Stats and Sex

Long-suffering readers of this blog, especially those with a little Web-savvy, know that there is very little done properly ‘round these parts. 

First, most of the posts are far too long—even my wife warns me about that.  And, clearly, I don’t post enough of them.  (Subscribe to TechCrunch, one of the Web’s top-rated blogs, and you’ll be buried by noontime in posts.  Throw-weight is definitely one key to Web success.)  And I don’t link to a thousand other websites, and frequent other blogs to leave my blog address in the comments, or pander to big-time bloggers so they’ll mention me.

Worse yet, my titles are abysmal.  (My last: “Beware the Dominant Narrative"--was that a stinker or what?)  And, I almost always post on a weekend (the only chance I get to write for fun), something verboten in the real world of competitive blogging.

Most of all, there’s no overarching theme to The Occasional CEO.  I’m not showing you how to hack into an iPod one day and hack your laptop the next and hack your neighbor’s files the next.  I’m not giving you a different time management trick every day, nor am I the one and only source for the inside scoop about competitive lawn darts.  I do make a general and concerted effort to mix business, innovation and history in each post, but even fail at that often enough that I might, by a friendly critic, be termed “theme agnostic.” 

In short, this blog and its blogger are all six ways from Sunday, especially on Sunday when I post.

In my defense, I do occasionally post an article with a little sex in it, so I’m not entirely clueless.  (More on that in a minute.)  But that’s hardly a distinguishing scar given the estimated 420 million pages of porn on the web.  420 million: that’s a fact, Jack.

Anyway, after more than three years of posting (including articles that are so far back I’m writing them again and marveling at my own originality), I pulled my Google Analytics the other day to figure out what was going on. Given my general cluelessness about blogging, “analytics” may be too strong a word.  But here goes a quick summary:

Top 10 Countries Reading The Occasional CEO

1. U.S.

2. Canada

3. UK

4. Taiwan

5. Germany

6. India

7. Australia

 8. Switzerland

9. Mexico

10. Netherlands

In fact, I have been visited by readers in 110 countries, including one visit each from someone in Macau, Montenegro and Burkina Faso respectively.  (I’ll save you looking it up here.)

Top 10 States Reading The Occasional CEO

1. Massachusetts

2. California

3. New York

4. Maine

5. Illinois

6. Florida

7. New Hampshire

8. Pennsylvania

9. Texas

10. New Jersey

It’s no coincidence that I have relatives in many of these states.  Fortunately, I have been visited by someone from every state in the union, though only once from some poor, bored sap in Wyoming.  Perhaps he or she was visiting from Burkina Faso at the time.

Top 25 Posts on The Occasional CEO

This list surprised me a little because some of these don’t match with my own favorites especially well.   I am assuming that at least a few got picked up as a link on someone else’s blog or website, someone who actually knows that he’s doing with blogs, and I just rode the tailwind.

Tailwind, like throw-weight, appears to be another big part of prospering on the Web.

1. Strategic Insights in Three Circles

Huh?  This was almost a throwaway post.  I hope nobody is actually trying to run their company with these circles, cause my Directors and Officers Liability Insurance on this blog is a little, ah, light.

2. Part 3: Kindle 2 Meets the Kodak Brownie

This was from my series when I fell in love with the Kindle.  Since then, an iPad has infiltrated our home, a little bit like the Crusaders entering Jerusalem: nothing will ever be the same.  However, my loyalty to the Kindle does not permit me to add “Part 4” to the series.  Yet.

3. The Man of Steel Does Scenario Planning

This needs (another) rewrite badly, but scenario planning is useful enough that apparently readers are willing to overlook the casting about for humor.

4. Does Technology Shape Our Ethics

Yes.

5. Why Didn’t I Get Promoted

I’m thinking this was read by a bunch of people who have reported to me over the years, but that’s just the normal, healthy paranoia of a CEO.  I’m hoping.

6. Genealogy, the Idaho Russet and Innovation

This was a somewhat-accurate adaptation of a speech I gave at the New England Historic Genealogical Society.  NEHGS mentioned it on their e-newsletter and I had 482 hits the same day.  That’s a record for me.  I suspect it should have taught something about driving traffic to this blog, but the lesson apparently escaped me.

7. Interviewing the Blunt CEO

This one is actually useful.  I enjoyed cherry-picking the quotes, especially those from Steve Ballmer.  He was certainly the guy I had in mind when I wrote it.

8. A Plague of Dead Squirrels (a.k.a. The Unintended Consequences of Innovation)

Q: Why did the squirrel cross the road?

