I performed so much better when I was a part of study groups. The person I studied with, she was an honors student and was the smartest person I knew We’d always practice with flash cards, massive notes, mnemonics and it helped a lot. I ask around casually for people in my class if they’d like to get together sometime to help study but there’s little interest and enthusiasm. It seems people are just better on their own.

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A local 7-11 in my area was tired of the youth that were hanging around in front of the store. They were scaring away business from locals. He had the bright idea of hooking up classical and opera music onto the outside speakers and started playing it instead of the local radio. Sure enough, the youth who were clearly turned off by it stopped loitering in front.

A school in Calgary addresses vandalism issues using the same method. Places that were moat at risk of being vandalzed were rendered less attractive for youth to hang out. It was the same principle. They started playing weird Operas and classical music in these high traffic zones which resulted in less vandalism problems.

Wouldn’t it be funny if WoW Insider started ramping up Pavoratti, Vivaldi, and Beethoven whenever someone got to the comment page? Too bad it probably wouldn’t work :(.

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That’s a fair explanation. Actually, when I started out blogging, I didn’t want to put up own feedburner stats either. I didn’t want to “toot my own horn” so to speak.

Little did I know, I was about to do an exact 180 on my stance. It just so happened I was taking a Psychology course that year. One of the concepts I was taught was something called Social Proof.

Its a sort of subconscious way people measure other people or things. A herd of people can be persuasive because other people will be motivated to follow them.

Bear with me for a minute and allow me to offer you some examples:

1. On dating sites, single guys frequently take pictures of themselves around women or in the company of attractive women.
2. Some night clubs lower the rate at which people can enter and cause the line to be longer then it actually should be.
3. 5 guys in down town New York suddenly stop and look skyward for a minute. A number of other people around them do the same.

Results?

The effect is generally the same.

In example 1, when singles are viewing profiles they might stop a little longer and examine the guy more closely when they would otherwise pass and keep going. "Wow, look at that guy with all those women! He must be interesting!"

In example 2, cars going by or other club goers walking by would think to themselves "Look at that lineup, that place must be packed and full!"

Example 3 was an actual study conducted by scientist Stanley Millgram. In New York, he sent a research assistant downtown. The assistant stopped at a busy sidewalk and gazed upward.

Most of the people around him didn’t care what he was doing and simply walked right by him.

In round 2, the same assistant went back again with 4 other men in tow. At the same time, they all stared upwards and a larger number of people looked up. In fact, it quadrupled from when only 1 person did it!

Great! What the hell does this have to do with blogging?

Now, lets apply it to blogging. You come across 2 blogs, and both of them are about cooking.

Both of them have about equal hits. They’ve been around and started at the same time, writing similar posts, and face similar traffic levels.

Blog A doesn’t have a feedburner showing his stats.

Blog B DOES have a stat counter showing 800 subscribers

Now, social proof dictates that more people would subscribe to blog B, because other people (first time viewers) come to the blog and see and think "Whoa, 800 people have subscribed to this blog". They may not immediately recognize it or be aware of the feeling because its subconscious.

So Social Proof theory says that new comers are more likely to subscribe to Blog B because they notice that OTHER people subscribe to Blog B instead of Blog A. By actually seeing the fact that 800 subscribers read Blog B, its an internal confirmation to themselves (again, awareness notwithstanding), that other people like and read this blog daily. Therefore, they’ll likely do it also.

Matt’s proof

I think it was right around the start of December. I had just switched themes at the end of November and thats when I learned about social proof. I figured I had nothing to loose and slapped in the feed burner widget below the “Subscribe” link on the right. My viewers doubled. Yes, I know these are page views and not uniques.

At the same time, I could raise other factors:

• Holiday season, more people at home (but then why would they be reading WoW blogs?)
• New layout that was fresh
• Went from 1 post per day average to a 1.5 post per day average
• Me spamming refresh repeatedly during lectures

This was also the same month I inadvertantly started a blogging meme about what your goals for the New Year was along with their resolutions in World of Warcraft.

Don’t expect the concept of Social Proof to propel your blog and double traffic overnight.

But it’s not limited to subscribers.

Take a look at your comments. Let’s assume you’ve got 6 Comments.

Not bad, right?

But what if you were swift and responded to each comment one after the other? You’d effectively be doubling your comment count to 12.

To the average reader looking in, they’ll see an indicator saying this post has 12 comments even though half of them are yours. Social proof would cause them to think that “Hey, this looks like an active discussion, maybe I’ll chime in and add my own thoughts!”.

