Archive for the 'Parent bloggers' Category

With apologies to Theodore Geisel

June 16, 2008 | Parent bloggers

Not in my house. Not on my car.

Not on a bet. Not in a bar.

No matter where near or far

Cleaning products for me not are.

Books, blogs and Burma

May 17, 2008 | Books, Charity, Parent bloggers

crossposted to Marketing Roadmaps

News from around the blogosphere from friends new and old.

First, from my good friend Yvonne DiVita. In addition to being one of the leading experts on marketing to women online, Yvonne runs Windsor Media Enterprises, a print-on-demand publishing company that guides authors through the self-publishing process. This fall, they are going to put on a conference called Books, Blogs and Beyond:Publishing 3.0, and they are asking for our input to create a program truly relevant to the attendees’ needs. If you are an aspiring author, or even just interested in the impact of social media like blogs on the publishing process, please take their survey. Let Yvonne and her team know what you’d like to know.

Speaking of authors, this week the momosphere was alive with buzz about Sleep Is for the Weak, the upcoming collection of essays by parent bloggers edited by Rita Arens. Read the story of how Rita shepherded this project from her dream to a reality on her blog Surrender, Dorothy, and then immediately add the blog to your feed reader. She is an excellent writer, as are the many moms, and one dad, included in the book. I can’t wait to get my copy, already pre-ordered on Amazon.

One reason I am so excited about her book, apart from the fact that Rita is an awesome woman who deserves the success and accolades that are and will be coming her way as the result of the book, is that it will expose an even larger audience to the amazing writing on parent blogs. Major media always seems to focus on mom blogs as a market, the privacy issue — that parents are writing about their kids, and dooce. What it misses is what a damn fine group of writers this is, and not just Heather Armstrong. I read many blogs. Some of the best writing BY FAR is on parenting blogs, and not just about their kids. Politics, culture, sex, travel, art, photography, philanthropy, the economy. Just some of the topics you’ll find on parenting blogs along with daycare, diapers and disasters.

Finally, here’s a simple way to donate to the relief effort in Burma that won’t cost you a cent, just a comment. Leave a comment on this post at digTrends by May 31st, and Digital Influence Group will add $10.00 to its donation check to the US Campaign for Burma. They’ve capped the donation at $5,000 — that’s 500 comments on their post, and I hope they get there. Hat tip, Mack Collier on Twitter.

Technorati Tags: Yvonne DiVita, Windsor Media Enterprises, Rita Arens, Sleep Is for the Weak, US Campaign for Burma

On Mothers and Mother’s Day

May 8, 2008 | Family, Parent bloggers

How do I want to be recognized this Mother’s Day?

That’s the theme of this week’s Parent Bloggers Network BlogBlast in support of Johnson’s new charitable giving site Baby Cause. I wrote about the campaign last week, and have been giving some thought to the question since.

The truth is, anything my son gives me for Mother’s Day — whether handmade, selected at the local gift shop with his Dad or plucked from my fairly short wish list — will be absolutely perfect. And pale in comparison to the joy of having him in my life. Even when he is being a pill.

I’m one of those moms who always wanted children, but wasn’t driven by the need. If it happened, it happened. And if it didn’t, I had my husband, his daughter and my pets, who were and still are my other children.

What fool I.

I give thanks nearly every day that I did get pregnant naturally at 37. Because I wasn’t smart enough to realize how much I wanted my son until we had him, I would not have resorted to fertility treatments. And now I cannot imagine my life without him.

My son loves magic shows, so this Sunday, we are taking him to see David Copperfield in Boston. Watching him have fun will be the best Mother’s Day present I could have.

And if there’s a real present too? Wonderful, but just the icing on the cake of spending a day with my guys.

—

Mother’s Day is an important holiday for me because it gives me a chance to tell my mother how much I love and appreciate her. There are really no words to express how much her love and support have meant to me all my life. I would not be the person I am today without the solid foundation she provided for me and my brother.

So, thanks, mum.

After all, who else would come with me on Saturday when I take four eight-year olds to see Speed Racer? No one else — not my brother, not my husband. Just my mum.

Here she is, introducing Douglas to RoadRunner last weekend. I figure she won’t mind this photo, being that it is of her best side and all.

