Category Archives: Blogging

Last Day for West St. Paul Reader Kickstarter Campaign

Today is the final day of my Kickstarter campaign for West St. Paul Reader. It’s a new site to help inform people about what’s going on in West St. Paul.

The Kickstarter campaign hit the initial goal in less than five days and the site launched. Since then, we’ve been working toward stretch goals and knocking them down.

The campaign ends at midnight tonight (Central Time), so it’s your last chance to back West St. Paul Reader and help us keep people informed.

I’ve been talking about this non-stop for the past month. I’m incredibly grateful for all the support, but I’ll be happy to stop flogging it and just talk about what’s happening.

Like the West St. Paul water tower.

This comment really underscores what West St. Paul Reader is all about:

“Until today, I’ve never seen a photo of the inside of a water tower! Thanks, West St. Paul Reader!”

Matt Pennig

So do me a favor and back the project. Thanks.

West St. Paul Reader Progress

Two weeks ago I launched a Kickstarter campaign to start the West St. Paul Reader. Five days into the campaign we hit the goal and West St. Paul Reader became a reality with the first official post.

I’m super grateful for all the people who have stepped up to help this project. It’s so encouraging to see this kind of support.

But it’s not over.

We’re still working to hit stretch goals and make West St. Paul Reader even better.

Let’s talk about why you should support it.

The Rewards

First up, let’s talk about what you can get out of the deal—the rewards. One of the fun things about any Kickstarter project is all the creative rewards you get for backing the project.

This one is a little different because the campaign is to start a website, so there’s not a product you get as a reward. Everyone gets the rewards of the site being live. But we’ve still got some fun rewards that can make it worth your while:

  • West St. Paul coupon book: The most popular reward by far has been our coupon book. You get $350 in value for $25. See the full list of participating West St. Paul businesses and their deals.
  • Mayor meetup: West St. Paul Mayor Dave Napier has graciously agreed to attend a private meetup with a select group of backers. This is a fun little insider option to hang out with the mayor. Only seven slots left!
  • Lunch & tour: For the big spenders I’m offering a chance to hang out with me—we’ll do lunch and take a tour of West St. Paul highlights. I’m not exactly sure what that tour will be yet, but I’m thinking we’ll hit some lesser known sites, hit a few historic locales and show off some hidden gems of West St. Paul. This one also includes a subscription to Zebra Cat Zebra, the bi-monthly zine of local artist Carolyn Swiszcz. Only six slots left!
  • Businesses: For the business community, I’m offering a big sponsorship opportunity. They can get a six-month banner ad and a sponsored post on West St. Paul Reader for $300. That sponsored post can be a great way to connect with vocal locals and boost your SEO. Only nine slots left!
  • Local art: For just $5, backers can get a handwritten thank you postcard featuring artwork by Carolyn Swiszcz (known for the famous West St. Paul song).

The Hyperlocal News Angle

While rewards are great, I think the bigger picture angle of offering hyperlocal news is worth considering.

Writing about my community is something that excites me. I’ve been doing it for five years now, slowly getting closer and closer to the idea of launching a dedicated site.

Why a West St. Paul Site?

I kept rejecting the idea of a West St. Paul blog, deciding I didn’t want to commit to another time suck. But as time went on and I kept writing about West St. Paul more and more on my personal blog, I couldn’t get away from this idea.

I’ve connected with a lot of people by writing about West St. Paul. When I went door knocking for campaigns last year, I was surprised by how often people already knew me. They’d seen my writing about West St. Paul, and it connected.

Let’s face it: It’s hard to know what’s going on in your community.

We’re a town of 20,000 people in a metro area of more than 3 million. Local media doesn’t pay much attention to us. And why should they? If you want to know who’s running for city council or why some road construction project is a big deal, it was really hard to find answers.

West St. Paul has an incredibly active Facebook group, but for all the benefit it brings, it’s often full of so much snark and noise that it’s hard to get straight answers.

So there’s interest, and there’s need, and I’ve got the passion.

The Benefit of Hyperlocal

What’s so interesting about West St. Paul Reader is the potential of hyperlocal news. I think when people can be informed about their community, they’re more likely to engage. When they engage with what’s going on, they’re more likely to connect with their neighbors.

