When you are a nomad, or a traveling location independent professional, where you locate yourself while you are traveling can be, and sometimes needs to be, more than just an interesting place.

Being a creative person is hard work, especially when your business depends on your being creative for extended periods of times and over an unending stream of projects. Add to this the effort required to keep up-to-date with constantly changing technologies, keep an eye on changing trends and client demands, as well as re-establishing yourself in new surroundings every few months…..and the potential for creativity blocks of various lengths and intensities seems almost inevitable.

What do you do when you find that the creative flow isn’t flowing as easily as it should?

One thing that you could do is to look at what creative individuals look for in a community or a city that they plan to settle into, and then plan to spend some time in those locations. Creative individuals, according to Richard Florida, look for communities or cities that offer “…abundant high-quality amenities and experiences, an openness to diversity of all kinds, and above all else the opportunity to validate their identities as creative people.” (The Rise of The Creative Class, page 218). For example, in Toronto there are a couple of ‘creative districts’, Queen Street West, Liberty Village, St. Lawrence Market area, The Beaches, and a few others, where creatives and creative entrepreneurs congregate.

This is great for creatives who want to settle into an area, but what does a creative that just wants to spend a few months in the area actually get out of being in a creative community instead of any other community?

For starters, you get to be surrounded by creative people and that energy that creative people seem to generate. Spending time in creative communities is like a professional attending a professional development conference. These professionals generally come away from professional development conferences feeling recharged and excited after having spent some time learning about what is new and upcoming in their field, discussing tends and opportunities with cohorts, commiserating with people who understand their field and speak their jargon.

Similar kinds of experiences can be gained when creative people spend time in creative communities. For example, if you are a graphic designer, look for an area in a city where a lot of graphic design firms are located. Spending a couple of hours a day in the local coffee shops, or pubs, or other gathering places, listening to conversations can give you the ‘water cooler conversations’ that you miss by working solo – information on new trends; gossip about clients and their demands – that kind of stuff. I always come away from spending time in the creative areas of Toronto feeling really creative – as if I had spent several days at a professional conference.

If you are an outgoing extrovert, then starting conversations with other creatives could result in potential business partners, potential clients, and a potentially expanded tribe. At the very least this contact with other creatives should re-validate your identity as a creative person.

How do you cope with keeping up with changing technologies, changing trends, and changing client needs while traveling – and maintain both your creativity and your sanity??

TTFN

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Completed So Far:

With everything up and running, I have begun preparing a list of powerful keywords that I can use to build my blog’s content around.

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New Developments:

Keywords and Keyphrases are the words and phrases that people use to search with when they do an online, i.e. Google or Yahoo! search. The more people who search using the same keywords you have used in your blog, the more likely it is that you will have visitors to your site.

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Note:

When using keyphrases, you should limit the number of words used to between 2 and 5 words. Using more than 5 words reduces the effectiveness of your keyphrase.

For the rest of this series, I will be using the word ‘keyword’ to mean both keywords and keyphrases.

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Selecting powerful keywords or keyphrases is not always an easy task but, in the long run, is worth the effort.

Once you have identified the types of pages you will be adding to your blog, and have some idea of the content for each page, it’s time to make a ‘seed list’ of potential keywords that you will build into the content.

Some tips for selecting powerful keywords include:

Brainstorming: Brainstorm possible words and phrases that describe your product or service either by getting ideas from other people, or mind-mapping, etc .

Finding powerful keywords requires a bit of research.

1. Using Non-specific keywords, that identify general categories, e.g. digital cameras or cars;
2. Using product specific keywords, that identify specific products, e.g. Nikon D80 or 2005 Honda Accord;
3. Using location specific keywords, that identify a specific city or region, e.g. Toronto Nikon Dealer, Guelph Honda;
4. Using word variations, e.g instead of car use truck, van, SUV, or auto, automobile, vehicle
5. Check out your competitor’s websites, what words or phrases are frequently repeated.

You can usually generate a fairly extensive list of potential keywords just by brainstorming, or you can also dust off the old thesaurus, see what word variations you can use to expand your list with. At this point, you can either begin integrating words from this list into your copy, or  you can go one step further and use a keyword analysis program.

