CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-06-17 04:12:25 (62 comments, 3 reshares, 23 +1s)

Finish this sentence:

"As I look at my future I feel.... "

2013-06-13 11:09:13 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 55 +1s)

Check out this introduction to bird photography at dPS.

http://digital-photography-school.com/an-introduction-to-bird-photography

2013-06-13 05:23:30 (15 comments, 8 reshares, 47 +1s)

5 Steps to Great Ideas

I have been thinking a lot today about where great ideas come from - or at least where the ideas for things that were most successful for me came from (I'm not sure any are truly 'great' - but you know what I mean).

The beginning of this thought process when someone asked me about my 'light bulb moments' - you know the ones... when out of the blue an 'ahah moment' pops into your mind and you get clarity.

I love those moments - but as I thought about it today I realised that the lightbulb moment was almost always part of a longer process of generating the idea. 

I'm not sure any of this is rocket science but here's some thoughts on how I get ideas. I'd love to hear whether this resonates (I suspect we're all different):

1. They Usually Start with Problems
It strikes me... more »

2013-06-13 03:38:18 (9 comments, 10 reshares, 30 +1s)

This post has been percolating away in my mind for weeks. It is all about going beyond 'dreaming' about your future and helping us to create the futures we want to have with our blogs.

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/06/13/make-your-blogging-dreams-come-true/

2013-06-12 23:56:36 (29 comments, 4 reshares, 18 +1s)

Where do you get your best ideas?

Do they always come in the same place? (eg. I know some people get them in the shower)

Do they tend to come when you're doing something? (eg. I know some people get them when they are exercising)

Do they come when you're alone or with others?

2013-06-12 01:48:05 (5 comments, 17 reshares, 82 +1s)

Feeling Overwhelmed?

Choose 1 small thing that takes you closer to your dreams and do it to the best of your ability.

Then repeat.

2013-06-06 12:10:36 (10 comments, 16 reshares, 80 +1s)

From our New 'Posing Guide for Photographing Women' that we published this week. 

See all 7 poses at http://digital-photography-school.com/women-posing-guide-in-action-7-sample-poses-21-different-photos

2013-06-06 11:27:51 (2 comments, 6 reshares, 35 +1s)

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone." Pablo Picasso

2013-06-05 07:12:34 (14 comments, 46 reshares, 137 +1s)

7 Success Stories that Started as Almost Accidental Sparks of Ideas

Today I spent some time researching the beginning of major brands and entrepreneurs ventures. A few random things I learned:

* Avon started when its founder - who was a travelling book salesman - realised the samples of perfume he was giving away as a door opener to female customers were more popular than the books he was selling. He immediately started the California Perfume Company which went on to become Avon.

* Wrigley was similarly started when its founder - a soap and baking powder salesman - realised the gum he was giving as a bonus with the products he was selling was more popular than the products.

* Flickr began when a Vancouver based company working on a web based multiplayer online game realised that its multiuser chat room technology (which had in built... more »

2013-06-04 20:48:30 (7 comments, 10 reshares, 37 +1s)

Sometimes opportunities to grow a blog are staring us in the face - and all we have to do is dig a little and repeat what has worked before.

Here's an example of just that:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/06/05/how-i-turned-a-guest-post-into-3-million-visitors-and-over-150000-social-media-shares/

2013-06-04 05:58:44 (23 comments, 6 reshares, 24 +1s)

Today I've put some time aside to work on a keynote I'm giving at 'World Domination Summit' in Portland early in July.

As often happens with me I often start preparing for such talks with a jumble of thoughts, ideas, themes and points. They don't always make sense up front but usually something slightly more logical emerges as I let the ideas marinate.

Sometimes it all 'clicks' when I talk about the ideas… so I thought today I'd put some of them out there and see what sparks might fly.

