Coaching Blog

Julia, 
 
I appreciate this post. Coaching is about integrity and honesty, so it probably goes without saying that the words "coach" and "cutthroat" shouldn't have to be uttered in the same context. 
 
My understanding from the contest rules is that everyone is permitted to cast one vote per blog, except in event that a person changes their mind -- in which case the person can vote for a single blog a maximum of twice. 
 
This has been my understanding for the first two weeks of the contest, and it had been what I have been communicating to people. 
 
What I'd like to think is that somehow people were/are confused. For example, on Tuesday of this week, I emailed you about a coach who is in the contest who tweeted that people could vote for the same blog once per day. 
 
This is a coach I have come to know and completely trust, so my only guess is that she received inaccurate information from someone else. I know this coach truly believed this, as I recently read on her blog this same information she had tweeted me. 
 
I emailed you that I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth. Fortunately, I've only repeated what I now know to be wrong information to 3 people, so I can easily clear up the misunderstanding. 
 
I don't know how you might change the contest next year to make it more transparent or more "honest." The challenge with tracking IP addresses is that there are many people who share computers, so that system is not infallible, either. 
 
Here some ideas to possibly consider for next year: 
 
* remove the one-vote-per-person rule altogether. Since one of the reasons for this contest was to illustrate to your students the power of blogs and Web 2.0 tools for publicity purposes, in some ways, the contest really is a sort of "popularity" contest. That may not be an altogether accurate word to use, but the most successful coaches in financial terms are usually the best marketers. 
 
* require voters to register to vote. This will obviously reduce the number of people who actually vote, but would make it easier to prevent double-voting. 
 
* require everyone who votes to also leave a comment. Since a name and email is required for this, this also would make it more difficult to double vote. 
 
* eliminate the "voting down" option. I likewise experienced the not-so-great feeling of being voted down. It's a feature that doesn't seem very coach-like, and as you pointed out, it may inadvertently lead to temptation. 
 
 
I don't know if this is helpful or not, but as for me, just as I wrote you in the email, just having the opportunity to be in the contest and then to make it to the Top 20 has been an awesome experience. 
 
I've been able to connect with other coaches and what they are up to in the world. And, one of the most meaningful experiences has been reading the unsolicited comments people have written about me and how I've impacted them. 
 
That's worth the price of admission right there! 
 
As I see it, all 45 coaches who entered the contest have Top Coaching Blogs, and I hope that it's been a fun experience for everyone. 
 
Thank you, Julia. 
 

Wow, I must be really naive. I never in a million years would have expected that from coaches. Sounds like you've handled it well Julia. All in the learning.

You didn't give me a chance to ask you to remove me, and that makes me sad. I wanted out already earlier this week. I did not vote myself up this week. 
 
Thanks for listening to my friends. They know me and I understand that you do not. 
 
Read my blog to see my honesty and integrity around it. 
 
Much love, 
Dana

Hi Julia, right at the start I asked you why the vote down feature was there and expressed concern it wasn't coach like. And you told me it was strategy. My intuition told me then that it wasn't a good idea and this is exactly what's ended up happening. 
 
I actually emailed you and asked to  
withdraw right after you took one blog down and before you wrote this post (I know you aren't talking about me here) but it bounced back. So I sent you a tweet and also commented on my page wanting out.  
 
What I didn't get was people with 8 votes being voted down to 1-2 early on in the comp. Since then I've been thinking of withdrawing and didn't so here's my lesson learned in terms of intuition - follow it, and follow my feel good. 
 
I think you had a good idea, it brought eyeballs to your website and all the contestants sites and was good for promotion purposes.  
 
It was fun for a while till it got ugly and I have a headache from all the nasty comments etc 
 
Thank you for this amazing opportunity, bless you and take care. Tia 

Thanks to everyone for your comments.  
 
Tshombe, your suggestions are great. I'm shopping around for contest software for next year that will exclude the option to vote people down and hopefully, guarantee one person/one vote. 
 
And I do believe there were misunderstandings, so the rules need to be communicated in crystal clear terms. My fault, apparently. However I never said, "vote once per day". 
 
And Tia, yes I did suggest that the vote-down option could be used for strategy. So for instance, you could vote yourself up and vote the person in front of you down and then invite your fans to come to the site and vote, knowing they probably would do the same. That's strategy.  
 
However, figuring out how to turn off a function that was designed to prevent people from voting more than once and then giving oneself (or a friend) 50 votes in one sitting and voting competitors down a similar number of votes, is not strategy, it's cheating. 
 
That's what I'm hearing that some bloggers have been doing. 
 
And annoying fans with requests for more votes is not strategy. It's obnoxious and it's bad marketing. I'm guessing that the bloggers who did this have lost readers, instead of attracting more readers. 
 
The fact that some of you wanted to withdraw is all the evidence we need that this contest is not bringing out everyone's best and that's enough to change it. 
 
I take full responsibility. I didn't designed the contest well enough to make it the win-win-win that I envisioned.  
 