A: Because it couldn’t hear the one-ton, battery-powered rolling mass of silent steel bearing down on it at 50 MPH from around a blind corner.

9. Historical Postcards and the Battle of New Orleans

I liked this one, despite it being too long.  And, I’ve been meaning to write a complementary post about “Seeing the Future,” featuring those moments in your life when you see something that’s apparently 25 years in the future.  Like the day I held a PalmPilot in my hand and realized I would not have to transfer all of my calendar material from one Daytimer to another every January 1^st.  One of the real highlights of this once-and-future post was going to be Secretariat’s run at Belmont, still the fastest 1 ½ miles ever run by a horse (almost as if Secretariat ran through a time warp that day in 1973), but I keep watching the video on YouTube, get goose bumps, and stop writing.   Anyway, watch the video before Disney gets hold of the story.

Subsequent to this post I visited the Battle of New Orleans battlefield, still recovering from Katrina.  Like many of these historic sites, it was something less than I expected.  

10. The Worst Business Plan Opening Lines

There have been millions of business plans written, and millions more to come.  You would think they'd be getting easier, or at least we'd be getting better at it.  We're not.

11. Plucking a Chicken: Technology and Gender

I liked this one because it was about my great-grandmother.  I have a theory that when someone in heaven is remembered well on earth they get a 3-week Mediterranean Cruise with 24-hour buffet.  And it’s heaven, so they never put on weight.

12. The Marshmallow Test

Running cool is the secret to a happy life.

13. Today I Turn 50: 29 Take-Aways

I’ve never read this since posted for fear of what it said.  After all, I was so young and impressionable back then.  Were I writing it today, I would certainly add "Avoid anything in a hospital that has 'ectomy' in its name."  

14. 14 Takeaways from John Steele Gordon's "An Empire of Wealth"

A terrific book and study in synthesis.

15. The Monsters are Due on Maple Street

There’s a lot of wisdom in those old Twilight Zone episodes.

16. Drawing on Brilliance

A testament to dumpster diving!

17. Forgotten But Focused: A Lesson from James K. Polk

Here was a President, all but lost to history, who could teach today’s entrepreneurs a thing or two.

18. Teaching Leadership at Gettysburg

A great place, and a great story (see below) all around.

19. Gettysburg Redux

Lavishly illustrated. J

20. Center of Gravity

A tip of the hat to one of my employers, Carrier Corp.  Without Willis Carrier, it’s still unclear if anyone would live in the South.

21. The Two Shoe Salesmen: The Rest of the Story

I felt a little bit like Gregory Maguire (Wicked) with this post, making up the back-story as I went.

22. “The Innovators Dilemma:” 10 Sweaty Take-Aways

The idea of being blindsided by something better is always out there.  Now, we can all worry about being blindsided by something worse, too.  Thank you, Prof. Christensen.

23. Never Look at the Trombones

Drucker's comparison of a modern CEO with a conductor who cannot play any single instrument as well as his musicians, but still must lead them, is a good one.  This worked well with the next one. . .

24. Leadership in the White Space

Except for the next one, this was probably the most commented upon—at least by email.  It’s probably my best answer to the unanswerable question: What does a CEO do?

25. Running with Haruki Murakami

I actually expected this to be the single most-read post, at least based on observable reaction.  I still go to meetings occasionally and have someone mention it.  Haruki is fun to read and worth it.

26. Smart People Want to Drink Beer with Other Smart People

I snuck in #26 because innovation communities remain near-and-dear to my heart, and to my more serious writing endeavors.  This also supports my theory that Starbucks’ decision to offer free wi-fi recently will do more to spur innovation in America in the next five years than anything else.

My recent post on the New Bedford Whaling Museum and Oliver Ames finished well, too, considering its recency (and its terrible title!).

As for more sex, as promised, my next post will be on just that subject.  (Notice my last two articles on sex didn’t even make the top 25.  I chock that up to poor titling.  I should have called one: “All Abuzz: The Art of Selling Vibrators,” and the other “Viagra and the Savage Beast.”  See, now you’re clicking away.  You’re all just waaaay too easy.) 

Throw-weight, Tailwind, Sex.  The blogger’s triumvirate of power.

But back to sex.   My next article about sex (did I mention that?) will be about the intersection of sex, innovation, community and history.  But that won’t obscure the part about sex.

So check back now and again to see when it’s completed.  And if it’s not there—the article about sex and innovation and history, but mostly sex—try reading some other article.

See? Maybe I’m finally getting the hang of this blog thing after all.

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

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