Live Intentionally has been totally redesigned and I couldn’t be more excited!

I was never very happy with the previous design and its gray text with dark gray links on a white background.  As I went through the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog project in May and June I got a bunch of new ideas for improvements.  But even more importantly, I gained a lot of clarity as to what I want Live Intentionally to be about, how I want it to look, and how I want it to function.

So, here’s what I changed and why. Maybe it will give you some ideas for your own blog.

The header – As much as I liked all the pictures at the top of the old design, I think they made the site seem busy.  Plus some people came away with the first impression that I probably blogged mostly about myself and my family.  I wanted the new design to be simpler, cleaner, a little more professional looking.  I also like the burnt orange because it’s unique and stands out.  The next step will be to replace the “Live Intentionally – You matter. Live like it.” text with an original logo.

Latest tweet – Previously, when a person visited my blog.  The action step I wanted them to take was to subscribe to the RSS feed.  But I believe Twitter has surpassed RSS feed readers in popularity (I’ll have to research that to be sure), and I can engage with people much better through Twitter.  So, Twitter is now a priority over RSS, and putting my latest tweet in the header makes that prominent.

Category bar – The new category navigation bar just below the header gives let’s people know the topics discussed here in less than 5 seconds.  The fact that real estate there is limited forced me to reorganize the categories and make use of sub-categories.  I still have some reorganizing to do, but it’s a start.

Dynamic Content Generator (aka Featured Articles) – I think this may be the coolest addition to Live Intentionally.  I previously had a list of Top Posts in the sidebar, but the DGC allows me to feature the posts that have lasting value for readers.  The images and motion really draws attention.  The DGC is a free WordPress plugin.

Latest posts – Below the DGC in the main part of the homepage, intros to the 10 most recent posts are shown.  One of the things I came out of the 31 Days project with was a desire to make my homepage more like a magazine cover.  The goal is to get a person to click to a post as quickly as possible.  So, it’s more visual, less text, and less page real estate taken up by each post,  so a reader can scan through the latest posts more quickly.  I still have some work to do to shorten up the exerpts.

Advertising – One of the biggest changes was the addition of ads in the right sidebar.  I’m going to do an entire post explaining why I decided to start offering advertising.

Tabs widget – There’s a new widget in the right sidebar that lists the most popular posts, most recent posts, recent comments, and tags.  It’s good info to have on the blog and this widget displays it cleanly without taking up a lot of space.

No archive – The old design included an archive in the sidebar which could be used to navigate to a list of posts in a particular past month.  The archive was rarely used and always looked cluttered to me.  So, bam! Gone!  If you want to find an old post, use the search box.

Better post formatting – Without getting too specific, I think the formatting of the full posts is cleaner and more appealing.  Though, it looks like there are issues on some posts with resizing images which I need to go back and address.

Big thanks to WooThemes who created this WordPress theme and to Erica Mullenix who pointed me in their direction.  And big thanks to Justin Write the “Lead Blog Ninja” at Zoop Media, who customized the theme for me in less than 24 hours.

So, what do you think?  Which changes do you like most?  What don’t you like?  Any changes or additions you think should be made?

Today’s assignment in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog is to write a “link post.” A link post is a blog article that links to and expands on a blog article that’s been published on another blog.

I think it’s an excellent lesson and assignment.  Link posts are one of my favorite posts to write, because they introduce my readers to someone else’s blog, ideas, and writing, and take an existing conversation even deeper.

One of the things I suggested in conjunction with writing a link post is…

Post a comment on the original article with a link to your article. This will draw readers from the original article to your article. Be sure write a couple sentences in your comment to show how your post is related, something to get people curious enough to click.

Several of the other bloggers involved in the project expressed some reluctance…

Chris commented

Sometimes I feel a little…awkward? Selfish? …something…posting links on other people’s blog comments. It can feel like “enough about you. Let’s talk about me.”

Janis wrote

I must admit that I still like I’m using someone’s blog site to promote my own when I comment and then insert a link to my blog.

Those are very valid concerns, so I think it’s worth addressing this suggestion in greater depth.

