Raul Colon - photographer, digital marketer & writer living on the beach in Puerto Rico.

I support causes by supporting individuals.

The Good Windmill

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gambella-windmill-working-1024x683 The Good Windmill
photo credit by AJ Leon

As I look into the many things that we can make happen, I look at the intentions of each individual vs the actions they take and at times it can be totally different.

I focus on contributing to my environment vs. going after accomplishments and awards. I was able to explain my approach on life a lot better after visiting Fargo, ND this past June and learning from a unique bunch, the Misfits.

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to be part of a GoToMeeting Video call  capturing a view at the end result of the efforts of 30+ Good Misfits and others who collaborated in the Good Misfit Project.  After finishing the call and talking with my other half Lucy, I clearly saw two variations on how one technology like a windmill can be used for good and bad.

The Good Windmill

This past june AJ Leon, Melissa Leon, and Jessie White 30+ Good misfits decided to run a project where we would raise funds to build a windmill in Africa.

First Look at the Gambella Windmill from Misfit, Inc. on Vimeo.

Different to the huge structures that where placed in Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico, this windmill had the purpose of making a village self sustainable. It would allow year round irrigation for crops and bring countless opportunities for improving the lives of many families. The structure is one that will bring benefits without the side effects.

With raising $21,000 we impacted positively the lives of many families in Africa which struggle every day with getting some of the basic needs that many of us give take for granted.

First Impressions of the Gambella Windmill from Misfit, Inc. on Vimeo.

The Not so Good Windmills of Puerto Rico

In Puerto Rico 44 windmills went up and a few individuals made themselves richer, while depleting the resources from the land and the communities they occupy. Not much different than when the conquistadores came and took the resources of the natives Tainos (now extinct). Sadly 500 years later, people are still amazed when something new arrives without analyzing the possible threat this may bring.

In Africa one small windmill is going to change the lives of many in a positive way. Many small communities came together to help strangers in a different part of the world by making donations of money and time to improve their lives.

Which windmill project would you be proud of being a part of?

Which windmill project contributes to the well being of making the world better?

Celebration Day in Gambella from Misfit, Inc. on Vimeo.

Special Thanks to the Following

  • Jessie M. White for motivating me and Bianca to reach out goal.
  • To AJ Leon and Melissa Leon for allowing us to be part of their awesome idea and project.
  • Bianca Estrada also known as Payasa Agapita for working with me to reach the goal.
  • To the Group of Individuals that donated and helped us achieve our goal (in no specific order):
gambella-windmill-from-afar The Good Windmill
photo credit by Misfit Inc.

Prediction Giants Win & @julito77 Writes for @Papaheroes #PapaRebelde

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Screen-Shot-2012-01-31-at-11.17.45-PM Prediction Giants Win & @julito77 Writes for @Papaheroes #PapaRebelde

As I have expressed previously on this blog I Love to Gamble. Given that I also become a fan of the New York Giants when they are in the SuperBowl I went ahead and used my passion of Gambling and my love for the Giants in creating a bet with my good friend Julio Varela better known as @julito77 on twitter.

Julio Varela Accepts the Bet

When the Giants Win!

When the New York Giants win Julio will have to write for a full week (5 Posts I will give him the weekend off) for Papaheroes and Veglatino so he better be looking for at least one Vegan Latino recipe to share with us.

If the Patriots Get Lucky

On the other side let’s say the Patriots get Lucky and use their not so ethical practices of sending Spies over to the Giants and win the Game. I will be writing 5 posts for Latino Rebels.

So until SuperBowl Sunday you can stay up to date as Julito gets ready to write even more than he does already for a full week at Papaheroes.com

Here is a video he created and you can follow the action on twitter or Google Plus with Hashtag #PapaRebelde.

So far I have never seen a Game where the Giants are in the Super Bowl and they lose so I appreciate the help Julio will be giving us at Papaheroes.com for a week.

One Year as a Dad & Quick but long Recap of 2011

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4558140765_ed6f3c9dba_z One Year as a Dad & Quick but long Recap of 2011

I started 2011 as a new Father. Today is my daughter’s first Birthday and my first year as a Dad.

My daughter has brought a new sense of purpose into my life and although 2011 being a very crappy year for business and many other aspects I was able to keep on moving forwards thanks to the motivation that just one smile can bring me.

