De-Stressing Techniques for the Full-Time Netrepreneur
Grok Headline matches for De-Stressing Techniques for the Full-Time Netrepreneur
Destressing Techniques for the Full-Time
Netrepreneur
Destressing Techniques for the Full-Time
Netrepreneur
05/23/2002 10:39 PMMSN Search Hits Full Time Almost 100% of
the Time now
MSN Search Hits Full Time Almost 100% of
the Time now
02/01/2005 09:15 PMStressing
Stressing
03/19/2003 10:26 PMAfter this afternoon we are DONE with rehearsals for the play, if you
haven't noticed from my blog header image,...
"full-time"
"full-time"
02/07/2005 02:02 AMDoing kottke.org as a full-time job
Doing kottke.org as a full-time job
03/14/2005 04:24 PMI recently quit my web design gig and -- as of today -- will be
working on kottke.org as my full-time job. And I need your help.
I'm asking the regular readers of kottke.org (that's you!) to
become micropatrons of kottke.org by contributing a moderate sum
of money to help enable me to edit/write/design/code the site for
one year on a full-time basis. If you find kottke.org valuable in any
way, please consider giving whatever you feel is appropriate.
This will be a one-time "fund drive" lasting 3 weeks,
you may make contributions via PayPal, credit card, or check, there
will be some great gifts as an incentive for you to give (more details here), and
your contributions will be the primary means of support for the site.
And yes, I have absolutely no idea if this will work and I'm
completely nervous and exhilarated by the challenges ahead.
If you're uncertain as to whether you want to become a kottke.org
micropatron, please read on. I'm going to explain what it is I'll
actually be doing, why I'm doing it, how the site might change, and
what I'll be doing with your hard-earned money.
Why are you doing this?
I've been self-publishing on the web for almost 10 years now, first
with a little site on my school's web server, then on various ISP
accounts, then 0sil8, and finally
kottke.org for the last 7 years (almost). Looking back on it all, this
little hobby of mine has been the most rewarding, pleasurable,
maddening, challenging thing in my life. I've met so many nice, good
people, formed valued relationships with some of them, traveled to
distant lands (and New Jersey), procured jobs & other business
opportunities, discovered new interests, music, movies & books,
and lots of other stuff, all for putting a little bit of me out there
for people to see.
And yet, I almost quit last spring. The site was getting out of
hand and wasn't fun anymore. It was taking me away from my
professional responsibilities, my social life, and my relationship
with my girlfriend. There was no room in my life for it anymore. As
you can imagine, thinking of quitting what had been the best thing in
my life bummed me right the hell out.
After thinking about it for a few weeks, I had a bit of an
epiphany. The real problem was the tension between my web design
career and my self-publishing efforts; that friction was unbalancing
everything else. One of them had to go, and so I decided to switch
careers and pursue the editing/writing of this site as a full-time
job.
Ok, but why else are you doing this?
- Blogging -- or personal publishing in general (not that
they're synonymous) -- as a pursuit has been somewhat marginalized as
a hobby or something one does to support other more worthy and/or
lucrative pursuits. People leverage their blogs in order to write
books, write for magazines or newspapers, pursue art or photography,
go work for Gawker, Mediabistro, or Weblogs Inc., get jobs at
startups, do freelance design (as I used to), start a software
company, or as a vehicle to sell advertising. All worthy pursuits, but
I'm interested in editing kottke.org as my primary interest; blogging
for blogging's sake, I guess.
In the recent comics issue of McSweeney's, Chris Ware notes that "in
the past decade or so, comics appear to have gained some greater
measure of respect, due in no small part to the number of cartoonists
who have begun to take the medium seriously". This is me taking online
personal publishing seriously because I feel it deserves as
much. - With decreasingly few exceptions, media is supported by
advertising. Content on the web in particular is heavily ad supported.
I'm interested in exploring other avenues with a special interest in
discovering sustainable ways for other folks to do things like this as
well.
- I'm attempting to revisit the idea of arts patronage in
the context of the internet. Patrons of the arts have typically been
wealthy individuals, well-heeled foundations, or corporations. As
we've seen in many contexts, the net allows individuals from
geographically dispersed locations to aggregate themselves for any
number of reasons. So, when you've got a group of people who are
interested in a particular artist, writer, etc., they should be able
to mobilize over the internet and support that person directly instead
of waiting around for the MacArthur Foundation or Cosimo de Medici to
do it.