I reiterate, its not going to transform your blog overnight. But it is something to keep in mind.

And at worse, you haven’t really lost anything by trying.

How do I do it?

1. Login to Feedburner
2. Click the Publicize tab
3. Click Feedcount on the left under Services
4. On the bottom right of the page, verify that this service is activated
5. At the center of the screen, customize the color scheme if you like
6. Then copy the code contained in "Copy this HTML”
7. Login to your blog interface
8. Paste the code in your Theme wherever you’d like it to show up.
9. Tip: A good spot is next to or beneath your subscriber RSS link.

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Usually, how I end up planning my days involves thinking ahead to what needs to be done, how much time to allot for it, and the best time of day to do it. Tomorrow, I do my studying during the day, squeeze in my required Priest column for the early afternoon, and raid from the mid afternoon onwards until the sun goes down.

Rarely do my plans ever pan out as I hope.

I’ve been thinking about stepping down from WoW Insider for a while now. It creeps up every time I fail to come up with a good story to write or a good piece to pen. All I get out of is 50 bucks per post. The banks steal about 25 away in wire fees. I end up making 175 a month if I’m lucky. Yet I treat everyone post I write as if though it were my last and it’s not uncommon for me to spend 4 hours making sure I get everything right even though I end up getting something wrong.

My co-staffers there are all professional. Even though everyone telecommutes (works from home), there’s still a friendly and homey atmosphere around the chatroom that we all reside in. What rattles me and always continues to rattle me is the inherent amount of people who firmly believe they know more than what you know but refuse to elaborate.

I never read my comments on there. Thanks to my lovely assistants, they usually help screen out the good ones for me to read and make note of any glaring technical fallacies that I commit so that I can correct it before I get myself fired. I would almost be relieved if I got let go. It would be another pressure off my shoulders.

But I can’t do that. There’s two things that keep me here writing for them. The theory struck me on my birthday as I was walking around the casino. Here were all of these elderly women sitting in their chairs sipping on their usual fruity drinks. All they do is stare wide eyed at the screen in front of them watching these symbols flash by. Then, depending on the slot machine, they pull the lever or press the button to refresh them again. They do this all night with these machines slowly sucking away their money dry.

However, once in a while, they’ll hit it big. They’ll double or triple up what they have. Their best losses are forgotten and they go through that process all over again.

Blogging gives similar highs. Everyone that I’ve ever met has never shied away from a pat on the back. They seek and crave approval. They want to know that they’re doing a good job or that they’ve made a difference. Believe me, I’m the same way. In my blog, I largely get positive or constructive comments a majority of the time. The rest, I’m called an idiot, an ass, or just someone who obviously doesn’t play the game. Those ones bounce off me harmlessly like hockey pucks off goalies.

When you’re writing for a massive body like WoW Insider, the proportions are reversed. You’ll get stabbed, assaulted, hung out dry, put up on a pedestal, every word critiqued, every phrase reviewed, and so on and so forth. Every time you write a post, you are placed on trial. The readers are your judge, jury and executioners. Thankfully, our pay is not based on comments. If they did, I’d be a lot more broke then I am right now. Every once in a while, I’ll get a comment saying that I’ve helped someone become a better play or that I’ve changed their perspective somehow. The WoW Insider tip line even has people emailing in offering their praise or hatred of various bloggers. It’s amazing the kind of things people say when they’re behind the comfort of their own screens.

I mentioned two things. The second thing is the money. It’s always nice to get paid for something you enjoy doing. As long as your ego and confidence hold, it never becomes a problem. I wouldn’t be working right now anyway since I am a full time student. Having a gig like this is nice since you get a little change to throw around every once in a while doing something you like to do. I love the job, but it can especially be stressing at times with deadlines to match and strict guidelines to adhere to. I’m not sure if I could see myself working in another job. I’d make a lousy dishwasher anyway.

When Einstein said science is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration, he must’ve been foreshadowing the blogging industry.

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My plan was to go there first and grab a table. Unlike most places, you have to pay first before you sit down. I figured I’d have enough time to line up, wait around for a while for everyone to stream in, and then pay for everybody in one fell swoop.

I have my own reasons for doing that. Mainly because I felt guilty over the past year. Some friends I didn’t get presents for on their birthdays or for Christmas because I just didn’t know what to get, or someone else would buy around of beer another day and everyone leaves before I can. I don’t want to be known as the guy that mooches or freeloads off of people and tonight would have been my way of saying thanks.

