Making Meaning - Case Study 1: Knowledge

Photo by JdeePanIII

Part 1: The Making Money Online Hype
Part 2: Problogger, Making Money Online & The Hunger to Succeed
Part 3: The Importance of Making Meaning

Let us now continue our journey and see what it really means to add meaning to something.  I’m going to share with you in this post one of my favourite blog sites of all time, which exemplifies this principle and if you would take time to study this blogger’s format, and his message it will really change your own thinking.

At the end of the day, what it is all about is the VALUE you add as an individual, to the sum total of human knowledge, either by creating this with some original thought or sharing what you know with others.  True, we want to make money, but the meaning that Guy Kawasaki talks about, comes from that core, that essence of helping our fellow mankind to better themselves through knowledge.  It does n’t matter how you do it, but reach that inner core within your self and let it guide your efforts, and you will find the meaning and the purpose.  Enough of the preaching, so let’s begin.

My Favourite Blog Site - www.doshdosh.com

I can’t honestly remember now how I came across the site, but I’m glad I did.  My first encounter with the site was to read Maki’s post on

How ‘Mini-Funnel’ Websites Can Help You Increase Traffic, Generate Leads and Build Exposure

To tell you the truth, I was hooked.  I had never heard of mini-funnel websites, and how the recent US Presidential Elections were fought more on the internet marketing campaigns of the Barack Obama supporters than any other campaign in the past.  The turn-out of voters, speaks for itself, and last month in some form or other, we all witnessed history in the making.

Early on in the campaign, there was a lot of bad publicity for Barack Obama concerning whether he was a muslim or not.  At that time, that single question:

Is Barack Obama a Muslim?

Was probably being searched for by millions of Googlers and other search engine users.  To counter this, the Barack Obama campaign team, created a website called:

isbarackobamaamuslim.com

If you go to it, all you see is a single page, with the big letters in black saying ‘NO’, and if you click on it, you will be taken to a page on the Barack Obama website, which has a post with the headline, ‘Barack Obama has never been a muslim, and is a committed Christian’.  Wow!!!  That is the power of the internet, to drive a message home in one single sweep and quash all the negative rumours in a second.  And, if you missed it, that is what a mini-funnel site is, it’s used to funnel traffic to your main site.  Makes you think does n’t it, how to create loads of mini-funnel sites which are Google KEYWORDS optimised and use them to boost traffic to your primary website.

I learnt something that day.  Something that was useful and valuable.  Maki’s post had meaning, it increased my knowledge in a measureable way, and I could see the value of what he was saying.  I bookmarked the site.  Now there’s very few sites that I really subscribe to, this is one that I have an email subscription to, because I know what he is writing about, is worth reading.

As a matter of interest, that particular post alone, has 126 comments, mine included!!!

Infographics Can Help You Spread Ideas and Attract Attention

Maki’s recent post on Doshdosh concerns Infographics, and again it is one of those posts that will teach you something which you may find useful.  He talks about the power of graphics, and how a particular type of graphic which contains useful information can help spread the word about what you’re doing.  Again, a lot of food for thought there and something I’d probably seen and noticed, but never paid much attention to the power of using something like this for what I’m doing myself.  Maybe not something most of us can use immediately, but I know I’ve produced quite a few presentations myself in the past on MS Powerpoint, and it would be quite easy to turn a concept into a visual infographic which captures peoples imagination and wants them to use your graphic on their sites.

‘Spread your ideas’, it’s again that same thought, of how to generate mass traffic get your ideas out there and visible, because we are all trying to capture that few second attention-span of most internet users long enough for them to want to come and visit our sites.  That surely is the challenge, as I’m finding out for myself through my blogging to date.  How to generate people’s interest in our work and then to hold them long enough to want to stay.

Again, Maki’s post hit the mark for me, he increased my knowledge about how I myself could use something like infographics to promote my own efforts.

Knowledge is Worth more than Freedom

Only yesterday, I came across something through Blogcatalog.  A fellow blogger Ryhen Satch, has a website called Virtual Synapses, with the sub title, ‘Let’s make a connection’, a very apt title if you ever studied the central nervous system.  His recent post on ‘Are you a Wise Blogger’ highlights excerpts from the film ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’, and I was interested enough to go and watch the actual video.  It was a long video, but it was worth watching, because of the soul-destroying struggles that Dante faces locked up and beaten in a prison cell.  It certainly makes you appreciate the comforts we take so much for granted.  When Dante, meets the priest, he is offered Knowledge in return for his labour, and the priest says:

“Freedom can be taken away as you well know.  I offer knowledge.  Everything I have learned.  I will teach you Economics, Mathematics, Philosopy, Science…”

Dante accepts the offer, helping the priest in digging the tunnel to their freedom.

Conclusions

That excerpt from the film ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ brings us full circle back to the importance of knowledge.  In a time and place where the priest and Dante find themselves, money has no value.  The picture of Dante’s sheer delight in being able to sit on a chair in the priests cell after so many years of being locked up in a cell with nothing, is quite moving to watch.  To think that something we consider so ordinary, can be so priceless.

The examples I’ve chosen highlight one way to add meaning to whatever you choose to do, by increasing the knowledge of the people who take time to listen to what you have to say.  There’s much you can learn from the DoshDosh website, please visit it and let me know what you think.  I hope you will be as inspired by Maki’s writing as I have been, then look at ways on how you can do the same, increase the knowledge that you spread through your articles.  Good Luck!!

NOTES:

Here’s the link to Maki’s Site:  DOSHDOSH
- to his Post on MiniFunnels:  Mini-Funnels
- to his Post on Infographics: Infographics

Here’s the link to Virtual Synapses and the link to the video: The Count of Monte Cristo

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