- I'm interested in too many things to settle on design
or programming or writing or a particular topic. kottke.org indulges
my desire to be interested in too many things (as Neal Stephenson put
it recently).
- And not to get too mushy here, but this has
been a dream of mine for a long time now. Thought it was high time to
stop dreaming and start doing.
How will you doing this full-time affect the site?
First, let me tell you what won't change. The content on kottke.org
will always be freely available to everyone who visits, regardless of
whether you have contributed or not. No special "member" content or
services. Think of kottke.org as non-crippled, fully-supported
shareware...you only pay if you feel it's worth supporting.
kottke.org will also not become any less personal or any more
professional. This is still my personal web site and is not going to
mutate into a vertical blog about tech, design, politics, pop culture,
or even asbestos. I'm not turning into a journalist. I'm still
going to write and post almost exclusively about things I am
interested in, whatever those may be at any particular moment. Just so
you know, I may occasionally post cat photos, as is my right as the
editor of a personal web site.
What might change on the site will be driven mainly by two
conditions:
1. kottke.org is now my main professional priority. At long last,
focus!
2. I will have available to me, for the first time in years, large
uninterrupted chunks of time with which to produce creative works.
The goal is to use the increased level of focus and time to create
a (much) better site. More time means there will be more content of a
greater variety. Some days, that may mean more posts and more links.
I'll be able to go to more (hopefully interesting) events in NYC
(& elsewhere) and write about them. I'll have time do the
occasional bit of real journalism, collaborate on neat projects like
Dropcash, and do larger projects
that require longer time scales to finish...dare I hint at a return to
more 0sil8-like projects? (I dare.)
And there are opportunities that I'm sure will present themselves as I
settle into the luxuriant folds of full-timeness.
Why not advertising?
Like I said above, there's got to be a way to support media that
doesn't involve advertising. But more than that, I don't want to
disrupt the relationship dynamic we've got going here. There are
currently two parties involved with kottke.org: me and the collective
you. Advertising introduces a third party. In my experience, the third
wheel of advertising often works to unbalance the relationship in
favor of either the author or the readers (usually in favor of the
author). If ads were involved, I might feel the need to change what or
how I write to appease advertisers. I might write to increase
pageviews and earn more revenue. I could fill pages with ads, earning
more revenue but making the content more difficult to read or pushing
some content off the page entirely. You could block advertising and
deny me needed revenue.
None of that is appealing to me. If I'm writing, you're reading,
I'm responding to what you've got to say about my writing, and we're
mixin' it up in the comments, why do we need a middleman? Why not keep
that dynamic intact if we can?
What's your monetary goal?
Quitting my job to run kottke.org full-time is possibly the dumbest
economic decision I've ever made in my life. This undertaking so isn't
about the money. (I'm gonna link to Ludicorp's about page
here because their corporate philosophy matches well with my
philosophy in approaching this.) At best, my goal is to make about 1/3
to 1/2 of my former yearly salary to support my efforts here for a
year. I have no idea whether this goal is even remotely
achievable...only the hope that it is and the desire to make it
happen. Like I said, dumb economic decision.
As with anyone starting a new business, I've tightened things up in
order to give myself the best chance of success. I've moved to a (way)
cheaper apartment in Brooklyn, cut way back on eating out (I'm
learning how to cook properly instead...hey, if I can learn to cook,
you can pony up a couple
of bucks), will be using my cache of frequent flier miles when I
need to travel, and am curtailing my spending in general. It feels a
lot like right after I got out of college...without the ramen
noodles.
Are you excited?
If by that you mean "do you feel like you're going to throw up?" then
yes.
Ok, that's about all I've got for now. That's definitely the most
difficult thing I've ever had to write; I hope it came out OK. Thanks
for reading and I hope you'll consider supporting the site. If
you've got any questions, send me some email or
find me on AIM (I may be a little slow on the IM uptake...I'm
anticipating a busy day or two). I'll probably end up compiling
questions I get into a later FAQ post of some sort (or making
corrections/clarifications to this one).
Again, thanks for reading.
(Oh, and I should be on the
webcam most of the day today. I guess you should be able to tell
roughly how the above is going by how much I'm smiling. If instead you
see me rocking catatonically in my chair clutching an empty pill
container, call 911.)
