Abaminds

Isabella has tagged me to write about compassion. This is the theme of a group writing project organised by Urban Monk, The Middle Way and Zen-Inspired Self Development.

Interestingly, this reminds me of a previous post where I mentioned the results of a personality test. Compassion would be my strongest conviction, according to the report I got after answering all questions. I find it curious that I’m incidentally writing about this topic again.

Were this a personal, self-improvement or spiritual blog, I’d write a long article about compassion. Perhaps I’d already have written it by now, because this time of the year favours such topics. But due to Abaminds’ nature, I’m afraid that article would look too off-topic here.

This doesn’t mean that compassion-related subjects cannot be discussed in other niches. See, for instance, Tad’s post urging bloggers to treat their visitors like human beings, not numbers. Or Chris Garret’s recent article about respect (or lack thereof) in the blogosphere. And let’s not forget Isabella’s (successful) attempt to stablish connections between social media and compassion.

That being said, let me suggest some exercises that will help you use compassion as a source of content ideas:

1. Just like I did above, try to find relations between compassion and content produced in your niche. Use your own site’s content as an example if applicable. Then write about your discoveries and/or link to the sources.

2. Look up the word “compassion” on various dictionaries. Analyse the differences among the several descriptions. Do they seem to truly convey the word’s meaning? Or do they lack sensitivity? Would you be able to write a better definition for the term? These questions may be of special interest to those who play in niches like education, linguistics, philosophy and self-improvement.

3. If you can draw or paint, how would you portrait compassion? Try to illustrate it in such a way that most people looking at the finished image can quickly realise what it is about. Then show the image to as many people as possible, ask them what it conveys, take notes on their answers and report the result. How successful have you been in depicting compassion?

4. Save the suggestions above and only follow them some months from now. Or try them during the holiday season and repeat everything some months later. Do the time of the year influence your level of interest in compassion and/or the results you get when trying to create content about it?

Bonus tip: if you write a blog post about compassion before January 5th, 2008, don’t forget to submit it to Spread the Love NOW! Group Writing Project.

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25th, 2007 by Karen Zara
Filed under: Ideas and Inspiration | 15 Comments »

Let’s put the following lists to good use:

Best 101 Lists by Pearl - If you don’t manage to draw inspiration from any of those lists, then I don’t know from where else you could. Writing ideas, design ideas, money ideas, parenting ideas… it’s all there.

No Cost Business Tools: 37 Free Applications That Make Your Life Easier, Free of Charge by Sucker - You may review each of the sites. Better yet, you could write “cross-reviews,” analysing two or more tools that can work together. It’s very easy, for instance, to see the relation between Flauntr and Flickr.

10 Tips on How to Watch a Horror Movie When You are a Scaredy Cat by Migraine Chick - This is a very original list, and it can easily be adapted to other types of films. And also TV shows, songs, books etc. If you dislike romantic stuff, why don’t you create a list of measures needed to protect viewers (or listeners, or readers) from sugar overload?

Escape the Rut by Catherine Kunst - The several questions asked in items #1 and #4 could get you writing in a few minutes. Think about them; try to answer them. A symbolic video could be an even better response. See also #3; do the exercise. There are infinite ways to fill those blanks.

50 Ways to Start a Conversation by Dee - All of the ways listed are great creativity sparkers. All you have to do is decide in which media type you will deliver your responses: written, illustrated, audio, video… Talking about videos, if you like shooting them but have never tried fiction, these conversation starters might give you ideas for your first experiments. Take two characters, make one of them start the dialogue, imagine the other character’s answer and off you go. Is it too simple? Maybe, but if you’re not used to produce fiction, a basic start will help you get used to it. Besides, simple ideas can evolve into great stories. After all, it’s entirely up to you to decide which direction the characters’ conversation will take.

35 Guaranteed Ways To Increase Your RSS Subscribers by Fred - You might debate the effectiveness of some of these methods. Tell your readers which ones you have tried and what results you got. Or try all of them, track the results for three or four months and then publish a complete study.

15 Tips to Prevent Repetitive Strain Injury and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome by CSS - Do your own research on the subject and create an illustrated (by photos or drawings) guide. Or just analyse the post and learn how to take inspiration from personal problems to create good, helpful content for your sites.

