This is a promotional blog post. Opinions and viewpoints are still my own and I will share my opinions and thoughts honestly about this product regardless.

I was recently contacted about participating in a blog tour for Gatorade that helps promote the risks and dangers of playing sports in extreme weather. The timing couldn’t have been better because my son is actively involved in baseball and football, and lately has been enjoying practices and games in 90+ degree weather.

Being able to keep him (along with his teammates) cool and hydrated as needed has been a concern and he loves to drink Gatorade when it’s available. Gatorade provides additional benefits to him than just drinking ice-water.

If you’re in Indiana, then you know we’ve been experiencing some serious heat indexes lately and having our kids out playing sports, we need to be aware of the symptoms and challenges of heat and dehydration related illness.

Gatorade has teamed up with the NFL for the “Beat the Heat” campaign and provided a number of resources for parents and families to use to help protect themselves and their kids through their sport activities.

For every unique download of the “Beat the Heat” kit Gatorade and the NFL will donate $1 to a variety of charities that have been chosen for the campaign.

One of the things I’ve learned while reading through the information provided was the importance of being sure to hydrate yourself before, during and after the game. Many times I only seem to think about the need for extra fluids is in the middle of the physical activity.

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We’re all now back into our normal work week and those of us who attended Blog Indiana 2010 may be super-motivated and gung-ho to jump into blogging and producing more content. If we’re lucky, we might even make a buck from all the effort.

The question is, are you prepared for the consequences of your blog becoming a revenue source? To all who earn, much is due. Taxes! Fees! Penalties!

Although nothing has been heard of yet from the city of Indianapolis, if you’re a Philly blogger, get ready to pony up $300 for a “business privilege license” to operate any business engaged in “activity for profit”. You can read about Marilyn Bess in Philadelphia that writes occasionally for eHow.com on The Washington Examiner and on Geekosystem.

This along with other and more government oversight seems like a great way to create a black market.

Hopefully we won’t have to worry about this anytime soon in Indianapolis. I’d hate to have Mayor Ballard getting his hands on the attendee list from Blog Indiana 2010 and setting up a “Bloggers Most Wanted” list.

Image: henriquev on flickr

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I’ve already mentioned that I had the opportunity to be a speaker at the Blog Indiana 2010 Social Media 101 sessions. Myself along with Chris Theisen of Hare Chevy, Erik Deckers of Pro Blog Service and Patric Welch of Noobie all spoke on different topics to serve as introductions for people that were just getting started in social media.

• Keynote “Intro to Social Media” by Erik Deckers
• Breakout “Getting Started with Facebook” by Patric Welch
• Breakout “Twitter Tips & Tricks for Beginners” by Chris Theisen

I presented a breakout session titled “The Blogger’s Toolbox” which covered a list of the various applications that I’ve picked up over the years of my blogging experience. These were tools that have allowed me to write on a number of blogs consecutively, while maintaining a full-time job and being a husband and father of two great kids.

I divided the tools up into the different categories below:

The Fodder of Blog Ideas

Sometimes the challenge is just coming up with a new idea to write about for your blog topic.

• Digg – mainly used to see what’s being discussed and is popular, although this site is losing popularity overall with other options that provide similar resource.
• Google News Alerts – regardless of your blog topic, put in some keywords in Google Alerts and receive updates in your RSS reader or in your email inbox.
• Twitter Search – Twitter continues to be a wealth of a resource for blog ideas. You can either respond to what others are saying online or just get inspired about your own new post idea.
• Blog RSS – that’s right, we’re still reading blogs. Sometimes a great post can be an extension of a comment you left on someone else’s original post, or your own spin to a post or topic shared online. I personally use Bloglines as my RSS reader, but Google Reader is also an obvious option.

Organizing Your Ideas

Once you’ve got your inspiration, you’ve got to keep all of your ideas organized so you can get to them and manage them all. This is particularly crucial if you write on multiple topics and a variety of blogs.

• Evernote – by far the main tool I use with regularity. Providing options as an offline desktop application, synchronization online to be accessible from any computer as well as an Android app means I’ve got all my ideas accessible from wherever I happen to be at the time.
• Microsoft OneNote – similar in functionality to Evernote, but the Microsoft version. Organize ideas into notebooks. Integration with other Microsoft applications helps.
• TextPad – sometimes not worrying about the organization and just getting your idea saved into a simple text file can be all you need. TextPad provides you with some more tools than just Notepad.

Adding Media to Your Blog

A picture is worth 1000 words and video is a bunch of moving pictures, so you get the idea. The challenge can be where to find multimedia content.

• Original content – we spoke about copyright issues so the sometimes the best option is media you’ve created yourself
• flickr – if you’re looking for an interesting photo (or video now) flickr is a great place to look. Be sure to use the “Advanced Search” options to find materials that’s available for use with Creative Commons.
• Picasa Web Albums – provides a great place to store your own images and create embeddable slideshows
• Stock Xchng – this website is a great site for stock photography. Lots of free options and premium photos are available for purchase as well.
• YouTube – YouTube is the world’s #2 search engine. Finding an interesting video can add a lot to a post, taking advantage of easy embed codes make adding the video to your post super easy. Also a great place to place and host your own video content you create yourself. Hosting on YouTube saves you storage and bandwidth space.
• Vimeo – similar to YouTube, but a little more control over how your videos are used.