Being informed, engaged, connected—that all creates a sense of pride in your community. You feel like you belong.

That’s definitely the spirit of West St. Paul, but it’s been so much stronger lately when people have been learning about what’s going on, engaging in volunteer and community efforts, and connecting with each other.

Just ask how many people have attended city council meetings for the first time in the past year.

West St. Paul Stories

So what stories are we telling? West St. Paul Reader has been live for 10 days, but here are some of the local stories we’ve already told:

Support West St. Paul Reader

It’s been fun sharing these stories, and we’re just getting started.

But to keep it up, we need support. Please support the Kickstarter campaign, get some of those great rewards, and enable this hyperlocal effort to keep going.

Our next stretch goal is for guest columnists (because this project should be more than me). As of right now, we need another $910 to hit that goal. It’s a big ask, and definitely a stretch, but I think we can do it. We’ve got 17 more days to go.

Thanks to everyone who has made this happen.

Help Launch West St. Paul Reader

Update: West St. Paul Reader went live on May 14, 2019.

I’ve been blogging about West St. Paul since 2014. I’ve shared a lot of interesting things and met a lot of amazing people.

I like to be informed about my community. When you know what’s going on, you feel like you belong.

Now it’s time to take it to another level.

New West St. Paul Site

I’m launching a West St. Paul blog to help busy people know what’s going on. It will be called the West St. Paul Reader, and it will allow me to do a lot more:

  • Hear from new voices.
  • Tell new stories.
  • Build a community to sustain this effort.

I’ve thought about doing this for a while, but I kept resisting it. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. This personal blog is pretty limiting, and a focused site opens up a lot of doors.

Because I can’t do this by myself.

The Experiment

So I’m starting an experiment to launch this blog and see what works.

I’m launching a Kickstarter project to invite people to help make this idea a reality. There are a ton of fun, West St. Paul-centric rewards at various levels:

People often come up and talk to me about the things I write about West St. Paul. I know there’s a lot of interest out there, so let’s see if we can make writing about West St. Paul a more regular and consistent thing.

My goal is to create a dedicated source of info for what’s happening in West St. Paul. I want people to know what’s happening in their community and feel like they belong.

Thanks

I’ll be talking more about this (of course), as the project moves forward. I’ve got 30 days to hit that initial goal of $1,000, and then there are a bunch of stretch goals I’m excited to reach. This project opens the door to so many fun things—honestly, I’m a little giddy to see how it unfolds.

I hope you’ll consider supporting it.

And thank you. Seriously, thank you. There are so many people who have been gracious and encouraging and excited. People talk about how scary it is to chase a dream—to step out and make it happen. I’m a freelancer, so I know that feeling pretty well. But this dream was a new kind of scary. I couldn’t have done it without support.

I’m incredibly grateful. Thank you.

I’m Not Blogging Right

I don’t think I’m blogging right. There’s lots of advice out there about how writers are supposed to blog and the importance of having a web presence and putting yourself out there and all that. And I think I’m doing it wrong.

And I don’t care.

They tell you you’re supposed to blog a lot. I don’t. I only posted once in January.

They tell you you’re supposed to at least blog consistently. I don’t. I posted once in January and now I’m going two days straight.

They tell you you’re supposed to have a personal brand, a niche, a specialty that you’re known for. I don’t. I write about whatever I feel like here, which means I’m all over the map. For goodness sake, I blog about when I turn on the heat every year.

They tell you you’re supposed to polish everything and put your best work forward. I don’t. I spend all day writing polished copy for clients and when it comes to my blog, some days I want to wing it.

They tell you to post at the same time and not post multiple posts at once. OK, I follow that bit of advice. But not because it builds a consistent audience with consistent content. I do it because I hate it when my RSS feed gets clogged with multiple posts from the same site. Too many posts in one day and I feel overwhelmed, like I can’t catch up. So I like to spread my posts out a bit if  I can.

They tell you you’re supposed to keep your site current, up to date and well designed. I don’t. Let’s face it, this site has no design. I haven’t even updated my company site in over a year. It doesn’t even list one of my newest and biggest clients.

(OK, not updating my company site is actually dumb. I’ve been meaning to do something about that, but it needs a complete redesign and I don’t have time [or energy] for that. Though every time I redesign that site I try to make it require less and less maintenance. At this rate I should just make a single page that requires zero updating. Ever. Hmm… tempting.)