List Of Why Blogs Are A Female Gender by Domtan - The obvious idea here would be a response telling why blogs are a male gender. Alternatively, you could take some of the list’s items and discuss them separately on your blog posts or on forum threads. See, for instance, “Your first experience with blogging is not something to brag about,” “Your blog embarrasses you in public” and “You wake up thinking about blogging.”

26 ways to change the world by Chris - This post could easily result in an inspirational video series or an illustrated essay. You cold also write posts about each individual list item. Or think about other ways to change the world. It’s a good topic for community discussion.

40 ways to make your mind your playground by Fier - The whole article is meant to get your creative juices flowing, so this time I’ll refrain from giving you any suggestions. Just read everything and take full advantage of the new ideas that will pop up in your mind.

21 Punching Tips On Social Media Marketing and Social Media Optimization by Etienne Teo - Study the articles listed. Can you spot any mistakes on them? Do they present out-of-date information? Write your own social media related article containing current and reliable advice. You may try to use the techniques taught on those posts to promote your site and then report the results. If you play in different niches, repeat the process and see if results vary or are similar. Then release another report.

ten things i didn’t know until last week by Blaiq - Its concept is very, very interesting and can be applied to most blogs. You might also create a new section on your website to provide your visitors with news and curious facts on your niche. If you don’t feel too motivated to update your pages, trying to discover new stuff on a regular basis may help you go ahead.

10 Ways To Improve Your Personality by Z Hereford - Replace the word “personality” by “blog,” “site,” “marketing skills” or anything that involves relationships and communication. Then see how this list’s tips can be related to your chosen topic. Write your own article about it, or start a forum thread.

To Do To Make Tomorrow Better by Bob - Item #1 could originate a funny podcast if recorded. Do #3 for an extended period — say, four or six weeks — and write about it as you go on, or save your impressions for a post-experiment article. Try #9 even if you don’t have great artistic abilities and share the resulting images with your audience.

100 Sites I Seek Inspiration From by Iain Hamp - Another huge resource list that works as an idea galore, thus making my suggestions unnecessary. I just recommend that you visit all of the sites mentioned in it, no matter how time consuming this task is.

8 Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople by Daniel Sitter - Its lessons could be adapted to generate a list of habits of successful *insert desired profession here*. Can you think of a job where such habits wouldn’t make a difference? Then write about it by all means.

18 Tips to Become a Productive Blogger by Monika Mundell - An artist could easily create a comic strip about a blogger that tries to follow those tips but gets desperate because there’s always something getting into her/his way.

100 Resources To Improve Your Career, Relationships And Money by Lawrence Cheok - Lots of food for thought can be found in the articles listed on this post. See it as an informal self-improvement course, and write about the whole experience later. It could even result in a book. Alternatively, you could start a forum thread to discuss some of the topics covered on those articles, such as #1 and #69.

7 Powerful Tips to Overcome Failure by Donald Latumahina - You certainly have experienced failure several times in your life, since this happens to all of us. Do you agree with the methods listed in this post? Would they work for you? Is there anything you’d like to add to the list? This is an excellent topic to write about, and it can be related to most niches. If humour is your thing, those tips are something you may want to twist and mock.

7 Tricks You Need to Fight Procrastination by Samir Bharadwaj - Look at this post’s structure and you’ll realise that its high-quality content wasn’t the only reason why it won the group writing project. The short list that makes for an introduction and summary, the smart use of headlines and subheadlines, key sentences highlighted in bold, images that truly help the author convey his message… Everything is there for you to analyse, learn and apply to your future articles. You could — actually should — also try to follow the author’s advice while working on your projects, and then report how well (or not) you did. If it was a brand new project, have you managed to do everything as recommended from the beginning through the end? If it was an ongoing project, have the anti-procrastination techniques helped you improve your performance?

And this is the end… of this series, not of this concept. As I said in the first instalment, I’ll be posting more links to inspiring articles on a regular basis. To make sure that you won’t miss anything, click here to subscribe to Abaminds RSS feed.