Many of the themes percolating away in my mind seem to centre around 'The Future' and include:

1. The future isn't a place we're going… but one we are creating (as per the John Schaar quote I shared the other day).

Sometimes I find myself looking at the future as a 'place' I'll arrive at… but forgetthat ... more »

2013-06-03 23:58:31 (8 comments, 8 reshares, 29 +1s)

EXERCISE: Here's a little exercise that I do every month that always generates ideas for new posts and helps me to build more traffic to my blog.

http://problo.gr/132iteW

I'd love to get your feedback on it!?

2013-06-03 00:49:27 (5 comments, 10 reshares, 24 +1s)

We are looking to hire a couple of Photography Bloggers (paid) - Details at ->> http://problo.gr/12ZgNTu

2013-05-30 03:52:57 (21 comments, 38 reshares, 98 +1s)

Yesterday I taught a 5 hour workshop on blogging to a small group of bloggers.

If I had to pull out some of the key lessons taught I'd summarise them as what I've included in this post.

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/05/30/11-quick-tips-for-writing-compelling-posts-on-your-blog/

2013-05-27 11:47:09 (6 comments, 29 reshares, 121 +1s)

Can't get this quote out of my head at the moment.

“The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.” - John H. Schaar

2013-05-27 05:01:53 (14 comments, 1 reshares, 27 +1s)

Preparing for a 5 hour workshop I'm giving on Wednesday on 'blogging like a pro'. 

I have 187 slides... so far! GULP!

2013-05-22 11:34:00 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 26 +1s)

We are launching a new eBook tonight. Congrats to author +Neil Creek for writing it!

Check it out at http://digital-photography-school.com/trick-photography

2013-05-21 00:01:48 (12 comments, 4 reshares, 18 +1s)

Question: What blogging platform do you use for your primary blog?

please +1 the comment below that responds to your choice

2013-05-20 03:02:39 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 16 +1s)

If you're looking for a little blogging inspiration and you're towards the beginning of your blogging journey I'm running a 4 hour workshop on the Gold Coast (Queensland, Australia) next week (29 May).

This was previously only available to people as part of a larger event but I've convinced the conference organizers to open up a few places at a $75 discount.

Full details are at http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/05/20/how-to-blog-like-a-pro-workshop-on-the-gold-coast-australia-next-week/

Hope to see you there!

2013-05-15 01:06:45 (11 comments, 10 reshares, 20 +1s)

I'm regularly asked 'How Many Posts Should I Write?'.

Here are some of my thoughts - I'd love to hear yours too!

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/05/14/how-many-posts-should-a-blogger-post-pros-and-cons-of-daily-posting/

2013-05-15 00:42:35 (3 comments, 4 reshares, 26 +1s)

Love this image collection (as a freckle owner)!

http://digital-photography-school.com/15-fantastic-freckle-photos

2013-05-10 10:39:18 (24 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

The big image at the top of our pages here on G+ is too big - is there a way to shrink these? For me on my 11 inch Mac it takes the whole screen leaving nothing except the image. Am I missing a setting to not see them?

2013-05-10 10:05:36 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 13 +1s)

Check out this Free Podcast I recorded with +Chris C. Ducker  on Mastering Blogging for Business - http://problo.gr/11XBleo  (enjoyed recording this a lot)

2013-05-10 04:02:06 (8 comments, 46 reshares, 75 +1s)

Well worth the watch!

THIS IS WATER

2013-05-10 02:02:44 (15 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Have been asked to present a 'big idea' on the topic of:

the role of digital in the future and how we should navigate that

Hmmm - I need another coffee. 

How would you talk to that for 5 minutes?

2013-05-09 00:07:34 (11 comments, 5 reshares, 19 +1s)

Learn how to make a great video like this one on a shoestring at our PBEVENT in September.

The video is well worth a look even if you can't come!

http://vimeo.com/65097808

2013-05-08 22:43:47 (3 comments, 10 reshares, 24 +1s)

As promised yesterday - here's my post on how I added 12 income streams to my blog over the last 10 years.