The contest will go on, but with very different rules. Stay tuned.

You asked; Did you vote? What was your experience? Were you concerned about fairness? If you're one of the bloggers, what are your thoughts? 
 
1 - I did vote. 
2 - It was easy, I looked at other blogs, voted for a couple. 
3- I was concerned from the get go - because of the DOWN vote option. People, all of us, can fall into temptation and get carried away with an option like that - I think. 
4- I am delighted I am one of the bloggers. I'm focusing on some genuine new readers to my blog - at first the competition was invigorating and I broadcasted it to subscribers, friends and family. When I suddenly found myself with a sharp decline in votes, I began to just observe and be grateful for new readers, new commenters and hopefully a message that I have that is resonating with who I want it to. 
 
Thank you Julia for your work on this and the report on the good, the bad and the learning experiences. 
 

Hi Julia, 
I have never entered a blog contest until yours. I will admit that the rules were very confusing for me but I jumped in anyways. It's all about having fun, making mistakes and figuring it out.  
 
I probably didn't "work it" by blasting my email lists or even blogging about the contest on my blog because it was confusing. I simply tweeted a few times and installed the badge. I did vote for a couple of "competitors" because I truly liked their blogs :) 
 
Here is an idea: after the content concludes, consider a blog post a day where you spotlight all your blog owners? Again, maybe just a way to spread the word about our coaching blogs and help smooth over those peeps who feel slighted by "rule breakers" or the confusion around the contest rules. 
 
Or to offload the significant task or spotlighting, ask each blog contestant to "guest post" and write their own post, each day featuring those contestants who choose to submit an article about themselves, their blog to you (sort of an opt-in, or not, feature) 
 
Good luck with your contest and future contests. I know this has brought up a lot of stuff for me as a biz owner/coach to consider (like do I really want to "compete" with other coaches since we all have our unique contribution and I recognize my coaching style will never serve all clients around the world). Perhaps it's about rewording the "what we are voting for" piece... ie. quality content, clear messaging, regularity of posts, etc. 
 
Ok, bye bye for now :) 
 
With gratitude, 
Mynde Mayfield

Julia, thank you for calling an end to the abuse.  
 
 
 
I removed the link to the voting page from my website and blog earlier this week after seeing my vote total drop and drop and drop. I may not have the most popular blog but I don't believe anyone would knock it down because they don't like it. It was surely being knocked down by gamesmanship. 
 
 
 
It never made any sense to me that voters could knock a blog down. I'm still not sure what you mean by strategy since the only strategy I can imagine would be to vote someone else down so that I would move up. 
 
 
 
I suggest that the voting down option be removed and the ability to vote multiple times be fixed. I think that's all you need to do to get the contest back on the rails. It will still be more of a contest about who can get out the voters than who has the best blog but we can all use the publicity. 
 
 
 
Sincerely, 
 
Doug 
 
 
 

I'd hoped to learn, through your contest, whether the CONTENT of my blog had any value. 
 
Sounds to me as if things got very twittery! 
 
Best, 
 
cj 
 

Thanks again everyone for your thoughts! I'm almost glad that this happened, because the conversation is very helpful. 
 
Doug, you're right, this is ultimately a popularity contest. "Best" is always a matter of opinion. My intent is to energize bloggers and to encourage them to get the word out. With all of you working on this together, the less well-known blogs will get the benefit of more readers, even if the blogs with the biggest followings end up winning. That to me is a win for all. 
 
And Craig - I think your blog content is great. Unfortunately your blog got pushed down to the bottom early on and few people got to read it. Another reason to change the contest software! 
 
I think I've found a great alternative contest software and I'm going to run a test contest on it. The next blog post and email will have the link to the test contest. Do your best to break the rules! That way I'll know how to set up the final Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest. Phew!

Isn't it a bit late in the game to be changing the rules? If you bring back the blogs that have already been eliminated, there's no chance they can regain enough ground to be worth it. 
 
Also, totally ignoring the web votes already given seems like a waste of time. The winning blogs have received hundreds of votes. The web votes are for entertainment value only? That sounds really harsh, and I'm floored that you would suggest it. My blog has only a few votes, and I got some downvotes (which was upsetting), but I think I fairly earned every single upvote that I got. Simply ignoring them is ... I don't think I have words for how I feel about that. Shattered? Gutted? What's the point? 
 
How about you don't change the rules at this late stage, and just change the way it's done next time? 
 
Gaye

Hi Gaye - Thanks for your thoughts. It is a bit shattering to disrupt the contest when so many coaches participated in good faith. I apologize for the confusion. However, there have been so many people who've complained that the voting wasn't fair, that it would be wrong to continue with the contest, without seriously considering what needs to change, especially since some coaches who participated fairly have already been eliminated. If we continue as we were, we will end up with "winners" who will win under a shadow of suspicion. That would surely be pointless. I hope you read the follow-up blog post, which suggests a possible solution.