Wednesday, August 02, 2006

20 comments Wednesday

Twenty Comments Wednesday is a sort of social experiment to see if making the effort to comment on twenty blogs makes for a more dynamic blogging experience. I believe so far, there are about a dozen blogs participating in this excercise. We started about a month ago. I wonder if anyone notices our behaviour or if any of us have felt results or visitors rise or lower on these days?

In January when I started blogging...I decided I would try to find some blogs to read and follow that were dedicated to something I didn't know anything about and I surfed around...just curious. I kept running into marketing blogs. Now this is something I just know absolutely nothing about. In fact, the concept made my eyes glaze over, sort of like talking about math. In my world I think ad executives should all be Darren Stevens and married to Elizabeth Montgomery....THEN they would have my attention. But I have found some really inspiring folks out there who feel consummerism, marketing and business is a creative force and occupation.

I thought the following was an excellent anecdote within an excellent set of wisdoms at this marketing blog: A Clear Eye(#1)

I once heard a story about a young boy who was hanging out with his friends one afternoon in his room, when his little brother wanders by. The boy says to his friends, "Hey guys. Wanna see something funny?" His buddies gather around. "Hey Bobby," he calls out to his four year old brother. "Come here for a second." Bobby, excited about being with the big kids, hurries over. "Bobby," the older brother flashes a nickel and a dime in his outstretched palm. "Which one do you want, the big one or the small one?" The older brother glances back at his friends and whispers, "Watch how stupid he is." Bobby’s eyes ponder his choice for a few seconds, and then he reaches out and grabs the nickel. "This one!" And with a big smile, little Bobby jams the nickel in his pocket and leaves the room.

The older brother puts the dime in his pocket, turns to his friends and breaks out laughing, "Is he stupid, or what? And he does it every time!" The other boys chime in, "Wow . . . he’s dumb. Yea, that’s funny!" Unbeknown to the boys, the brothers’ father was standing in the doorway and overheard the whole thing. He immediately headed for little Bobby’s room. "Bobby. Come over here son, I want to ask you something." He sits on the edge of the bed and leans toward his son. "Yeah Dad?" The father then pulls out a nickel and a dime and holds them out in his hand. "Son, you know that a dime is worth more than a nickel, don’t you?" Bobby nods and responds, "Sure, Dad. A dime is ten pennies and a nickel is only five pennies," he answers proudly. "So why did you take the nickel when your brother offered you the choice." Bobby reaches under his bed and pulls out a sock full of nickels. "Because if I take the dime, he’ll stop playing that game with me."