Serve others first

One of the things I mentioned yesterday in 7 Blogging Tips Derived from Life Principles is that as a blogger it’s important to serve others first.  Your primary motive should be to add value to your readers.  The same is true when commenting on other blogs.  Your primary motive should be to add value to that blog’s readers.

So, when it comes to posting a link in a comment on another blog, ultimately what it comes down to is… do your comment, link, and link post add value to that person’s blog?

If you’re primary motive for posting the comment with link is to get traffic for your blog, then you probably shouldn’t post it.

Adding value to the other blog

However, if you’ve written a good article and it expands upon the ideas in the original post, then you should be confident that your link/link post are adding value.

Additionally, it helps if you develop a relationship with the blogger and develop a reputation as someone who adds value to the conversation by posting several good, thoughtful comments without any links before you post any comments with a link.

It also helps if you start your post by praising the blogger and pointing out what you like about their post before diving into your point.  This too adds value to their article.

If you’re new to blogging and you haven’t developed confidence in your writing and haven’t developed relationships and reputation on other blogs in your niche, it’s very understandable that you would be hesitant to post a link in a comment.  But as you gain confidence in your writing and build those relationships, you should get a feel for when it’s appropriate to do so.

What do you think?

I recognize, however, that different people have different opinions about including links in comments.  So, what do you think?  Is it appropriate to include a link to a post on your blog when it’s on the same topic and adds to the conversation?  Or does it still feel like self-promotion?

I’m going through 31 Days to Build a Better Blog with 60+ other bloggers.  Today is Day 6.  The e-book lesson includes 27 articles of blogging tips and tutorials, which we’re supposed to read, digest, and discuss.

It’s a bit much, in my opinion.  As I wrote in a comment, it’s a bit like drinking from a fire hose.

Generally speaking, I’m not big on memorizing a lot of little things.  I much prefer to learn some general principles and then apply those principles to specific situations.  So, as I was reading through all these tips, certain underlying principles started to emerge.

What’s more, I noticed that a lot of the general principles for blogging well are actually derived from even broader principles for living well.  Here are 7 general principles that apply to blogging as well as life in general.

1) Be yourself. People are sick of spin, sick of sales pitches, sick of phonies, sick of people who act one way with one group of people and another way with another group of people.  It’s great to learn from other bloggers, but don’t try to act like someone else.  Be honest and authentic.

2) Serve others first. The best bloggers write to help their readers.  If you’re primary reason for blogging is to make money, promote your own agenda, become popular, or express yourself it’s probably not going to work.  That means blogging posts that help your readers, responding to comments & emails, and answering questions.  This principle is true in most areas of life.  If your motives for starting a business, getting into a relationship, or even volunteering are selfish, you are much more likely to fail and be disappointed.

3) Think from perspective of the people you’re serving. As a blogger, it’s important to imagine things from the perspective of your readers.  Understand your readers’ backgrounds, education, spiritual beliefs, and politics may be different from yours.  Don’t use insider language.  Don’t talk down to your audience.  Understand that they’re busy and reading & discussing your blog posts are a very, very low priority.  Make it as easy as possible for them to engage.  Same is true with your business, church, non-profit, neighborhood organization.  In any situation where you are serving others, it’s important to understand the perspective of the people you’re serving.

4) Build relationships. Blogging really is all about building relationships – with your readers, with other bloggers in your niche, with people you can collaborate with.  Everything else is life is primarily about relationships too.  Great businesses build great relationships with their customers, their vendors, and their partners.  Great churches facilitate great relationships among their members.  And obviously great marriages, families, and friendships are all about building relationships.

5) Read a lot. As a blogger, it’s important to read other blogs.  This helps you learn from others, get to know others in your niche, provides new ideas for blog articles, and enables you to stay informed on the latest developments and issues.  Same is true in life in general.  Reading helps you learn, challenges you to grow, and often provides opportunities to develop relationships with others who are reading the same things.

6) Commit & do the work. You can’t develop a great blog if you write when you feel like or when you find the time.  You’ve got to be intentional about keeping a scheduled and writing a certain number of posts each week.  You’ll have to sacrifice some other things to meet your commitment.  Same is true in business, marriage, raising kids, volunteering, even playing golf.  If you want to do well, you have to commit to it.