Update: Hi there. Not a lot of time (today has been crazy!
have you ever gotten IMed by 300 people in one day?) but things seem
to be going pretty well. If you've emailed to ask to be put on the
micropatrons list and don't see your name up there, don't
despair...I've got a bit of a backlog. I'll get the names up there as
soon as I can. And more later..but for now, thank you to everyone who
contributed, you're too kind. Off to dinner before I starve.....
So You Want to Be a Full-Time Trader?
So You Want to Be a Full-Time Trader?
12/03/2003 08:42 AMTheStreet.com Dec 3 2003 8:32AM ET
Day two of kottke.org full-time
Day two of kottke.org full-time
03/14/2005 04:24 PMI don't want to completely turn the site into a discussion of the micropatronage
initiative (more info)
for the next three weeks, but I will be talking about it somewhat. For
one thing, contributors have been asking for an update on how it's
going. Also, I've been planning this since May of last year but
haven't talked about it much on the site, so I've got a few pent-up
posts to get out there.
Day one of the "fund drive" (I hate that term for it, more on
vocabulary below) went pretty well. In the rough chart I conjured in
my head last night, the revenue line and the "I don't need to sell my
blood plasma" line are converging nicely and I'm hopeful that my goal
will be achieved within the three week period. You'll hear this so
many times on the site in the next few weeks that you're going to get
tired of it, but a sincere thank you to everyone who has contributed
so far. I'm not going to be able to respond individually to each one,
but I've read all your emails and PayPal notes and I appreciate you
taking the time to write.
And now, the vocabulary part of the post you've all been waiting
for! The term I've most commonly heard associated with all this is
"donation"; that people are donating to a cause. When I was writing yesterday's
announcement post and the supporting materials, I had to make a
choice in how I described this to you...otherwise that post would have
been at least twice as long as it was. In the end, I opted to explain
it in terms of patronage...using words like "support" and
"contribute". I specifically did not use the word "donation" because
there's a connotation there of someone giving something and receiving
nothing tangible in return (and somehow, there's less of that
connotation with "contribution", although maybe that's just me).
Patrons don't donate in the sense that people donate to the Red
Cross...they typically get something directly in return (e.g. a piece
of art) for their patronage.
Another way to look at the money that people are giving me is that
it's like a subscription fee for a daily magazine. There's a
transaction here; you're paying me in return for a (hopefully)
interesting, engaging, timely site that's full of information and
creative projects and updated on a daily basis. So while I think the
micropatronage idea fits the best with what I'm doing, there are also
elements of the subscription idea in there as well. It's hard to tell
you exactly what I mean (either English is failing me here or I'm
failing English), but I hope you get the gist of it.
As far as the rest of the site goes, I'm planning on updating as
regularly as I can for the next three weeks. I may be a little slow
here and there because of the "fund drive" overhead (the amount of
email in and out of my mail client over the past week is
staggering)...which is one of the reasons I wanted to limit this to
three weeks. You don't have to deal with me bugging you all year about
it and I only need to focus on these administrative duties for a short
time and can spend the rest of the year doing more creative things for
the site.
Last thing...a couple of press mentions of this little
experiment:
$2.50 for your
thoughts (Red Herring)
Quit Your
Job to Blog, Blog, Blog (Wired News)
Back full time tonight
Back full time tonight
01/16/2004 10:58 AMInformation has been a bit slow coming out this week due to my busy
schedule in San Diego. I will...
Full-time Perl/CGI/MYSQL Web Programmer
Full-time Perl/CGI/MYSQL Web Programmer
01/09/2004 09:55 PMRolloutsoftware - United States, California, Santa Monica (2004-01-07)
Full or Part Time
Webmasters/Entrepreneurs
Full or Part Time
Webmasters/Entrepreneurs
06/29/2004 03:26 PMSeems to be a real mix of SEO's with their own sites these days. Did
the big Optimization-come-SEA (Search Engine Advertising) switch
impact people *that* much?
Any information, any time, any network -
how close are we to the full take-up of
3G?
Any information, any time, any network -
how close are we to the full take-up of
3G?