NOTE: I had originally released this article two days ago, but something (don’t ask me what) has gone wrong after I pressed the “publish” button. Most paragraphs were lost and wouldn’t show up on the blog. Therefore I had to delete the post and rewrite almost everything. For this I apologise to all readers, subscribers and pingbacked bloggers.

Posted on December 22nd, 2007 by Karen Zara
Filed under: Ideas and Inspiration | 7 Comments »

You could use this post’s title as an idea for one of your next articles, or for a forum thread. I know, I know, it’s too obvious. But this topic will always be fun to read.

This year you may even win a prize and get some additional traffic by writing about it. I’m serious! Submit your post to Daily Blog Tips’ Group Writing Project: 2008 Blogging Goals until December 23th, 2007. You will get a free link from the final list of participants. And you may even be offered a free Wordpress theme.

I’ll get back to the write-about-goals topic in a future post. If you want to make sure you won’t miss it, don’t forget to subscribe to Abaminds’ feed.

Posted on December 18th, 2007 by Karen Zara
Filed under: Group Writing Projects | 2 Comments »

Here are more 22 lists you can get ideas from:

10 Life Lessons Learned While Camping by Ad Tracker -Lessons #1 and #8 might inspire some cooking-related stuff. Lessons #2, #5 and #9 could give you some nice ideas if you belong to the self-improvement niche. The whole post shows you how to turn an (apparently) ordinary event into content for your blog or site.

100 Ways to Personally Conquer Chaos at Work by Judy Martin - Despite being mentioned in the article’s title, “work” isn’t exactly its actual focus. It doesn’t take too much imagination to apply most of the post’s lessons and concepts to niches like spirituality and personal development. Many of the items listed just give you basic ideas without teaching you how to achieve the desired results (see for instance items #3, #13, #38, #63 and #95). Therefore you could research their respective how-tos and then write your own articles, or even e-books.

How to prepare for Christmas by Ajay - The 3rd suggestion might give some ideas to fitness-related site owners (”How To Get Fit For Christmas” comes to mind). Many webmasters could start a sort of campaign based on the 7th list item.

3 Things I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now by Stephen Hopson - This amusing post ends in a question. Answer it with your own post — or maybe shoot a video response and upload it to YouTube. In any case, this could be good material for both personal and niche sites. Also pay attention to the stories told in the article. There are questions in two of them. By imagining possible replies you could have more nice ideas, and I bet those would be perfect for humour blogs.

What you think is what you see: 4 Ways to stop negativity by Holli Jo - The author  illustrates some abstract concepts with a simple yet highly effective practical example — read the second paragraph to see what I mean. It would be great if you came up with more practical examples and real life situations to explain the 4 lessons taught in that post.

The Quitter’s Checklist by Em Dy - I confess this title misled me. I expected either a motivational article — to persuade people not to give up — or an ironic post meant to poke fun at quitters. As you’ll see, this post actually deals with another issue. That doesn’t mean you can’t write articles that meet one of my original expectations. Just make sure to create a new title. You may also read Em Dy’s list and write posts elaborating more on each item. Some of them — the 2nd and the 6th, for instance — would make good forum discussions, so keep this in mind if you are a moderator, admin or simply a member who wants to start new interesting threads.

5 Things That I Believe To Be Lies by Krizza - Another great source of forum threads is here. The article’s title itself could be used as a new topic. It’s also good for interviews, personality tests and surveys. All list items are very thought-provoking. The last ones might give you enough reasons to fill a whole book, especially if you are interested in religion. If parenting is your thing, you’ll certainly want to discuss #3.

3 Ways to Bring Back the Joy to the Holidays by Karen Lynch - I believe items #1 and #2 to be more inspiring than the final one. The former could prompt you to write something like “How to Feed Your Soul in Ten Steps.” The latter could you make you write an article about the opt-in and opt-out concepts. Or maybe two articles. Or even a whole series, who knows?

