I woke up nice and early, so I stayed nice and snug in
my warm bed allowing myself the luxury of waking slowly, collecting my
thoughts, planning the day, listening to my audio book ... beginning to wonder
why the alarm isn’t starting, so I looked at the time: two o’clock! Hrmph. So why was I wide awake? Was it a
noise? No. Something was nagging at me, trying to get my attention ... ah!
Stomach! Having suffered in silence for the past hour or so, it wanted me to
join in the suffering. The stew had turned out a bit too rich. Well, after a
few minutes giving my stomach the option of a trip to the bathroom – which it
declined, I turned over and left it to continue its suffering alone. Next
wake-up was seven – a bit later than I like, but I was only five minutes late
for work. Better plan something simple for dinner tonight.
With this blog up and running nicely, I’ve been
thinking about starting the next project. I have three ideas in mind:
1) East London (Eastern Cape, South Africa, not UK).
I’ve stumbled across such a wealth of information, history, where East London
was first or is unique and I have a lot of research material at home as well as
a wealth of photo’s taken during the three years I lived there. When I first
moved there, I tried to learn about the city, it’s history, what makes it
special – and was dumbfounded to find practically nothing available in print (I
like books!). There are a variety of extremely interesting books – but they are
long out of print, and the only copies available to the public are in the
research section of the library. There is absolutely no guide-book or booklet
or even pamphlet available! Not even at the museum. Oh, the typical
‘where-to-stay’, ‘where-to-eat’ and ‘what-to-do’ pamphlets are littering the
airport, Aquarium, etc. But interesting facts about East London? Oh, everybody
knows about the Coelacanth, but I’ve discovered so much more! I could put
together either a website, or perhaps a blog-site with photo’s, basic information,
romanticised stories (though based on facts) about some of the fascinating
tit-bits. Available free-of-charge. Then add some researched articles going
into more detail, less romance – available for sale, perhaps. It’s still just
an idea, though.
2) Gardening. Yet another gardening blog – I still
need to do a bit of research here to see what is out there and do something a
little different. One thing I already decided though: the emphasis will be on
the pleasure of gardening, of doing the actual work – not the results. I don’t
have my own house, and I have never before had an actual garden. Before this
place, I had a balcony – and got just as much pleasure out of that! So the
focus will be on small, economic, simple, practical and most of all: enthusiastic!
Here, I’m still rather vague about the contents and layout. Like I said, I need
to do some more research to find my niche. One thing, though: everything will
have to be tried and tested by myself. None of this ‘I’ve read about this and
want to try it one day, but thought I should share it with you anyway’.
Pet-peeve, since I have fallen for them myself.
3) Another idea that keeps popping up is to resurrect
‘Cost Reduction through Efficiency’ or something along those lines. CRE was a
newsletter I wrote some twenty years ago to raise awareness of Industrial
Engineering and how it could benefit any type of business. It did extremely
well, gaining over 100 subscriptions within the first month! In those days
sending spam could get your e-mail account suspended – so I would contact
individual business, usually by phone, and ask if they would be interested.
That newletter led to short seminars, which in turn led to contracts. I’m not
looking for contracts now, though – and the online world flooded with newsletters,
feeds and subscriptions on every topic under the sun, the whole concept has to
be thoroughly revised. However: When, a few years ago, I was looking for
information on certain business concepts myself – I found a wealth of
publications, magazines, newsletters, websites ... yet I found very, very
little substance! I read pages and pages of ... well, crap! When you read it,
it sounds very impressive, very professional peppered with all the current
catch-phrases ... then you reach the end, sit back and wonder: huh? It seemed
to be leading up to something practically applicable, really useful ... but ...
did I miss it? Is it just me? Well, like I said, I won’t be looking for
contracts, but it might be something I could do if I find myself back in
Pretoria.
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| I've changed all the contact info :P |
Ah well, there’s no rush. And each concept has its own
set of pros and cons. Also, each one has its own platform – East London =
website, Gardening = blog, Business = not sure, could be website with
newsletter, could be blog. And, unlike this simple blog, each concept needs
extensive offline development before going live.
When I got home, I found another new flower had
appeared!
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