Think Outside the Box

Somebody intelligent once said, "Nothing exists that hasn't been thought of." Well, that might not be the exact quote, but it's close.

Other people say things like, "To achieve it, you must believe it" or "Reality is how you perceive it."

Things are only impossible until somebody shows us how to do them; so what impossible thing would you like to see happen to your field?

What if you just listed all of the "what ifs" and the "yeah, buts."

A "what if" is a sort of hopeful dream, like: "What if flowers could talk?" A "yeah, but" is a negative statement, like: "Yeah, but talking flowers would be very boring because all they know is fertilizer, rain, and sunshine."

It could make for quite an interesting article.

You can steal the "talking flower" idea; I'm already working on another one about flying earthworms.

Stream of Consciousness

Suppose that you have just been transported to Madison Square Garden. You are at the podium before 60,000 people. Everybody wants you to talk about your field, your blog, your site, etc.

You have no time to prepare. You must speak right now.

What would you say?

I write almost exclusively that way. I rarely know what I am going to be writing until I start the first sentence. After that, I follow from one thought to another. Occasionally, I write pure crap and must delete everything. But more times than not, the results are pretty good.

The trick is to just let the ideas flow naturally.

What Book Would You Like to Write

Everybody wants to be an author of a book. Write a blog about it. Outline the contents of the book. Touch on the highlights. Gloss over the details. Tie it all together at the end by saying why you think the world would be a better place if you wrote the book.

That should be good for a couple of hundred words without even trying.

What is the History of your Field?

Having just written a blog post saying that you should write about the future of your field, it is a no-brainer to look at it from the opposite view. How did your field get to be in its present state? Who were the important people? What were the biggest contributions? Is there any interesting trivia that you can write about?

History is easy. Just get the facts right, and say it in your own words.

The Future of your Field

Where will you be in five years? Do you expect to be using the same software, or at least, the same brand of software? Do you think your field could split into two sections? Do you think your field could become obsolete? Will there be revolutionizing changes?

Go ahead. Tell us what you think will happen.

Ask Your Readers for Suggestions

They read your stuff because they like your stuff. That seems simple enough. Now, what can you do to get them to like you even more?

The best answer to that question will come from your readers. They know what they want. Give them an opportunity to voice their opinions.

Depending on what kind of site or blog you have, you might be able to post this kind of article every month. You might even consider making it a featured permanent article. With something like that, you could be getting suggestions year round from just one post.

All you want to do is ask your readers what they want to see, hear about, discuss, etc. Try not to restrict them too much. If you insist that they can only ask about certain topics, then you will get fewer responses. Let them talk about whatever they want.

Quizzes for your Blog

You need about ten questions. Pique the interest of every skill level by varying the difficulty.
Four questions should be extremely easy. Four should be medium difficulty. Two questions should be very hard.

You can use multiple choice, true and false, or fill in the blank quizzes. I prefer the multiple choice questions because I can throw in goofy wrong answers just for fun.

I use a simple format. First, I present all of the questions. Then, below that, I present the same questions, but the answers are given. I like that system. The reader gets the question and answer together in a neat package at the bottom.