You might not have noticed, but a few of our members are doing some pretty cool stuff online.

Matt Mayes has launched Give Good Web, a site for “web development ‘n stuff” the content of which is mostly over my head but whose design is gorgeous. You can pick your own color, and one of the options is orange? How can I not love that!

Amy Lillard is going blog-crazy over at her new site, Quiet Rebel Writer. I don’t know where she gets the time to write all those terrific articles AND server her clients but I’d like to know her secret. It’s my new favorite writing blog.

Andrew Huff’s creation, Gapers Block, just got a redesign that made it even better. And with all the new blogs like Drive Thru, Transmission and Tailgate, there’s enough to keep you busy for days.

I’m guessing more of you have cool new projects that I don’t know about yet, so chime in. What’s new for you?

The Trib featured ideaxchanger Jackie Sloane this month discussing the benefits of virtual networking. If you would like to learn more about e-networking and e-marketing, come to my presentation tonight. Hosted by Independent Writers of Chicago, I’ll be highlighting the work of several ideaXchangers in a discussion titled “Writing for the Web: How to Find, Get, and Do Your Next Writing Gig Online.”

On Thursday, mix your virtual and physical networking at the mediabistro.com Chicago party for creative, content, media, and publishing pros at D4 Irish Pub & Cafe, just in time for the holiday. My cohosts and I enjoy getting to know your professional endeavors and introducing you to people with similar goals. Hope to see you at one or both events!

The February issue of Chicago Magazine named my Chicago comedy blog, The Bastion, one of Chicago’s best web sites, and also praised my personal blog, describing it as “engagingly bloggy musings about life.” (Thanks to ideaXchange member Anne Ford for pointing the article out to me.)

I suppose I am among the first crop of writers to start a career by writing for the web before making the transition to print (or as I used to think of it, “real writing”).

I shouldn’t be surprised that I continue to get press coverage and professional opportunities because people check out my blogs, but I am. I guess I tend to think of writing for the web as less serious and credible, but of course, it’s not just casual bloggers and teenyboppers writing for the web — corporations do it, too, and they hire people like me to do it for them.

And I know enough about internet culture to know that once I made the decision to put my real name on my blog, everything I posted there was part of my permanent record as a communicator, and would reflect my capabilities as much as clips of corporate and editorial work I put on my professional site. Good thing I decided early on to fret over proper spelling and good form, because Google cache will make sure that everything I’ve ever posted online with my name on it will live forever.

To put it bluntly: I am completely overloaded. Between regular workload, trying to create new creative ventures, the holidays, travel, family commitments, a recent bout of severe food poisoning that forced me to push back a couple of client deadlines, tons of activity at our condo reconstruction (necessitating loads of paperwork and on-site visits by me)… I am absolutely overwhelmed.

So I’m considering outsourcing some things, but I have no idea where to start. I would love to hand off my Quickbooks work, some of the email answering, mail opening, bill paying, etc. And perhaps some of the day-to-day chores like dry cleaning, groceries (wait, Peapod!), car wash and gas, etc. Anything to take a little of the load off.

Fill me in: What do you outsource? I want to know details: how you decided what to outsource, who you use, how you work with your delegates, what you pay (you can email me directly if you like) etc. Thanks!

If you don’t read BL Ochman’s whatsnextblog.com,
you’re missing a great post on blog ads.

Just goes to show you….even the big guys screw up. Someone got paid to design this ad!

It’s THE question bloggers and web site owners must ask themselves on a regular basis: What are you doing today (every day!) to drive traffic to your web site? Performancing.com has a new post on just this goal, with 12 tips to increase inbound links to your site.

To keep the Babes coming to my site, ChronicBabe, I do these things regularly (i.e. at least once every other week, if not more often):

• send out an enewsletter (every other week) with incentive to visit the site
• comment on other people’s blogs
• participate in blog carnivals
• get to know my fellow bloggers and build reciprocal relationships with them
• guest blog at my favorite sites
• hand out my business card or fliers to everyone I meet
• take steps to grow your enewsletter list (this Alexandria Brown article is a great place to start for ideas)
• use my email signature to promote my site
• create tons of good content on my site so other site owners can’t resist linking to me
• update my content almost every day, then use Ping-O-Matic to spread the word
• “speak” at webinars
• promote others’ enewsletters (and they promote mine to their readers)
• hold contests and give-aways
• invite big-name guests to write a post at my site (their followers will come to me for at least that day)
• blab all about town about my project to anyone who will listen

These are just the actions I can think of in five minutes to write this post. If I spent an hour on it, the list would go on forever - but this is a good idea of where to start promoting your site. So…what did I leave off the list? How do you promote your site?

According to this article on usability guru Jakob Nielsen, the first two words of any headline (and one would surmise, e-mail subject line) are most important. Which means it’s okay to use passive voice to “front load” the headline content. From Boing Boing.

In doing some research for a client, I stumbled upon I Did Not Know Acrobat Could Do That. It looks like it has some interesting articles for folks who want to make the most out of the software, and cheers to that. But the design and overall tone of the blog are…hard to decipher. Is this guy really excited about Acrobat? Or are his corporate bosses making him pose that way on the home page? It’s like he’s totally into it, and the blog is labeled as “a cool place to learn about Adobe Acrobat,” but I guess I don’t know if I want a company telling me how cool it is. If I were 12 and watching a commercial on MTV, maybe. But as a grown-up with expansive (and expensive!) software needs, I guess I’m a little jaded.

I see this as an interesting evolution in corporate blogging - blogs set up by people in a company, about their company and what it does. It’s hard to tell how much of the content is corporate speak filtered into the blog, versus stuff the guy is genuinely interested in. It’s fascinating to see this trend evolve.

Here’s an article from Raintoday.com on how to use blogs to attract attention for your clients, or yourself, without having to maintain one.

Blog Action Day is October 15, and over 9,000 blogs have signed up so far to participate. We’ll all be writing about the environment and enjoying a lovely feeling of connectedness. Any IdeaXchanger who would like to post something about the environment that day should feel comfortable doing so!