Are you passionate about maintenance and reliability?  Do you surf the web?  Do you have any spare time? Would you like to contribute to the maintenance & reliability community?

If so, MaintenanceTalk.com has a spare time opportunity for you.  We are seeking field reporters and editors to join our MaintenanceTalk.com Blogger Team, to write short one or two paragraph reports on opinions, happenings and resources for maintenance and reliability that will be updated weekly or more often as content develops. 

Areas of interest:

• All PdM/Condition Monitoring Technologies
• Root Cause Analysis
• Reliability
• Maintenance Management
• MRO Stores
• CMMS
• Lubrication
• Planning & Scheduling
• Benchmarking

Requirements: Good written communication skills

Pay: Very low - 0$ per hour

Rewards: Very High!

Benefits:  Your own forum.  Exposure to over 3000 unique visitors every day. 

 Work Location and Environment: Virtual - can be done from any Internet connected computer anywhere

Web Publishing Experience: None required

Languages: English is the primary language of Reliabilityweb.com however; we are very interested in editors fluent in Spanish also.

  What Is A MaintenanceTalk.com Blogger?

 Rather, 'who' is a MaintenanceTalk.com blogger?  A MaintenanceTalk.com blogger is someone (anyone) who posts to their own MaintenanceTalk.com weblog. You!  

Not surprisingly, weblogs are often referred to simply as 'blogs'.

 What the heck is a Blog?

Blogs are made up of brief (one - two paragraph), frequently updated posts (messages) that are arranged chronologically.  

A blog is just a web site organized by time.  Blogs do not represent something brand new in human communication. Diaries closely resemble blogs and be traced back as far as ancient Greece.

Weblogs make the organization of the time-dimension explicit by providing a calendar through which each entry can be retrieved.

Here are some examples of things that might be posted in a Blog:

• Web site links
• Commentary about web pages that the author found interesting
• Book reviews
• Training Course reviews
• Information about articles read in trade journals
• Reports from conferences and trade shows
• Notices about industry associations
• Revelations from the authors own mind
• Daily experiences of the author
• Opinions of the author
• Notice about a new product or service
• Event announcements
• Answers to questions from readers
• Links to useful downloads

The content of the blog usually represents the thoughts and experiences of the author.

A Blog is really an ongoing conversation between the author and the readers, in this case, MaintenanceTalk.com visitors.  

Blogs feed off the web. 

There is a ton of great maintenance and reliability information and a Blogger acts as a guide to help people find it and digest it.  Of course we hope that the MaintenanceTalk.com Team Bloggers will help people with the massive content we have developed at Reliabilityweb.com however; we will encourage you to post any and all outside resources you care to.

 Blogs as Artificial Intelligence 

That is not to say that your intelligence is artificial, however as your blog posts build, a wealth of searchable knowledge is being collected allowing newcomers to quickly catch up and locate resources for the subjects that interest them most.

 Blogs are another step in the evolution of communication and value delivery at Reliabilityweb.com.

If you want to be a MaintenanceTalk.com Blogger

 First, Define Your Own Objectives

 Many beginning MaintenanceTalk.com bloggers are intimidated by the questions, "do I really have anything to say" and "why should anyone want to read what I write?"

Of course, if the answer to the first question is "no", then creating a web site is silly.

But the answer to the second question is more complicated. Probably, very few people will care about what you write - certainly at the beginning but maybe ever. But this does not necessarily mean that your weblog is an effort in futility.

Reminding yourself that your weblog is just a website can be very liberating. Many thousands of bloggers have discovered that speaking in their own voice draws a surprising response from friends ... and strangers who become friends.

Second, Suit Yourself

 MaintenanceTalk.com weblog tools provide a ready-to-hand design framework. All the author has to do is add 'water' - their content. This ease-of-entry ensures that just about anyone (even you and me) can put their ideas on the Internet without a second thought. Welcome to the Web!

 Why shouldn't individuals - just folks - be free to express themselves publicly? Until the past ten years, cultural gatekeepers (publishing businesses across all media) filtered out all but those exceedingly few creators who could make them a buck. Their junk is far slicker than ours but it still smells.