7) Take risks. Bloggers that never take risk are boring, fail to connect with others, and fail to take steps to get to the next level.  Some risks you may be challenged to take:

• Reveal some personal, painful, or embarrassing things about yourself in order to help people who are facing similar circumstances.
• Write an opinion on something you know a lot of your readers will disagree with.
• Criticize someone or something you disagree with.
• Write about a topic that is taboo.
• Ask someone to guest post on your blog. They could turn you down.
• Try to raise money for a charity.  Your readers may not respond, you could fail miserably, and look like an idiot in the process.

Same is true in life in general.  You have to take risks to be successful, some of the same risks – authenticity, sharing an opinion, speaking up about something taboo, asking for help, going public with big goals.

Do you see a lot of similarities between what makes for a great life and what makes for a great blog?

Which of these principles resonates with you most?

This week I bought my first smart phone – an iPhone 3Gs, and I’m super excited about the prospect of being better connected and better organized than ever!

Even the fact that it took me almost 24 hours get it activated yet and the iPhone support guy seemed more interested selling me a 2 year service agreement than providing support hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm.

I’ve already installed a few apps – Facebook, Tweetdeck, and YouVersion, but I could use the advice of some seasoned iPhone veterans…

What are the iPhone apps you can’t live without?

Earlier this week I had the great opportunity to fly to Chicago and participate in Cultivate, a conference that I would describe as a series of “organized conversations” for participants to discuss issues related to church communications.  I couldn’t stay for the Story conference, but was drawn to the tweets and blogs like a moth to a flame.

Cultivate was a tremendous experience.  I learned some new things.  I was inspired and challenged by the speakers.  I met and had wonderful conversations with a lot of people who share my passion for helping the church communicate more effectively, some of them people I’ve known online for years and finally got to meet in person.

But, let’s get to the bottom line… what’s changed?

If you were at Cultivate and/or Story, how is your life going to be different because of the experience?

Here’s the truth about me…

I love conferences.  I love books.  I love reading blogs.  I love connecting with people who have similar passions.  But when they’re finished there is so much work to catch up on. It’s so easy for me to jump back into  just go back to life as usual.

Knowledge is important, but knowledge alone doesn’t change lives.

Inspiration is important, but inspiration alone doesn’t change lives.

Connections to other people are important, but connections alone don’t change lives.

Unless I actually do something different – take some sort of action – nothing has changed.  Agree or disagree?

Here’s what I’m going to do

• Continue to build on the relationships I developed with people at Cultivate in order to continue the conversations about how to use technology to connect and communicate more effectively.
• Check out what Gabe Taviano is doing at DigitalDisciples.net.
• Press the issue at my church: how can we better use the tools at our disposal (website, email, facebook, twitter, texting, etc) to get better at evangelism, getting people connected, discipleship, and serving in the community?
• Reflect on the question: how can my church and the churches OurChurch.Com serves better connect, communicate, and serve people through their mobile phones?
• Reflect on the question: in what ways can we move away from the old “command and control” style of church leadership and move towards empowering people in our churches to be evangelists, disciplers, and servants within their sphere’s of influence?

How about you?  What are you going to do differently because of your experience at Cultivate or Story?

I’m fortunate not to have to do a lot of driving on a regular basis. My home, work, church, and kids’ school are all within a couple miles of each other.  So, it wasn’t until this past weekend while I driving across the state of Florida for a long weekend in Daytona Beach I noticed latest driving distraction.  I saw at least 3 people sending text messages while they were driving.  This was not stopped at a light but while their car was moving.

If you’ve ever texted while driving or if you have a teenager who drives, please watch this video.

Pretty gruesome, huh?

According to this (Sarasota) Hearald Tribune article:

Research at the University of Utah shows that texting car drivers are eight times more likely to crash than drivers who aren’t texting. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that truckers who text while driving are 23 times more likely to cause a crash or near-crash than truckers who don’t.

Isn’t your life, the lives of your passengers, and the other people on the road worth pulling into a parking lot if you really need to read or send a text to someone?

Thanks to Michael Hyatt for posting about this.

