Goodbye - so long - farewell
Well April 2012 has come and past - and I haven't found a new home for the longer video content I create, like City Council meetings.
So the site still exists ... for now.
But it's been stripped down to the essentials to serve this purpose. So the only pages you will find in the menu are Government and Past Events.
And, until I create a new site, that is all you will find here unless something radical happens.
Nothing more pithy to say on this - that's all below.
- Les
It has been my pleasure to serve the community in this small way for almost
3, my mistake,
4 years now. But the time has come for me to move on to other things ...
whatsupgf.com will be shutting down on its
3rd, er - oops,
4th anniversary. That would be around April 29.
Put another way: As of May 1st this site will no longer exist.
This gives me lots time to work out some sort of transition. What's to transition you ask? The videos primarily. On youtube whatsupgf has over 200 videos. And there's more on a secondary site that I pay for. These are the longer ones like city council and some of the workshops.
Why am I shutting it down?
Well ... for me it is time.
I started this site because I saw a need for the service it provides. At the time I was a director on the Chamber of Commerce and saw the rather lame calendar of events that the Chamber had. I realized I could help them get it up to date and better operating but it would be just a matter of time before it slipped out of date again.
Why? Because the task of updating it was yet-another-chore near the bottom of the task list of a part-time employee who was swamped with more important things.
I reasoned that it would be better done by someone whose reputation and income depended on it. Call it a vested interest.
And since I wasn't doing anything else important at the time ...
Well after 3 years and 2 site resurrections I've come to the conclusion that that person is not me.
It takes work to persevere but eventually you come to understand that is not enough. At some point you either jump in and push real hard or you become blunted and step back and let it float off into inconsequentialness.
Well the site has become rather inconsequential over the last year ... and hardly anybody mentioned it.
You put in your time and energy and stress yourself out over something and find out that, in the larger scheme of things, it's of no consequence. That's painful ...
I offered, essentially, free advertising. With free (or nearly free) video promotion to back it up. Yet time and time again I see event advertising in the form of Display Ads in the local media. These are ads that somebody (or some group) has Paid to have placed in the media. And when these are from groups and people that know me and my site ... yet 'forget' to think about sending my site a copy for posting for free - well that's painful too.
How would you feel?
Let's talk Money:
I do know that it takes advertising to 'get the word out' ... but I've never made much money off my site and I'm not a rich guy. So I've stayed away from paying to advertise whatsupgf.com in the local media; relying on word of mouth to get my site known.
I could blow some money on advertising but if the people and groups who already know about you do not utilize your service then ... why would I spend money to make that pool bigger? Spend money to be ignored by even more people ... that
is how it feels from my end.
I never really pursued paying advertisers for the site. It's not that I shied away from them, no - it's more that the thrust of the site was a community service rather than a cash cow. Don't believe me? Ask anyone who advertised on my site how much they paid? (can't remember who they were - well they paid $5 a week ... yep, a measly fin. Ask how much it cost to advertise
ANYWHERE ELSE!!)
This site
costs me money. The web hosting costs. The longer streaming video hosting costs. Technology I use to create and update the site costs me money.
No one pays me for this. I do not ask the city for money even though I, essentially, provide a community service.
I suck on no government or corporate teat to fund this operation. (you may see a corporation's name at the bottom of the pages but make no mistake - that is me and a friend and it makes less money than either of us)
Well my financial situation has changed and I no longer have a huge, liquidate-able asset to backstop my spending. So this has to stop.
This site takes my time away. When I was a younger man I had all the time in the world to give up to causes or projects or 80-hour-a-week jobs. That attitude has led me to throw away some of the best years of my life in the service of purely temporal dead ends. Like this one ... well no more.
A long time ago I asked a wise person who knew me well to help me with those questions they ask at job interviews. The tough ones like "What are your strengths and weaknesses?". At the top of the 'weaknesses' list was 'Hanging on to things long past the time in which they are useful to you'.
I should have done this a while back ...
I give a Big Thank You to Gregg Anderson for believing in me and the idea and being a big help all along. Without Gregg's input the video segments would never have happened. But he's helped in more ways than just appearing on camera ... Thank you so much man.
Lorraine VanBoeyen, Cher Wyers, Lizanne Eastwood, Pam Goerzen, Mona Mattei, Damien Wirischagin - Thank you all very much for the help and encouragement.
To everyone else who has helped in any way ... keep it up and help the next poor community service fool that comes along too, please. They'll need it ...
To the rest of you ... there's this poster board on the side of the public library ...
- Les Johnson
Jan 9, 2011
Jan 24 - UPDATE:
I heard a rumour yesterday ... it appears I'm moving from this on to some new, higher paying, job.
Would anyone happen to know how much this new job pays? How about what I'll be doing in this new job ... 'cuz I do not.
Nope - there's no new job, paid or otherwise ... that's just another Grand Forks Rumour ... ;)
Feb 24 - UPDATE:
I don't know exactly how my mind slipped on this but ... the text above originally mentioned a 3rd anniversary coming up ... but the site was started in 2008. 2012 - 2008 = 4 years (not 3). OI! another wasted year ;)