I don’t claim to be any more qualified than the next guy to judge great writing from just decent writing, but we bloggers get used to having and sharing strong opinions about things. I’ve just been enjoying reading through recent blog posts of one of my favorite bloggers — Ann Handley — and this post really made me take notice.

Man, she is SO GOOD!!

You other bloggers surely know where I’m coming from. When we find someone that somehow manages to stand out in this endless idea-tickertape we call the blogosphere, we really take notice. More importantly, we want to understand how she does it!

Well, I’m happy to report that after about 90 minutes of sifting through roughly ten Ann Handley blog posts this morning (with the help of three cups of coffee and a bowl of Count Chocula somewhere along the way), I have cracked her code.

So here it is. The 5 Things That Make Ann Handley Float to the Top of the Primordial Blogosphere Ooze

1. Attitude - You really get the feeling through reading Ann’s blog that she is a “glass is half full” kinda person. This makes me more inclined to see what she is up to before some other bloggers. It’s often said that being controversial is a very effective blogging technique. Ann certainly proves that just the opposite can be true.
2. Writing Skill - Like I said, I’m no authority, but I really think Ann must be considered to be a great writer. Reading her blog is somehow effortless. It’s like riding a bike slightly downhill. There’s not much work to it and you even get a cool breeze across your face.
3. The Personal Touch - Ann makes it personal. She finds ways to share little snippets of her “real” life with her readers. Lessons are often triggered by something her kids said or did. We just naturally feel like she’s a friend over time because we know bits of her personal story.
4. The Wonderful Pictures - No, I’m not talking about jpegs here. I’m talking about Ann’s ability to paint pictures with words. Who else, to convey the uniqueness of each of her children, would refer to “the Chex Mix of their unique genetic makeup?” Classic!
5. ROI - In the midst of all of the above, she finds a way to deliver very useful information. I just can’t see a weak spot here.

Maybe the rest of us can use these keys to guide our own blog-writing. I suppose I have already tried to do so with this very post. I never would have divulged that I had Count Chocula this morning if I weren’t a believer in Ann’s rule # 3!

I’m generally a huge fan of new Web 2.0 offerings for several reasons, the largest of which is probably that I enjoy all the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit surrounding this mini gold-rush we call “Web 2.0.”

Ironically, it’s for this very reason that I am advising against new startup “Competitio.us.” The site’s sole mission is to help you keep an eye on your competition, and offers the following tools to get the job done:

1. Clippings - Organize news clippings of your competition.
2. Blog - Subscribe to your competition’s blog.
3. Traffic Graph - Compare your website traffic to that of your competitors’.
4. Feature Matrix - Keep track of and compare competitors’ features to your own.

As a general rule, I don’t like to keep track of what my competitors are doing. The way I see it, how can my organization possibly gain from becoming much more LIKE our competition?

I frankly don’t want to spend a moment of time working towards similarity. I have always seen pure creativity and innovation as much better long-term investments.

To the creators of competitio.us: Was the iPod born out of obsessively tracking the Rio player features? Was Dean Kamen forever looking over his shoulder to see if Schwinn was catching up while he developed the Segway HTS?

I hate to say it, but in my opinion your application not only stifles innovation, but through its “Feature Matrix,” actually increases the chances that I will become just like my competition.

Having put in my two cents worth, I’ll be the first to admit that this is just one person’s opinion. I really do wish the creators the best of luck and I officially invite you to publicly lambaste me if and when you prove me wrong.

Tony Valle
Promethius Consulting, LLC

At Promethius, we’ve done a whole lot of searching for ideas to improve our service and our customers’ experience. After much experimentation and testing, I feel very confident recommending these tools to any business manager:

1. Basecamp - This very intuitive project-management software by 37signals is a very affordable way to immediately gain control over multiple projects and staff members. It even has restricted login functionality for clients as well.
2. Zoho CRM - One of the great stable of products coming out of Zoho. It’s free for up to three users and is quite affordable as you add more users.
3. Netvibes - If you do one thing this quarter, get netvibes and learn how to use it! A savvy manager will make it his browser Home page and will fill it with relevant RSS feeds, bookmarks, gmail and so much more.
4. Omnidrive - This universal web storage platform lets you easily store, access and share files of any size over the web.
5. Google Analytics - Google is at it again with its great web stats tool. Just drop a little code behind each page of your website and you’re off to the races. This tool is especially good if you are running an Adwords campaign.

Why should you worry about bettering your managerial skills? Ron over at Buzzoodle had a great post yesterday about why this should be your number one concern!

Tony

Tony Valle
Promethius Consulting, LLC

If you haven’t guessed the reference, I’m currently reading Seth’s very enjoyable book Purple Cow. He makes the very convincing argument that you have to be absolutely remarkable to gain lasting success in today’s market.

Now I’m seeing everything through purple glasses, which brings me to the real topic of my post:

I made a minor post the other day suggesting Zoho Polls for companies wanting to get feedback from their customers. Almost immediately I received a comment from someone at Zoho thanking me for suggesting their company. That was nice… and kind of unusual.
Then I got to thinking. I had posted to my MySpace blog several months ago a brief comment about my very positive experience with Zoho CRM (which I still use to this day). A Zoho intern politely commented with thanks in that case as well.

What in the world?!?! It seems clear to me now that Zoho at least keeps a very close eye on the “blogosphere” to see what is being said about them, which is surely more that many companies can say. But they apparently go much further than that. They participate promptly in other people’s blogs.

Let’s face it - my blog isn’t anywhere near the top of the charts yet, but the Zoho staff noticed and took action right away. That’s impressive. That’s unique. That might even be purple. It means a lot to a blogger, and I’m sure they understand that.

When is the last time that Microsoft commented on YOUR blog? Don’t hold your breath. What’s sad is it doesn’t have to be that way. They surely have the resources to go the extra mile, probably to the tune of at least 100 support staffers to every 1 Zoho staffer. (Just a guess).

To further test my hypothesis, I looked up some recent blog posts relating to Zoho:

Zoho makes good… (Zoho commented back)

Lightweight project management (Zoho commented back)

Kathy on success and management (Zoho commented back)

To be fair, I did find some blog posts relating to Zoho that didn’t contain replies from the company, but many of them looked to me to be more “formal” reviews of the company. I could imagine that they might be afraid of appearing overanxious with a “serious” review site.

All-in-all these guys are to be commended. I know I wouldn’t be writing this if their software wasn’t fairly exceptional as well, but it just excites me to see that these guys haven’t stopped at just having great products. They appear to me to be attempting to be a great company.

So here is my question to you and to myself: What three things could we be doing today to absolutely set ourselves and our organizations apart from all others?