Tomorrow – 9/9/09 – at 9:09 AM CDT Leadership Network and Catalyst are hosting a FREE online Christian leadership conference called “The Nines.”

Leadership Network asked some of the church’s greatest communicators: “If
you had nine minutes to talk one-on-one with thousands of church leaders, what is the one thing that you would tell them? The result is a series of passionate and personal messages that will help you and your church navigate into the future.

There will be about 9 hours of 9-minute videos from people like…

• Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church)
• Reggie McNeal (Leadership Network)
• Perry Noble (NewSpring Church)
• John Ortberg (Menlo Park Presbyterian)
• Ed Stetzer (Lifeway Research)
• Mark Batterson (National Community Church)
• Reggie Joiner (CCO, reThink)

See the full list below.

Here’s a video promo and some more details…

While the conference is free, you must register to participate.

I’ve heard there will be no breaks, just wall-to-wall videos. So, make whatever food and restroom arrangements you need to ahead of time.  The videos will be made available sometime after the conference if you miss any. More details are available at http://thenines.leadnet.org/

It’s a cool idea.  Free and online give lots more people the opportunity to participate than otherwise could.  Though I wonder how many of the people who register will actually watch the videos and of those who do how much time they actually spend watching them.

I have a jam-packed week, so I can’t afford to participate all day, but I’m going to check in when I can.

I’m just as interested to see how the event works (the production, participation levels, and the buzz it gets on blogs and Twitter) as I am in the content of the conference.

Are you participating? Who or what are you most looking forward to?

Conference speakers:

Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church)
Reggie McNeal (Leadership Network)
Perry Noble (NewSpring Church)
John Ortberg (Menlo Park Presbyterian)
Steven Furtick (Elevation Church)
Nancy Beach (Willow Creek Church)
Leonard Sweet (Author/Speaker)
Stacy Spencer (New Direction Christian Church)
Ed Stetzer (Lifeway Research)
Mark Batterson (National Community Church)
Dave Ferguson (Community Christian Church)
Alan Hirsch (Forge Mission Training Network)
Dino Rizzo (Healing Place Church)
Dan Kimball (Vintage Faith Church)
Greg Surratt (Seacoast Church)
Sam Chand (Sam Chand Ministries)
Bil Cornelius (Bay Area Fellowship)
Brad Bell (The Well)
Brian McLaren (Author/Speaker)
Brian Bloye (Westridge Church)
Jon Tyson (Trinity Grace Church, NYC)
Bob Roberts (Northwood Church)
Reggie Joiner (CCO, reThink)
Brad Powell (NorthRidge Church)
Margaret Feinberg (Author/Speaker)
Matt Carter (The Austin Stone Church)
Darrin Patrick (The Journey)
Matt Fry (C3 Church)
Nancy Ortberg (TeamWorx2)
Mike Breaux (Heartland Church)
J. D. Greear (Summit Church)
Scott Hodge (Orchard Valley Church)
Greg Holder (Windsor Crossing Church)
Pete Wilson (Cross Point Church)
Neil Cole (Church Multiplication Associates)
Matt Williams (Grace Church Greenville)
Jenni Catron (Cross Point Church)
Noel Heikkinen (Riverview Church)
Bill Easum (Easum & Associates)
Chip Henderson (Pine Lake Church)
David Foster (The Gathering)
Mark Bankord (Heartland Community Church)
Ken Fong (Evergreen Baptist Church)
John Bishop (Living Hope Church)
Rick Rusaw (LifeBridge Church)
Bryan Carter (Concord Chuch)
Geoff Surratt (Seacoast Church)
Jeffrey Johnson (Eastern Star Church)
Jim Tomberlin (Third Quarter Consulting)
Anne Jackson (FlowerDust.net)
Naeem Fazal (Mosaic Church)
Jim Burgen (Flatirons Community Church)
John Coulombe (First Ev Free Fullerton)
Teresa McBean (NorthStar Community Church)
Jim Sheppard (Generis)
Shawn Wood (Seacoast Church)
Lawrence Aker (Cornerstone Baptist Church)
Steve Robinson (Church of the King)
Jason Cusick (Journey of Faith Church)
Bambi Encarnacion (First Ev Free Fullerton)
Ken Fong (Evergreen Baptist Church)
Judy West (Windsor Crossing Church)
Scott Wilson (The Oaks Fellowship)
Amy Hanson(Author/Speaker)
Toby Slough (Cross Timbers Church)
Troy Gramling (Flamingo Road Church)
Scott Nickell (Flatirons Community Church)
Michael Trent (Third Place Consulting)
Jorge Acevedo (Grace Church)
Scott Williams (LifeChurch.tv)
Steve Robinson (Church of the King)
Keld Dahlman (Europe Church Planter)