5 reasons (not) to drink coffee by Lodewijkvdb - This post mentions two medical researches in which women have been partially or totally ignored. Feminists — and pro-equality men — may want to discuss this subject. If you play in niches like health, science and medicine, you can research how usual (or not) such practise is. For some reason, I feel that humourists — especially the ones more inclined to mock the corporate world — might take some interesting ideas from the two lists in that article…

Form a running habit with seven easy steps by Shane Magee - See how well-structured this article is. The author makes good use of quotes, everyday situations and common sense to convey his message. Consequently, we have a post that is both motivational and practical. I advise you to study it and try to apply its effective style to an article aimed at your niche, no matter what it is. Alternatively, you can follow the post’s tips and report your results after some weeks. It would be good for sport-related sites and personal blogs or podcasts.

5 Surefire Ways To Increase Comments On Your Blog by Vijay - You could write or podcast a response to this article from a commenter’s point of view. Or you could debate whether those tips work in your niche or not.

100 Ways To Promote A Startup by Jason Drohn - Do everything (or at least most things) that the author suggests and write a book explaining exactly the ups and downs of each tip. Do everything again — just switching to a different niche — and repeat the process. Choose yet another niche and repeat again. In a few years you’ll have created a complete marketing series.

10 Ways To Work Through Your Workout by Gal Josefsberg - Are you a podcaster looking for more listeners? Read this list’s 3rd and 5th items. Both might give you some promotion ideas.

9 Ways To Achieve Success in Life by Adebola Oni - Item #5 is rather controversial. Many might argue that listening to (some) critics may actually help you achieve success in life. The discussion of this topic would fit in several types of forums and blogs.

5 Crash Course Tips in Viral Marketing by John Murch - A post that (nearly) all content producers looking for more traffic could read and discuss. The techniques mentioned by the author might be debated on a webmasters forum or mailing list. You could evaluate the tips’ effectiveness and/or suggest other tactics, preferably niche-oriented ones.

Top 23 Motivation Tips, Tricks and Tactics from the Blogosphere by Mike Ambrose - I like the kind of research the author did in order to build his post. It’s the sort of thing that most bloggers could do too. Why don’t you try? Appart from it, you’ll see that many (if not all) of the topics listed in the article are good creativity sparkers, as they deal with things that most of us can relate to. As an example, you could try something like “How to Reward Yourself After Completing a Task.”

5 Blogging Ups, 5 Blogging Downs, and 10 Blogging Tips by Albert Foong - It could also be named “How to Publish an Off-Topic Article on Your Blog And Make Your Readers Thank You For That.” I’m serious: the post is off-topic indeed, yet it was well-received by the author’s readers. Study this case and see if you can try something similar on your site.

150 Funniest Resume Mistakes, Bloopers and Blunders Ever by Jacob Share - If you don’t get too distracted laughing at all those mistakes (like I did), you’ll see just how many things you could do based on this post: article series, videos, comic strips, illustration series, forum threads… you name it.

Six Savvy Reasons Why You Should Travel Light by Sheila Beal - Since I’m a non-native English speaker, there are several expressions I’m not familiar with. “Traveling light” used to be one of them. When I first read this article’s title, for a brief moment I thought it dealt with the possibility of using light as a means of transportation. Naturally, this made me think that the author should be crazy. Well, I hope this little confession of mine will give you some (humourous) ideas. Regarding the article itself, I must highlight an interesting tactic employed on it: ending most tips by explicitly stating the benefits one would get from them. Bloggers and non-fiction writers could try this as a way to improve their pieces.

12 Wordpress Editors you can choose by Karthik - Leverage this post by starting a blog editor review series. Don’t simply write superficial reviews; go for in-depth analysis of features, hidden gems, advantages and limitations. Add several screenshots to your posts. Alternatively, make video reviews.

17 POWER Tips For StumbleUpon Beginners by Dr. Mani - This article’s structure may come in handy for beginning bloggers and/or for those struggling with blogger’s block: create a very basic list compiling common-sense knowledge about a popular topic, and enhance each list item by linking to longer posts published on other blogs. I’ve done it myself (on another blog) and the results were great. It may work for you too.

10 Ways to Survive the Writers’ Strike by Cynthia Boris - A pretty inspiring post, for several reasons: it turns a current news issue into a piece that will be amusing even after the news get old; there is humour in it; some tips sound rather absurd, but all of them are perfectly doable. Therefore, it’s a good read for bloggers and writers who want to improve themselves. Besides, by following some of the post’s tips you’ll have a lot to write or podcast about — see #2 and #7.