—

Finally, a few words for some lovely mom bloggers who are expecting their second child this month. I’m a little late to the virtual shower for Her Bad Mother, Mrs. Chicky, and Mrs. Chicken but never mind.

I only have Douglas, so I can’t comment on what it’s like to add the second child to the mix from the parent’s perspective. I am however the oldest, by 2.5 years, of two, and my brother has always been one of my best friends. Even when we argued, we would abandon our fight the minute someone else picked on the other. Sometimes I am sorry that we didn’t have a full sibling for my son, so he could have this experience, but he does have his older sister, my husband’s adult daughter.

My advice for you: just keep trusting yourself. Your instincts about the right things to do for your children will always be better than any advice on parenting from someone else. Because every situation is different. That’s not to say that advice isn’t good or welcome. But in the end, trust yourself.

Because mother really does know best.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Technorati Tags: Mother’s Day, Parent Bloggers Network, Johnson’s Baby Cause

Power

April 29, 2008 | BlogHer, Charity, Parent bloggers

crossposted to Marketing Roadmaps. Warning: long post

Power. Of the collective. Of the parent. Of the blogger. That’s today’s topic.

Let’s start with what the collective can achieve when we come together. In this case, for charity. As you may recall, about two weeks ago, in one of my Camp Baby case study posts, I suggested that companies interested in reaching women bloggers put their money into the charities that we care about. Not that we don’t like schwag or free products, or hell, even some link love. But I have yet to meet a parent blogger that doesn’t contribute what she or he can to charity. It’s why BlogHers Act has such resonance for the community.

Which is why I was thrilled to get an email from Kristen Chase this morning telling me about the latest Parent Bloggers Network BlogBlast campaign. PBN has teamed up with Johnson’s to promote Johnson’s Baby Cause, the company’s new charitable giving site to support the health and well-being of mothers and children worldwide. Details of the promotion are on the PBN post, but short version, blog about how you’d like to be recognized on Mother’s Day. Both Johnson’s and PBN are donating prizes; I love the PBN prize — a $25 credit to donate to the cause of your choice at Baby Cause. Ten winners. There’s also a charity auction for gently used celebrity baby goods on eBay that will benefit Baby Cause.

Why do I like this so much? To start with, charity. That will get me EVERY TIME. Which I am sure Kristen knew when she emailed me. And then there’s the Johnson’s component. I absolutely love that this Parent Bloggers Network campaign came about as a result of Lori Dolginoff from Johnson’s and Kristen meeting at Camp Baby, a fact which I confirmed with Lori before posting tonight. (And perhaps of Lori and Julie Marsh, Kristen’s partner in PBN, not meeting for all the reasons we already know.)

I’m sure the broader charity effort was well underway before Camp Baby earlier this month but as a direct result of the event, Johnson’s decided to team up with PBN to promote it. In short, it learned how valuable it is to work with people within the community, and that, my friends, is worth the price of admission.

Okay, you get here for free, but you know what I mean.

Another way we exercise our power as bloggers is when we help build our community. As Kim Moldofsky did today with a “link love” post for her Camp Baby friends on parentcenter. Yet another consequence, and hopefully not unintended, of getting 56 women with common interests together.

The power of the collective to effect change. Use it. Write a post. Help a friend with a little link love. Donate, to Baby Cause or BlogHers Act. But I’m thinking, buy a new diaper bag.

Parent bloggers have power. And that’s the segue into my next topic, which is to tell you about a project that launched its public beta today called ParentPower. Full disclosure: I’ve been consulting for the company developing ParentPower, advising them about the parent blogger space.

What is ParentPower? It’s an application for parenting blogs. There’s a lot to it – a desktop widget, an index of top parenting blogs, links to sites we visit all the time like Flickr, Twitter and parenting sites, an RSS reader, the weather, and more. More details in the overview on the site.

Why do I like this project? Because Active Access, the company that developed the app, asked. And they listened. And not just to me and my colleague Kami Huyse, who brought me into the project. They did focus groups with parent bloggers. They’ve started talking in Twitter. We’re talking with BlogHer about the best way to work with the community. And we are asking for even more feedback in the beta process. So if you decide to download the app, please complete the Polldaddy survey or send email to myvoice@parentpowerindex.com

As everyone who reads my Marketing Roadmaps blog knows, I have my concerns about indexes, but Active Access has done a good job here. There’s no subjective component in the Parent Power index and blogs that score the same get the same rank.

