“The job is yours, but don’t dare touch a single leaf of this quaint tree with your axe… this is a lovely tree, whose shade gives shelter to my kids and peace to my family. You’ve passed the test.”

And so the years passed by, and the landowner never regretted of hiring the woodcutter. During all those years of strenuous work the woodcutter had not returned to his village, and had not seen his family. That’s why the landowner decided it was time for the woodcutter to rest and to return to his village. As a token of gratitude, a big farewell party was held for the woodcutter. It was a prize to the woodcutter’s fidelity and good performance. On that day, the woodcutter recalled many joyful things he had lived in the estate. His boss’ family presented him with a lot of objects and gold as gifts. He received plenty of gifts. Collected so many that he required one horse and two mules to carry his gifts. When he departed, he was accompanied to the outskirts of the estate by two pawns. They were talking about the best path that our woodcutter should take to reach his destination faster. The two pawns were of the view that the trail was the shortest path.

“But I don’t know the trail” the woodcutter said, “On the contrary, I know the road well, and won’t get lost.”

Talking about that, they almost reached the last gate of the ranch. However, suddenly, they heard the sound of a horse’s hooves behind them. Other pawn on horseback came galloping up. He said to the woodcutter that the boss wanted him back in the house. The woodcutter worried a bit. “Why is he calling me? I already said goodbye to him… If he changed his mind, and wants me to continue working, he should know that I’m exhausted… I can’t work anymore. Or it’s that they want the gifts back?” He came up with many conjectures and questions. At last, he was in the house again, and the boss was waiting for him. The boss smiled up at him and said “Don’t be frightened. It’s just that I forgot to present you with something that is worth more than all the gold you are carrying with you. Please, accept these three gifts:

1) Never take the trail instead of the main road.

2) Don’t ask about things that don’t pertain to you.

3) Never succumb to hasty judgment.

Now you can go. May God bless you exceedingly.”

Our woodchopper left, thinking of the things his boss had just said. Again, he arrived to the last gate of the estate. He had two options: to follow the trail that the pawns had recommended, or to take the main road. He thought over his decision, and recalled the first gift of his boss: “Never take the trail instead of the main road.” And so he followed the road. Fate was graceful to him, as the pawns were awaiting for him on the trail in order to kill him and rob his gold.

He resumed his journey, but when the sun began to hide his face, fatigue lambasted him, and he had to look for shelter in an inn. The inn was attended by an elderly gentleman who offered him a room to stay overnight. Our woodcutter realized that the only people in the inn were the innkeeper, a parrot, and a woman dressed in rags, locked up in a quite small room. From time to time the woman was broking the silence of the inn with her loud and desperate cries, asking for clemency. Our friend was exhausted, and for the next few hours, he fell sleep. The next day, he woke up early, and went looking for the innkeeper to pay for his stay. He was kind of surprised when he noticed that the innkeeper was already waiting for him, with the breakfast served. After eating, and seeing and hearing the woman’s woes, he told the innkeeper: “Let me ask you something…” The man quickly replied: “I know what you are going to ask!” Suddenly, the woodcutter remembered the second gift the landowner presented him: “Don’t ask about things that don’t pertain to you,” and changed the question in his mind. “Yes? Do you know what I’m about to ask? Well, better yet… I just want to know how much do I owe you for the stay and the meal.” A bit perplexed, the innkeeper answered “Well, my good Lord, you owe me nothing… And I will be always glad to serve you, because you have been the first person that did not ask about that woman and the reason behind her enclosure.” He then added “She is my wife, and she will be locked up there, forever, as atonement for betraying me… for she is an unfaithful woman… I’m waiting for her lover to come to her rescue to complete my vengeance… Meanwhile, I kill every man that ask about her!” Again, our woodcutter was alive thanks to the 3 gifts. He left with a sense of wisdom in his head, which he could afterwards explain as the gifts’ blessing. He immediately departed towards his home, where his wife and sons should be waiting for him… his boys should have grown up very healthy, he thought.

After crossing rivers, plains, mountains and an inclement sun, the woodchopper finally arrived to his village, and took the road leading to his house. He decided not to enter through the front door of the house, though, as he wanted to surprise his wife. However, after approaching to his home, the one in shock was him: he realized that his wife was hugging and kissing a young priest. At that time, his blood boiled… He thought that vision to be an hallucination resulting from his long trip… But no, it was real: his wife was hugging other guy. He thought of the innkeeper and the argument he wielded to punish his wife… He could not stand that sight. But the third gift of the landowner emerged in his mind: “Never succumb to hasty judgment.” He recovered his calmness, and walked towards them. His wife, surprised, took her hand to her forehead, and then shouted for joy to God, and burst into happiness: God, thank you! This is such a great day! And she ran to meet with her husband… he did not understand what was going on. She hugged him and said: “Dear, you have returned… at last!… and today, coincidentally, our eldest son has just returned from the monastery, where he was ordained as a priest.” Finally, the woodcutter realized. He hugged and kissed both his wife and his son, and full of joy, thanked sincerely in his heart to his boss for the wisdom of the three gifts.