03/29/2005 09:08 AMComputer Weekly Mar 29 2005 12:43PM GMT
San Diego Perl Developer Full-Time
San Diego Perl Developer Full-Time
02/01/2005 09:51 PMDelphi Technical - United States, CA, San Diego (2005-02-01)
del.icio.us gets funded, Schachter goes
full-time
del.icio.us gets funded, Schachter goes
full-time
03/30/2005 04:32 AMCory Doctorow:
Joshua Schachter, who created the link-sharing service del.icio.us,
has taken on some investment capital so he can work on del.icio.us
full time. Congrats, Joshua!
I am excited to finally be able to devote all of my energy to working
on
and improving this site, and I'll also be able to acquire some
much-needed
infrastructure.
I'm still in charge of the site and still committed to making it as
good
as it can be.
Link
(
Thanks, Ian!)
Ongoing Full-Time mod-perl/mysql Miami
Ongoing Full-Time mod-perl/mysql Miami
06/17/2005 05:56 PMGunsAmerica - United States, FL, Miami (2005-06-17)
Bush Offers Budget Stressing Security
and War on Terror
Bush Offers Budget Stressing Security
and War on Terror
02/02/2004 01:16 PMTo battle soaring deficits, the president's $2.4 trillion budget plan
squeezed scores of government programs and sought spending cuts in
seven Cabinet-level agencies.
PHP Freaks Hiring a Developer in Orlando
- Full Time Employemnt
PHP Freaks Hiring a Developer in Orlando
- Full Time Employemnt
11/19/2003 02:49 AMPHP Freaks is hiring an in-house full time PHP Developer in ORLANDO,
FL. If you are in this area and have the skills, seeking a job and
want to have fun, please take a look at this job offer.
Re[2]: [Full-Disclosure] Security
aspects of time synchronization
infrastructure
Re[2]: [Full-Disclosure] Security
aspects of time synchronization
infrastructure
08/20/2004 02:03 PM3APA3A (Aug 19 2004)
CA's Interim CEO Not Seeking Full-Time
Post (TechWeb)
CA's Interim CEO Not Seeking Full-Time
Post (TechWeb)
05/10/2004 03:16 AMTechWeb - Ken Cron, who stepped in after Sanjay Kumar was reassigned
last month, says the software vendor is in no rush to name a full-time
CEO--but that he's not a candidate for the job.
RE: Re[2]: [Full-Disclosure] Security
aspects of time synchronization
infrastructure
RE: Re[2]: [Full-Disclosure] Security
aspects of time synchronization
infrastructure
08/21/2004 01:33 AMjoe (Aug 20 2004)
RE: [Full-Disclosure] Security aspects
of time synchronization infrastructure
RE: [Full-Disclosure] Security aspects
of time synchronization infrastructure
08/21/2004 01:33 AMjoe (Aug 19 2004)
Chinese Business Specialist and China
SEO Consultant Lonnie B. Hodge Will Join
Sinotrading.us As Full-time
International Search Engine Marketing
Coordinator and Director
Chinese Business Specialist and China
SEO Consultant Lonnie B. Hodge Will Join
Sinotrading.us As Full-time
International Search Engine Marketing
Coordinator and Director
06/17/2005 03:23 PMLonnie B. Hodge, a China SEO Specialist and Chinese Business
Consultant, has joined forces with www.Sinotrading.us to provide
translation, editing and cultural marketing services. [PRWEB Jun 17,
2005]
Companies Turn to Internet Consultants
Rather than Full-time Staff Employees
for Internet Strategy and Management
Solutions
Companies Turn to Internet Consultants
Rather than Full-time Staff Employees
for Internet Strategy and Management
Solutions
07/25/2004 02:48 AMSmall and large companies are turning to consultants to save expense
over the cost of hiring a full-time staff. Businesses face tough
competition and challenges with a lack of capitalization, inadequate
staff with insufficient expertise, inexperienced and overworked staff
who are unable to properly plan strategies and direction for on-line
presence. New business start-ups often have budgets that do not
include salary and benefits for a full-time experienced team. [PRWEB
Jul 25, 2004]
Full Tilt Poker’s “Main Event Mania™” Is
in Full Swing
Full Tilt Poker’s “Main Event Mania™” Is
in Full Swing
06/05/2005 10:52 PMMore than 50 people have already qualified for Full Tilt Poker’s $10
million giveaway. [PRWEB Jun 1, 2005]
Design Techniques
Design Techniques
07/01/2002 08:28 AMWebmasterBase Jun 29 2002 0:14AM ET
UI Patterns and Techniques
UI Patterns and Techniques
08/13/2002 02:06 PMSpam Blocking Techniques
Spam Blocking Techniques
08/10/2004 06:01 PMAT&T Patents Spamming Techniques
AT&T Patents Spamming Techniques
11/17/2003 12:46 PMLots of folks appear to be puzzling over this one. Dan Gillmor is
noting that AT&T appears to have received a patent
on
getting around spam filters. Yes,
you read that right. They've got a
patent on faking out spam
filters. There are just so many directions to go with this story...
