Finding Meaning In Creating Meaning - Rewrite

Seth's Blog: Seven tips to build for meaning

Seth Godin provides seven tips to build for meaning. Then he asks, "What happens after I click on your Google ad?"

OK, he's a marketer so from that perspective it makes sense.

"I was thinking about great Squidoo pages (lenses) yesterday, and realized that many of them, along with many blogs, have the same goal: give someone a handle, a sense of meaning--context--so they can go ahead and take action."

I have taken the position that this should be true whether we are speaking of business and making money or social change to bring about beneficial paradigm shifts. The seven tips:

1. Use numbers and bullets. People scan. Based on the idea that people don't read, this is not one that I use a lot because I use this weblog to mold my own ideas, but I should and am trying to be more concise.
   


2. Give people a place to go. The best meaning-building delivers the reader to a new place, in context. The really interesting parts of this weblog are the websites it links to, my writings just helps to organize the information for better understanding.
   


3. Use pictures. Pictures communicate quality and information. pictures that tell a story. I do less of this and should try to expand on this.(though I don't actually get Seth's example)
   


4. Have an opinion. If you're giving meaning, you're also making an argument. I have opinions which should be fairly apparent but this weblog is not a soapbox, its a learning tool.


5. Don't be afraid to compare. I do compare though am less likely to make judgments or if I do more likely to rethink them.
   


6. It's a brick wall, not a balloon. Built brick by brick, a little at a time. You learn what works and do it more. Here's a fine example. This one I definitely do. This is still an experiment and I try not to be worried about success or failure. (though now having reached 11 subscribers on Feedburner is cool)



7. It's okay to be long, if you're chunky. Long letters always do better than short ones. That's because once you've sold me, I'll stop reading. But if I'm not sold and I get to the end, you lose. The web is infinitely expandable. So go ahead and tell your story. I am trying to be more chunky, focusing on particular ideas. I also try to get similar or related chunks together especially across time. Sometimes in my own reading I need to go back a few times more to be sold, but I need to want to go back.