on my own PrincipledProfit.com site.

    There
    have been a few signers of the Pledge that I believe found me via the
    blog, and a few useful contacts. Hopefully, over the next 12 months,
    I’ll be able to know for certain that the blog is helping to shape the
    discourse.

    And meanwhile, there’s revamping the PrinProfit site,
    hosting my radio show (which I hope to syndicate as well), getting
    publicity for the Pledge, selling more foreign rights, and tons of
    other stuff. somehow, I find time to do at least some of it, between
    client copywriting and consulting projects.

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    About

    A lifelong activist, profitability and marketing specialist Shel Horowitz’s mission is to fix crises like hunger, poverty, racism, war, and catastrophic climate change—by showing the business world how fixing them can make a profit. An author, international speaker, and TEDx Talker, his award-winning 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, lays out a blueprint for creating and MARKETING those profitable change-making products and services. He is happy to help you craft your messaging and develop profit strategies. Learn more (and download excerpts from the book) at http://goingbeyondsustainability.com