I’ve been blogging fairly consistently now for about 4 years.  I try not to focus on metrics, just spend time writing posts.  I try to write for myself, not to write for fame or fortune or impact…

However, there has always been a little dream that sits at the corner of my conscious mind of a massive wave of visitors.  Imagine if 100,000 readers found this post today…  It was a dream…

Until this month.

24 hours, 100,000 Visitors

Over a 24 hour period between 14 and 15th May, over 100,000 readers swarmed in to this blog to read a specific post.

The post: Amazon Staff Meetings: “No Powerpoint”

Why?  Where did everyone come from?

The visitors were sparked by this tweet by Edward Tufte, professor at Yale and data visualization guru:

Amazon now uses ET model: meetings begin with document+study hall,no PPT. Jeff Bezos/Charlie Rose http://t.co/PxWgQWbSCb … #powerpoint #ppt

— Edward Tufte (@EdwardTufte) May 13, 2013

Following this tweet, a major discussion at Reddit began:

See the Main Discussion: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1ebavs/amazon_staff_meetings_no_powerpoint/

Highlights of the Reddit Discussion

• [friedice5005] Powerpoint isn’t the problem. It’s a very useful tool to augment information you are trying to get across. The problem is people people who are bad at it using it as a crutch. Powerpoint should basically be an outline of what you’re talking about with MAJOR discussion points and any images or graphs you need to show. It should not be blocks of text that you read verbatim.
• [via Yajirobi ] if you dont integrate people into it, they just sleep. Forcing them with made up questions is a bad idea too. Getting random questions from the audience is the best way to do it. Its a GIFT. They make the presentation good for you, without any effort from your part.
• [via EngineerVsMBA]I experienced this system, and I loved it. I will use it in every job from here on out. Let me explain why:1.) It requires meaningful preparation by the presenter. They cannot hide behind pretty slides, and you can’t use the usual confusion tactics. If you can’t fit it in six pages, you didn’t prepare enough…

After the Flood

After the flood, what changed?

The real simple answer… nothing much.  The blog has gone back to its previous daily visitor numbers.  I had a moderate upsurge in email subscribers to my Free Online Speaking Course.  I had 16 comments on the post.  The post did get 2,200 Facebook Likes, it got 1,324 ReTweets,  821 LinkedIn Shares – so there is a sort of residual flow of new visitors.

It is a strange sensation to watch the visits rack up, and then just float away.

A good reminder that fame is illusive… and not really the goal… and a dangerous distraction 😉  Anyone know what’s up with Psy of Gangnam Style these days now that the frenzy has past?

Maybe I could do a little bit of work on improving conversion of visitors into readers, and readers into subscribers?  Anyone got good ideas on how to make a blog into a community, or make it a more “sticky” destination?