Case Study # 9 – Denise Wakeman
Denise was the very first person I took an online course
from when I came online. This was in the spring of 2006,
and she was offering a 13 week training course on how to
set up, market, and build your online business with a blog.
This course was the best way for me to learn about doing
business on the Internet as an absolute newcomer to the
playing field. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of
creating content and building relationships at the same
time.
My only previous experience with blogging had been while
I was still teaching in the classroom. I had set up a free
blog using Google's Blogger platform, but never did much
with it. I decided that blogging was more like journaling
online, and I couldn't understand why it was so important
for me to blog as I was building my online business.
Denise was recommending that we use a hosted service
called Typepad to set up our blogs. I couldn't choose a
niche, so I ended up creating a dozen blogs on a variety of
topics, all the way from small dogs to real estate to health
and fitness. The result was that I was overwhelmed with
having to create so much content in so many different
areas each week, but I learned more than I ever thought
possible during those three months. I also connected with
many of the hundred people also taking the course, thanks
to a forum Denise had set up for us to use for
communication.