We don’t know why, but George and Pavouk have taken to accompanying us on evening strolls. The first time they came with us, we were all perplexed. What were the humans doing wondering aimlessly in the forest? What were the cats doing following us? Anyway, it’s become part of what we do.
I’m digging a trench. Not only that, but a trench through ground which is more stone than soil. I’ve been digging, hacking and thinking… about the nature of expertise. First, here are my 10 steps to a successful trench experience:
We’ve been working on learnit lists 16 hours a day for way too long. The cats are bored, and we’re not getting enough sleep or sunlight. So far, we’ve made about 27p - and that’s not going to change until we get our micro payment system installed (or I buy (or write ?) one of those e-books from a marketing expert - where, in point 3, they advise ‘make yourself an expert’. So irritating. I prefer my marketing experts CIM qualified.).
So… the roof is in hand, so to speak. I’d love to put together a beautiful website for them & send lots of business their way (Cedar is so last year. Larch is local). An architect visited the premises today to explore for the Ennsovi project. It’s very exciting that things are moving again, but we need to be out there, not messing around on the computers 16 hours a day - hence ghost blog. If it aint learnit, it aint work. Read the rest of this entry »
All day the widget has been dipping in and out of operation. Is it a local issue, or is it something with Mosso, who currently host Learnit lists? Here’s an example of where the rest of a page is showing up fine, but not our widget:
Luckily, we have signed up for a service called browsershots.org - this will give us screenshots of Learnitlists.com in 42 different browsers from different locations. If the site appears without problems on that, then we’re okay. If not, at least we’ll know.
Learnit is all one word. It is not Learn it, it isn’t LearnIt and it certainly isn’t learnIT. This is an important differentiation, not only to preserve us from stepping on the toes of other educational brands, but also to give us a standing start when we search on Google. Combine Learnit with the word lists and we have an original brand. An invented word means that you can track your web penetration easily. Now we’re up to 526 mentions on a Google search.
In the last 48 hours we’ve had 6500 unique hits on the widget and 1400 visits to learnitlists.com. Visitors have come from 82 different countries, speaking 42 languages and 350 people have signed up for the service. If you search for “learnit lists” on Google, it now brings up 298 pages.
Not bad for a project with a standing start 24 days ago.
We will soon have water, which means that we’ll soon be able to set up our Water Works UK reed bed. This will be our first innovative sustainable technology at Nový Mlýn. Currently we have wood burning stoves for heat, a composting toilet (now that’s been fun at minus 10) and low energy lighting throughout the house (of course). Over the next few months we’re going to be adding a Larch roof (a type of wood which is locally grown and bug resistant) and I’m designing the water system with separate flows for separate purposes.
We’ve been looking into a range of eco technology. A heat pump and solar electricity generation would be nice, though they seem to be ridiculously expensive currently. A wind turbine and water powered turbine will be added at some point in the future. Living here for a year has given me a better perspective on what we need now, and what we can realistically achieve at a later date. For example, we’re planning in the solar hot water system, though we’re not buying the panels just yet.
You have to be really careful as people will now try to sell you anything as being eco - such as nasty cleaning chemicals (because they use less water) or dishwashers. Marketing can be such a black art sometimes.
Anyway, I’m aching from a weekend of hard labour - breaking up wood for the fire & chipping the bathroom tiles from the entrance hall. It’s been an unseasonably warm sunny day, and I’ve heard that it will stay like this for the next month. We’ve been so busy with Nový Mlýn and Learnit lists that we’ve completely forgotten to eat today (it’s now 6.30 pm), I’d say we’re definitely in a state of flow… the web 2.0 startup diet.
Learnit has been written about by a journalist on a respected Social Networking News website: Mashable.com.
With a sudden rush of new members registering for learnit lists we realised we have been included on the official Apple Iphone webapp directory. This is amazing news. I’m absolutely made up. Now I need to put a press release together to give an exclusive to Mashable, the social networking news site.
Searching on Google “learnit lists” now gives 143 entries, it was 88 when I finished on the computer last night (after spending a very interesting couple of hours exploring the web with stumbleup - we’d had traffic from it so I wanted to see what it was about… you install a toolbar and if you click the stumble button it’ll take you to a page that other people with similar interests rated). It’s a nerve racking time, and some mindless yet productive web meandering was just what I needed to slow my brain down for the night.
