Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Getting Started with The Book Share

I realized I still have a lot of first time visitors. I figured I should point out some things to help get you started. Even if you're a regular reader, here's some things you might like to know.

Exploring Posts
While there's a few ways to explore the posts, one of the simplest ways to scan all my posts is to use the roundups:

Personal Development and Professional Development
The focus of The Book Share is on insights and actions for personal and professional development. For personal development, I think this is about communication (with yourself and others), self-awareness, mind and body development, and managing emotions. For professional development, I focus on interpersonal skills, leadership, business ... etc. Ultimately, I try to equip you with the best sources of insight to make you more effective on the job and in your life.

Why The Book Share
I started The Book Share to help share reusable nuggets of insight from various books I read. I wanted to help turn the insight into action, as well as share any lessons learned from applying it in real life. I get to work with a lot of people on a lot of things and get to experience some very challenging scenarios.

It seems like almost everyday I find somebody or myself in some situation where just the right bit of insight or action would help. The problem is that that insight is often sitting on my shelf or it's lost among a sea of text. My goal is to surface those nuggets that I personally find insightful and help turn them into action for others.

Take It For a Test Drive
While I hope you enjoy every post on The Book Share, one of my personal favorites is:

If you already know exactly what you want, then that post is just additional confirmation. Otherwise, it could very well change your life.

How The Posts are Structured
I try to cut to the chase in each post. I assume you don't have a lot of time and that you really just want the best insight and actions. I start each post by setting the context, usually with a precise question. I then summarize the overall solution at a high level. Next, I pull key quotes or relevant insights from the book. I then summarize my key take aways and point any additional resources or my related posts.

I try to make my key take aways as actionable for you as possible. They are also based on my personal experience (I experiment frequently with new ideas and approaches -- I'm a continuous learner by design.)

My related posts section is actually important because many times I can connect the dots across very different books. For example, in my How To Figure Out What You Really Want post, I connect the dots to other posts from other books:

How This Blog is Organized
I optimized this blog around showcasing content and making it easy to navigate and browse. To find posts, you have five main ways:

  • Use the search on the sidebar. This works fairly well, particularly if you remember a distinguishing word from a post or if you simply want to quickly see if there's any relevant posts for a given topic.
  • Browse the Best of Bookshare on the sidebar. (This changes periodically)
  • Browse the Roundups on the sidebar. (These are indexes of posts)
  • Browse the Categories. (These are organized by familiar topics such as Communication, Leadership, ... etc.)
  • Browse the Archives on the sidebar. (You can literally walk the posts by time.)
Roadmaps and Other Entry Points
I do plan to do Roadmaps and other types of posts to help your find your way through various themes. For example, I have a large collection of posts focused on feeling good. I need to pull them together into a roadmap. I literally can create a consolidated index of patterns and practices for feeling good and help you learn the best techniques for feeling better in any situation.

The Future and Beyond
I do have plans to take The Book Share to the next level. One of the issues is that most people don't like the name. They tell me that the name doesn't do it justice. I didn't think this was that important, but I'm getting enough feedback to take it seriously.

What I don't want to give up though is browsability of posts. While not everybody likes my current theme, enough users are able to quickly find what they need, that I don't want to lose that. I'll be testing various themes so I can find a good fit for the job. If you have specific suggestions or improvements you'd like to see, be sure to tell me them now while I'm planning and testing various options.

Be Your Best
Good luck and best wishes! ... and remember that *luck* is when skill and opportunity come together. I hope the nuggets you find here change your life and help you make the most of any situation.

I'm always interested in success stories so feel free to share any stories you might have about how you applied any of the insights and any lessons you learned.

1 comments:

Terry Finley said...

I am new to your blog,
but I like what I see.
Thanks for doing it.

Terry Finley

http://terryrfinley.blogspot.com/