But it didn’t happen. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I didn’t arrive there soon enough. Another friend reserved a spot for me and just as I had arrived everyone was being led in. I was about to pay for mine before I literally got out muscled and held in check.

And now Christmas is coming up. I have to act swiftly. Perhaps the best feeling that describes my current state is guilt. I had a great time down there though to be sure. I could not have asked for a better crew to be a part of.

But it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.

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Here’s how it looks:

Centers

Datsyuk, P. (DET)
Drury, C. (NYR)
Koivu, S. (MON)

Left Wing

Nash, R. (CLS)
Avery, S. (DAL)
Demitra, P. (VAN)

Right Wing

Hossa, M. (DET)
Hemsky, A. (EDM)
Langenbrunner, J. (NJ)

Defense

Pronger, C. (ANA)
Schneider, M. (ANA)
Blake, R. (SJS)
Wideman, D. (BOS)

Bench

Hagman, N. (TOR)
Seabrook, B. (CHI)
Dubinsky, B. (NYR)
Boll, J. (CLS)

Goalies

Backstrom, N. (MIN)
Leclaire, P. (CLS)
Conklin, T. (DET)

I blew a waiver pick on Mats Sundin. Jared Boll be dropped to make room for him.

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Now, I’ve got two days off every week for the next four months. This means I have a four day weekend. The trade off? I endure a 5 hour grind session on a Monday with no breaks in between.

I’m reconsidering my future, yet again. On the one hand, I want to go to law school but I know it would be very difficult for my family and I to afford it. We’re not exactly middle class or anything. I don’t want to end up going and then finding out that it’s not something I want to do. I know that at the very least I want to finish out my Criminology degree and do my 4 years (which will end up being 5 or 6 at the rate I’m going).

Yet, my WoW blog has given me pause. I never expected to be here after a year. I never expected to have this many followers. I don’t know what to do. How do I keep improving and keep pushing? It feels overwhelming at times. Heh, I like to just scream out at night when I’m home alone that “I’M NOT QUALIFIED TO DO ANY OF THIS! WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?”. It’s an unexpected blessing to be sure. Ever since High School I’ve always loved writing. Sometimes if my friends weren’t around or they were at practice or something, I’d end up sitting in the hallway just putting stuff down on paper even if it never made sense.

Can it be done professionally? I don’t know. I don’t have the proper training. University English 101 or whatever is the only actual official proof that I have. I’m not the greatest technical writer but I have a knack of sensing things about readers, other bloggers, the environment, the situation and how to interact with them all. It functions as a 6th sense.

I love what I’m doing. I could see myself doing this as a career. But Asian upbringing has always taught me to take the best and stable path. I wasn’t smart enough to be a doctor. Western upbringing has taught me to follow what I want to do. But I don’t know if it’s good enough.

How do I reconcile both?

On the other hand, there’s always Plan B.

Marry rich.

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It’s going to be really weird since most guys don’t read as often as I do. But I’ve always been special, AMIRITE?

Slide:ology Book

I’m a huuuuuge presentation nut. I picked up the Presentation Zen book a few months ago and I loved it because it taught me so much about formatting, type, slide design, etc. Ergo, I wanted to expand upon it further by picking up Slide:ology from Nancy Duarte.

Macbook lock

The public library is my second home. I wish I had a library buddy to go with. I tend to perform better academically when I’m in an environment that lets me do it in peace. As such, since I can only go alone, it becomes a frequent pain in the ass whenever I have to go to the bathroom. I have no one there I can trust to watch my Macbook and I have to keep folding it up, stashing it into my bag, and bringing it with me when I gotta go pee.

And with the amount of coffee I chug, it happens pretty often. The one I linked there is one I just picked out. It doesn’t matter what type of lock (although that one does appear to be the best). Needs to have that Kensington slot thing though.

Brisingr

I love fantasy books! I devoured Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Harry Potter, etc. This is the 3rd in a series of books written by Paolini. I don’t care what the reviews say, I do like a good story!

Waiter Rant

I loved his blog and I know I’m going to love his book.

Actually, what else I could use is like a stylist. I know a few of my friends are into fashion trends and I need to upgrade a few things (like my jacket for one). Is it wrong if I hand someone $100 and tell them to pick out something for me that would look good?

FYI, my shirt size is XL. If in doubt, go for the XXL.

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It’s against their culture for a woman to go out and have coffee with other guys.

