blinkdagger

Photo by katietegtmeyer

After working at an engineering firm for the last three years, I have had the opportunity to observe firsthand what they call Female Engineer Syndrome, FES for short. Others may know it as Engineering Girl Syndrome. But all you really have to know is that it is not a pretty sight.

What exactly is FES? Let's assume a standard scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the lovely Jessica Alba) is used to determine attractiveness. Then, FES occurs when a female engineer looks like a 6, acts like a 10, but thinks she's a 12. How, you may ask, does this phenomenon occur? There are certainly some interesting theories on the matter, and I shall present my own personal theory below. Using an economics framework, the root cause of FES can be determined using the theory of supply and demand. It is a well known fact that when goods are scarce, their demand increases, which drives up their value. If we apply this to FES, we can see that due to the paucity of women in the engineering industry, their demand is greatly enhanced beyond normal capacity. Photo by Maxim Magazine

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The recent traffic surge at blinkdagger has gotten my mind thinking once again. In the last two weeks, blinkdagger has experienced a nice surge in traffic. While it isn't on the level of John Chow's ramp, it's still a significant increase that we are quite proud of. You know how they say "More money, more problems?" Well, in the blogging world, it can be adapted to "More traffic, more problems." What exactly do I mean by this? The increase in traffic brings with it higher expectations and increased pressure to continue delivering high quality content. If you are unable to keep pace, your blog will not be able to grow and expand to the next level. How do other blogs deal with this?

I've seen several scenarios unfold as a blog gets more and more attention. I won't name any names, but I see some blogs not posting as frequently, posting content that isn't as good as it was previously, or just outright stopping their posting. Then there are some blogs that take it into the next gear and just keep growing and growing and growing. Hopefully, blinkdagger can be one the successful ones! I noticed that once your blog starts to get noticed, there is more pressure to deliver value-packed content, to post more, to do more, to monetize, and a slew of other things. It seems that the more successful you get, the harder you have to work to maintain it. Continue Reading »

While Quan was using his winter break to realize the danger of recycling information on blogs and writing up a new package of Matlab tutorials, I spent my vacation gathering resources for the relaunch of blinkdagger. During this search, I discovered a few tidbits that will help me embark my blogging journey in 2008. No, I won’t be asking you to write any mission statement or list New Year resolutions. I just want to share with you some of my practical ways to jumpstart my 2008 blogging. Continue Reading »

During this winter break, I've had the opportunity to read and explore many new blogs. I've learn some pretty interesting things, but I have also noticed that there is a troubling degree of recycling of information going on. After going through my reader each morning, I feel like I've read certain information at least 3 to 4 times. And it's not just because it's the holiday seasons wherein everyone writes about the past year's accomplishments and the future goals they want to achieve. For instance, I first read about the Demise of Digg on Shoemoney and Copyblogger, and then I kept seeing the same information on other lesser known blogs. Additionally, I've been reading about how to make money on your blog, how to improve your blog, how to increase web traffic, etc. It just seems like I'm seeing the same essential information, rehashed and presented in a different way.

I guess this is one of the effects of blogging in a niche that is well covered and oversaturated. You are bound to see the same information across different blogs, which can make it extremely difficult for any new comers to succeed. I think bloggers would benefit by reading skellie's guide on adding value to whatever they write. Copying information and reporting it really doesn't do much for you. But if you provide your own thoughts and analysis, it provides a different flavor that can differentiate you from the norm. In the world of blogging, fitting in with the norm can be blogging suicide! So you have to do whatever it takes to make yourself stand out.

It seems more difficult than ever to come up with original content. What are some other ways that we as bloggers can overcome this problem? I won't pretend to have all the solutions because I don't. But one of the reasons that blinkdagger is an engineering blog is because we recognized that there simply aren't that many engineering blogs out there. We saw that there was a need for Matlab tutorials because it was difficult to find any good ones through Google. So before you dive head first into your blogging endeavor, you should have a plan. You should try to target a niche that isn't over developed so that you can make an impact and be a major player.

Brian Purkiss over at Plainbeta is conducting a contest wherein the winner will receive a free custom wordpress design, and I would like to help him promote it. He seems like a talented designer, and you really have nothing to lose since it would be FREE! If you're interested, you should check out his site, as I believe he just revamped it. I suggest anyone who is in need of a new theme join this contest.

To enter the contest, you have to follow these simple instructions:

1: Write a post on your blog linking to HIS post "selling" your blog to him.

2: Answer the following questions in that post:
-Why should he pick your blog?
-What do you want the design to look like? (If you’re not sure, that’s fine. He'll be happy to help you come up with a design)
-Remember, he has to like your blog in order to pick it. So what’s so special about it?

3: Contact him with a link to your entry.

For more information, you should visit the post.

I think this can be a great opportunity for new bloggers or even veteran bloggers who are still using a wordpress theme that they found for free on the internet. There can be a steep learning curve in designing your own site, and most people don't have the time to start learning. This could give you a good chance to bypass all of that so you can focus on other stuff like creating superb content. Theres already too much that needs to be done in starting your own blog, and designing your own blog is something that can take up way too much time. Good luck!

Even though we will probably be designing our own blog internally, I will answer the required questions anyways.

Why should I pick your blog?
Brian, you should pick this blog because it's up and coming and starting to attract a bunch of new visitors. This blog is dedicated mostly to Matlab, an engineering analysis tool, and will require a special format to deal with all the tutorials that we write. We want our tutorials to stand out from the rest of the pack, so this will surely be a challenge to your design skills.

What do you want the design to look like?
We're not sure what we want it to look like, and if we did, I have a feeling the design would be complete already!

What's so special about our blog?
Unlike most blogs, we focus on writing tutorials. We supplement our tutorials with some posts here and there. I wouldn't say that we are special, but we do not fall into the norm of most blogs. We have carved out a niche as a Matlab blog, which is somewhat rare at the moment.

Hopefully this helps get the word out. Good luck Brian!