More inspiring lists will be analysed in the last part of this series. Don’t miss it; subscribe to Abamind’s feed. *hint, hint*

Posted on December 16th, 2007 by Karen Zara
Filed under: Ideas and Inspiration | 6 Comments »

One of the easiest ways to get new ideas is to read what others have written. You can create your own content by responding, debating, following up, complementing, improving or twisting those reads. Note that this is completely different from stealing or copying someone else’s ideas. What I propose is an honest and traditional way to find inspiration. Or do you think that each and every piece of creative work available in the world is the result of entirely original ideas?

This post itself isn’t based upon a fresh concept. Far from it. You certainly have read this kind of tip other times, on other places (and it’s very possible that you’ve tried it yourself). As you can see, I’m applying my suggestion to my own article. And I won’t stop here: I plan to link to recommended sources of inspiration in a regular basis from now on. This way I’ll be producing new content for Abaminds while showing you where to find ideas. Of course I’ll always give credits and free links to my sources — and you should do the same.

Let’s get started by seeing which ideas we can take from 66 articles submitted to Litemind’s Lists Group Writing Project:

5 Ways To Win A Blog Contest by Erz - You could debate the tip about expectations (do you think it is a “too humble” way to see things?). Or the next tip, about big contests not necessarily being better than smaller ones. If you’ve ever hold a contest, the whole post might give you some food for thought, as it’s been written from an entrant’s point of view.

5 Reasons Why I Bought a Domain by WishBoNe - Do you relate to any of the author’s statements? Could you add other reasons to the list? Could you write a list of 5 reasons why one shouldn’t buy a domain?

Twelve Days of Classic Country Christmas by Scott - Good topic for music-related sites and for personal blogs, for more than obvious reasons. Do you like (or dislike) any of those songs? Would you replace any list items for other pieces? What if you compiled some links to related music videos?

A Tester’s Dream - 5 steps to revive a Rejected Bug! by Debasis Pradhan - Make no mistake: despite dealing with software testing, this article’s tips can be easily related and applied to several niches, such as business, marketing, writing and work. If you can draw, you may create a comic strip about a bug report.

My Five Wish-list Classes I Would Enroll In by Al - Speaking of comic strips, the fist item on Al’s list could give any artist plenty of inspiration. But all items are very inspiring and suitable to various niches, like humour, fiction writing, education (in a pretty heterodox way) etc. A short film based on that wishlist might be very cool.

The Top Ten Internet Business Ideas by John - I know many people who don’t think #4 is a good idea and some who’d say #7 is a waste of time. If you belong to one — or both — groups, why don’t you write an article to express your opinion? Another option is to take each list item and discuss how sites in your niche could benefit from them.

Lovecraft & Cthulhu Christmas List by Cullen Bunn - This is a very original Christmas wishlist, and shows you how to apply a supercommon practise — gift lists in this case — to a very specific niche. Create your own niche-centric list. Or use this list as a basis for a review series. Of course, if you do it you’ll have to purchase (or borrow) at least some of the products listed. It might be well worth doing if you’re into creepy stuff, and most especially if your site or blog can host this kind of content.

10 Productive Ways for Moms to “Relax” by Neena - The final tip is very, very good. A mum could easily try this and then blog about the results. If she truly enjoyed it, she might end up starting a new blog on the subject, and/or writing an amusing book about the experience. Tip #9 could also give parents — or anyone who takes care of children — enough ideas to fill an entire blog or site.

100 Motivators for Informal Learning by Marcel Ackermann - Among all of 100 items, which ones would actually motivate you to learn things by yourself? Would you be able to come up with even more motivators, as suggested in the final item? Alternatively, you could take the 100 existing items, divide them into groups and then write articles discussing each group. Note, for instance, that many of the motivators deal with self-confidence and even vanity. What do you think about it? If your site belongs to educational niches, how could you use those motivators to help teachers and/or students?

