Name: Russell Hawkins (aka Mud Puppy)

Blog URL: themudpuppy.com

Occupation: Designer

City: Clinton, Michigan

Three sentence bio (no more than 37 words):
I am a Christ follower, husband, father, son, brother, uncle and friend. I design for a living, and for fun. Two creeds that I try to live by are: Stop Existing and Start Living & Love Wins.

1. Best book you’ve read in the last 6 months:
God’s Politics

2. Movie that changed your life:
I just watched War Dance, and it’s pretty amazing.

3. Top 5 Songs in your IPOD rotation (or top CD at the moment)

• • Spread the Love Around - Michael Waite
• • Dance or Die - Family Force 5
• • Always Be - Jimmy Eat World
• • Forever - Chris Brown
• • See You Again - Miley Cyrus

4. Pancakes or Waffles?
Waffles

5. If you died today, what is one thing you want the world to know about you
He gave more than he took.

I’ve just had quite a few discussions lately about what makes a good blog and the best reference to quality blogging is in a post Mud Puppy had a while back. I read it from time to time as a good reminder. So here are the 4 C’s of blogging.

COMMUNITY

Invest — Your community will only be as good as the amount of effort you put into cultivating one. Get Involved.

Listen — It’s not about responding to every single comment—but it is about listening and facilitating

Cultivate — Give your community something to think about. Ask their opinions. Don’t provide all of the answers—let them fill in the blanks.

—–

CONSISTENCY

Find — Don’t know if you’ve “found your voice”? Then you haven’t. You’ll know the moment you do. And when it happens—Speak up!

Write — Talk about the things you care about. Be true to yourself.

Experiment — The Beatles experimented and evolved, yet they were still the one and only Beatles. Experiment—just do it consistently.

—–

CLARITY

See — You need to “see” where you want to go even if you don’t know how to get there. Having a definitive vision is everything.

Communicate — Your communication and conversation should be clear and articulate. Rambling doesn’t make for good conversation.

Vision ? Visionary — Don’t let the word vision scare you off. It doesn’t mean you need to be a genius—you just need to keep your eyes on the road.

—–

CONTENT

Frame — Your content will be as unique as the way you frame it. Don’t just report—have opinions and seek the opinions of otheres.

Share — People are hungry for knowledge and “know-how”. If you know something, share it.

Serve — Make no mistake. You are in the service industry. If your content offers no value—neither do you.

[originally from Logic + Emotion]