Friday Mad Science: On Finding the Point

Sally and I were talking about the blog on Wednesday night, and after a while she broke down and asked the question that I could see had been on her mind for awhile.  “What’s the point of all this?”

I smiled and shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Does it have to have a point?”

Sally let it go.  By now she knows better than to try to get between me and whatever hobby-of-the-moment I happen to be obsessed with, but her question still stuck with me.  What is the point here?

I’ve been happy with the growth in readership that this blog has seen in the last few weeks.  Since I’ve started posting daily, we’ve grown to have somewhere between a dozen and a score of readers every day, with probably a large handful or so of regulars.  Comments show that most of the regulars are guys from my gaming groups, and beyond that, I’ve gotten a few emails about stuff I’ve written from friends from high school and the independent comic creator scene.  I mean, I could wish for more regular readers (and more comments!), but then again, folks really seem to like the beer reviews, so if I keep doing those every week, odds are that more regulars will show eventually. 

On the other hand, anyone with sense knows that blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme.  Yes, I monetized the blog with ads, but that was as much for the principle of the thing as it was for any other reason.  As of this writing, the blog has made all of thirteen cents, and if I’m being honest, that’s a full dime more than I’d expected to make in the first month of daily posting.  Granted, I may never get over whatever Google’s minimum payout amount is, but as I noted, it’s the principle of the thing.  In theory, the blog is a money-making endeavor.  I’m happy enough with that.

Still, none of that answers the question, “What’s the point?”

The point, I think, is just to make this the best blog that I can possibly make it.  To the extent that it’s a thing worth doing, it’s a thing worth doing well, and that’s enough reason—at least for me—to keep doing it. 

With that said, it’s worth asking what makes the blog good.  What’s the So-What?  Why do we care?

This is a question I’ve put off answering for some time now.  A lot of times when I write, I start with an idea, sometimes just an image, and I riff on it for awhile.  I draw it out and write it up and just let it grow organically into, well, whatever it’s going to be.  And then, once I kind of have a feel for the elements in play, only then do I sit down and try to figure out what, exactly, I’m writing.  Only with a foundation in place do I sit down and ask the crucial questions.  What does this character want?  What is this story really about?  What makes it special?

In marketing, we call this the Value Proposition.  Literally, the Value Proposition is the promise of value that a specific product offers to consumers.  In reality, it’s the same as the So-What in a story.  It’s the thing that tells me why I want a given specific product instead of all the other products that’re out there that I could purchase instead.

Consider some examples:

-          Walmart sells at the lowest price.

-          MacDonalds’ food is consistent, familiar, and fast.

-          Google has the simplest, most-complete search engine.

-          Apple designs beautiful, easy-to-use gadgets that do a variety of complex, hi-tech tasks.

-          Target is basically like Walmart, only they have slightly nicer stuff.

By similar logic, practically every good story ever written can be broken down the same way.  There’s a plotline there, sure, but there’s also a value proposition.  There’s an inherent answer to the question: “So what?  Who cares?”

-          Superman is the most powerful superhero.  He’s practically a god among men, but still he believes in Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

-          Batman is a regular guy.  He lives in a super-powered world and overcomes his lack of super powers with dedication and smarts.

-          Spider-Man is a total nerd.  Even though he’s a superhero, he’s still a regular guy.

-          Star Wars is about a nobody farm boy from the middle of the nowhere who’s secretly the heir to a bunch of super powers.  And who hasn’t felt like a nobody from nowhere?

Thus, we can see that in many ways success—in business, commerce, fiction writing, etc.—comes from knowing what you do well and then… doing it well.  Letting people know that you’re doing it well.  Getting the word out there, so that folks know, “Hey, this is what I do.  If you come to me, this is what you’re going to get.”  That’s how you build a brand.  That’s how you get your thing, whatever it is, to stick in peoples’ minds.

