As Project Blogger winds down and apprentices are biting their nails to the quick, I commend the apprentices for their engagment in the project ... it has been a contest of one blogger versus another blogger, a contest where good advice conflicts with poor advice, a contest where the rules are constantly changing, a contest that keeps everyone guessing. Mostly, I think, it is a contest that focuses more on an evolving set of rules than on the simple ingredients to blogging success -- "Keep it simple, and let the words come from the heart."

Blogging ought to be FUN ... if you are not having FUN you should not be blogging! Blogging should be an exercise where you find a special voice that connects with people in a unique way. It's more about H-E-A-R-T than it is about S-E-O.

I have a very easy job in Project Blogger ... I am working with Mary Pope-Handy. Mary came into the contest with a voice and lots of H-E-A-R-T. What do you do with something like that? I am reminded of my sons and their first sets of training wheels ... I took the wheels off their bikes and watched them take off! I let go of the seat! I don't think that Mary's blog ever needed a set of training wheels.

She is a book author, a real estate writer, and she has a finely tuned voice. It connects and it resonates. What is my advice to her? I tell her over and over, "Stop listening to them!" The SEO chatter, the blogging politics, and an evolving set of new "rules" are distractions, nothing more.

I can't wait for the Blogger Connect conference and an opportunity to meet all these bloggers in person, to hear these voices with my ears. I can hardly wait!!