#2Andrew from London Very nice photos and musings.
#3Adfreak Interesting article about promotion for John Lennon documentary about his anti-war activism.
#4Knowledge problem Commentary on Economics, Information and Human Action
#5Creative GeneralistAll kinds of topics here, from movie reviews about indepedant films to magazine article reviews. Worth checking out.
#6Girls Handbook Yep, girlie girl stuff. I love it.
#7Guy Kawasaki's blog. No I am not going to link my competition, heh heh.
#8All This Chittah ChattahLots of photos of design on products, marketing and consummerism.
#9Music Is Art a beautiful blog that writes emotionally about music. Lots of online listening links. I love these folks plain and simple.
#10Anarchy in the U.S. She is a tough cookie lots of political links and articles.
#11Process Junkie Lots of graphic art. 4 Dinners you(#12) would love his stuff. He posts his illustration contracts and drawings here. Plus, he has an awesome rotating playlist.
#13Seattle Art Gallery She has great photos of art and animals at her blog. Makes me miss the west coast too.
#14 SORT OF? Nothing To See Here This blog does not offer comments as yet. I keep hoping he will write the html for such a feature. So maybe if I link him here it will drive him to make that an option. I love this guys blog and we e-mail occassionally but I'd love to see what would happen if he had comments. He made his own blog from scratch and just hasn't gotten to comment design yet. Come on Overworm, we want to TALK! He is also on the "Humping Roll" of Lucky's site(#15) Desert Odyysey. Would you do me a favour? Go over to Desert Odyssey's site and post a comment saying Candy sent you. I request this because he has been in the "doldrums" and blogging slack and depressed for a few days. Tell him Candy says hi and to cheer up. :) I'd really appreciate if you did that for me.
#16New York Art Gallery Interesting discussions about art, life, gossip and tough love and politics.
#17Stupilcated
#18Mister Anchovy Art, cats, music, and observations on folly.See #22
#19The Healing Room
#20This Blog Sits At The Intersection of Anthropology and EconomicsI love this blog and this writer. He is an anthropologist (and a poet!) and I've read his books and he's fucking delightful. One of my favourite books ever was written by him, called Big Hair: A Journey Into The Transformation of Self check it out here.
#21Timmer ReadtreeTim posts a lot of photos of his work, he's funny and finds some other funny websites.
#22Built To Be Destryoed This blog always puts me into a dreamland and induces reverie. I really really like this one. Today he has a post about the contemporary usage of the term "artist". Mister Anchovy you would relate to this one.
#23 Waiting For Life To StartLife for a mom in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico and United States.
#24 My Wasted Breath um, #23's unrequited love.
#25High Class Jack Ass
#26 Her Lofty Perch Life and thoughts in Wyomming...a real sweetheart.
#27Apperceptive journey Heatwaves and useless gas stations.
#28Watch My Loss diabetes fundraising while making lifestle changes to diet and activity. That description is part of the story, Sean is an awesome dude is so cool and sweet and has made a pledge to transform his life, body and attitude. NOW that really is something to blog about.
#29Red's pageOh she goes away on holiday but i am still gonna link her blog!
#30A blog about Nowt Oh this is #29's hubby, he's away too and I just feel like showing off.
#31Canadutch A Canadian girl in the Netherlands.

14 comments:

thehealingroom said...

Wow, thanks for the plug Candy!
I'd better go polish up a new entry, I am expecting visitors!
BTW, I do enjoy visitors and those kind enough to leave a comment, I love.
I've been peruseing other blogs as well and coincidently one of them was called, Beyond Marketing....and from there, there is a whole WORLD of marketing blogs. Sheesh.
I'll have to check out your list. I view it like clues to follow a trail. Where it leads? Who knows! Its playing thats fun!
XXXOOO

Candy Minx said...

Well, this opens up a question I was hoping to hear about from Pie and others doing the "20 comments" does anybody notice a difference in their activity around the blog? I think every time I've put my 20 comments out there, I've included you Healing Room...has it affected your comments or visitors? Really? Cool.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the kind words. You know, I'm at the point now where I really want to enable comments on my blog. I wonder what sort of comments I might receive.

Our daughter will be delivered tomorrow morning, so it will probably be a while before I get to the comments thing. As if I needed an excuse to procrastinate any further. ;-)

The Grand Inquisitor said...

Thanks for the plug. guess i might have to start making some decent blog entries now.

Suzy Snow said...

Hey Candy! Just heading to bed but I had to tell you that the traffic on my blog was a lot higher today then normally.

Thank you for the wonderful comment and the plug.

I enjoy it when people comment and especially when I can make them laugh. So you made me especially happy today. You read, commented and laughed.

Thanks again. Have a great weekend!

Candy Minx said...

Overworm, what can I say....CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!

You must be a daddy right now as I type this and that is so exciting!!

And talk about a greatexcuse for not being able to blog good grief.

Look forward to hearing about your new baby and life.

Suzy, thanks for dropping in and letting me know if there was any significant change in your visitors ...and just maybe it's in part from "20 comments" ?

Hey Pie!

And Grand Inquisitor, work some magic!

A-List said...

Just as I was starting to dwell off into bordem, I headed to your page and found 20 something blogs to head to...thanks lol.

Are you still in T.O Candy? I heard with the humidex yesterday it was something like +46!!! That's crazy, I can't stand anything over 23 lol.

