Finding Your Voice (As A Blogger)
I’ve had a number of comments in the past few months, regarding changes on this blog. Am I becoming more professional, chasing readers or in some way changing gears? The short answer is, no, not really. My reasons for blogging haven’t changed much over the years. However, my voice, as a writer has changed. The [...]
Does Your Blog’s About Me Matter?
As I mentioned last month, I was surprised to learn that in 2011, the fourth most read page on this site was the “about me.” I’m not even sure I had an about me page when I relaunched this blog in 2004! Then & Now Back then, blogs tended to have fairly stable readerships. You [...]
Begin Without Disappointments
I love the title of this old ad, for Western Electric radios: Begin Without Disappointments. It’s my motto for January! I’ve already nailed my colours to the mast for 2012. It’s going to be a fascinatingly different year. The changes have already been made and the new routines feel very good indeed. The important thing [...]
A Year Of Blogging Highlights
For the first time since 2006, I’m ending a year feeling good about the state of this blog. My blogging goals for 2011 were simple; double the average daily traffic and put up at least 150 posts (this is the 172nd post of the year). I figured, in the most basic of ways, that more [...]
Some New Advice For Bloggers
Recently I’ve been asked if this blog is “changing direction.” The short answer is no, not really. This blog has always been an eclectic, honest and sincere record my life and will continue to be so. That said, I did make a decision some months back; to be more helpful in my writing, more open [...]
12 For 2012
Around this time last year I wrote two lists; of things I wanted more and less of in my life. Last year’s lists were an exercise in setting goals, articulating hopes and ending frustrations. Yesterday I went through those lists and made some comments. Although it has felt like a frustrating year, it’s good to [...]
Looking Back On My “Goals” For 2011
This time last year I wrote some lists; the eleven things I want more of in 2011 and also eleven things I could do without. Now, as the year draws to a close, it makes sense to look back on that list and see how things panned out. Looking back, here’s the eleven things I [...]
Singapore And SoundCloud Searches
Earlier this year I played a small part in helping kick-off HKSocial, a monthly breakfast meeting, for creative types in Hong Kong who are interested in better understanding Social Media. Despite having moved to Singapore, it’s nice to see they haven’t forgotten me, yet, as I was reminded on Friday when my Twitter stream lit [...]
7 Kinds Of People You Need In Your Creative Universe
Sustaining yourself in a creative endeavour, be it photography, music, design, writing or any other art, requires relationships. You can’t do it alone. People won’t just “discover” your work and you’ll struggle to bounce back from the inevitable setbacks and disappointments. Moreover you’ll need folks that can help you stay true to your goals, focussed [...]
The Social Media Diet
I was humbled, encouraged and impressed by the response to my plans for 2012. In case you missed it, here’s the heart of the scheme, “No new projects, no new clients, no sales pitches, no networking, no marketing, no branding, no seeking influence, no driving online traffic, no conferences, no workshops, no more business/industry/creativity books [...]
Plans For The End Of The World
2010 was a great year for me, loaded with fulfilment, adventure and a surprising degree of success. By contrast, 2011 has been a grind. It hasn’t been a bad year; though at times life and work have been hard to manage. Of course, that’s partly self-inflicted; changing country while taking on a lot of work [...]
Drifting At The Edge
For the past few days I’ve been taking a break in Adelaide. In many ways it has been the holiday I didn’t quite manage to have in the middle of the year. The days have been slow and measured, with that sense of constructed slothfulness that mark all good breaks from routine. I’m more relaxed [...]
The Software I Use
At least once a year I like to audit the my software. This week I’m been going through that exercise; deciding which programmes to upgrade, buy or ditch in the coming few months. Given that I’ve been asked in recent weeks about the applications that fill my hard drives, I thought it made sense to [...]
Can You Hustle?
Last week I was having one of those really cool meetings that make this whole “creative” work thing worthwhile. Great location, with a cool person I respect, talking about a project I’d love to be part of. Then I was hit with the kind of question that can be (well, for me at least) really [...]
Lessons From The Slow Sojourn
I recently had the chance to spend a couple of beautifully wintery weeks in Adelaide, seeing family and generally taking a break from the stress of moving country. As I mentioned previously, my plan was to go offline, take some photos and do some deep and serious thinking about the future. As happens so many [...]
Dark On The Rock
The title of this blogpost is inspired by a comment in Anthony Lane’s New Yorker review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. “A solemn voice declares, “We were once a peaceful race of intelligent mechanical beings.” Not, as you might hope, a trailer for the Second Republican Presidential Debate but a prologue to “Transformers: Dark [...]
My Approach To Twitter
Over the past few weeks I’ve had a few people ask me about my approach to Twitter. I’m loathe to write anything too concrete on the subject because a) I’m neither an expert on the subject, b) I’m not really “successful” on Twitter. Moreover, there is a whole body of “how to use Twitter” literature [...]
Reboot For April
As I mentioned last week, March was a bit of grind, health-wise. In fact, my theme for April is “re-boot,” since I’m restarting, or reconfiguring a lot of the projects I started in January and February. Last week was a bit of a mess, but the pieces are starting to fit together and the next [...]
Bye Bye Blogrolls
Compare the typical blog today with those from a few years ago and you will see one striking difference. Or, more specifically, one striking omission – the blogroll. Some bloggers still feature links to other bloggers on their front page – although increasingly they don’t. When they do, the lists are often short, and frequently [...]
Most Read Blogposts Of 2010
A recent look through the Google analytics gave me some food for thought. I was curious to find the blogposts from 2010 that had drawn the most readers. I was used to seeing a lot of recent articles in list of highest ranked posts. This year was different. Most of the posts in the top [...]
Responding To The Distraction Economy
The recent essay on social media, distraction and unhappiness (Is Facebook Making Us Stupid?) attracted some thoughtful comments and a few challenging emails. Therefore, it made sense to write a follow-up post, covering some of the points my interlocutors brought up. Before going on, let me say that I’m not a luddite, nor am I [...]
Eleven Things I Want More Of In 2011
The new year is almost upon us. Here is a list of eleven things I hope to experience more in 2011. Radio Once upon a time (actually, back in the 90s), I drove a car and listened to radio. Radio was an important source of news, commentary and new music. But, when I stopped owning [...]
Updates And Biographies
As I mentioned a few weeks back, the 28th and 29th were scheduled for some blog updates and maintenance. The blog (and my wordpress installation) was overdue for some work and revision. Here’s a rundown of what I did. 1. Simplified the typefaces. I use and love Typekit to deliver web fonts. However, a lot [...]
Fernando Gros is a musician, photographer & writer based in Singapore. Born in Santiago de Chile, Fernando grew up in Sydney and has also lived in London, Delhi and Hong Kong.