This story is purely fictional, and was based on an american folktale.

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It’s simple. Follow a “samurai” approach.

Popular imagery depicts samurai as brave, blood-thirsty and ruthless warriors. And partially, they were. However, let’s not forget that the word “samurai” is derived from a Japanese verb (samorau) meaning “to serve”. Therefore, a samurai is a servant, concretely, the servant of a lord. For the “samurai blogger”, such lord is the group of blog’s readers, and his weapon, the katana, is content.

1. The Katana

The soul of a samurai lies in his katana, in a similar fashion to the blog’s soul lying in its content. Content is what determines, in first instance, the profile of the reader-base and visitors. We should write our content in a humble but clever tone.

1. We should offer content of high quality, which readers can understand and harness. For increasing the number of readers the best strategy is to offer original content, things that cannot be found anywhere in the net besides your blog. If people cannot benefit from our articles, why they should keep going to our sites?
2. It’s nonsense to write a post and expect that everybody loves it. Don’t worry too much about being popular. There always are people who will like your writings, and they will turn into loyal readers. And it’s for them, and of course, for us, that we should write. Remember: It’s easier to keep a reader, than it’s to gain a new one.
3. Adopt the mindset of winners.
4. Decide on and respect a lower bound for your posting frequency. For example, if you decide on a weekly posting frequency, your blog should contain at least a new post every week. Readers love to form an idea about when they could find new content on your site. Regularity is a key aspect for blogging. From a pure technological standpoint, we should post as often as possible. This way, crawlers and web indexes would consider our sites as very fresh, regularly updated ones, and will tend to direct more visitors to our blogs. Furthermore, high publishing rates amount to a higher probability of being linked from other sites, which would increase our blog’s rank. But we are no machines. Rushed posts generally exhibit a degraded quality which may scare your readers away. This is even more important if you have already consolidated a good base of readers. Please, post as frequently as you can, but always satisfy this: high-quality content and a publishing rate above or equal to your posting lower-bound frequency.
5. Perhaps we are not very good with composition or choosing the right words. Our texts may be too verbose or too bantam. Don’t worry. Just write, but doing your best effort to communicate your ideas. Time shapes masters, you’ll see.

2. Bushido: Samurai’s Ethical Code

Originality is an important issue. We should strive for creating a different blog. Your blog’s name and headings should have peculiarities that allow users to easily remember them. Please, don’t be affraid of being different: invent new things, or oppose to the status quo with your ideas, methods or design, in a good sense. This will capture the attention of people.

You can think of your blog as a product. Thus, your titles, headings, images, the logo, etc., all should act as branding elements. Pay attention to these, as you want they to stand out (in a positive way, of course.)

3. Learning to Unsheathe the Katana

For a the aspiring samurai, simply learning to unsheathe his sword correctly could take months. Your readers should find your blog’s content as easily as possible. Thereby, a neat design for your blog, and a straightforward presentation of your articles is mandatory. Additionally, we should pay close attention to the following blog usability tips:

1. The link for subscribing to your RSS feed should be clearly visible.
2. Access to your full posts should proceed cleanly.
3. Organize your content into a Categories section. Include a search box. Quick access to the latest blog entries also proves to be useful for visitors.
4. However, don’t oversaturate your blog with widgets and features. These items divert users from your content, and only a few would use them.
5. If technical or specialized terminology is inevitable, you should explain them at full (it depends on your targeted audience, of course.)

4. Don’t be a ronin

In Japanese, the word ronin means “wave man”, a person destined to wander aimlessly forever, like the waves in the sea. The best blog of the blogosphere, if isolated and practically unknown, has a value of zero. In upcoming entries, I’ll discuss this (long) topic at full. For the time being, we should concentrate on:

1. Search Engines: Verify that your blog is optimized for search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.) so that your site is able to receive traffic from such sources. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an interesting, long and tricky area, and we will not cover it here.
2. Blog Crawlers: Ping to update services such as Ping-o-matic and Pingoat. You may configure your publishing platform (e.g., WordPress) to perform the ping automatically. Such pings notify popular blogs sites, such as Technorati and Icerocket, of updates in your blog.
3. Social Networks: Try to share and submit your content to social or news networks such as Digg, Facebook, del.icio.us, etc. It’s best if other people (your readers, preferably) submit your content to such sites; submitting your own content and stories may easily lead to your submissions being marked as spam.

5. The Feudal Lord

Finally, your readers are your Feudal Lord. Listen to them. Follow them. A blog cannot be exclusively about what you like… your readers’ preferences should be reflected too. You may achieve a successful status as a blogger, but if you don’t listen to your readers, sooner or later, they will leave and make your blog short lived. Please, don’t isolate your readers. Unlike samurai, you don’t have to do what the Feudal Lord says, but you must not ignore him.

Happy “samurai” blogging.

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