Hello Friends!
I’ve been thinking of various ways to come up with the right Member and Challenger contribution content for Yakezie.com and perhaps I’ve come up with a solution, which needs your input. The goal is to make content interesting, thematic, easy, and collaborative.
All of us enjoyed reading the Yakezie Member Posts from the Alpha Class that went up the months of September, October, and November. It was a chance to learn more about each other and share stories that go beyond just personal finance. We got to learn about the why, the when, and the how which is always so fascinating. Come February 1, 2011, Beta Challengers will also get to share their Member Posts as well, so get excited!
STORY TELLING IS KEY
I’ve found that great stories are what keep me coming back for more on a particular network site. When I can’t get enough of the story, I am propelled to then click on the author’s own site to read some more. In fact, after reading a great story, I am ALWAYS clicking on the author’s respective site to read more and help share their content around the blogosphere. What I’d like is for Yakezie.com to have content that tells great stories around a certain set of topics once a month. What topics should we discuss? Enter the Yakezie Scholarship essay questions!
The Yakezie Writing Contest is one of the key initiatives of the Yakezie Network. Our entire premise is to selflessly help others with their blogs and in real life. With the deadline for the first contest is coming up Mon, December 6th at 11:59pm, I’ve come up with an idea for us to lead by example with the Yakezie Writing Contest initiative and provide themed content throughout the month as well.
If you want to contribute content to Yakezie.com and are struggling to come up with ideas, Members and Challengers can write articles that addresses one of the contest questions on Yakezie.com that will go up the 2 or 3 weeks before the applicants essays go up. In other words, the first half of every month will be filled with content from the Yakezie Network of Members and Challengers, and the second half of the month will have content from contest applicants. Guest posts are welcome from people outside of the Network as well if there is space. I’m sure that some applicants don’t know exactly where to start and what we are looking for. With our own articles, they’ll have plenty of examples to get going!
TYPES OF QUESTIONS
The writing contest questions are there to help the applicant think about important issues and share lessons they’ve learned to become better people. Questions can be diverse to include topics on world affairs, educational travel, debt, entrepreneurship, risk-taking, triumph, failure and more to encapsulate our Y-pronged theme of: Personal Finance, Lifestyle, and Scholarship so that students and the network alike can share, think, and learn about pertinent topics every single month. With a more focused approach to personal finance and life, we can make a bigger impact!
The only challenge we have is coming up with a list of three or so questions once a month for us all to rally around. This is frankly no challenge at all since there are so many avenues we can discuss. Once a list of questions are launched, it makes the content theme for the rest of month straightforward. Every time I write one of my own articles on Financial Samurai, I broaden my own perspectives because I discover new ways of thinking and doing. The key is to just get going and make an attempt.
A DIFFERENT TYPE OF NETWORK
We can differentiate ourselves by being the best blogging network with the best stories on Yakezie.com that weave in topics around personal finance, lifestyle, and giving back. Stories are what compel readers for more and propel them to go to your respective sites and learn more about you. The more the reader and your fellow Member know about you, the more they will promote your work as well! The best movies all tell the most unique stories, regardless of their production budget.
We can have as little or as much content on here you want here on Yakezie.com. It’s whatever we make of it and there’s no pressure to do anything at all. I’ll write my own Yakezie Writing Contest post this week to help blaze the trail. As Members and Challengers, we are not eligible to win the main Contest, but by sharing our stories, we can provide advice and inspiration to others through our writing. What we can do if the majority agrees is to carve out a smaller prize of say $100 from the donation pool to the winning Yakezie Member/Challenger articles based on the number of votes for the month. Please share your thoughts and consider doing the same!
Essay Questions from December’s HowtoSaveMoney.Com Yakezie Writing Contest:
1) Who is your hero and why? What are the attributes your hero possesses that makes you admire him or her so much? Compare these attributes to your own and tell us your similarities and where you can improve. What steps will you take to become more like your hero?
2) Discuss a time when you failed or did not live up to your full potential. Assess the things that prevented you from achieving what you were aiming for and analyze what you would do differently if you had another chance. Do you let failure motivate you or keep you down?
3) What kind of skills do you learn through sports that can help you succeed in life? Tell us a time where a particular aspect you learned from sports helped you get through a difficult time. How do you plan to pass on your knowledge?
Regards,
Sam
I would love to contribute some articles in the future! I’m pretty new to the site, so I don’t know if I’m eligible, but I am definitely excited.
My passion is in personal finance, and I update my website every day. I just can’t get enough of it!