Keyword Analysis Programs: A keyword analysis program determines which keywords people are already using to search for your products or services, and which of these keywords are being used most often. Some keyword analysis programs will even provide you with alternative keywords that can be used instead of your original keyword. Most search engines have some kind of keyword analysis tool that you can access.

At Google there are three tools that you can play with:

1. Google Search-Based Keyword Tool: http://www.google.com/sktool/
2. Google Adwords Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
3. Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends

Another great keyword analysis tool is SEO Blogger by Wordtracker. Wordtracker is a company that specializes in keyword tracking, analysis, etc, and offers several ‘tools’ that you can use to do keyword analysis with, some free, some not so free. Free downloadable tools include a Wordtracker toolbar that works with both Microsoft’s IE browser and the SEO Blogger that works on Firefox. Basically the SEO Blogger plugin sits as an icon at the bottom of the Firefox browser page. When you click on the icon, a column appears on the left hand side of your browser window. Just type-in a keyword and the program generates a list of alternative keywords plus an indication of how popular both your keyword and the alternative keywords are. This plugin is very easy to install and use.  You can download a copy of SEO Blogger at http://labs.wordtracker.com/seo-blogger/

Wordtracker publishes a free online tool, Keyword Questions, found at http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions that is also fun to play with. You type in a keyword and Keyword Questions provides a list of questions that have been used over the past year to research the market your keyword represents. You can easily pull new keywords from the questions listed here.

There are other keyword analysis tools available, like KeywordDiscovery at: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com and ClickTracks at: http://www.clicktracks.com but both of these are subscription-based services and cost to use.

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Next Step:

Now that you have generated a dynamic list of powerful keywords, it’s time to start using the keywords and keyphrases. Monday’s post will look at how to effectively integrate keywords into your blog.

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If you liked this post, you can read this series on Search Engine Optimizing Your Blog from the beginning by going to the Introduction post.

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Two interesting trends have begun converging recently, providing a very interesting set of lifestyle options for individuals who are interested in taking advantage of them.

Firstly, information, communications, collaboration and social networking media have become easier to use, cheaper to buy, and more stable and secure. The result of this trend is that more people of all ages have become adept at using these media for a variety of personal and business reasons.

The second major trend that is occurring is that baby boomers are ‘getting ready to retire in droves’. Well, not quite. There are an amazing number of individuals reaching the age where they could retire, but not very many of these individuals want to retire – or even can afford to retire. Studies are showing that what baby boomers want to do is to continue working, just under different circumstances.

What baby boomers are looking for is a more balanced lifestyle – less effort on work and more effort on other things, like travel, volunteering, learning, participating in sports, etc. Even the type of work studies are indicating that baby boomers are looking for is changing – away from the high pressure, high income corporate world, to the slower-paced, more purpose-driven careers. In fact, an increasing number of boomers are opting for self-employment, even if it means becoming technologically literate to do so.

A lily pad on a sunny day.

This isn’t really surprising, considering that baby boomer women have already affected considerable change on the workplace over the past couple of decades. There is every reason to believe that boomer men and women will achieve the changes in the workplace they are looking for – including greater flexibility to become remote or tele-workers.

At the same time that these two social trends are taking place, baby boomer’s kids, the twenty- and thirty-year olds known as Generation Y, are also taking advantage of the increased freedom and flexibility that new media and technologies provide. This generation is the highly prized “Creative Class”. Intelligent, creative, demanding and impatient, many members of this generation are not willing to play the traditional corporate game, and are also increasingly taking their skills on-line and becoming self-employed.

The great thing about running an online or virtual business is that you can run it from anywhere! Anywhere in the world!! And many baby boomers and Gen Y’ers are doing just that. Financially and personally successful careers can be run from remote locations, small towns, medieval villages; from recreational vehicles and sailboats; or from cottage country.

This website/blog is my action research project – I am setting up a location independent lifestyle that is supported by a virtual enterprise. You are very welcome to follow along and learn from my mistakes.

The website/blog Ageless Explorer, located at http://www.agelessexplorer.com, is devoted to exploring more general lifestyle design, and is particularly focused on Baby Boomers who might be struggling to deal with their current or impending retirement.

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