Becoming a Dad was a bit surreal at the beginning but a very pleasant experience I will cherish in the years to come. I look back many years ago when I never thought of becoming a Dad I had other things in my head that I felt where a priority over creating a family. Looking back I am glad that I waited until the moment finally happened because I don’t feel that it could have happened in a better moment.

2011 A Year of implementing what I learned

Since 2008 I have been reinventing myself consistently from a failed job board project we had locally to other attempts to get into newer businesses. 2011 was filled with many obstacles in many aspects of my life. Business was terrible and I literally survived the whole year out of savings from what I made in 2010 but those savings made me enjoy almost every moment of my daughter’s first year, which I consider priceless.

Choosing over accepting

To a certain extent business was not as good as in 2010 because I decided to move on from some things I use to do and other factors also played into me looking into new revenue sources. The fact that I want to spend as much time with my daughter made me be a bit more picky on which projects I would want to launch and which ones I would pass on to colleagues, competitors, and friends.

Quality over Quantity

I am very intense in everything I do and something I have been convincing myself over these past 18 months is the importance of quality over quantity when it relates to blogging, personal life, relationships and many other aspects of my personal and business goals. I have been a lot quicker in making decisions of leaving things behind when I see the quality of something is not going where I want it to be helping me focus more on quality in what I deliver.

I still need to continue improving how I incline towards quality instead of quantity but 2011 really helped me set a good baseline.

As a way of looking back and learning at my accomplishments and my failures I want to go ahead and go over key events in 2011 that I thought where critical to a year of lots of lessons.

January

  • I wrote a post on how creating content is similar to preparing Onion Rings.  5 Reasons Why Homemade Onion Rings Are Like Original Content?
  • Was able to create a relationship with ETurboNews regarding a post they wrote on Puerto Rico Tourism in which they were right on the money. The Puerto Rico Tourism Company failed greatly at representing us and too this day they still made some promises in which they did not follow through with.

February

March

  • A lot of people related and enjoyed this post on Community Building vs. Growing Your Ego
  • My first time at South by Southwest where I got to meet many awesome people like Guy Kawasaki, Gary Vaynerchuk, Hugh Macleod, Nicole Simon, and even got a glimpse of one of my favorite boxers when I was a kid Mike Tyson. A week full of lifetime memories.  https://raulcolon.net/category/events/sxswi/
  • I dropped and broke my iPad 2 days after buying it in Austin during SXSW Updated : iPad 2 Very Fragile to this day the most read post on my blog.
  • Ordered my first batch of @meet_meme business cards, which have helped me connect greatly throughout the year and also helped me win a Digital Camera, which I will be reviewing soon.
  • I met Joseph Harrell Movie producer and ex Marine which got me up to date on the Movie Happy New year Happy New Year #SXSW #Film!
  • I was mentioned by E-Turbo News creating awareness of the current animal abuse issues we have on the island.

April

  • Turned 31 and receive my first gift from my daughter with the help of her awesome mom Lucy. Happy Birthday Daddy!
  • Interviewed Mario Gonzalez Lafuente, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company for Eturbonews on addressing major tourism issues in Puerto Rico. Mr. Gonzalez made some promises on April 14th that I am still waiting to hear from his staff.
  • Was mentioned and thanked in the best book on Social Media ROI by Olivier Blanchard.
  • I spoke at Hispanicize 2011 where I spoke at two sessions and moderated two more. Most importantly was able to visit LA for the first time and spend time with my good friend @toxic_lunch. Going to Universal Studios and my second visit to Disneyland.
  • In LA had the privilege to meet in person my good friend Jacqueline Carly.

May

June

July

August

September

October

  • Got News that my grandma America was diagnosed with Cancer at the late stages. Visited her in Connecticut she said goodbye to me giving me a very powerful message I will keep with me. It was the last time I saw her.
  • Spoke at ISACA International Latin Information Risk Management conference. Got upgraded to the presidential suite at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, received a pair of Valuable Socks, & a Priceless Moment

November

December

  •  Grandma America lost her Battle with Cancer a few days before her Birthday.
  • A complete month of a lot of reflecting and rethinking everything and preparing to start 2012 on a better note. I have to say this month I created the least amount of content during the whole year.
  • Reminded people that spamming and sending unsolicited messages disguised as holiday greetings is still spamming. Thin Line between Holiday Wishes & Spam
  • Celebrated One year of being a dad and Daniela also celebrates her first birthday!
  • Created this long list reflecting on the complete year of posts and experiences that made 2011.