Sounds great. I’ll put up a post on Friday and provide an example. First priority goes to Members who would like to contribute, and then to Challengers. Everybody is busy, I know, so I would think that Challengers are welcome to post their articles as well.
I know that if I was a Challenger, I would love to get exposure before my Member Post in Feb!
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Yakezie, Yakezie. Yakezie said: The Storyteller And Content Generation Ideas | http://t.co/Ee5fMGb http://t.co/CDndaYm –> From idea this morning to reality! #Yakezie […]
This sounds interesting, Sam. I think we could benefit from answering these questions.
I just submitted a different type of post that will hopefully be useful for the challengers!
I’m just thinking about a streamlined way for content generation on Yakezie.com. Having a list of 3-5 questions makes it easier for content to be diverse, but somewhat focused.
Without guidance, it could be too hairy to manage as the Editor. With examples of articles are done, then contributors can follow each others lead, and it leads to a virtuous cycle.
I think this will be very helpful for applicants. Questions are a great guideline, but seeing how people approach the questions should be very helpful.
Hi Sam, Inspiring (as usual). Great idea for motivation! Just returned from quidk trip to Ohio after a wonderful trip to San Francisco. My next Yakezie post was written en route and will be submitted for editing this week. After that, Scholarship writing ideas sounds great. Self reflection is wonderful therapy!
Sorry I missed you in San Francisco! Freezing here yeah?
The topics can be anything we want, as guided by the Scholarship questions for the following month. It’s a way to provide direction for content, and incorporate personal finance, lifestyle, and scholarship. Perhaps each month, we should have a question that fits each of the three verticals + one that may fit none. PERFECT! This is what we should do.
Cheers
Re your twitter question: rather than awarding one person with extra money, I think we can make the connection a bit more clear. I’m sure we can think of ways to help others with extra money, like the love drop project going on
Sounds great. Please suggest specific actions.
What we plan to do is publish 5-10 posts, one a day, recommend voters vote at the end of the scheduled posts (we’ll notify how are before hand since you can only vote on one post between 1-5 points once) then tally up the score at the end to see who gets the most points.
If we raise over $500, like we have so far, we can reward a second applicant $250, and even a 3rd place the rest if there is money left over and the start anew. I like the idea of rewarding more winners, depending on our month fund raising.
Fantastic Idea, Sam. I often don’t post on other sites because of a lack of ideas so this is perfect for me
Great. With the Member Posts, the embedded questions where essentially: “Who are you?” “Why did you start the site?” “Tell us about your Yakezie experience” and “What are your blogging goals?”
We’ll think carefully about the Scholarship questions so that we can provide flexibility and good guidance for each month.
Yeah, it can definitely be intimidating writing for another site if you don’t know what the readership needs. I can’t say that I’m that uncomfortable with the Yakezie, but I definitely like the questions for guidance.
That’s a great idea! I always find people’s stories about those type of questions inspiring and enlightening.
That makes it easier. Will do!
This is a great idea Sam. I was struggling with what to write for the Yakezie but this gives me direction.
Hey Sam,
Great job on channeling some direction for us Members. I think this will be helpful for all who’ve wanted to contribute, but also might encourage other people who were maybe not planning on contributing. I think this was a well laid out idea!
Thanks,
Timothy
Yep, agreed. Will just make the Questions as diverse and interesting as possible!
I like that idea (and “Up” pixar picture- still have yet to see the movie) of structured posts and questions.
I agree- I usually don’t do guest posts because I don’t know what to write about, but this is a good idea.
My question is.. how would the voting work? Would it be tracked to an email address? What if people use multiple email addresses to try to vote? (I’m sure you and Chris have this figured out, but I’m technologically impaired, so please explain :) )
I guess we could do a sign up list for the members who want to post..? Or it could be done in the comments (whoever sees the post/ question first) and cap it off at 5-10 members.
Voting is one vote per IP address per applicant essay.
Topics can be opens up and shared in a Google Docs. Once the limit of 15 is reached for the month it closes up for example.
Sam this is an excellent idea. Believe it or not I am a little nervous about posting something like this that could be judged in such a way but thinking I will try and do it anyway!
Definitely. The post I am putting up this Friday is somewhat nerve racking, but ohwell. Would like to set an example.
I think your note about the impact of stories is spot on. I’ve noticed that some of my best posts come when I am sharing a story.
I like the idea of using the scholarship questions as a topic for member posts, but I wouldn’t want to be completely limited to that. I tend to write about whatever topic is on my mind at a given time and it won’t always fit within those limitations. And I think a diverse range of topics would be better for building the site in the long run.
