A Blog Year in Review

One year ago yesterday I began the public phase of The Challenge Dividend with this blog.  As in many things in life, an anniversary is a good time to reflect on progress, strengths and opportunities.  Like an annual employee review or personal reflection in the mirror on one's birthday, it is good to challenge oneself to reflect on and plan for how the next year can be even better.

My overall life objective for this project is simple yet aggressive: make The Challenge Dividend a tool that is used by millions of people around the world to better themselves and their organizations.  It is a lofty goal, but it helps me keep things in perspective.  I don't want to just "get published" or somehow turn this into turn this into a best seller.  I don't care if it happens next week or after I die.  I don't care if I don't make a dime from it.  This means that I have to take my time a bit, refine my skills, and find the right voice and audience to make an impact.  It might take twenty years to achieve this goal, and I am perfectly happy about that.

But even long-term objectives and projects need regular progress checks (yet another example of challenge that drives improvement).  Here are some of the strengths and opportunities from the year in review:

Strengths:

• Good use of blogging overall - I have taken my personal research and successfully turned it into something that the world can see.  This allows me to test my theory with real readers as well as refine my writing skills.  I am very proud of having 143 unique blog entries, far more than I planned heading into the project.
• Time management - My day job, family, and other fun hobbies keep me busy and I do not have a lot of extra time.  But I have been able to write an average of three complete "articles" per week.  Net, good progress without having to give up too many other pulls.
• The message is resonating - Most of my readers are friends and family and their feedback has been excellent.  Some of them now speak in "Challenge Dividend terminology".  For example, during a meeting of my executive team last week we used the Challenge Dividend as a way to judge odds of success in a new venture.  Two people have even claimed some personal motivation from this space.  That warms my heart and makes me feel that the ultimate goal is possible.

Opportunities:

• Progress toward a book - I believe that publishing a book is a major step toward bringing this idea to the masses.  However I have not met my hopes in terms of progress here.  My file of book notes and structure has not been opened in months.
• Audience size - I am excited by every single reader, but just wish there were more of them - and that more were outside of immediate friends and family.  I do get about ten visits per day from people who happen on my blog while searching for specific information.  I wish more of them added me to their bookmark list or feed reader.  Part of this is due to the fact that The Challenge Dividend cuts across many niches, while the most popular blogs hit on a very specific audience or topic.
• Blog design - I am not at all pleased with the template design for this blog, and I know from my day job that quality of design can make or break visitor trust and interest.  At the end of the day, I've got to get some outside help to make this sing.  Anyone out there with design skills looking for some freelance bucks, grab me.

Goals for the next 12 months:  Another key "challenge" is to publicly commit to some action steps.

• Write another ~150 posts.
• Build out a model for measuring the Challenge Dividend for oneself or organization (think of it as a scorecard, like Porter's Five Forces).
• Double my daily visits and subscribers.

Thanks so much to you, dear readers.  You provide the positive, motivational challenge to get up early, stay up late, and keep creating compelling content.

Bob G.

Comments

[ChefAngieF]

Congrats, BobG! I've truly enjoyed your blog and appreciate and admire your thoughtful and frequent postings. I wish you many more years of happy blogging and hope you're doing well.

[Bob G]

Thanks, Angie! Great to see you're still reading from Chicago. Every time I visit Boca I think of you and your blog!

[Laustythoth]

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