 Your MaintenanceTalk.com Blog may endure for one post or across many decades to come. It may be read sometime by thousands or only by yourself as a record of ideas, events and deeds that mattered to you. If it gives you pleasure, you will continue. If it doesn't, you will stop.

 How much of my time will it take? 

Less than 30 minutes per week.  We are hoping to recruit a dedicated MaintenanceTalk.com Blogger Team who will each post once or twice per week.  We suggest that as you surf the web or read magazines and book, adding site and pages you want to write about to a MaintenanceTalk.com Blogger Favorites or Bookmark folder.  This way, you can quickly recall the point you want to make and write a one or two paragraph blurb to post with the link.

 I do not know how to publish on the web - how can I become a MaintenanceTalk.com Blogger? 

MaintenanceTalk.com will provide a browser based interface that you can simply type into or cut and paste your text from your word processor (after you do a spelling and grammar check).  It will automatically post to the web once we have established your MaintenanceTalk.com Blog.

How will I get recognized for my MaintenanceTalk.com Blog contributions?

Each post will include your name and if you wish, your email or web site link.

We will also build a special "Meet the MaintenanceTalk.com Blogger Team" web page with a photo and brief bio for each MaintenanceTalk.com Blogger Team Member

Will I earn money for my work on the MaintenanceTalk.com BLOG Team?

 No,  We are not in a position to pay for MaintenanceTalk.com Bloggers at this point.

What should I do to apply as a member to the MaintenanceTalk.com BLOG Team?

 Write a one or two paragraph blurb about a web resource you like or that you think others would like to know about and email to me at webmaster@maintenancetalk.com .  Please type MaintenanceTalk.com Blogger in the subject line.   We will not post the email you send - it is simply to judge your written communication skills.

We will reply right away with more details.

MaintenanceTalk.com 101

You know a lot about maintenance.  MaintenanceTalk.com wants to help you communicate to an audience that is eager to learn more about various aspects of industrial plant maintenance.  

 MaintenanceTalk.com's tool set enables you to write to the Web without any specialized knowledge.

 Do you want to tell people about a useful web page, a new article posted somewhere, a free software download, review a maintenance book you read or a training course you just completed, ask a new questions, tell them about a new idea you had, or any other items of interest to maintenance and reliability professionals?  MaintenanceTalk.com allows you to manage and store all your 'knowledge' in one place and share it with widest possible maintenance & reliability community.

 Do you want to program computer code?

 No?  We did not think so.  That is why we make it easy for you to publish your own web log (or blog) to Maintenancetalk.com using any standard browser.

 Maintenancetalk.com blogs are the polar opposite of design-by-committee web sites.  Each Maintenancetalk.com blog is designed to reflect the creator’s voice and point of view.  You have no one to please but your readers!

 Maintenancetalk.com insists that your unique voice must remain at the core of its mission. You are invited to apply for a low paying ($0 per hour) job as a Maintenancetalk.com blogger that may creep under your skin and demand some of your precious time and energy.

 The reward?

There is nothing like the satisfaction of contributing.   Both Eastern and Western philosophies speak to the personal growth and deep rewards that a person receives who makes a difference in the lives of of the people in his or her community. 

 How will people find my Maintenancetalk.com blog?

MaintenanceTalk.com is linked for each resource page at Reliabilityweb.com, generating almost 3000 unique visitors each day.  In addition, we have programmed special Google API's to allow the Google spider to index your blog and add your new content to its search listings automatically.  Google is the most popular search engine in use today.  In addition, we have designed MaintenanceTalk.com blogs to be syndicated or published at other web sites that have common interest.  Last but not least - all MaintenanceTalk Channels are available in the Tristana Content Reader. 

Who owns the content created at MaintenanceTalk.com?

MaintenanceTalk.com is owned and operated by NetexpressUSA Inc, a new media company specializing in digital communication for maintenance and reliability markets.  You agree to assign a non-exclusive  copyright for the work you create to NetexpressUSA Inc.  That means you still own it.  We do request that publish unique content here.   As mentioned above, we do offer to syndicate site content with pre approved permission. 