My first cut at this was simple: Danno’s Lair is the World’s Best Triathlon / Comic Book / D&D / Craft Beer blog.  Personally, I think I’d be on safe ground if I called it the world’s only Triathlon / Comic Book / D&D / Craft Beer blog, but what are you gonna do?  The point here is not to compete with the absolute maximum number of other potential blogs out there.  The point is to find some relatively unexplored space, occupy it, and be the best one out there doing what you’re doing. 

But my question is: is that enough?  Is “Triathlon / Comic Book / D&D / Craft Beer” really a separate space, or is it just a collection of random things that I just happen to like all at the same time?  In searching for the through-line here, for the So-What, it concerns me is that maybe there isn’t a through-line.  That maybe I’m mis-defining the Value Proposition by defining it in terms of interests or topics.  That maybe there’s something else here, something I’m missing.

So here’s my question, dear Readers.  Is “Triathlon / Comic Book / D&D / Craft Beer” a thing, or am I missing something?  How else might you define a blog’s Value Proposition other than in terms of what it discusses?

Your thoughts are welcome here, people.  Don’t let me down on this.

***

I use a points system to equate training time within the three disciplines of triathlon.

Looking back at the month’s triathlon training, I gotta say that although it doesn’t look like much, I am exhausted.  And I don’t know if that’s just because I’m in the loading/base training part of the season, or if it’s a reflection of some failure in my training philosophy, or if I’ve just forgotten since last season how physically challenging it is just being a triathlete.  But for whatever reason, I’ve felt like I have absolutely dead legs ever since the YMCA Sweetheart Run two weeks ago.  I ran well in that race, but I came out of it tired and wound up using the next week as an impromptu Rest Week.  And now here I am, it’s only Week 1, and already I can’t believe I have to make it through two more weeks—and three complete weekends!—before my next Rest Week.

I don’t want to say that I’m dreading my hobby, exactly, but I will say that I need to find a way to own the pain a little better.

Eh.  It’s probably my own fault.  I was off the bike all week last week, which is part of why I decided to use that week as a Rest Week, but then Sally and I ran on Saturday, and I ended up going seven miles, which is a decent long run for me.  So then I took Sunday off but went to an early Spin Class on Monday morning—since I had President’s Day off—but unfortunately I got there a little late, which meant that I didn’t have time to really stretch or warm up before class started, and the idiot bitch who ran the class didn’t allow for warm-up time during class time, either.  So here I am dogging the first third of class as I wait for my body to warm up, and the bitch is screaming at us with what can only be described as an unholy shriek from Hell, and I can tell she’s getting mad at me for dogging it, but what are you gonna do?  I didn’t want to risk an injury just for a single stupid spin class.  Eventually, I think she decided to vent her frustration by trying to smoke me personally, but…  Well, that didn’t work out so well.  What happened instead is that she exhausted herself and had to end class a full ten minutes early, with most of her other students panting in exhausted relief that finally the torture was over.  Meanwhile, I kept riding, trying to settle back into a decent, steady-state rhythm after the insanity of her amateur-hour class while wondering if I’d done any serious damage to my knees.

Argh.  Given the way the week started, it was therefore no surprise when my right knee started acting up on me on Wednesday night.  It’s been a little better once I get it warmed up, but my right hamstring and my lower back on the right side are both tight, and the combination is pulling my kneecap down onto the cartilage harder than normal, making it feel like sandpaper when I bend it.  So then I was gonna just stay off it, i.e. not run, during the week this week, but when it hit 56-degrees in Central Park yesterday…  Well, that was more than I could resist.  I went out and ran.  I can’t say that I ran well, but I did run.  And while I don’t know if running helped, as I type this, the muscles around the knee have at least loosened a little.  Here’s to small miracles.

My plan right now is to try to ride about twenty-five miles tomorrow and then put in maybe three-and-a-half running, either afterwards as a brick on Saturday morning  or on Sunday if it feels like too much to try to do it all at once.  That’ll put me at something like 107 points for the week—the equivalent of running about twenty-seven miles for all you pure runners out there.  That’s not a bad week of training, especially for this early in the season, but it’s also not a lot considering where I was at mid-season last year, either. 

Still, I feel tired.  Should 107-points make me feel this tired?  Truthfully, I can’t seem to find any perspective on it right now.

