- by Alena Hitzemann, Associate Web Editor

Sometimes it's hard to practice what you preach.

I, for instance, often preach to other BMC bloggers about blogging best practices. I evangalize on the importance of posting often. I tell them that once a week is a good goal (especially given busy corporate schedules) but more frequently is even better. I talk about the blog as a more casual forum that doesn't require a perfectly crafted essay, but should instead reflect your own voice (with good grammar, of course.) I use the words "brevity" and "succinct" a lot. I say that sharp, brief and original thoughts are often better than long, drawn out treatises, particularly if you can produce them quickly.

And yet here I am: my last post almost a month ago. I'm not doing so well on the brevity front, either.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this boat. Work gets busy, and the work that you want to do isn't always the work that you need to do. It appears that walking the walk is slighly more challenging than talking the talk. But I'm a Gen Yer, and we're an idealistic bunch. It's very important to me to balance those wants (read, write, think) with the needs (8 million other things.) So I'm buckling down, determined to follow my own advice and heed the recommendations that I so glibly dispense.

That is the What: write more often, be more succinct, practice what you preach. But what about the easier-said-than-done piece? What about the How?

I've been trying to come up with ways to get it done. Here are the steps that I'm hoping to follow for more consistent and efficient blogging.

• Write when your head is clear. Do you think best in the morning or afternoon? When do your ideas hit, when do you feel energetic and articulate? Notice when your brain feels particularly sharp and capitalize on it. It will be easier, faster and more fun to write during those times.

• Block off time. Put it on your calendar, mark the time "busy" and make yourself stick to it. Yes, other things come up. But holding time for blogging sends the message to yourself and your co-workers that this is an important activity. In turn, you will garner more respect for your blog, build it into a more respectable space, and respect yourself for your diligence and brilliance.

• Be spontaneous. This is the flip side to "block off time." If you come across a news article or blog post and really need to express your opinions on it thisverysecond- make it happen. Your passion and enthusiasm will come through, plus timely posts are more naturally viral.

• Use metrics. Following your number of hits, visits, views, comments, etc. can be a great and addicting motivator. High numbers? Awesome, don't want to let down your readers! Low numbers? Better buckle down and build that fan base.

• Repurpose. Take advantage of your other projects. The research that you did for your boss, that report that you just put together, your most recent ppt... they all contain information and ideas that will be valuable to your readers, too. You did the work, make it work for you.
  

• Take notes. I'm a sucker for forgetting great ideas that pop up at random times. To combat this, I've started scribbling down nuggets of insight whenever they strike and keeping all the scribbles in one place. Looking through them reminds me what bulb went off during that last meeting and how it connects to the post I've been writing in my head.

• Step away. If you're struggling to find the right words or clarify an idea, take a break. Have a snack, walk around, do something else. I often find that when I return to the screen, my thoughts fall quickly into place. (This works for crossword puzzles, too.)

• Get inspired. Feeling flat? Spend some time looking for things that set off a spark. Really think about the information you're consuming- your favorite blogs, news sites, podcasts, good music, a chat with a friend, whatever- and what that information means to you.

• Connect work to life. And vice versa. Thinking about concepts through various lenses often effects particularly interesting results. Plus, your readers want to know who you are as a person. Sharing things about your life or your work with your audience will help them understand the many angles of your writing and your personality.

And most importantly...

• Set goals... and it's corollary, keep them. Say you're going to blog twice a week. Write it down. Add it to your other professional objectives. Tell someone about it so you feel accountable. It helps, I promise.

Ok- that's my list.My goal is to blog twice a week, starting next week. This is the part about telling people to make yourself accountable. Let's hope I can keep it up.

What are your tips and tricks for staying on the blogging ball?

- by Alena Hitzemann, Associate Web Editor

I am in the process of buying my first home. Exciting, right? Also nerve-wracking and scary and confusing and exhausting, but mostly really exciting. Talk about learning curve- the last couple months have been similar to my first months at BMC. It's a whole new vocabulary, complete with acronyms, jargon and legalese... plus, they make you do math! Truly shocking, although I do now feel a sense of pride when I casually throw around terms like "loan origination fee" and debate the relative merits of fir v. oak for hardwood floors. I am also full of real estate cliches and catch phrases passed down from our agent. The most important of which, of course, is:

Location, Location, Location.

So that is the context for my brain right now. Everything, including work, is somehow filtered through a real estate lens. Which is why, I think, I had a very interesting thought the other day when perusing some best practices for blogging. Across several articles, the most consistent and emphasized advice was:

Link, Link, Link.

A light switched on. The L word repetition. The insistence of importance. My mind conjured old SAT analogies:

location : real estate :: linking : blogging. But how exactly did these ideas connect?

And then it struck me: community.

Location is the holy grail of real estate because of community. I suppose it also encompasses the size of the lot and the pretty trees out front and the proximity to a park, but really, it's about the people and the way they interact with each other in that space. It's about friendly neighbors, a welcoming vibe and a comfortable environment- who cares if there is a park a block away if no one goes to the park, or even worse, the people in the park make you feel unsafe? "Location, Location, Location" holds true because our feelings about community don't change. We want to feel welcome, we want to feel comfortable, we want to feel like a part of our tribe.

I think linking brings the exact same thing to blogging. It demonstrates community.

Linking shows that you're a willing participant in something bigger. That you're paying attention to what people in your community are saying and that you respect them; you want to promote their ideas, engage with their opinions and encourage others to do the same on your turf. It's chatting over the fence, giving your neighbor a good recipe or even sharing some gossip (community, of course, isn't all sunshine and kittens.) A blog without links is the guy across the street who never waves when he walks to his car and doesn't pick up after his dog. Links are the social currency of the online world, the recipes, the gardening tips, even the slander. They engender the exact feelings of the perfect location: A link-friendly blog, like the home in a good location, is part of a community.

