Do you consider yourself creative? I sure do.

If you are anything like me, you are always full of brilliant ideas, and these ideas seem to come faster, one after the other, than they could be accomplished. If you are anything like me, you take a piece of paper and a pen, and write those ideas down, so that you don’t have to keep them in mind, and also to make sure that they are not forgotten. And if you are anything like me, you have at least three notebooks (the analogue ones) full of these ideas, many of which you will never achieve.

I have a creative job (I’m an editor and a journalist, beside managing the newspaper I write for), and I started both my personal blog and this one, to write a piece of my creativity out of me, then, after a while, I noticed something.

And if you’re anything like me, that’s bad news for you, too.

Your blog’s success, and your personal success as a blogger has nothing to do with creativity. In fact, for reasons that I will unravel in another post, your creativity can be the greatest hurdle and threat to your blog’s success.

Let me explain!

Of course, it used to be different back in the old days. Around 2000, blogging in itself was a groundbreaking, creative phenomenon. The very idea of publishing by a click of your mouse and writing articles on anything that was on your mind for millions to read (potentially) was a revolution and a frenzy of creativity. But although it does not appear too remote on a historic scale, times have changed a lot since those early days.

Blogging, by today, has evolved into a fully-fledged business model . I think I’m not far off the mark guessing that I’m not the first one telling you this, and part of the reason you started blogging was (apart from getting rid of your overflowing creativity, of course), that you’ve heard about this business model.

While finding, exploring and building up a business model is one of the most creative tasks I can imagine, once the big work is done, and the model is working, creativity becomes secondary, if not less important than that.

Think about the subtlety of McDonald’s’ business model, and the enormous work its founder, Ray Kroc has achieved. Still, if you ask your former classmates, who ended up working for McDonald’s, creativity is not likely to be among the first qualities they will highlight describing their jobs. But even if you consider the ultimate source of creativity in the corporate world: Google. Their founders and employees had to be extremely creative to make it what it is now, but once the AdSense system is all set, you just buy and sell based on a certain algorithm, exactly as you’d do at a traditional shop or market. Without any creativity, whatsoever.

Blogging is no different. It’s business model, of course, is still very young, and is undergoing a constant maturation. But the changes that took place in the recent years already rewrote the rules that draw a line between successful blogs and those that will never make it.

And while the process of writing may still remain a creative activity (within strict limits, as I’ll tell you later in details), whether people will actually find and read what you wrote (ie. your blog’s success) has nothing to do with creativity. If you write for yourself, for your close friends, as a part of a therapy or you are simply having fun writing, it may even be fine for you.

But if you’re chipping in to the business section of the blogosphere, your blog’s traffic is a much more important measurement of its success than the amount or the quality of its content. Coherence between the two, obviously exists. But there’s no easier way to put it than this:

1. Low quality content + Low traffic = Unsuccessful blog
2. High quality content + Low traffic = Unsuccessful blog
3. Low quality content + High traffic = Successful blog(?)
4. High quality content + High traffic = Successful blog

While many will argue whether combination #3 can be called a success (in fact, it’s a very rare combination, and I firmly believe that high quality content is a prerequisite of sustainable, high quality traffic), one thing is for sure: creativity in itself will never take you to #4.

Even when it comes to using your creativity to drive traffic to your blog or website: you may have brilliant ideas or tiny tricks or secrets that have never been used before: but the big picture will more likely be defined by how you utilize those techniques that you didn’t have to find out, because they are echoed all across the blogosphere.

In this upcoming series of blogposts (I have written down at least 50 topics to cover by now, so the series is likely to last all year), I will show you how to fend off the temptation of your creativity, and focus on what you really want: making your blog successful.

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But while everybody is busy with preparing for the next year I also wanted to remind you that 2008 is far from over! If you want to make the most of the last days of this year, here are the six things you’ll definitely need to do before 2008 is coming to an end.

1. Write a plan for the new year
I know, I know: you already have plans. But by “write a plan for the new year”, I mean: write those plans down!

It shouldn’t take more than, say, twenty minutes, but those twenty minutes will be some of the most usefully spent twenty minutes of your entire week. Your plans don’t have to be forecasts, guesses and they don’t even have to be entirely grounded. But still, every written plan (even those, coming from thin air) is better than not having one. At least you can change or ignore it later!

2. Thoroughly analyze this year
Analyzing the previous year is usually the first task of the upcoming one. But if you ask me, that way a review, an analysis or a report will eat up much of the impetus of a new year.