First, some people are wondering if perhaps AT&T is hoping to use this
in an anti-spam strategy by suing spammers - saying they've violated
the patent by getting around filters. That seems highly unlikely in
practice - and extremely unlikely to hold up in court. So, then why
would they file for such a patent? It's possible they want to offer a
service to spammers that would help them get around filters - and this
way they can stop other companies from offering the same thing. Of
course, the more important point is that
this is a patent for
getting around spam filters. How is that possibly patentable?
I've certainly violated this patent a bunch of times when emails I've
sent to friends got caught in spam filters and I needed to adjust the
content. How can this possibly be considered "non-obvious" by even
the most dim-witted patent reviewer?
to debunking the spin techniques
to debunking the spin techniques
08/10/2004 12:33 PMnytimes.com/2004/08/10/opinion/10krugman.html?n=Top%2FOpinion%2FEdi
torials%20and%20Op-Ed%2FOp-Ed%2FColumnists%2FPaul%20Krugman
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Unix Attacking Techniques
Unix Attacking Techniques
05/12/2004 02:27 PMNvidia Filtering Techniques
Nvidia Filtering Techniques
11/02/2003 07:36 AMNew & Revolutionary Debugging
Techniques?
New & Revolutionary Debugging
Techniques?
05/02/2004 10:05 AMDead Internet Marketing Techniques
Dead Internet Marketing Techniques
05/30/2004 11:49 AMMasterNewMedia.org May 30 2004 2:55PM GMT
al-Qaida Surveillance Techniques
Detailed (AP)
al-Qaida Surveillance Techniques
Detailed (AP)
12/29/2004 08:28 PMAP - A new government intelligence bulletin describes in the greatest
detail yet al-Qaida's techniques for assessing potential targets,
extolling the lethal power of flying, shattered building glass and
advising that kerosene and tires are effective for a deadly arson
attack.
Graphic Design Techniques: Grungy Fun
Graphic Design Techniques: Grungy Fun
08/08/2002 01:37 AMWebmasterBase Aug 8 2002 0:45AM ET
Top 4 Paid Online Advertising Techniques
Top 4 Paid Online Advertising Techniques
01/05/2005 08:40 AMEntrepreneur.com - Wed Jan 5, 10:30 am GMT
IBM blends three manufacturing
techniques in 970FX
IBM blends three manufacturing
techniques in 970FX
02/13/2004 04:04 PMIBM Corp. released further details Friday about the manufacturing
process used to create its 90-nanometer PowerPC 970FX chip, its first
chip built on the smaller process generation.
ASP.NET offers new state management
techniques
ASP.NET offers new state management
techniques
01/29/2003 01:49 AMCNET Jan 29 2003 1:24AM ET
The Most Hated Advertising Techniques,
on Yahoo
The Most Hated Advertising Techniques,
on Yahoo
12/17/2004 06:32 PMA lot of folks are talking about Jakob Nielsen's latest posting: The
Most Hated Advertising Techniques. There aren't many surprises in
there. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that he's telling many of us
what we already knew--it's just that he's helped to quantify that
knowledge. Before I even had a chance to connect the two dots, though,
Jeff Boulter decided to see which of the hated Techniques are in use
on the Yahoo network. His findings...
CNN.com - Interrogation techniques
banned in Iraq - May 14, 2004
CNN.com - Interrogation techniques
banned in Iraq - May 14, 2004
05/16/2004 04:58 AMU.S. bans some interrogation techniques .. Some prisoners freed from
Abu Ghraib ..
reports
cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/14/iraq.abuse/index.html
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Grok Description matches for De-Stressing Techniques for the Full-Time Netrepreneur
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De-Stressing Techniques for the Full-Time Netrepreneur