What do you think? Are links always the blogger's tools to build and grow, or can they backfire?

(And believe me, I know that there aren't any links in this post. I think it's my first one without them. Embrace the irony and wait for Friday's Round-Up.)

- by Anirban Dutta, Web Producer

Tidal wave?

The concept that has sent a Wave of excitement through the tech and non tech community alike comes from the innovative giant on the web – Google.

They’ve named it Google Wave.

Founders of the Google wave are Lars Rasmussen, Jens Rasmussen (brothers) and Stephanie Hannon - the same team that came up with the Google Maps application.

As Lars Rasmussen, co-founder of Google Wave highlights, email was created some 40 years ago, before the creation of the Internet its self and it was done without the experience and knowledge we now have of things such as wikis, social networks, sms, instant messaging and so on. He introduces the Wave as “Google Wave is what email would look like if it was created today”. He says as opposed to emails which try to instantiate a point to point conversation, the Google Wave is "one metaphor for hosted conversations" object hosted on a server somewhere.

The Wave concept typifies an utopian Web 3.0 world where we have all the caliber of Web 2.0 ie emails, IMs, wikis, blogs, bulletin boards, Social networking, sharing and collaboration merged with a much more real time focus; so we have all of the cool stuff happening in a single browser session in a single pane with more enhanced features like we never imagined!

So how does this Sci-Fi set look?

Features like real time translation in 40 languages, contextual spell check, grammar checking and all in one drag drop file sharing, document creation, sharing and editing, starting forums. It certainly packs the thrills of a Spielberg flick!

Plus a very cool feature is its Playback option which lets you refer back to a conversation trail and see which participant added what and at which time and locate the origin of the Wave - each conversation is a wave.

Open Source and the Wave

Google shared its baby with the world at Google's Developer Preview forum Google I/O May 2009

Watch the launch video

Google has actually invited the developer community to participate in the Google Wave program by throwing open a forum to contribute to its features. Majority of the Wave's code is open source and the developers would be given accounts in a sandbox within Google's system  to start developing add on features and extensions to coincide with the launch. This is way too cool.

There is also a feedback capturing mechanism if you wish to be updated on whats going on - Fill up the form

I think I can definitely suggest some cool aliens in this movie on the semi technical side straight to the directorial suit.

The Wave is a platform in iself and it supports robots to automate tasks and functions, embed Waves into external blogs and web sites, “talk” to popular web services such as Twitter collaborate across different platforms, merge other Google tools and gadgets in short Google calls it a "Game changer".

I enhanced my open source knowledge from whurley's podcasts.

I'm not walking the technical line on this red hot topic - there's enough out there on the internet, a particularly good read is the Google Wave guide.

Concerns, resistance to change?

Does this mean the end of the world of CCing and BCCing and SMTP mails and the very recent blogging? How would it impact my business/ Do I have to resort to cloud computing? Would the corporate world accept the wave? Would the concept be scalable enough? These are some of the initial questions that make the tag cloud of this mega project but coming from an organization like Google I have full faith on their to realizing abilities.

My part of the shock was when I realized the concept of the Google Wave was so massive and yet so simple that Social Media would be turned into a subset of this giant - where I always thought Social networking encompasses all - I feel this Tide has a magnitude of possibly redefining Tim Berners Lee's www into World Wide Wave.

Cant wait for the tide to come sweep us over!

- by Alena Hitzemann, Associate Web Editor

What the world needs now… is another blog about social media? Maybe it isn’t as poetic as love, sweet love, but I’d like to think that it’s true. Yes, there are hundreds (thousands?) of similar creations across the blogosphere, but this one is different. And I’ll tell you why.

1. Royal Content.

I firmly believe in the adage “Content is King.” I only read blogs with interesting, relevant and unique material, and I assume the same from other readers. Hence, you won’t find any filler here. I’m committed to the process, and will do my best to post often, write well, keep it fresh and add value to the greater social media conversation.

2. Double the Fun.

As a joint effort between me and Anirban, “IT for Gen Y” offers twice the insight and interaction of a one-man show. That means double the amount of content, double the linkage, double the young people who are delighted that googling around for interesting stuff is now part of their job description.

3. Beautiful Symmetry.

A corollary to #2. Not only can we offer more on our blog, we believe that our content will benefit from our uniquely positioned perspectives. He’s a guy, I’m a girl. He’s in India, I’m in Colorado. He’s got the tech background, mine’s in communications. However, we’re both Gen Yers in an IT world. We’re young, ambitious and social media-savvy. Bring on the comparing and contrasting.

4. Fresh Eyes.

As my favorite vocally-challenged poet once said, times, they are a changing. Social media has officially arrived in the building, and the traditional business world is officially scrambling to understand its implications and nuances. But for me? This stuff is second nature. Heck, I was on facebook back in 2004, when it had just expanded beyond its Harvard roots (at Tufts, we were part of the second wave of schools deemed worthy to participate. As if there wasn’t enough Ivy League inferiority floating around.) I see social media through the eyes of intuition. It’s a part of life, an always-exciting, ever-evolving animal… not just the next wave of marketing tactics.

5. Humble Pie.

Yes, we’re the “Net Generation” and we intuitively understand this social media stuff. But being young in the business world has its disadvantages as well. I’m currently cruising up a steep learning curve that covers everything from the intricate structure of corporate marketing to figuring out exactly what our software does. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this challenge is integrating my interest and comfort level with social media into a business environment, specifically IT. It’s a big topic, and one that’s constantly changing. I’ve got a lot to learn and no shame about asking questions.

Still not convinced? Tell us what you’re looking for. What makes a blog about social media (or any blog, for that matter) worth reading? What do you want to talk about?