My Top-10 Personal Development Blogs by Marco - The idea here is the most obvious one: create your own list of personal development blogs. Since there are much more than 10 of them on the Internet, you won’t find any difficulties in creating a totally different list, especially if you decide to focus on lesser-known sites. Another obvious idea would be writing detailed reviews about each blog listed on Marco’s post.

Thirteen Reasons Why WordPress is Superior To Blogger by JHS - If you are a huge Blogger fan, could you write a good response to this list? Same goes for other blog platforms’ supporters. In case you’re a happy WordPress user, you can always write a bigger list of reasons for this.

Top 7 Paid Review Writing Mistakes You Can Avoid  by Prince John - Do you publish paid reviews on your blog? Read this list, analyse your own reviews, see if you are guilty of any of those mistakes and then blog about your honest self-analysis.

List of Classes by Priscilla Palmer - This is the blog meme Al responded in his post (see above). The difference is that Priscilla took a more serious approach. You could take the meme and respond it as it is, or twist it a bit (maybe a lot). What if you listed five classes you’d like to teach?

5 ways to crack or reset a forgotten Windows XP administrator password by Aseem Kishore - Are you truly bold (or crazy)? Then lose your admin password on purpose, try one of this post’s tips and the blog about the results. If you’re not that bold (or crazy), create a fictional character who is and shoot/draw/write a comedy about his/her attempts to recover lost passwords.

10 Things To Consider Before Acting As Your Own Contractor by Shawn Van Dyke - This is another post that could inspire you to produce a comedy. However, if you want to take it seriously, try to be your own contractor. I guarantee that after such an experience you will have enough material to write a whole book, no matter if you succeed or not.

100 Things To Write A List Of 100 About by Kotsengkuba - This list is already too challenging, so I won’t add any suggestions this time. Just read Kotsengkuba’s post… and good luck if you try to write about the proposed topics.

100 Things to do Before I Die by Joseph Gibbs - Those before-I-die lists are very popular nowadays. You can always write your own. Or draw it. Or even create a game out of it.

7 Seven tips for students to success by Xoel Cardigan - If you’re a moderator at a teen forum, mention this list and wait for the reactions. Besides teen-related sites, this post may also be relevant to niches like parenting and education. Humour, of course, is another natural option.

5 Ways to Become the Perfect Idiot by Lori - Do ways #4 and #5 ring a bell? I bet many of you said “yes.” And most women — especially the married ones — would also agree with #3. You can expand on those subjects. Or on the whole list, as there are certainly much more than 5 ways to become a perfect idiot.

100List - 100 Things I can do to make more money by Dj Wright - There is a lot to be debated about this list (with 100 items, what would you expect?). Many writers might argue the profitability of #13, #14 and #15, among others. Conservative ladies and gentlemen may dislike #17 and #85, while others would admit that both are profitable indeed. Internet marketing gurus would say that #58 isn’t necessary — as long as you buy their products, of course. As you can see, there are many sources of ideas inside this post. You could even try all of the tips (that would be really, really hard to achieve, but who knows?)  and then report the results.

Your Top 10 Inspirational Quotes by Sparky - Great for those who play in the personal development niche. But I can easily see how a humourist could twist all those quotes.

Get out of debt Quick: 7 Tips by Tejvan - Tips #3, #4 and #5 would drive many people desperate. That might be a good plot for a fictional video. *smirks* And depending on your niche, you may have good reasons to write articles in response to this one. For instance, if you own a site or forum about cars, why don’t you try to prove #4 wrong (if you can)?

Six Simple Steps to Remembering and Living the Abundant Life You are Meant to Live by Anita Pathik Law - Since this post is rahter abstract, you could try to translate it into practical things that one could do to achieve the same results.

13 encouraging questions by Isabella Mori - Each and every of these questions could inspire a whole new article, for they are very inspiring indeed. You could use them to create content for niches such as personal development, family and parenting, dating and relationships, work, religion and spirituality, just to name a few. And if you own a personal blog, this article is definitely something you’ll want to write about.

The second part of this series is coming soon. In the meanwhile, feel free to share your own suggestions on how to explore the posts listed above.

Posted on December 13th, 2007 by Karen Zara
Filed under: Ideas and Inspiration | 10 Comments »