***

I’ve been doing news and notes in this spot for the past couple of weeks, so with that in mind, here are a few things that caught my attention.

First, Slate.com had a size-comparison graph on Super PACs.  This is interesting mostly because the allowance of Super PACs has really changed the Republican race this year.  Bottom line, it’s doubtful that any of the Republican candidates besides Mitt Romney could’ve survived without their Super PACs.  But with them, we’ve seen also-ran after also-ran surging and resurging in the polls, to the point where it now looks like Rick Santorum will actually win the nomination.  And this in a year when most folks who’re voting for him acknowledge that he doesn’t have much of a chance against the President in the general election.

It’s a weird world out there, and I gotta say that there’s a lot of behavior that I just cannot understand.  Not the least of it is what possible motivation a guy can have for giving tens of millions of dollars to the Gingrich campaign long after the campaign itself has ceased to matter.  What does that money buy?  I really don’t understand it, at all, but I do know that it’s changed the race this year in some very dramatic ways.

My next item is also from Slate—apparently the home brewing movement is a model of Do It Yourself innovation.  Which is fine.  I mean, I don’t know what it proves, but it’s nice that people are taking an interest in drinking good beer, that they are further developing that interest to actually become brewers themselves.  Brewing beer is the kind of thing that I think average Americans once understood well.  But now, like changing a car’s oil or tinkering on a lawnmower’s engine, simply enjoying beer has become an activity that folks have allowed others to do for them.  That’s not good. 

Folks need to, at a minimum, think for themselves enough to establish what they like and why they like it.  When they take it the next step, well, that’s just gravey.

Finally, Tennessee Titans’ head coach Mike Munchak gave an interview this week where he said that, basically, the Titans aren’t that far away from being an elite team.  That if you look at the Giants, the Titans are a similar team, and that they could have success in a similar way.

Personally, I think that analogy is terrible. There are several important things that the Giants have that the Titans do not have:

- An entrenched QB with a proven record.

- At least 3 professional-grade wide receivers.

- A very strong, very deep D-Line rotation.

Also, the Titans have some things that the Giants do not have:

- A true world-beating #1 WR in Kenny Britt (when he’s healthy).

- An established O-Line that is very good at pass-blocking.

- At least one starting-caliber Tight End with a working Achilles Tendon.

My take is that even if you believe that Jake Locker can be as good as Eli Manning has been—and this is by no means a given—the Titans are still no less than THREE monster pass-rushers away from a Super Bowl title using the Giants’ current formula, and that’s the best-case scenario. Not to mention the fact that the Giants’ offense is almost totally predicated on being able to get three really good wide receivers on the field at the same time. The Titans have Kenny Britt, and he is probably better one-on-one than Victor Cruz, but Nate Washington is at best a push against Mario Manningham, and that still leaves Hakeem Nicks, who I think we can all agree is a more-potent, more-consistent option than anyone else on the Titans’ bench besides Britt.

You ask me, the Giants won the Super Bowl for three reasons:

1. You can’t double-cover three guys at the same time.

2. They have an at least decent pass rush at all times

3. They get clutch play from their quarterback.

Right now, the Titans are missing all of those things. Perhaps Locker will have a break-out year and address the bottom issue, but that still leaves some hefty needs heading into the draft.

So yeah, both teams were 7-7 at similar points in the season, and in the end, the Titans just barely missed the playoffs where the Giants made it but almost didn’t.  But.  The Titans were not close to winning their division, and the holes on their roster are glaring.  The Giants, meanwhile, were a great team that had a few key injuries during the season.  With the key players out, they dropped some winnable games.  But when they got their stars back, they were as good as anyone.  I don’t think the Titans, meanwhile, were ever as good as any of the best teams in the League last year.

***

I’ll leave you guys with a pair of pictures of my girls at the beauty parlor yesterday.  The place was PK Salon at 200 East Main Street in Stratford, CT.  The girls’ stylist is a friend of Sally’s, and she asked me to include the name and address of the shop, so there you have it.

There!  Now go get your hair done!