What’s in a Name?

Getting Started.

I gave my blog the imaginative name you see here for a reason. It was to give me, Ralph Carlson, credibility on the web. Not Ralph Carlson the country, western singer. Not Ralph Carlson, one of several college professors. Me, the retired utility executive turned web entrepreneur. This was my second blog. When I started blogging, it never occurred to me to give it my name. I called it From LA to El Dorado with the idea that I would chronicle the transition from urban and sophisticated Los Angeles county to rural and hickish El Dorado county. By the time I burned out with FLATED, I had established a new mission for my web presence. I was going to make money on the web by helping people build home-based businesses. The first step was to be a credible web presence.

One of Us.

I think this is what Chris Brogan would call being ‘one of us’ but at the time I was too green to know about Chris Brogan or anything else in the web community. So Ralph Carlson Blog was born. It was a step up from my original blogspot blog. I bought a domain and set up hosting for it, then installed WordPress and picked a stylish theme. Now I was a real blogger. Only it wasn’t so easy.

I Stumbled.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a niche. I didn’t know what to blog about and I certainly didn’t know what other people might like. My only principle was that I would not discuss politics. So I started with interesting items that I found on the web. I hoped that others would be interested. They weren’t. I shifted my focus to my self-development efforts and insights. It didn’t help. I still couldn’t attract readers. I enrolled in the 31 Day Blogger Course from Problogger. I learned a lot but still had no readers. I was getting frustrated. But I didn’t quit.

Finally, I got it.

At long last, I begin to understand what was creating my difficulties. I was missing two important things:

1.  People.

The first was that everything in my blog was about me. It was my blog, my insights, my cleverness. Me, me, me! There was no way that I would ever be seen as ‘one of us’ by other bloggers when I couldn’t stop looking in the mirror. I needed to be interested in others and engage with their thinking.

2.  Putting in the time

The second thing I was missing was putting in the time to make the connections. There is no way to fake a human connection. You have to read and engage what other bloggers are saying if you expect to add to the conversation and become a part of the community.

Learning from Examples.

Of course I had heard this before and I thought I was doing something but it wasn’t until I learned from examples about how it is done that I was able to change my behavior. It isn’t that it is hard to do, it’s just that when you are focused on you, you don’t see anything else.

So, how about that name?

Now, circling back to the title of the post, is the name of my blog a handicap? Would I be better served with a different name? James says yes and since he has been a great example as I stumble along with my blog, I take his suggestion seriously. Does anybody else have an opinion? Tell my if my blog name is a handicap.