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/05/09/12-blogging-income-streams 

2013-05-08 02:46:53 (15 comments, 14 reshares, 61 +1s)

I just wrote a post that talks about my journey with these 12 blogging income streams. 

It came from a conversation with a blogger today who was feeling quite overwhelmed with monetizing her blog - she looked at blogs with lots of exciting income streams and felt she could never do that.... but in doing so forgot that they all started at the same place as here - with a blog that didn't yet have any income.

For me it didn't start with 12 income streams - it came with fairly unspectacular experiments with 1 or 2.

Will publish the post tomorrow.

2013-05-07 03:47:08 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

Go! Final round of ProBlogger Training Event 2013 Tickets are now on sale at http://problo.gr/11Pgz0H

2013-05-06 23:16:07 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

The final round of tickets for our 2013 event go on sale today at 1.30pm. 

Oh... and we added 9 more speakers yesterday!

Details at: http://probloggerevents.com/announcing-9-more-speakers-for-pbevent-2013-and-info-on-the-final-ticket-release/

Who will have their fingers at the ready this afternoon?

2013-05-03 06:28:42 (8 comments, 12 reshares, 51 +1s)

working on a slide on 'finding readers' for your blog. It's very much skimming the surface of a topic that you could spend hours unpacking but interested in your feedback. You'll need to view it large to see.

2013-05-02 00:01:21 (6 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

We're looking for a few quality guest contributions/tutorials for the dPS blog - check out our how at -> http://digital-photography-school.com/write-for-digital-photography-school 

2013-04-30 03:07:36 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Excited to have Hailey join us for PBEVENT. The final release of tickets go on sale in 7 days!

http://probloggerevents.com/announcing-hailey-bartholomew-as-a-pbevent-workshop-speaker/ 

2013-04-30 00:03:26 (14 comments, 5 reshares, 29 +1s)

Have been excited to watch +John O'Nolan's kickstarter get funding today in 12 hours!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnonolan/ghost-just-a-blogging-platform 

2013-04-26 01:35:54 (6 comments, 4 reshares, 38 +1s)

Last week I asked my followers to nominate their biggest challenges as bloggers. The #1 was - LACK OF TIME TO BLOG.

This got me writing and over the last few days I have published two posts on ProBlogger to help tackle the problem:

7 of my Own Tips on Finding Time to Blog - http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/04/25/finding-time-to-blog/

14 Bloggers Sharing their tips on what their blogging routine is like - http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/04/26/bloggers-routines/ (featuring +Chris Garrett +Tsh Oxenreider +Crystal Paine +Chris Brogan +Trey Ratcliff +Christina Butcher +Leo Babauta +Nicole Avery +Rand Fishkin +tina roth eisenberg +Neil Patel  +Chris Guillebeau +Jonathan Fields and Sarah Wilson 

2013-04-23 23:45:41 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

Here's a quick updated speaking schedule for me for the coming months:

15-17 May (Keynote, Panel, Workshop) - Connect Christian Media Conference Conference - Gold Coast - http://cmaconference.org.au/

24 May - ProBlogger Email Marketing Training Day - Melbourne - http://emailforbloggers.eventbrite.com/

29-31 May - InternetConference - Gold Coast -  http://www.internetconference.com.au/
(note: this includes a special half day workshop with just me - see http://www.internetconference.com.au/stream-c.html for details)

5-7 July (Keynote) - World Domination Summit - Portland (only US gig this year) http://worlddominationsummit.com/

13-14 September (multiple sessions) - ProBlogger Training Event - Gold Coast - http://www.probloggerevents.com

2013-04-23 22:41:25 (12 comments, 18 reshares, 50 +1s)

Many bloggers write the Amazon Affiliate Program off as an income stream. I've stuck with it for 10 years and am glad I did.

Today I published a post that tells why I'm an Amazon affiliate and that gives 30 tips on how to use it.

I also share how much I've earned from the program in those 10 years.

