I mentioned a post or two back that I was trying to kick off a freelance copywriting venture. In my line of work, if you don’t have a web site, you don’t have a business. With that in mind, allow myself to introduce myself The Copyhacker.

I’m hunting for web sites with ghastly copy. There’s no shortage of them around here. When I find one, someone at that place of business is getting an email, and said site is going up on the Hit List.

Want to help? Let me know of any sites you come across that could use a good Copyhacking. Together we can rid this town of bad writing.

I even have a badge for you to wear with pride. Just link it to copyhacker.com and send some biz my way.

[edit] A big overdue thanks to Bryan for hours of exceptional work on logo, layout and spoon-feeding me CSS.

Now that you know something about The Business Experiment, I can tell you how exactly I’m involved in it. I’m spending time this evening editing the third issue of AnswerSpace — the TBE newsletter. I read the first one, thought the quality was lacking, and offered my services to the team leader. She read the previous post and accepted my offer. I had a blast editing issue 2. This week, I contributed an article in addition to my editing duties.

It’s not professional work in the monetary sense. They’re not paying me for it. But if I put enough material in front of the right eyeballs, it will eventually pay off in cash. I have to do my share of volunteer work before anyone will believe that I deserve to get paid for this.

This blog has laid the foundation for everything else to come. Without it, I wouldn’t be in a position to do this. So thanks, readers, for all your help.

Here’s your weekly dose of the Startup Junkie. Work giving you that sinking feeling? This week, come on over to Colaspot, and learn when to say when.

I caught this 37 Signals post while feedsurfing tonight. I couldn’t agree with Jason more. Using the term creative to denote designers, writers, artists and the like is as bad as using IT guy (anyone from a Flash animator to a DBA to a network engineer) or suit. It can be construed as elitist, or even derogatory — neither of which helps your corporate culture much. In my experience, the creatives are valued as partners in the decision-making process, while the IT guys are treated as “implementers” and expected to just do the work they’re handed.

Honestly, that’s no small part of my desire to write for a living. I have something to say, and I think someone could benefit from listening. If we have to pick teams, I’d rather be on the “creative” team.

It’s Monday, so that means the Startup Junkie has struck again. This week I wonder which is best — full-time or contract employment. I’d love to hear feedback. Send your comments to jonathan at colaspot dot com.

OK, so here’s the payoff. In Step 1, I listed things that I’m good at. In Step 2, I came up with things that I enjoy and feel useful doing. Refer back to those two lists when necessary. The last step involves a little more thought:

NOW: think of ways or activities that involves SEVERAL of your talents, gifts, passions, and unique characteristics at the same time. We want to kill two (or more) birds with one stone OR, better put, hug two or more birds with one embrace. The more passions and gifts that you can intersect at one point the better. If, for some reason, that intersection of passions does not have a commercial component, modify it with more passions or talents until it does. At the intersection of many passions and talents, there should emerge a service, or a product, or an artwork, or a body of information that can be spun off commercially. This way you get to pursue your passions, grow your talents, give of yourself to others, contribute to a greater good, and, as a by-product of all this playing around, generate wealth.

Without further ado, here are the “intersections” I came up with.

• Novelist (that one’s easy)
• Tech writer (web copy? manuals? help books?)
• Professional researcher (is there such a thing?)
• Blogger (wouldn’t that be fun?)
• Columnist; more specifically…
• Tech pundit, a la some of these guys
• Product evangelist (I don’t think I can be smarmy enough)
• PR (see above; plus, public speaking has never been a forte)
• Combining the previous five, we get this guy or this woman.
• Translator
• Tutor
• Producer (music)
• Editor (literary and/or web)
• Corporate pilot (I love travel, but this might be taking it a bit too far)

My first thoughts on this list: if there’s one thing all these jobs have in common, it’s that none of them appear easy to just break into. I’ll probably have to do a few more passes through step three, until I find one that will instantly pay off with no effort I can bootstrap without killing myself or going flat broke.

I’ll try to limit the amount of pimping I do for Colaspot (oops, did I just link to it again?), but I wanted to point you SRC faithful at my weekly column. They’ll be posted each Monday; here’s the first one from last week.

This week I hype Seth Godin and opine about why small businesses rule. Start your Mondays off right with the Junkie.

Yesterday, in Step 1 of the Passion Intersections exercise, I made a list of things I have a talent for. Today, it’s on to the next step:

Now make a second list of all those things you love to do or feel passionately about. Include on this list the answer to this key question: what do I GIVE that when I’m giving it I am filled with great joy. Chances are that you love giving what you have in abundance. And what do you have in abundance? Those gifts or talents you put on the first list.

It would be extremely helpful to consider WHY you like a certain activity. What are all those things about a particular activity that feeds your passion? If something lights your fire then you must have some insight into why it does and in what ways it does. Write down what about it inspires you, what pleases you, what reveals more of yourself to you, what makes you laugh, what about it contributes to a greater good, etc.

I love:

• reading a good book
• helping someone understand something
• connecting two people I know who have something in common
• solving puzzles (not fixing broke stuff)
• flying
• introducing someone to something new
• coming up with a great idea
• writing something that someone will enjoy reading
• playing music that people like listening to
• flying
• finding a newer, better way to accomplish something

I think that does it for Step 2. 1 and 2 were the easy part. Step 3 is more complicated, but should be fun. Tune in next time.

I linked to this post on The Lazy Way To Success a few weeks ago, about finding your calling — a vocation that fulfills one of your passions. I didn’t actually do the whole exercise, because I’ve done it informally at least once. But in the interest of completeness… here we go.

Step 1. “First, make a list of all your gifts. In other words, what talents or characteristics do you possess that are special? What makes you unique?”

• Writing (we’ve pretty much established that)
• Music production (I have basically no studio experience, but I like putting my stamp on a song — giving it a sound of its own)
• Trivia (my short-term memory isn’t so good, but my long-term memory is to die for)
• Languages
• Teaching / mentoring
• Reading
• Aviation (I haven’t had much practice lately, but I have a knack for flying)

Check back tomorrow for Step 2.