Thanks to all of you for supporting my efforts and reading this long post .

How did 2011 turn out for you? Please share in the comments area!

5 Ways I Improve my Post Headlines

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headlines 5 Ways I Improve my Post Headlines

Online we all share our content and we also forward the content that others share to our contacts. But the real question is what triggers  to share a post someone has already shared via our contacts.

In Most occasions aGood Headline can make a difference.

This is one of the areas where I struggle. Since I like going into long explanations making an effective short headline can become a complicated task for me. Most of the content that I publish is reviewed by @lucymfel and in many occasions she modifies or chooses a better headline for me (which I 99% of the time agree was better than my initial selection.

I have come to the conclusion that many of us don’t click on a headline that is of no interest to us. There is always more content flowing around us than time we have to consume it.

It is similar to walking into a Library and bookstore and only having one day to read 30 books. Time is against us so we have to choose what catches our eye or interest.

Here are some tips on what I do when I can’t find a good headline:

Share with People I Trust

If I am not convinced that the headline sends the message I want I send my content to people in my circle of trust and I make them create an opinion around it.

First Idea

Normally I leave the first headline that came up to my head unless I find another one that does a better job.

I read Comments left on my Blog Posts.

By reading the comments left on your posts you can get an idea of what people understood and which part of the post was more interesting to them. Then I can use that for future posts.

Listen to Other Conversations Regarding the content

When I take a look at other conversations either on Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook I can also get an idea of what where they key points that people where interested out of the content. 

I Review the Key Points in the Content

By reviewing the Key Points I can see which one is the strongest and I try to think of something that might attract other people interested in the content.

There are many other tricks that I have read from other sources such as using a title with the number of items on a list (for example “5 Ways I Improve my Headlines”).

If your headline is to long you might want to consider creating a sub headline with a longer explanation to start your content or blog post. By adding this sub-headline people can get a good idea of what you are talking about.

What other tips do you find work for creating headlines?

photo credit by @jbtaylor

 

What Makes A Successful Blog Post?

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Screen-Shot-2011-10-28-at-4.24.37-PM What Makes A Successful Blog Post?

I read Tom Webster’s post on Looking for Money in the Grass which really got me thinking about how my approach towards creating content is more driven by what I feel about writing than going by statistics increasing the probability of it being read or what factors can actually bring more people in.

There are many Blog Post Examples

My first objective when I write something is to share an idea, thought, or question I have in my head. In most occasions if there is something bothering me there is a good chance it is also bothering someone else. Making a connection that someone else might have the same issue can actually create posts that I consider successful.

A good example was when I created a post days after the iPad 2 had launched and I had broken mine on its first drop. I just wanted to create awareness on how fragile the iPad was and to this day I get many readers to that simple post I created out of frustration. That particular post has brought more traffic to my blog than most other posts altogether. My explanation of having so many people come into my site on that post is that I was one of the first to have broken the iPad 2 and written about it. Individuals searching on Google to find a fix to the same situation where able to land on my blog and read my story and how resolved it.

I consider my broken iPad 2 post to be successful for the following reasons:

  • It help others find a solution to getting their iPad fixed. Look in the comments area I see a few  readers thanking me because they where able to convince Apple to replace their iPad 2 at no cost.
  • It brought plenty of traffic into my site in which many have become periodic visitors and have subscribed to my newsletter.
  • I was able to make some affiliate income to at least cover the costs of running the blog and the time I invest in it each month.
  • I was able to get a complimentary case from Otterbox for my iPad 2 money saved on a product I like.
  • It created a few new relationships on social platforms with people that related to my story and to this day every once in a while we chat online.
  • The most commented post on my blog.

Although I consider my iPad 2 post to be successful I really did not think much of it before I published it. If I would have used any guidelines towards posting I am more than sure that it would not have impacted it much since the main reason people continue to visit that post is because they want to solve a problem and get more information on how they can get their iPad 2 replaced.

Other than my broken iPad 2 posts I have seen other posts that I did not think where going to catch people’s attention but really seemed to touch a few people. The pattern I see with these posts is that similar to the broken iPad 2 posts they are going through a similar situation and want to find answers or more information on that situation.

We define success is many ways I like to define it as not having to cut the grass others even consider a blog post to be successful when it has landed them a project or income. In my case I have a good mix of them.

In other cases success can also be measured by having a post with a good Return on Investment!

As a blogger or reader what would you consider a Successful Blog Post?

I know you want to find other ways to help!