Check out the post at:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/04/24/the-ultimate-guide-to-making-money-with-the-amazon-affiliate-program/

2013-04-23 05:26:03 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 13 +1s)

NEWS: we're running a training day in Melbourne on 24 May that is going to teach you how to use EMAIL marketing to grow the traffic and profitability of your blog.

Tickets are limited to a small group - more details at:

http://emailforbloggers.eventbrite.com/

2013-04-23 00:46:24 (19 comments, 6 reshares, 29 +1s)

I found this post really worth the read:

http://www.ytravelblog.com/i-want-to-know-your-secret/

I am also often asked 'what is your secret' and while my story is very different to what +Craig Makepeace's story is (and Craigs is pretty amazing) its a reminder that there's usually a lot more to someone's life that what you might see on the surface.

Grab a drink and sit down to read Craig's story - it's well worthwhile.

2013-04-22 01:12:40 (15 comments, 10 reshares, 41 +1s)

3 great questions to ask to work out what your blog's purpose is:

- who are your readers?
- what do they need?
- how will they change as a result of reading your blog?

2013-04-21 04:09:18 (12 comments, 1 reshares, 34 +1s)

The boys yesterday. Shots need a little editing but was a fun little shoot. 

2013-04-19 02:32:14 (19 comments, 4 reshares, 42 +1s)

Today I noticed a 'notification' come through on my Facebook App on my iPhone. I log in to find out who has messaged me or which of my family had updated (the only notifications I have coming through to my phone) only to find the notification was from Facebook 'suggesting' a game for me. 

I have no problem with ads on Facebook (although they've certainly begun to intrude more and more) - it's a free service and they need to monetize somehow - however this is intrusive. I specifically set up my notifications to be told when I'm messaged by a friend or when a family member updates (3 people) - not to get ads.

I'm loving G+ more and more every day (although wonder when we'll begin to see the ads here and how intrusive they'll get too).

PS: I checked my Facebook settings on my iPhone and see no option to turn off notifications of ads or... more »

2013-04-18 11:14:57 (5 comments, 9 reshares, 16 +1s)

This post was written by an online friend - it's an important message that we'd appreciate you considering sharing.

http://cybersmartonline.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/a-family-nightmare-what-you-should-know.html?view=classic

2013-04-18 04:36:20 (0 comments, 7 reshares, 20 +1s)

Excited to publish this amazing guide to Podcasting for bloggers today on ProBlogger:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/04/18/the-definitive-guide-to-setting-up-and-marketing-a-podcast-to-help-grow-your-blog/

Thanks to +Chris C. Ducker  for putting it together!

2013-04-16 05:22:10 (20 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

what are you working on today? Feel free to share links if you have them!

2013-04-15 23:52:40 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 20 +1s)

Late last week we mistakenly sent an email meant for several thousand people... to almost a million people.

Here's the story and how we handled it.

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/04/16/how-not-to-send-an-email-a-day-wed-rather-forget-but-a-story-we-need-to-tell/

2013-04-15 22:50:23 (8 comments, 3 reshares, 34 +1s)

I am much more likely to be successful when I am happy than I am to find happiness through being successful.

#ThingsIAmLearning #DISCUSS

2013-04-12 05:10:21 (15 comments, 5 reshares, 21 +1s)

A common question that I get is 'how early should I begin to monetize my blog'. 

I understand the concern behind the question - but have always believed that if you intend to monetize your blog one day you should probably do it in some way from early on.

I've never heard a shop owner ask - 'how early should I monetize?'

It's never too early in my opinion. 

Thoughts?

2013-04-11 10:59:40 (2 comments, 8 reshares, 28 +1s)

Good tips from a busy blogger - Sarah Wilson - on being productive!

http://www.sarahwilson.com.au/2013/04/my-best-productivity-tips/

2013-04-10 10:55:47 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

Apologies to ProBlogger email subscribers who just got a photography related email! An honest mistake - so sorry!