Jump to content
  • entries
    3
  • comments
    21
  • views
    1,780

Get Your Blog Post Featured

Sign in to follow this  
CitizenKate

1,060 views

Working for Tandy/LF  

65 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you work, or have you ever worked for Tandy?

    • Yes.
      9
    • No, but I want to.
      6
    • No, and never will.
      6
    • No, but it might be fun.
      43
    • Yes, I used to, and I would again.
      1
  2. 2. If you worked for Tandy, what would be your strength?

    • Sales
      23
    • Teaching
      27
    • Business and retail skills
      17
    • Knowing the inventory
      24
    • Customer Service
      43
    • other (explain)
      3
  3. 3. Do you use Tandy as a supplier?

    • Yes, all the time
      32
    • Yes, sometimes for some things
      29
    • Yes, only in a pinch
      0
    • No. No way! Ha ha ha!
      0
    • No, they don't have what I need.
      0
    • No, they are too expensive.
      2
    • No, quality stinks.
      0
    • No, other reason. (explain)
      2
  4. 4. For people who have/do work for Tandy: What do you like best about your job?

    • The customers
      14
    • Tandy higher-ups
      1
    • Being surrounded by tools and leather
      9
    • Sundays off
      6
    • Working on demo projects
      2
    • Teaching classes
      7
    • Job benefits
      3
    • Having the power to satisfy the customers
      9
    • Finding out about new things first
      4
    • Never running out of supplies at home/ free shipping
      4
    • Knowing you're making a difference in leather land
      10
    • Getting experience
      8
    • Does not apply to me
      40

Ever since we opened the blog section on Leatherworker.net, people have been asking us, "What's a good topic to make a blog post on?" We currently don't have any rules, as such, for what is or is not allowed in a blog article (other than the usual restrictions on personal attacks, obscene content, etc.) For the most part, you can post anything relevant to leather work that you feel moved to write about. But we do want to encourage the development of content that has value (either in terms of knowledge or entertainment) to our members. In this article, I'm going to provide some suggestions of what topics make great content for fellow leatherworkers.

In general, blog articles should be longer and more in-depth than a typical forum post. It's the perfect place to post step-by-step photo tutorials, in fact, this is where we would now prefer members post this type of information.

But there are lots of other topics that would make great blog articles. Here's a partial list of topics we think would make great blog posts:

  • Step-by-step works in progress of any projects you're working on, with photos.
  • Well-narrated tutorials with photos of "How To...<do something with leather>".
  • Articles about experiences we have as leatherworkers, and what we learn from them.
  • Share tips and tricks you've learned or developed, with photos and examples.
  • Places you've visited that are of interest to leatherworkers, such as the shops and studios of fellow leatherworkers, tanneries, the stores of suppliers, manufacturers of leather goods, etc., or even a grand tour of your own studio or shop (don't forget to take photos!).
  • Human interest: tell us about how your involvement with working leather has affected your life (again, the more images, the better).
  • Articles on how you have solved business problems in an effort to make producing leather goods profitable.
  • Got something you're offering for sale to other leatherworkers that you want to promote? You can submit a blog article to promote it, but it will get a lot more attention if you write one that provides some useful information related to what you're offering. For example, if you make a tool that you sell, write an article with tips on best ways to use the tool. If you deal in used sewing machines, consider writing articles about how to choose the right machine.

There are many more possibilities besides what I've listed above, but maybe this will give you an idea of some similar topics to consider.

To encourage members to post good content to their blogs, the Leatherworker.net staff is going to review the blog posts submitted each week, and based on the criteria described in this article, determine whether to feature one of the articles. If your blog article is chosen, it will be featured on the main forum page for 3 days.

I know quite a few of you out there are itching to get started... hopefully, this will give you a starting point. Feel free to leave a comment if there are topics you would like to see in the blogs.

Sign in to follow this  


7 Comments


Recommended Comments

Please don't ever feature one of mine if I ever write something relevant. I prefer to be unobtrusive, not call any attention to myself.

I almost feel like this is an admonishment for my loosely connected to leatherwork blog posts. I will try to keep all of these excellent guidelines in mind for any blog posts I might make in the future. Thanks for posting them. Another LW member and I just had a discussion about what to put here and you have answered.

Share this comment


Link to comment

I was worried that someone who has already posted might take this as a "correction", but that's not the intent at all. So far, everything that has been posted is acceptable, and if you prefer to stay more "under the radar", that's perfectly okay. What I hoped to do here is to stimulate some ideas for new content, as there are many more possibilities to explore.

Share this comment


Link to comment

Lots of good ideas for blog articles here Kate. I'm looking forward to when this section catches on and more people start using it. Can I ask why the blog section would be where you would prefer step by step tutorials? I think that if I wanted to find out how to do something I'd first look in the section of the forum that dealt with that particular subject, or in the "how do I do that" section. Seems like it would be a lot easier to find a tutorial in a place like that than having to search through dozens (or hundreds) of blogs.

Share this comment


Link to comment

Hi Clay - We think a blog post is a better venue for publishing tutorials because it offers more features for formatting and presenting the content, and fewer restrictions on article size and the number of photos that can be posted.

Another advantage is, this makes it easier for the author to keep the narrative together as he/she continues to add to the original post, while all the comments and responses are kept at the end of the post. (I'm sure you've seen the tutorials that were posted in pieces, with comments interspersed throughout the topic.) This way, someone coming along later to read the article can see the complete article in one continuous block.

As for being able to find the tutorials we're looking for, that's a very good question. We now have tutorials being posted in all areas of the site - the forum, the gallery (in PDF or video formats), the blog section, even the ones that were in pages in the "front" section of our site... That alone makes them a challenge to organize. We decided the best solution was to create a Tutorial Index page in the new "front" section to make it easier to locate a tutorial by topic, author, or by keyword, and provides links to wherever it resides on the site. That is a work in progress, but you can see what it looks like by going to the "Home" of LW, then navigating to the Tutorial page.

Share this comment


Link to comment

KATE thankyou.gif

Yep, everything Kate said!

and don't forget, if you have a blog somewhere else, link to it from here. It's easy. Your blog will get more traffic, and our visitors will enjoy the variety. Please keep the links family-friendly, folks. We reserve the right to remove anything we determine violates our terms-of-service agreement, or anything else in the best interests of our members.

Johanna

Share this comment


Link to comment

Thanks for the response Kate. I guess that makes sense as far as organization goes. When I started my own blog a while ago, I felt it was a place for less formal, more personal type articles that would be read more by family and close friends, not a place to do more serious type teaching articles. I always figured the individual sections of the forum were a more appropriate place for those. Guess I'll have to re-think that.

Share this comment


Link to comment

What you have done with your own blog is great, and please let me clarify that we certainly do not presume to suggest what you should write there! Different blogs have different purposes, and even here, there is a pretty wide range of content that is acceptable, from more formal, informative material, to more a more personal side of things. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about when I refer to "human interest". I think both the forum and the blogs allow some flexibility for members to post whatever they have to contribute.

One of the reasons we added this feature to the site was to provide a better publishing medium for instruction. However, we are planning to continue allowing people to post tutorials in the forum, if they want to. We already have a large number of them there that will be indexed in our database (in other words, we're not planning on moving them), so if you prefer to post a tutorial in the forum, we'd rather have it there, than not at all. Although we have expressed a preference, we don't feel that strongly about it one way or another, and don't plan to make any "rules" along those lines. So no worries, it's all good.

Share this comment


Link to comment

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...