I assume you don’t expect groundbreaking events in the remaining six-or-so days. If this is the case, everything is given to think this year over, and have the analysis ready by the end of the year. This way you can use the strength and the energy of the new year on more important things.

3. Thank someone for the best moment of this year
When you prepare your analysis of this year (I suggest you do this in written form as well), you will obviously encounter your personal top lists. While these are mostly nostalgic lists (the best trips, the best jokes, the best foods etc), you might find some of these very useful, too (like, for example, the list of your biggest mistakes or worst failures).

Some of these lists will include only you, while others will include, well…, others as well. I guess you will find these lists quite self-explanatory, but if you have absolutely no clue what to do with them, here’s an idea: make a list of this year’s best moments, and thank someone for the moment on top of that list. You won’t regret it, I promise.

4. Forget something
Lists, again. I’m sure you had your ups and downs, just like everybody else. Pick the moment you’d most want to forget – and forget it. If a person is involved, forgive him or her. It’ll well pay off, too.

5. Choose a goal for the next year
Goals are, of course parts of your written plan (see the first point), but picking one particular goal and making it major your goal for 2009, will help you focus on that one thing. Write it down, too, and you’re already closer to that goal than 95% of people are to his or her goals.

6. Leave a comment!
Do you have other ideas? Do you want to share your written goal or do you want to say thanks for your best moment in public? Please leave a comment and do so!

Here is what spending three days in Rome taught me about blogging and about an aptly built online career.

1. Be unique, but not too unique
Being one of the world’s design capitals, Rome has countless design stores and shops that offer unique (meant to be practical or funny) items. I have to tell you that we were blown away by the first few of them. Great design, great ideas and really really want-to-have gadgets. Then, after a while, repetition seemed inevitable. We’ve seen some of the funniest items for the third, fourth, and on the next day for the tenth time. By the end of our three-day stay, we wouldn’t enter a shop that had The Ex – Unique Knife holder sitting in its shopping window. It turned out that these things were not so unique after all.
When you design a new website or a new service, a unique approach, a unique design or a unique model seems most important. Some of the bloggers or website developers go as far as considering their site’s uniqueness more important than its usability features, or even than the fact whether the site is useful at all. Even experienced entrepreneurs or designers make these mistakes from time to time. They are so in love with their new ideas that they fail to realize if that very idea is working against their success.
You don’t want to make this mistake. Be unique, but not too unique. If you can offer uniqueness only at the cost of your service (or design) quality, forget it. And, even more importantly, don’t promise to be unique, when you’re not.

2. Why use Ferraris when you have a Vespa?
Rome is famous for its chaotic armada of scooters. Of course, Italy is also famous for its stunning sport cars: Ferraris, Maseratis or Lamborghinis. During our three days in Rome we have seen not one of them. And since we stayed in downtown Rome (near the Campo de’ Fiori), there’s a high probability that it wasn’t because local residents were not wealthy enough to afford these breathtaking cars. Rather, they don’t want their pride to get in their way when they want to go from point A to point B (which, in downtown Rome would be downright impossible with one of these supercars).
Choosing the right “weapon” (according to the terminology of this blog post, that compares the blogosphere to the Wild West), or tool is crucial to your success. And in most cases, the most expensive, the most shiny and the most spectacular tool is not the one that brings you closest to your goal. You buy the most expensive one if you’re really big, or if you’re really dull. If you are none of these, look further!

3. Wander freely and so will your thoughts
Our recent visit was my fifth and my wife’s second time in Rome. We were, therefore, free of all the mandatory tasks (the Forum Romanum, the Colosseum, la Bocca della Verita etc), and although we still chose to visit a couple of touristy places, like the Vatican or the Spanish Steps, we could afford the luxury of wandering randomly on the streets of Trastevere or walk the tracks of the Villa Borghese park. It’s a freedom that only a very few tourists have. And also, it’s a freedom that showed without doubt that, wandering at one’s pleasure will make your mind and thoughts wander, too.
After all the productivity, efficiency and “focusing-focused” texts I have recently read, it was something of a surprise. But it showed that while taking all the advice from these texts, might do you good, pointlessness, to a certain extent, still has a point. Especially when it comes to relaxing, recharging or unwinding. Absurd as it may sound, but it will help efficiency on the long run.

