Comments on: Batch Processing

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:28:47 +0000

@Mandar – It has worked well for me in the past. I’ll do something like a “quicktip” and write one for each week for the rest of the year. This helps make sure the site has something new–even if I get too busy with other projects. I haven’t ever had a problem with it becoming irrelevant, but it would depend on your subject matter.

By: Mandar Vaze

Mandar Vaze — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:06:04 +0000

@Mark,

I can understand writing posts for a week, like Darren does. But writing for next 6 months ? Isn’t that a bit overkill ?
Based on the example you gave, I can understand that your posts for future would need to be generic, but aren’t you afraid, that when they are published “in future”, they may be obsolete (or out of context)

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:15:49 +0000

@Darren – Usually when I do the big batches, I’ll focus on a a topic or group of topics and do a bunch of short posts. For example, I might do a money savings tip every friday for the rest of the year and then come back and do a time saving tip every monday for the rest of the year. I haven’t had a big enough block of time to do it for awhile though.

By: Darren

Darren — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:38:45 +0000

thanks for linking up to my post. Your batching process is really interesting – I’d not considered doing it quite like that (ie writing posts for 6 months) – makes sense though.

appreciate you adding to the conversation in this way.

By: Arjun Muralidharan

Arjun Muralidharan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:04:44 +0000

The overhead thing is what I thought about first as well. In economic terms, we learnt about “transaction costs”. For example, a sale of an iPod between Apple and you first required you to have an internet connection and Apple to process your payment. Credit card fees are a typical transaction cost.

And there are costs in commencing an finishing a task, which should be minimized as they’re pure deadweight loss.