I could not believe it. Sure, I can understand it if it’s someone they just met. But it’s not like we just met at the local yoga studio or something. Just as a summary for any boyfriends out there that are paranoid, here’s a list of guys you should watch out for and that you can relax around:

Not a threat

• Long time high school friend - They’ve been friends for such a long time. If something was going to happen, it would’ve happened a long time ago. The fact that it hasn’t means there’s a reason behind it.
• Neighbour - See above.
• Family friends - They’re almost like family since you see them so often. It’s be extremely awkward although there is some potential.

Potential threats

• The new guy - Maybe they just met your girl somewhere at a gym or a hobby place. Be cautious and watch for certain telltale signs.
• Co-workers - If it’s just one person, I’d be careful here. Note if they’re spending most of their break time exclusively with that one person. Wouldn’t be worried if it was a group of people, however.
• The ex - Be suspicious. They have a long and potentially intimate history together. It’s always easier to be intimate with someone you’ve already been intimate with.

The freedom to choose who you can and can’t be around is something I firmly believe in. It’s a lesson my ex taught me very well. There were times where I had to choose between my friends and her. That is a choice that should never come into question in a relationship. Any guy that does that isn’t worth your time and I’m sure there’s a lot of good guys out there.

Honestly, what the hell kind of culture doesn’t want their friends to be with their friends? Do you really want to be in a relationship that imposes such a restriction? No one has the right to tell you who you can and cannot be friends with. No relationship is worth that cost. If I had the chance to sleep with Jessica Alba with the condition that I be forced to abandon my friends and never see them again, I’d tell her to screw off (albeit kindly).

To all you single girls out there, when you find a guy worthy of your love and affection, make sure the price isn’t too high. Learn how to draw the line early in your relationship. Don’t let them set the standard. If they have a problem with someone, talk with them first and negotiate and find out what it is about that guy that makes them uneasy for you to be with. But learn to put your foot down and draw the line first before he has the chance to.

Give a mouse a cookie and they’ll ask for a glass of milk.

You ever heard of that saying? You get isolated from your guy friends. What’s next? They don’t want you to hang around your girl friends. Then they cut you off from their family. At this point, your social network is shot to hell because the only person you can reliably depend upon is the boyfriend. Maybe you’re in a situation where you don’t have a choice where your survival literally depends on them. If that’s the case, then you saw it too late. But there’s always a chance to climb out. Mend the fences with those around you.

The one thing that a lot of people fail to realize is that while friends are easy to make, they’re often difficult to keep. Everyone moves on. If you want more proof, count the amount of high school friends you keep in touch with on a consistent and regular basis.

You know what the worst thing is? There isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. There isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it. Go to any girl that’s seeing a guy and you ask them to choose between their best guy friend and their boyfriend, and they will ALWAYS pick their boyfriend. If they don’t pick their boyfriend, what are they doing sleeping with the guy in the first place? Love has this ability to cause people to forget use their brain and use logic once in a while and it’s usually at the wrong times. The guy friend, undoubtedly loyal he is, will willingly accept that. In fact he’d even encourage the girl to pick the boyfriend knowing that it would involve sacrificing their friendship because it’s what’s best for the girl in question. A noble sacrifice isn’t it? Years of fun times gone in an instant because the boyfriend says so.

I’m bitter. I don’t like it. But I understand it why it has to be this way.

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I leaned over the sink slightly and felt a sharp pain my lower back. My knee gave out and I crumpled to the ground. After a few minutes of just lying there I decided to test the water a bit so to speak and see if I could move. I commanded my toes to wiggle and saw that they did. Okay, so whatever happened wasn’t serious enough to paralyze me. I was able to stand up slowly clutching on nearby objects for support. It took me about 20 agonizing minutes just to get dressed and throw my macbook and cellphone onto my bed before heaving myself onto it as well.

What an incredible and satisfying feeling. I essentially laid there for about 5 hours with my cellphone and Macbook to amuse me. I have a midterm exam tomorrow and I am in so much incredible pain to the point where missing out on the 15% actually feels quite appealing.

Wii Fit Update

In other news, the exercises and activities are great! I’ve gotten into the rhythm of opening up with 10 minutes of yoga and stretching early on before following it up with 20 - 30 minutes of strength and aerobics activities. It seems like I didn’t stretch enough, however.

It seems like my whole family is against me.

• Had steak twice in a single week
• Fried chicken for dinner one day
• My aunt and cousin gave me a portion of their lunch because I couldn’t finish it

Of course, others might raise the argument:

“Matt, you didn’t have to eat them.”

If I didn’t eat them, the wonderful food would’ve gone to waste! I try not to waste food as much as I can! I would be doing a disservice! It’s as if they’re trying to test my mental will or something.

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