I too was shocked with the story on Mel Gibson, but in all honesty, he was DRUNK...who's even remotely aware of what they say when they're so under the influence! I haven't heard anything about him before so perhaps he's fine with tolerance...I don't think he has an open problem with any race or religion...perhaps it was just something in his mind from earlier (reading the newspaper, or watching the news re: Isreal vs Lebanon [Hisbolah-is that how u spell it lol])...anyways, I too have respected him, and loved his movies, from his acting in Judge Dread, to his producing in Passion of the Christ! We'll just have to see what kind of impact this has on his career and his social being (friends, family, fans). He did however request a meeting with top Jewish officials so he could personally appologize, I think that's a huge start...so he's not all bad right, atleast he's remotely trying to cover his drunken ass ;)

Thanks for stopping by Candy, haven't seen you in a while :)

Hope all is well!
My summer stinks...i'm at home vegitating...NO i don't want a job lol.

Minerva Jane said...

that is a fantastic story you posted. can't wait to browse your list of 20--didn't have time to do it this week, but think it is an absolutely fantastic idea!

Candy Minx said...

Well...that is constructive news about Gibson. Listen, like I said at your blog, I have always loved the guy and I don't think he's ever made or been ina bad movie.

What happened last week ties into a problem when he made the Jesus Movie though...there were allegations that he had portrayed the Jewish religion in poor faith and light. some of that wa sdispelled but Gibson never took a stand. Amid rumours of his father being a Holocaust denyer, and possible negative portralyal of Jewish characters in The passion...this recent episode is not cool.

He allegedly made sexist comments to a female officer who is a public servant taking his exploits out of private error into hate crimes.

He will have to address these issues with Jewish leaders and with women. Like I say, I predict he will do some public service and will take some tolerance workshops, anger management and go on Oprah and she will call him out and then all may be healed.

At least gibson hasn't tried to hide behind his drinking on this one and is prepared to amke atonement and that bodes well especially in these very sad days of war between Israel and Lebannon.

I suspect perhaps when he was drunk, he fell into a pattern programed into him by the disgusting ethics that his father brainwashed him with. Alchohol can produce a kind of regression and brain damage like we see with Alzeimers or mental illness. good people can be attacked when compromised by substances by the history of their parents. Very sad. But what a story!!!

Sad especially because Mel Gibson has been a beloved director and co-actor and many people have said how much fun he is and that he is a "people person". his appearances on talk shows for two decades impressed me with his humour and love of life and hyjinxs and good sportsmanship. those are qualities I do not believe a person can fake. so I hope he can clear this up.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting at length and it's nice to talk about this issue that has been upsetting me for the last few days.

Yes, it IS STILL HOT HERE!!!! but it rained last night and today and is feeling a lot better.

Candy Minx said...

Hi Menerva and Puppy...


You know what I like about this 20 Comments deal? I like that I find I start really reading and thinking about what others are saying and it's a little bit of a relief to not worry about what I am going to say at my blog. I find the activity very restful and zen-like.

I have taken to collecting the blogs I will comment on that day, and posting them...that way I can just click on the link and easily manuerver around on blogs reading and commenting.

At first I would wait till I commented and it was very labour intensive, now I have it down to an activity I can accomplish easily withinan hour and a half....and this includes not just saying "hi" but actually making some substantial notes on others blogs.

I'm telling you, if you like art and politics, there are some hell of a good series of discussions at

http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/

INTENSE!!!

music is art said...

AND WE LOVE YOU CANDY :) you know what is so spectacular and wonderful about you? that you get it. and you know and understand feeling.... so thankyou so much for that.

excited to go and check out these other fabulous blogs you mentioned. thanks again~

Timmer said...

What an awesome amount of research and dedication to peoples blogs! Thanks for the untitled spot Candy. I'm going to add a few links to comment upon like Built To Be Destroyed.

Steve Portigal said...

Thank you for mentioning "Big Hair" - I devoured that book with fascination and amusement when I got my hands on it many years ago. I think it's under-recognized in McCracken's work because it's not so academically robust as his heavier pieces, but it's very powerful and very accessible and just so interesting!

Candy Minx said...

Steve, wow thanks for dropping by and I am glad to hear you enjoyed Big Hair too. I think you are correct that it appears "lite" but it is tackling an incredible force-transformation in human personality- and does it very well.

Tim, sorry, I've posted your site before on "20 comments" and put a description, I guess I was just in a hurry so consider it amended!

Thanks, Musicisart, that means a lot to me coming from you!

Cheers,
Candy

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