When I started blogging years ago, I had no idea that one day it would become the main public face of my business and career. It started because I’d made a few attempts to launch websites before becoming employed as a journalist, but had never made the effort to learn how to code and develop a decent site, so when technology offered me a way that I could publish whatever I wanted with no Editor, it seemed like a wonderful freedom.
If you’ve ever tried to name a website, business, book or band, you’ll identify with the problem of coming up with a name for something – until it’s established and familiar, most names just sound odd. Considering I was once guitarist with a band named ‘Inflatable Hostess’, this shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise!
But as the site has grown from friends and family to thousands of people every month, I’ve been increasingly asked about the name (Although not as much as my Twitter username ). So with a lovely new logo now in place, it seems like a good time to explain what on earth I was thinking…
What does ‘TheWayoftheWeb’ mean?
The name of the site was inspired by a number of things, but is mainly inspired by my interest in Japanese culture, particularly around martial arts. I’d read the ‘Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai‘ not long before launching the site, having seen it referenced in the film ‘Ghost Dog‘. It’s an interesting book of notes provided by the samurai Yamamoto Tsunemoto, around the time the samurai class switched from being mainly warriors to administrators.
But the main inspiration comes from the philosophy behind Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do. If you only ever considered Bruce Lee a film star, then the insight into his approach to martial arts and fighting styles might be a little bit of a surprise, but the key element that inspired me is that Jeet Kune Do isn’t a fixed style like Karate. It’s fluid and changing, hence why it’s often called a ‘style without a style’, and that a good martial artists should be like water, and moving fluidly without hesitation.
And that’s the personal hidden joke within the name.
There is no one set ‘Way’ of the Web – the important thing is to set out on the journey and find the way which works for you and your business.
So what does ‘TheWayoftheWeb’ do?
The succinct business philosophy is simple – it’s much easier to find what works for you with experienced help. The longer version is providing:
- Content creation - Content is a foundation of success in digital, whether you’re a publisher, retailer, manufacturer or service provider. Sometimes it’s hard to see how you can produce amazing writing from inside your business, which is why hiring someone with experience in journalism and writing online can really transform what you’re doing by asking the right questions.
- Marketing – You need people to see what you’re doing. But how do you achieve that with the ever-changing state of search engine optimisation, or the constant launches of new social networks? What you need is someone who can advise on where to start, and give you a solid foundation to work from.
- Training – Whether or not you want someone to provide content and marketing services for you indefinitely, at the very least you probably want to know exactly how to measure whether it’s successful or not, and the world of analytics and social media monitoring can be daunting with so much potential data to turn into insight. And if you do plan on transferring content and marketing to an internal resource, then you can shortcut a lot of time, money and experimentation.
- And lastly there’s this site – which aims to provide insight and guidance into journalism, writing, and marketing in a digital world, with the occasional more personal post to avoid becoming an endless stream of tutorials, and to provide an insight into the actual person you’re hiring – the most qualified person in the world won’t be effective for your business if you decide within 10 seconds that you hate them, so by taking a look around you hopefully get an idea whether there’s a fit with your business.
And that’s it in a fairly large nutshell. Of course, it also provides you with a way to Contact Me, and who I am.
Your turn: I’d love to know how you came up with the name of your own blog/site/business and how it came about… And what you think of mine!