Sounds good. Share your thoughts on how to organize the wide diversity of posts while creating thematic cohesion on the site?
We might have too much demand to write sometime in the future, since 5-10 days wil be taken up by Scholarship applicants, leaving us with 15 business days and 20-25 total days left.
Easier said than done I guess. ;)
I suppose using the verticals and the categories within them, we’d be able to maintain a form of organization. For example, the personal finance vertical contains Budgeting, Taxes, Real Estate, Frugality, etc. I would think we’d want to build them all up as strong as possible. And with such a diverse group of bloggers, it is natural that some will be more knowledgeable in one topic than in others. Look at a site like Money Crashers. They post on diverse topics and usually multiple times a day, yet everything fits under the same umbrella.
Limiting topics to whatever is the focus of that month’s scholarship is an interesting idea though. We’d be able to get different points of view and go a little deeper into the topics.
I’m not really sure what the best course of action is…I’m just trying to throw out some ideas.
But you’re right about demand. There are only so many days in a month, so it could be tough squeezing everything in.
I would like nothing more than everyone pitching in and filling up the various topics actually. I just don’t know if people will. It takes a lot of encouraging and is harder that it sounds.
As we don’t have a full time staff or anything, I feel we need some type of focus. It really is reading about the stories and anecdotes which make for the best posts IMO, but everyone is different.
I’d love to toss in an article on budgeting or some other topic (in finance, or possibly in lifestyle) for a vertical – Once I get it written, can I just submit it for yakezie approval the same way I did my member post?
We can go with a hybrid of three questions and an open topic for whatever someone wants to write about in pf or lifestyle. That’s a solution and we can see where things go.
I love reading…and writing stories. As is my style (I am not a pacesetter), I will keep close tabs on how this concept is coming together before I jump in.
I think the idea of structured questions is interesting. I’m trying not to get anchored on this, while thinking of other ideas….but I’m coming back to this being pretty good.
It’s a way to get people focused on a core set of topics, and wanting to do their best – not only because they inherently want to, but perhaps also because others will be sharing stories on the same topic. A little competitive spirit is good.
One question I have would be on the context behind the posts. These do read like college/grad school essay questions, which is great. That said, since we are a collection of bloggers that are generally personal finance-oriented, we might be answering these questions with a different outlook/agenda. Do we want to steer away from that perspective, or just leave it wide open?
Anyway, bottom line is that this is a cool idea.
Leaving it wide open with a different outlook agenda is exactly what would be most fascinating. Everyone treats a certain topic differently.
To add to my comment above, an example of to what I’m referring would be for Q3 (lessons from sports), I would likely tie that to something career-related, goal-setting with personal finance, etc. A scholarship candidate might go in a different direction. So, we may have cohesiveness in the questions to be answered, but the stories might take a totally different angle. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just something to consider.
I think the great thing is us telling stories from all different angles actually. To read how different people answer a question is most insightful, just like how we had the Member Posts don’t you think? They would only be hree weeks worthy of posts max on three different subjects or so.
Great idea; I have the same problem as others in trying to figure out what to write about that would be interesting enough for Yakezie.com! I’ll write one this weekend on this month’s questions.
Hello Sam!
I like this idea; however, I also want to see some of the topics filled up with great posts (taxes, retirement, frugality, etc.). Can we still write posts around these and specify which category they should go under?
I also understand that doing so may be unwieldy with so many contributors. But I wonder how it will work out with this being a personal finance blog but not necessarily focused on personal finance. The essays and storytelling is definitely a niche for us, which could help to differentiate us out there, but I would think people who come to the site would like to read about personal finance, lifestyle design, and our scholarship.
Anyway, that’s just my two cents! I would love to contribute about anything.
Thanks for your thoughts. We can have a wildcard question. The hope is the questions encapsulate personal finance, lifestyle, and scholarship.
[…] 2010 5 TweetTo help kick-start the HowtoMakeMoney.com Yakezie Scholarship, I’ve decided to share a story about one of my big failures and what I learned. I don’t qualify to win, but I thought it […]
I really really like the stress on being a good story teller and having a great story to tell. Not just because I stand in front of college kids and try to make demand elasticities and shifts in supply curves relevant and entertaining. There is so much intrinsic value in showing people where you’re from and what you bring to the table. A good story creates a frame of reference and a place for bonding to happen – which means that the audience that you do build will be more connected and engaged to the messages you put out there in the world. I love it!!