4. Insist on your places and don’t start over from scratch
Our last time in Rome was in 2005. Three and a half years is a lot of time, and you can not expect things to be unchanged. Still, if you have at least a couple of important places in a city (and I’m sure you have at least one restaurant you liked in each city you visited), insist on them. It’s much easier to have a place you want to return to, than starting over from scratch, again. In our case, this two places were two restaurants in Trastevere: Cave Canem and Il Conte Tacchia. We visited them, found them and had a great time. It’s also clear that having a place or two like this in each city is of great value once you return.
Similarly, when you stroll the internet, and find places that you will or will not return to, it’s good to have points of references within those places for your next visits. If you come across a blog with a post that you find interesting, but you can’t decide whether to believe it or not, such a point of reference can remind you if the blog in itself is trustworthy or a scam. Others may help a website seem more familiar, therefore more friendly (exactly as they work with cities). The more points of reference you have all across the web, the better you will be able to navigate when exploring new paths, finding new ways.

5. Everything can work as long as you stick to your concept
On the second day of our visit I pointed my camera to a rooftop of an interesting-looking building (frankly, I have no idea what that building actually was), and shot a picture. The Sun was sparkling, the marble of the building was insanely white, and anyway, I took some 680 pictures in three days, so that’s no big deal. But when I looked at the picture, I found an interesting thing. Arriving to Rome from the cloudy-rainy-frosty-foggy Budapest, what struck me as surprising was the unbelievable blueness of the December sky. From then on, I knew exactly what to do. I shot at least twenty pictures with very little of Rome within the viewfinder, and called my series “the skies of Rome”. None of these pictures are particularly good or well-composed (in fact, most of them are intentionally decomposed), but I found that as long as I had an accurate idea on what I was doing, individual photographs don’t matter too much. As a series it works pretty well, and – given that the basic idea was good – they appear to be creative. It’s only the structure that matters.
When you launch a blog, you may imagine that each and every post of this blog will be a sparkling gemstone on its own.
I have to disappoint you, that’s just not going to happen. Some of these writings or articles may be better than the others, but most of them will be quite average. Especially since the majority of them will set the average in the first place!
But that’s not a trouble at all. Nobody is able to create sparkling masterpieces on a daily basis. As long as your concept is good, and the structure you work in is well aligned with it, the result will be just as good as you want it to be.

6. You don’t have to eat a menu of the day to use the bathroom
Spending your days out in the cold, walking long distances between a cappuccino in the afternoon and a bottle of wine in the evening is an exhausting thing. And especially as you walk between a cappuccino and a red wine, sooner or later, you’ll need a bathroom. I don’t know about you, but I usually feel uneasy when entering a restaurant only to use its bathroom. But in Rome, I found that I was uneasy with no reason at all. If you want to use the bathroom, just ask for it, and you are free to go. Restaurant owners in Rome all seem to know that if they are nice to you, you may want to return and leave a little money there in the next couple of days (they may be wrong, though).
Again, when you enter the endless roads of online business, it’s just a matter of time when you will need a favor. My advice: just be straight and ask for it! You may be turned down, but back doors and by-pass roads just aren’t worth the trouble.

7. The worst Chinese food on Earth is served in Rome
Both my wife and I are great fans of Asian cuisine. So after three days of pasta-eating, we decided to leave the beaten track and sat down at a Chinese restaurant. It proved a huge mistake. Italy is famous for its cuisine, but not for its Asian cuisine. And that’s so for a reason. We have already tried a lot of the Euro-Chinese cuisines, and I can confidently tell you that the Italian version is by far the worst of it all (the best Chinese restaurants, by the way, can be found in London).
Okay, what does it have to do with online business? It’s obviously the fact that although you can accept someone or a site as an authority, like we accept Italians to be an authority of gastronomy. But that doesn’t mean that you have to eat everything they cook.
Someone, who is an expert on subject A, doesn’t necessarily know too much about subject B, even if the two are closely related to each other. And those who are specialists in something, may have something else, where their performances is particularly lousy.

8. Rome wasn’t built in a day
I know, I know, it’s both obvious and a commonplace, still, I couldn’t help mentioning. When you walk the streets of the Eternal City, you can feel it in your veins. It’s just amazing, how every corner of every street has some 2,500 years of history in it.
Your business, of course, is designed for a slightly briefer timespan. Still, don’t expect wonders overnight. You have your wars to fight, and more importantly you have your peace agreements to broker, before you become well established and all built up.

There’s no rush.