The world of social media is packed to the gills with places you can hang your shingle. You can probably think of a dozen different platforms right now off the top of your head and another half-dozen with just a couple Google searches. Each of those platforms has its strengths and weaknesses and a small horde of people who want you to use them.

Do you want to be a superstar blogger? Do you want your posts read at the highest levels by the rich and powerful? Do you want to drive fast sports cars and elicit squeals of recognition from legions of fans?

Last week, almost twelve million people tuned to the A&E channel for the fourth season premiere of Duck Dynasty, a record for a "non-fiction cable series".

I’d always tried not to worry about the size of the role or the size of the film.--Kevin Bacon

We all think we're good communicators, don't we? The truth is, we probably are when we're among our "crowd" -- the folks we know and with whom we are most comfortable. We know the slang, can read all the nuances both verbal and non-verbal, can easily sort the empty platitudes from the substantial thought, and know who is worth listening to and who is not worth the time.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."

If you spent any time on Twitter last week, you heard about a movie called Sharknado, a low-budget affair made for the SyFy Network.

When I started my blog, The Suburban Sundries Shack*, on blogger back in 2004**, there weren't a lot of "how to blog" guides floating around on the internet.

The most earnest desire for any blogger, no matter if they're a big-time political writer on a national website or a lone hobbyist writing about his love for miniature wargaming, is more traffic. Wait, I mean MOAR TRAFFIC!

When I started my blog 9 years ago, I knew I would have a bit of a learning curve.