They tell you you’re supposed to build a fan base. I don’t. I mean, I have Twitter followers and Facebook friends and RSS subscribers. I even have an email newsletter, but updates are rare. But I’m not trying to marshal this crowd of ‘Go Kevin’ people. I figure if people like my stuff they’ll follow somehow. I don’t need to constantly flood them with a steady barrage of ‘I’m So Awesome’ updates.

Maybe all that is naive. Maybe I’m squandering my potential. But I don’t care. I started my blog way back in 1998 for me. I still do it for me. I’ve learned that I can’t follow all that advice and still do it for me. If I start following all that advice then I’m doing it for someone else, and that doesn’t work. I mean, I love you folks who keep reading this crazy blog, but I think you understand that I’m not here to sing and dance for you.

This is my blog, my journal, my place to scratch out my thoughts, to try stuff, to rant, to yell, to piss and moan, to remember things and to fail. I’m not one of those people who’s all about me, but this place is all for me. And if that flies in the face of conventional social media guru wisdom, oh well.

One More E-mail Newsletter Plug

OK, one more e-mail newsletter plug. I just set up a fancy new e-mail newsletter (using MailChimp!) and you can subscribe here.

Why should you sign up? Good question.

1) I’m a firm believer that e-mail newsletters should offer something valuable. At the very least e-mail subscribers should get the inside scoop on what’s happening, before you splash it all over the YouTwitFaces of the world. I plan to give my e-mail subscribers the breaking news first. And I’ve got some news ready to break. I wouldn’t be opposed to throwing out a discount or two either.

2) You get a free prize for signing up. Now, I’ll be honest. It’s a free prize that’s publicly available on this site, so it’s not like it’s exclusive or anything. But I imagine a lot of folks have missed it. Here are a few unprompted responses from people who checked out the free prize:

  • “That is just awesome.  Thanks for sharing it.”
  • “This [free prize] is genius. Pure hilarious genius.”
  • “I just have to say…what a prize! Very cool idea. I’d elaborate, but I don’t want to post any spoilers for those who haven’t signed up yet.”

So there you go, a few real live responses from people who enjoyed their free prize for subscribing to the new e-mail newsletter. You can subscribe now.

I Have an E-mail Newsletter?

I’ve been toying with this idea for a while, but I finally got it together and started an e-mail newsletter. You can subscribe here! I plan to send infrequent updates about some of my crazy projects. I promise you won’t get inundated with garbage and I won’t send you forwards from Nigeria. Unless they’re really good.

I have several methods of keeping people updated, from the very frequent (Twitter) to the kind of frequent (blog posts here, you can subscribe via RSS or e-mail). But for infrequent updates, I’ve usually just had to cobble together whatever e-mail addresses I have lying around and send out an update. It’s usually haphazard, it takes me forever, I get lots of failed addresses and its borderline spam (literally: I have to use my Gmail account because my provider won’t let me send a mass e-mail to that many people). So I thought for those rare times when I need to update the folks who don’t follow my updates religiously (so everyone but my wife and mom), I need a better system. Hence, my own e-mail newsletter. Wacky, I know. Plus it’s powered by MailChimp, so it’s got that going for it.

I’m hoping to put a little more creativity into this e-mail so it’s not just another medium to blast updates. I’d like to call it something better than “e-mail newsletter,” but so far setting it up has sapped my time and not left me with much creativity. But we’ll get there.

And what are these crazy projects I’m working on that I need to infrequently spread the word about? Oh, you’ll see. You’ll see. (But only if you subscribe, so you better do that.)

