Once in a while I'm reminded of the value of stepping outside of my usual reading circles.
Like most of us, I get into ruts. There are several dozen blogs that I read religiously and going to them has become more of a morning ritual than an awakening. I know what to expect from those blogs. They're comfortable and they deliver.
This morning, while reading Nicki Rothwell's Home Staging Blog, I randomly clicked on a face I didn't recognize in her MyBlogLog Reader Community Widget. This took me to Jonathan G.
Jonathon has almost no content on his MyBlogLog page, but there is a link to his blog, The Kingdom 2.0. It's directed at pastors. Now, I'm obviously not a pastor, though in my early adult life at Grace College & Theological Seminary, I wanted to be one. So, the subject matter was of some interest to me and I liked the design. (That's key for me, by the way. I quickly navigate away from ugly sites.)
I perused through some of the content on the first page and quickly realized this was good, quality content. And because it was written for a different audience, I read it differently. I loved reason number 3 in his post Three Reasons To Use Google Docs As A Blog Editor and thought his "you're more creative than you thought" comment to pastors could have been written to anyone.
But the post that caused me to write this post was, 4 Easy Steps To Turn Sermons Into Blog Posts. I recommend you go read it for yourself, but here are the bullet points:
- Cut The Fat
- Stay On Topic
- Inject Some Personality
- Rewrite The Headline
Any blogger could benefit from keeping his suggestions in their brains when they're writing posts, not just Christian pastors. And here was the surprise for me. Jonathon Greene lists as part of his experience, "Tomato consultant." But I didn't recognize his face and didn't even know his full name until I started writing this post. And that serves to illustrate my point.
Sometimes You Need A Change Of Perspective
I can say with almost complete certainty that I would have passed over a post on The Real Estate Tomato with a title, 4 Easy Steps To Turn Your Emails Into Blog Posts. Why? It's not because it wouldn't have been well written, it's because I've read hundreds of posts in the RE.net with similar titles. Stepping out of the technorati and real estate blog ring forced my brain out of it's morning rut. I read the content differently.
There's gold outside of the real estate blogosphere. And like those miners who came to California in 1849, to find it you're going to have to travel into some uncharted territory.
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