 Contact webmaster@maintenancetalk.com for information about syndicating content.

If you create a large enough audience following, we encourage you to branch out on your own and create your own independent web site.  Once you stop writing for MaintenanceTalk.com, all your future work copyright will be your own or any other party that you decide to work with.

MaintenanceTalk.com 102

Amateurs rule.

We started publishing practitioner affiliated maintenance & reliability information on the web in late 1999 and the response has been fantastic.  The end user community has proven hungry for information that does not require commercial intervention or bias. 

We could not have started our communication projects without the Internet.  Printing and mailing a trade magazine requires an affiliation with advertisers as they pay the bills for printing, mailing, the administrative, editorial and ad sales staff.  They have a great deal of influence over the content that gets delivered to the practitioner.  Trade publications are locked into this business paradigm and that is why none of them have creating any significant value based content online for the past decade as Internet growth and use explodes around them.  They are trapped in a cage with advertisers and therefore are operating with one hand tied behind their backs before they place their first banner ad.

Publishing on the web requires a PC and Web Site Server.  While costs for a world class server are significant, they do not compare with the costs associated with publishing a printed magazine.  It allows the web publishers the freedom to affiliate with the actual recipient of the messages.  By providing enough value to the recipient, web publishers as the messenger, have an intrinsic value to the advertisers who want to reach recipients.  The more enlightened vendors in this market have jumped on board the commercial-free, value added information delivery model.  In other words, they know that if they provide valuable, commercial free information in their areas of expertise, they may create a relationship with the practitioner.  When that practitioner is in the market for a solution that relates to the advertisers products or services, they have already formed the most valuable part of any transaction - the relationship!

Don’t get us wrong, many of the trade publication in the market are world class communication vehicles with editorial excellence and wide distribution.  On the other hand, the Web is also a world-class communication environment.  It is also the first medium that facilitates writing and collaboration unfiltered by cultural controllers and gatekeepers - or at least not yet easily controlled by them.    Consequently, while professionals write to the Web, they do not dominate the Web.  Amateurs rule.

Style, Timeliness, Integrity

Even though amateur often takes a negative connotation in our culture, the Internet softens and modifies that obsolete notion.

The MaintenanceTalk.com blogger community has demonstrates how amateur weblogs outstrip mainstream technical publications in style, timeliness and, above all, integrity.  Perhaps not in all cases; but in enough cases to reframe the nature of information delivery, for starters.

MaintenanceTalk.com blog's inherent design support not only for publishing but for subscriptions and collaboration converge neatly with the Web's nature as a public transmitter and amplifier of personal and interpersonal dialogue.

 Power to the People

 The Web amplifies the stuff you like (and I don't) as well as the stuff I like (and you don't).

But by allowing amateurs like us to get in the game of shaping a micro-world of maintenance & reliability in a public forum - that is, the stuff in life for which we have a passion - the Web (and companies like NetexpressUSA) are still forging a revolutionary medium.

Will this project last or will it (we) be sucked into the vortex of a super-branded, commoditized, adverting based knowledge culture?

No one knows. Certainly, many vendors hope that the voices of the amateurs will simply cancel one another out and become the Web's white noise.

So far, NetexpressUSA sites like Reliabilityweb.com, LeakZone.com, Maintenance-News.com and Maintenance-Tips.com have been successful, both on a customer satisfaction level and on a commercial level.

Meanwhile, and perhaps longer if we are fortunate, you and I have a chance to be 'public' again in much the same way our ancestors were in local cultures around the world. We met in the town commons or marketplace.  We looked vendors in the eye.  We held products in our hands and asked questions about the process involved with making it.  We got expert advice in using it directly from the person involved with creating the product. 

Do the vendors in this community make it easy to speak to the actual creators or the products or services we use?  Do they hook you up with other users so you can form your own support network without their intervention?  Or do they attempt to control every aspect of your interaction with them?  Does that work well for you?

So go ahead and write the Web at MaintenanceTalk.com.

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