There are a lot of marketing strategists, but none more influential than Seth Godin.  There are a lot of political analysts, but none more influential than Rush Limbaugh.  There are a lot of government leaders, but none more influential than Barack Obama.  There are a lot of pastors, but none more influential than Rick Warren.

Why are these 4 so influential?  What sets them apart from their colleagues?

Let’s take a look…

Seth Godin has authored 11 books that have sold millions of copies, including Tribes, The Dip, and Purple Cow.  He’s a highly sought after speaker.  His blog is ranked in the AdAge Power 150 as the #1 marketing blog out of 976 tracked.

Rush Limbaugh has had the most listened to talk radio program in the US for the last 2 decades.  He’s on the air for 15 hours a week and has a popular newsletter and website.  He’s also authored two best selling books.

Barrack Obama overcame tremendous odds to win the Democrat Party nomination for president and eventually the presidency.  He did it with a best-selling book, some of the most inspirational speeches of our generation, and the most effective Internet campaign ever.

Rick Warren pastors Saddleback Church, one of the largest churches in America.  His book The Purpose Driven Life has sold more than 30 million copies.  In 2005 his book The Purpose Driven Church was voted second most influential book of their lives by American pastors, behind The Purpose Driven Life.

There are almost certainly better marketers than Godin, better political analysts than Limbaugh, better government leaders than Obama, and better pastors than Warren. There are extraordinary men and women who do extraordinary work and are either content to do so quietly or lack the capacity to captivate people with their ideas.

What do Godin, Limbaugh, Obama, and Warren have in common?

They are brilliant, passionate communicators.

“Ideas that spread, win,” says Seth Godin. And the way ideas are spread is by people who love to communicate and are skilled in doing so.

If you want to change your neighborhood, you can do that on your own.  If you want to change the world, you have to communicate to influence others.

Last week, I posted an article on the Christian Web Trends blog entitled  Why Willow Creek and Saddleback are Losing Influence While North Point and LifeChurch.tv are Gaining Influence which provoked some good conversation about communication and influence.  All four of the churches cited in the article have extraordinary skill and passion to communicate their ideas beyond their neighborhood.  That’s why they are changing the world (though as the title indicates, there are some differences.)

The bottom line: passion for communication X communication skill = influence.

Notice anything new around here?

I hope so. Last night I stayed up until 1:30 AM giving LiveIntentionally.org a long overdue extreme make over. I wanted to improve the look and functionality before our trip, but as usual it didn’t happen until the last minute.

I upgraded WordPress to 2.8.1 and installed the free Atahualpa Theme. If you use WordPress, the Atahualpa theme is great because it’s so easy to customize in the admin rather than having to play with the template and CSS files. The theme can be set-up for a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 column layout. I decided to go with a simple 2-column layout and created a custom header/masthead graphic at the top to personalize it.

In addition to that, I also added the Twitter widget to the right column and the ShareThis plugin to the bottom of each post, which allows you to easily share with others via email, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

It still needs some more color, and there’s some other functionality I want to add, but I hope you like the improvements made so far. I do.

[image by robbrooks]

I forgot to mention this last week, but I’ve been participating in the group blogging project for the book Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps.  Last week I had the privilege of blogging about chapter 6.You can read my post here.

In this chapter Hipps claims that communications technology led to post-modernism and it has also led to a flood of facts and trivia that we struggle to make sense of.

So, the questions I’m pondering (and I hope you will to) are…

1) How am I responding to people with a post-modern worldview who are skeptical of universal truth and put off by the claim that Christianity is the only real faith?

2) What am I doing with technology to produce not just information but understanding and wisdom?  And not just in me but in others?