[Note from the Proprietor: In case you're wondering what it's all about, well, we're smack in the middle of BLOGAPALOOZA! Hey, you're welcome to join in the fun if you like! All ya gotta do is click that cute little link and read all about it!]

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Guest post by Meryl Evans who writes over at meryl.net

January: 175+ Data and Information Visualization Examples and Resources – Everyone should learn how to create visual data because they get the message across faster and in a more interesting way than 75% of the people surveyed say they hate surveys. I’m trying to create more visual data, but it’s tough!

February: Client Evaluations: Improve Your Work and Client Relationships – Freelancers and consultants get wrapped up in our day-to-day activities that sometimes we forget to check in with our clients. A simple email to your clients says a lot about your work ethic.

March: Four Ways to Post When Dealing with Blogging Burnout - I’ve been blogging for over eight years and deal with blogging burnout too often. You’ll find plenty of advice for blogging ideas and such all over the web, but I posted this advice to help myself through it. It provides just a few suggestions and reminded me not to post for the sake of posting.

April: 7 Tips to a Good Twitter Experience – I tend to keep up with the hottest [fill online app or web site here] (after all, I dipped into blogging before it was cool), but I didn’t adopt twitter until 2008. After using it for a month, I shared the lessons I learned and I’m happy I joined the twitterverse. @merylkevans

May: Follow Your Company and Brand Online – In writing this post, I researched the various ways to follow my clients’ brands so I could have it all in one place. I wrote the entry before I discovered twitter search. Thanks to this post, I’ve added them.

June: When Writing Feels Like Skydiving – I jumped out of a plane. Seriously. I guess a tired blogger will do anything for more followers. Besides, it gave me an interesting story to tell and I learned a couple of things. Using skydiving helped create a more interesting post than if I hadn’t used a theme.

July: Great Conference! Now What? – I went to a PTA conference and picked up great ideas. How many of us go to conferences and then can’t figure out how to put what we learned to good use? The conference inspired this post, which inspired me to take action to make the conference valuable.

August: Dealing with Freelancer’s Stress – I need to re-read this because things have been more stressful lately. Accept that we’re going to have stress and negativity especially with the economic climate. The key thing is not to dwell on it or let it affect your day to day.

September: 40+ Easy Marketing Activities for Freelancers – Applies to almost everyone and without investing much beyond time. Writing this post forced me to think of many possible ways.

October: Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty – An important reminder to help others in any way you can. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time or any money. I make every effort to regularly donate blood. We may not know a soul in Darfur, but poverty and bad things can happen to anyone. Bad things know no boundaries and aren’t prejudiced.

November: Hey! Where’s the Contact Info? Many sites continue to make it difficult for visitors to make contact. Well, that’s fine if you don’t care about customer service or boosting your karma points. Many popular internet personalities — who get more mail in a day than we do in a week — make their contact information readily available. No excuses. More people are learning how to find answers themselves because they know it’s faster, but sometimes people can’t find the answers. So hiding your contact information won’t compel them to find the answer, but instead switch to a competitor or worse, say bad things about you in twitter or in a blog.

December: Hey! Clean up Your Email Box! Emails can take too much away from our day. Keyword is “can.” These tips help me minimize the time I spend in my email box. I already check email too often (that will never change — it’s my telephone), so the least I can do is learn to cut the time I spend doing other email tasks.

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Meryl K. Evans, content maven, is the author of Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook and the co-author of Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites. She has written and edited for AbsoluteWrite, ECT News Network, The Dallas Morning News, Digital Web, Gamezebo, InternetVIZ business newsletters, MarketingProfs, PC Today, O’Reilly, Pearson, Sams, and Wiley.

Meryl writes and edits content for businesses and publications. She helps business build and maintain relationships with clients and prospects through content. She’s also a long-time blogger who started blogging on June 1, 2000. In between writing assignments, she plays games and writes tough as nails reviews. A native Texan who never wears a 10-gallon hat, she lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos.

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[Further note from the Proprietor: Hey, if you're interested in having your own "best of 2008" posts highlighted right here at the Middle Zone, then by all means, click on this link: (BLOGAPALOOZA: What I Learned From 2008) and read all about it! BLOGAPALOOZA will be open for entries from now until Sunday, January 25.]

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