The Weekly Review: Vol VII Issue 4
Hello reviewers!
Chris Bowler here, your friendly advocate of personal websites everywhere. I hope you had a great February and enjoy the extra day that 2020 has provided.
My wife is off to enjoy a week in Arizona in what has become an annual occurrence. I’ll be spending the next week doing more driving than usual (and I already do a lot of it). It’s funny how life with tweens and teens finds your parenting contributions coming primarily in the form of chauffeuring. Between school, basketball, gymnastics, youth, and band, I actually look forward to the day when our kids can drive (we get started on that adventure later this year).
But it’s a privilege to serve and I’m thankful for the experiences our children can enjoy here in this country. And a week of single parenting is always a good reminder of what a blessing it is to have a partner in life!
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Running a membership business
Gosh, what a time to have something to share with the world. It seems there are new options every week to help you create something, send it out into the world, and earn a living doing so. From a teen who quit high school to focus on Fortnite and his Youtube channel, to a guy walking across Japan, it seems like the opportunities are only limited by your imagination.
As someone who has hosted a website for 10+ years and written a newsletter for just slightly less than that, 2020 feels like a golden age for self-promoting.
I’ve spent some time researching Ghost in recent weeks. This is partly due to their being an initial team on People-first Jobs. But I was also interested to hear about their purchase of Pico from Paul Jarvis.
If you’re considering starting a web site (or moving an existing one) or a newsletter, their recent article on How to create a premium newsletter (+ some case studies) may be useful. This seems like a great combination for people who want to build a membership-based business. It allows you to write, then choose whether a post should be available to the public or just members. If you choose your members, a lovely designed email is sent out.
It doesn’t (yet) give you a lot of the tools a typical email service provides. You can’t create custom onboarding workflows for new subscribers. There are no options for tweaking the email design. You can’t even view the aggregate stats of a newsletter (you can only view the details of one member at a time).
But it does allow you to connect to a Stripe account, charge for your content, and distribute that content to your audience. And the entire experience of using the platform feels good, including the ethos of the company behind it.
I’ll be paying close attention to how this matures.
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Items of note
In an effort to back up my oft-repeated focus of running your own web site, I wanted to ensure that I included at least one link each week to articles of that type. I'll be keeping my eyes out for good content hosted on personal sites.
Dan Mall runs his own agency along with his own web site. And he shared some tips for how he's improved his home set up for video calls.
IN RUNNING a completely distributed agency, I spend a signficant portion of my day on video calls. Like, most days, the majority of my day. So, if my colleagues and I have to spend a lot of time looking at my mug, I might as well try to make that a more pleasant experience for everyone involved.
As someone who is on at least one Zoom call per week, I wouldn't mind improving my set up as well. I'm quite sure I don't want to spend a lot of money on this, but there are some good tips in here, as well as the post he mentions was the inspiration for his efforts.
I don’t use Apple’s offering in this area, but if I did, I would be making use of my friend Artem’s tool here. He understands that the best thing about Notes is that it is present on all devices for Apple users. But the problem?
I migrated to Notes from Evernote some time around 2015, and the only thing I could never get done was figuring out how to link to my notes from OmniFocus.
He wrote some scripts to solve this problem.
In Toronto, the defending-champion Raptors shed light on the future of NBA defense
I haven't watched much basketball in the last 10–15 years. But I once was a prolific fan — I cheered for Sean Kemp and Gary Payton and the Seattle Supersonics in the 90's, then enjoyed the glory years of the Lakers with Shaq and Kobe.
But one of our boys, Matthew, is a big fan and we've watched a lot of Warriors over the past 3 years. And with the Raptors success last year, I got back into the game.
And despite being sad to see Kawhi choose to go somewhere else, it's been so cool to see the Raptors be successful again this year. And to do so mostly by developing young talent and trying different things. This article highlights the genius of head coach Nick Nurse.
No team switches its defensive coverages more frequently than Toronto. Nurse used a box-and-one and a triangle-and-two in last year's Finals, and while the Raptors had never tried those schemes before, they had spent the regular season cultivating flexibility. As defending champions they have been much more adventurous, mixing in various zones and changing their coverages not just game to game, but minute to minute. If you are not close enough to hear their calls, it can be tough to tell what they're doing.
What a fun team to watch!
A recurring theme in our family devotions is repentance. In a family of 6, there are plenty of occasions for it 😅
This can involve specific scenarios of conflict, but I generally want to spend more time discussing how it in an overarching sense. What does it mean to truly repent? This article on Ligonier Ministries paints a nice picture.
Now imagine that the man is piloting a supertanker. It takes him miles to slow the ship down enough to even begin to make the turn. The turn itself is immense, taking him quite a distance from his intended course. Then again it also takes a large amount of time to get up to full speed in the new direction.
I can most easily describe repentance to my kids by talking about my own life and how I came to accept God's plan over my own. But it sure takes time to see a full change in areas where you struggle — and the image of a supertanker turning around rang true for me!
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Quote of the week
Writing online isn’t about proving how smart you are, it’s about: - showing others how much time you’ve spent to grok a particular topic - saving them time and mistakes Anyone can do it.
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Currently
Reading: Warrior of the Altaii by Robert Jordan. I had no idea this book even existed until just before Christmas. Jordan apparently wrote it before starting on the Wheel of Time series, but it was only published recently. I saw it on the shelf and had to get it for my sister, who also did the same for me (making this the third year in a row we've both gotten each other the exact same book). I've only just started it, but it feels like classic Jordan.
Listening: I missed hearing about Simulation Theory (Super Deluxe) from Muse in 2018. Catching up on it now.
Drinking: Although we’re still in the winter months, I’ve been enjoying Saisons of late. A good one is a collaboration led by Four Winds, a dry hopped table Saison that is light and goes down easy. Also, Parallel 49 offers an 8 can combo pack that includes four of their regular options. I give my full approval!
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Thanks for making it all the way down here! By the next issue, we'll all have gained a full extra day, but that will be forgotten when we lose an hour of sleep as daylight savings time comes to an end. Don't let that get you down — life's too short to be irritated by the little things. I'm preaching to myself here 😅
See you next time!