{Silly snapshot taken by my brother during a – clearly – unproductive photo shoot}
This is probably how I look whenever I’m in a techno-jam. Hands up, against the wall, sad face.
Truthfully, I’m kinda proud of how many technological glitches I’ve figured out on my own since I started blogging in 2006. But it still never feels good. The worst one of all was when my whole blog disappeared two years ago. Poof! Gone! At first, I completely freaked out and got mad at the techno powers that be, which got me nowhere. Then, I decided to slow down, breathe deep, envision an ideal outcome, and calmly take the action I needed. The blog magically reappeared and I danced the happiest happy dance ever.
This week has been a techno doozy .As many of you know, I launched a new email service on Monday called the Feel Good Deal of the Day. An important week to put my best foot forward, as folks decide whether or not they want to a) sign up and b) stick with it. The first day went out without a hitch and lots of folks took advantage of the first great deal – a big discount and free shipping from Chronicle Books. What a relief!
And then the second day came along. The email went out in the morning, featuring an amazing deal for printing creative business cards. Within a couple of hours, the emails started coming back to me from annoyed subscribers who couldn’t get the links to work. I did some quick digging. Sure enough, the links weren’t working and neither was the coupon code. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh! I kept trying to fix it, until I realized there was nothing I could do on my end. Dealing with the vendor was even more frustrating; they’d provided expired content and, instead of fixing it, apologized and offered a new – not as good – deal. I was totally embarrassed and sent my subscribers a new deal – not from that vendor, but from my store – to try to make up for it. Luckily, only one person unsubscribed from the service. Thanks to the rest of you for sticking with me. And thanks to the friends who sent me quick notes to say, “Hey, it happens to everyone. It’s not your fault. Don’t sweat it.” That lifted my spirits immensely! I learned a lot of lightning quick lessons that morning and know this service will be better for it.
Then, yesterday, after publishing my blog post, I tested the link like always. Uhhhhh…..my header was missing. The whole image at the top of the page with my logo and the statue and the leaves? Gone. I sent out a tweet to see if anyone else could see the header. They couldn’t. I’ve had enough of these technical glitches to know that losing my mind over them is wasted energy. I knew I’d figure it out – at some point. In the past, I might have put everything else on hold to try to get it fixed. This time, I went on with my day and didn’t get back to my computer until late afternoon. Eventually, I got my header back. Sweet relief.
But here’s the most amazing part of all these technical glitches: you didn’t seem to care. I decided to look at my traffic, curious to see if all these hiccups drove you away. But the number of subscribers for the Feel Good Deal of the Day has doubled since Monday. And my blog traffic is up more than 100% over last month. What!? You guys rock. And it just goes to show – every little glitch we face is not the end of the world, but often an opportunity to learn something new and find beauty in the mind-boggling tasks of my life. I’m getting better every day at turning each crash-and-burn into a crash-and-learn.