Graphics and Photo Editing

No matter what image you get to post on your site you’ll probably want to edit it somehow. You’ll probably also need to create a custom graphic at some point for a headline or illustration. Here are the programs I’ve come to rely almost on a daily basis.

• IrfanView – for quick resizing and cropping, this is a great tool. It runs quick. Other great features of batch operations and thumbnail creation is a bonus too. Very powerful if you want to dig in and master the application.
• Snagit – working as a tech blogger and featuring a number of websites, grabbing a screen shot became crucial. Don’t just think Snagit is for screen shots though. It’s got so much more capabilities than that. If a picture is worth a 1000 words, Snagit makes them worth a novel of information.
• Picasa – I recommend Picasa to all my family and friends to replace whatever image management application came with their cameras, printers or scanners. Picasa will let you do some standard photo manipulation and effects like removing red-eye, sepia toning and much-much more. Easy integration with Picasa Web Albums is another great plus.
• FastStone – I’ve never used this tool, but it looks like a fairly powerful tool to include if you’re needing an advanced graphics program.
• GIMP – the poor man’s Photoshop. I’ve never really used, but know a number of people that love it for advanced photo editing and graphic manipulation.

Putting It All Together

Once you’ve got your ideas, your content and you’re ready to write, you’ll need a tool to get that post written and published.

• Windows Live Writer – my personal preference has never really failed me. Allows me to publish to a variety of blogging platforms. I can work offline as needed and publish when I reconnect. I can also setup multiple blogs and manage them all from one interface.
• Microsoft Word Blogging – if you’ve already got it, Word allows you to connect and edit posts on a variety of platforms. I’m not real keen on some of the coding they do behind the scenes to your posts, but it’s better than relying on the online editors I think.

How Are You Doing – Statistics

Once you’ve been writing you’re probably curious if anyone is reading. Here are a few tools I’m familiar with to get that kind of information.

• Google Analytics – it’s free and powerful. Not much more you could ask for in stats. Very popular, so plenty of online support and help available.
• Woopra – one of the things I always liked about Woopra is the desktop application to help me keep tabs on my stats as well as the real-time availability of those stats. I can see what visitors are doing RIGHT-NOW on my site, not what they did yesterday.
• Get Clicky – similar to Google Analytics, perhaps a bit more simplified interface and options.
• Quantcast – available as an option. Perhaps a more “professional” solutions option, but may not be what you’re looking for in your own blog.

Image: stock.xchng

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For this post though I want to focus on drawing attention to just how great of an event this continues to be. If you’re not sure what it’s all about, check-out this promo video that my friend John Uhri (@y0mbo) about this year’s event.

John has always done these great sketch notes of the sessions he attends, these things should be collectibles and framed!

Noah Wesley (@noahwesley) and Shawn Plew (@hoosierplew) have continue to do an amazing job with this event. Every year they’ve got great speakers speaking on great topics. The keynotes are always engaging and informative as well. It really is a world-class event.

You’ll be informed and entertained with presenters that I’ve enjoyed getting to know and hang-out with over the years at previous conferences, Tweetups, social media events and a variety of coffee shops around the city of Indianapolis.

Folks like Douglas Karr (@douglaskarr) author of the new "Corporate Blogging for Dummies" that was just published (co-authored with Chantelle Flannery (@chantellef)), Kyle Lacy (@kyleplacy) that wrote "Twitter Marketing For Dummies" and has a new book coming out in December that he wrote with my other friend Erik Deckers (@edeckers) who’s an amazingly witty humor writer. You’ll also be impressed with the wit and insight from the most interesting female blogger I know, Casey Mullins (@mooshinindy) and amazing photographer. Casey shared on how to tastefully sell yourself online and what you should probably be thinking about if you’re not. Then there’s Robby Slaughter (@robbyslaughter), who’s probably the most intelligent person I’ve ever met and shares some great insights on workflow and productivity process for business and bloggers alike. Robby recently published his book “Failure: The Secret to Success”, which should be an interesting book on what to learn from what didn’t work.

There’s so many more great speakers and presenters that were involved with this event, but to find out more about all of them you can visit the speaker’s page at the Blog Indiana website.

If you have anything to do with social media or want to learn more about what’s happening, be sure and put Blog Indiana 2011 on your schedule for next year. I can guarantee you it will be worthwhile!

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I’m not sure if you’ve heard them on the radio lately, but Kraft Foods Bull’s-Eye brand BBQ sauce has had some entertaining radio advertisements that are right on target for their audience.

The variety of ads work around the idea of “real men” making a choice for a bold flavored BBQ sauce instead of something “sweet”.

You can visit their website here and click on the main navigation labeled “Bold Advertising” to listen to all of the radio spots.

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