My Blogging Highlights from 2009

I’m a little bit slow with the 2009 recap, but it’s always fun to look back on the year and remember what happened. Here are a few highlights from 2009:

  • Philosophy of Profanity – I shared my philosophy of profanity, something I’ve formulated over the years and finally tried to express in blog form.
  • Nothing is Secret – Although it’s always been true, the Internet makes this painfully obvious. Integrity is the only response that makes sense.
  • You Can Change the World: Help People Find a Job – This has been a tough year and I’ve seen a lot of friends and family lose jobs. It underlines the importance of helping one another.
  • 25 Things About Billy Graham – I launched a blog about Billy Graham this year (and then promptly ignored it). These are the kinds of random, goofy posts I love to write.
  • Surviving the First Week – I sound pretty optimistic about surviving that first week with both kids all by myself. Silly me. I didn’t realize that survival mode would be my life for the foreseeable future.
  • Dependence Day – I’ve never been entirely comfortable with over-the-top displays of patriotism (especially in church), and this post is perhaps my best stab at explaining why.
  • Family Photo Shoot – This spring we ventured out to a farm in Western Wisconsin for a family photo shoot. That’s where the current image at the top of my blog came from.
  • Conference Week: Story & Cultivate – For the first time in five years of working in church marketing I actually attended not one but two church marketing conferences.
  • Homeless Advocate Mark Horvath – We were able to spend some time with the founder of InvisiblePeople.tv when he came through the Twin Cities on his 2009 road trip.
  • Lexi Does Johnny Cash: The Devil’s Right Hand – Best Lexi video of 2009.
  • Now That’s Funny: Christian Chirp – I explored the phenomenon of a Christian alternative to Twitter, with hilarious results.
  • Christians Demand Retailer Lip Service – I bemoaned the Christians who demand retailers pay our faith lip service.
  • The Yo-Yo Anniversary – My company gave away yo-yo’s to celebrate our five-year anniversary.

Two of the biggest highlights this year were traveling to Ethiopia to bring home Milo and celebrating my 30th birthday with clean water. Those two events deserve their own list of highlights.

Continue reading My Blogging Highlights from 2009

11 Years Ago Today

Eleven years ago today on Dec. 5, 1998 I started blogging. Last year I celebrated the one-decade milestone by releasing the first book I ever wrote: Mike, The Cat. Seems worth pointing to again. Check it out.

It’s always fun reminiscing about the years I’ve put into this blog. It’s kind of crazy to think about how long it’s been going. It’s changed quite a bit throughout the years, from incoherent to self-involved to whatever it is now. Though from the very beginning I started doing this for me. So if you don’t like it, too bad.

That’s probably the best part about blogging. If you have the right motivation, it can last 11 years. And counting.

And clearly this isn’t going to be one of those top 5 posts, so go ahead and check out Mike, The Cat. It at least has pictures.

Billyspot!: The Billy Graham Blog

Billyspot: The Unofficial Billy Graham BlogI finally did it: I started a Billy Graham blog. I’ve talked about this idea years ago, but I’m finally doing it.

It’s called Billyspot and it covers all things Billy Graham. It got started just before Christmas, so it’s definitely still in the infancy stage and has a long way to go. But for now the basics are there.

Why a Billy Graham Blog?
The big question, of course, is why write a blog exclusively about Billy Graham? There’s something engaging about Billy Graham that I find fascinating. He’s a world famous and highly respected evangelist. Consider the potential paradox of that statement for a moment: In a politically correct world he tells you that Jesus it the only way to salvation, and yet he’s still one of the most respected men in the world, a counselor to presidents.

It’s kind of amazing that a religious man can have that kind of near-universal acclaim. And I want to know how he does it. I want to know the behind-the-scenes stories. I want to know the theological questions that arise. I want to see the goofy things that inevitably come up around a man like that.

Hence, the Billyspot. I’ve talked a lot about Billy Graham in the past, I worked for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for two years, and I have a pile of Billy-o-bilia to serve as fodder. Here we go.

Seth Godin Defines Blogging: Drip, Drip, Drip

I love how Seth Godin explains blogging in this little nugget from an interview earlier this year:

“Blogging lets you drip ideas, bit by bit, to people who want to hear them. There are two crucial ideas in that sentence, so let’s unpack them.

“The dripping matters because that’s how people learn. Not in one hour chunks, but one little idea at a time. Do it for five years or more, every single day (as I’ve done on my blog) and you build trust and credibility and a body of work. The permission (“want to hear them”) is important because if no one is reading your blog, you’ll know. And then you can change it. And over time, you can earn the right to talk to a thousand and then ten thousand and then a million people.

“And isn’t that your mission?”

That drip, drip, drip of ideas is how the best of focused blogs work (which probably means this blog isn’t very focused). If you want to succeed at blogging you have to understand the importance of that tiny, consistent process of dripping.