Some Blogging Tips

So I'm quickly realizing that my blogging for the summer may be more sparse than I had originally anticipated. My new job is consuming much of my time, but hopefully sparseness just means richer content.

That leads me to today's post.

This past weekend Josh Puckett and I attended Podcamp Ohio2 in Columbus, Ohio. So we dragged ourselves out of bed on Saturday morning and began our 2 hour trek up to Columbus, OH.

The day consisted of 6 sessions from 10AM-5PM. The sessions were focused mostly around podcasting and blogging. There were also some sessions on digital marketing, and of course almost all of these sessions involved twitter (what doesn't involve twitter these days).

Probably one of the biggest things I took away from the day was some helpful blogging tips.

1. "Content is King" - Keep your blog's content very rich and engaging. If you don't have good content then it doesn't matter how good the design is, or how much you market it, it is never going to take off.

2. To-the-point - Keep your posts succinct and to the point. This may depend on your audience, but under all circumstances you don't want to post a book each time. I struggle with this, sometimes I just find myself rambling on about unnecessary things.

3. Adapt to your audience - Use google analytics to discover what keywords are being hit the most and what days you get the most readers. Google analytics are invaluable to you as a blogger.

Those are the main things that I took away. I also went to a very good session with Gabe Taviano called "Digital Disciples". I will post more on this session later.

For now, take those tips and go blog.

Do you practice any of the tips that I mentioned?

A Fun Job

I started my new job on Tuesday. And just in the short 4 days that I have worked as the "media guy" at Calvary I have noticed that this job is going to be different from any job that I have ever had before. And I mean "different" in the absolute best way possible.

In the past 4 days I have worked over 30 hours. And usually with any other job that I have had 30 hours feels like 30 years. It just drags on throughout the day and I look forward to that time when I can leave to go home. But this week has literally flown by. Yesterday I worked 9 hours and it felt like it was 3 hours.

So I was thinking about this and the reason why time goes by so fast is because I'm actually doing stuff that I like doing. On Wednesday I spent all day creating signs for an event in the church this coming Sunday, and I enjoyed doing it. There was just such a satisfaction when I was done, because I knew that it was something that I had created and accomplished.

Now I realize it is only the first week, and it is all still new to me and fresh, and it may get a bit old after a while, but I don't foresee that happening. As long as there are always projects for me to work on then I don't think it will get old. And there will always be projects for me to work on. It has also been a good week because they gave me my own office, which is awesome, and today Katrina made me my own name plate for the outside of my office. I'm kinda mad I forgot to take pictures of everything, but there will be pictures coming soon.

So, moral of the story, its awesome to have a job that requires you to do stuff that you love. Imagine that. :)

How was your week?

p.s. I don't know what that picture of the penguins has to do with anything, but it is what came up when I googled for "fun job"

A Curveball in Life

Brace yourself for a bit more lengthy post. I'll try to keep it short, but you know how that goes.

So a ton has taken place in my life over the past 4 days, and God has thrown me a big curveball. Thankfully I can now talk about this publicly.

I have been emailing my senior pastor at my home church in Covington, KY for the past couple months. While I was still at school in Chicago he told me that he wanted to meet with me when I came home just so I could share with him some of the ideas that I had for media in the church. So I met with him this past Wednesday and it went very well. I can't really talk about all of the stuff that we discussed but it was very exciting to see how much he was willing to implement alot of the ideas that I had.

So we met for about an hour and a half and then I left. A couple hours later he found me at the church at offered me a job for the summer to do media and tech in the church. As many of you might know this was something that I had been burdened about for a while, and it came as a huge surprise that he was offering me this job. The only catch was that I was supposed to start my sports ministry internship with a soccer camp the very next day. I had no idea what to do. I knew where my desires were but I wasn't sure if those were God's desires for me. So I talked to my parents about it, I called my advisor at school, and then finally talked to the leadership at the soccer camp and they told me to sleep on it, come to training and then make a decision.

I went to the first day of training, and by the end of the day I had made my decision. I knew that my church needed me in this time, and this was where God wanted me. So I told them my decision and thankfully they were very understanding, and they didn't want me in a place where God didn't want me.

So I am now officially working for Calvary Baptist Church as the...well I don't know what my "official title" is yet, but I'll be working alot with the media and service production.

So needless to say I am very excited about what this summer holds. I have alot of great ideas, but it is going to be alot of work to implement them in the correct way, but I know I'm up to the task.

That is what has been going on in my life recently.

I've spent the past 3 days cleaning my room, and I really mean cleaning my room. I got rid of so much junk, it was ridiculous. And I had to setup what somewhat resembles an office, so its nice to have some workspace now.

I would appreciate your prayers this summer as I begin this journey into implementing alot of new technologies into the church that I believe can be very beneficial in furthering the kingdom.

Thank you all so much.

What are you doing this summer?

Hedo Turkoglu's Twin

Turns out I have a friend that looks very similar if not almost identical to the now well-known NBA Basketball player Hedo Turkoglu. He plays for the Orlando Magic, who by the way, got stomped last night by the L.A. Lakers. It is funny because every time me and my buddies watch the Orlando Magic play, without fail, someone will mention that our friend, Joe Aprile has a twin brother, Hedo Turkoglu.

Don't believe me?
See for yourself...

On the left is the NBA player Turkoglu, on the right is our friend Joe Aprile

I Chopped All My Hair Off

So I got it all chopped off? My hair I mean. It was a sad day, but it had to be done. It was just going to be too much of a pain dealing with it this whole summer while I'm doing my internship, coaching soccer and running soccer camps all summer.

Just for the record, I love my long hair a million times more than my short hair but it will grow back, I promise.

Here's a before and after pic