Personally, I’m LMAO that my personal/parent blog Snapshot Chronicles, which isn’t even a year old and has a very small number of loyal, wonderful subscribers, currently has a better ranking on ParentPower than Marketing Roadmaps (three+ years old, 1000 plus subscribers) has on the AdAge Power150. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but (hint hint) I think the ParentPower algorithm is better (no offense meant, AdAge 150), and hope those parent bloggers whose blogs are not yet included in ParentPower will add them and knock me down the pegs I probably deserve.

The power of parents. That’s truly what the folks behind ParentPower want to support, and I urge you to give your feedback. On the application, on the index, on whatever floats your boat. The feedback from the parent blogger focus groups was invaluable, and really, we just want “more, more…”

And finally, power. As in laptop power supply. Marketing Roadmaps readers will remember my sad tale, posted on April 3, of a broken iGo power supply during my trip to NYC for BlogHer, the 4-hour search for parts and the $130 I spent on new cables because, contrary to the information provided by iGo support, neither Best Buy nor RadioShack stocked the part I needed. Well, today I got an email from a marketing manager at iGo offering to replace my broken part. While I am tickled pink? purple? some other color? at the fact that finally, a company actually read my frakking blog and responded, customer support already sent a replacement part at no charge to my home. Which is great and much appreciated, but does not compensate for the added costs or the wasted time while I was in NY. Nothing really can, but if they respond back to my reply, I will tell them that I’d be thrilled with some free product to give away on Snapshot Chronicles. (Sorry Roadmaps readers, all giveaways happen on the personal blog.)

We do have power as bloggers. Our opinions of companies do matter, as this study by SNCR demonstrates, and companies are starting to listen. Slowly.

So use that power wisely. Don’t bitch to hear the sound of your own voice or read the melody of your own words.

Write to change things for the better.

That’s power.

—

Addendum - credit where credit is due (4/30/08)

Kim Moldofsky wanted to make sure everyone knows that credit for the weekly post sharing idea goes to Jodi at www.momsfavoritestuff.com

In my zeal to be transparent about my small part in the ParentPower project, it came across to some readers as though this was my project. While I think ParentPower is a great product and hope folks try it out, I simply provided some advice about the parent blogger space. ParentPower was developed by Active Access. Livingston Communications and Kami Huyse led the product marketing, strategy and PR, and Shannon Whitley developed the Index algorithm.

Technorati Tags: Camp Baby, Parent Bloggers Network, Baby Cause, Johnson’s, iGo, ParentPower, Active Access

Parent Blogger Karaoke

April 12, 2008 | Giveaways, Parent bloggers

Well, I finally had time to mess around with video so here is my contribution to the documentation of last Friday’s parent blogger karaoke meet-up in New York. I had a few more clips than the ones in this movie, but my video skilz were even more pathetic in those, so I decided to spare you.

Thanks again to Liz from Cool Mom Picks for getting us all together. See more pics and video at Joy Unexpected and Petroville.

On another note, folks seem to have had their say about the character of Daniel Jackson on SG-1 in my action figure giveaway — all good — so feel free to wax poetic on any of the other characters. Just be sure to leave the comment on my Ark of Truth review post by the end of the month. So far, we have enough comments that the Mitchell figure will be going to a new home on May 1st, but Vala and the Prior will still be stuck in my storage closet.

Tomorrow in SciFi Sunday, Speed Racer news, thoughts on the new Sarah Jane Adventures and my grade of Friday’s Battlestar Galactica.

Technorati Tags: Stargate SG-1, Cool Mom Picks, parent bloggers, karaoke

Sing, sing a song

April 6, 2008 | BlogHer, Parent bloggers

I got back from BlogHer Business last night, and have finally caught up on my sleep. Now if I can just get rid of this chronic sore throat.

I’ll post the serious reports from the conference over on Marketing Roadmaps, including the promised summaries of the two sessions I was in, the HP Photo Books case study and the Improve this Pitch panel with Liz Gumbinner, Mir Kamin and Maria Niles. Look for those posts sometime mid-week. If you’d like a preview, I was interviewed by the Screengrab team from Weber Shandwick toward the end of the day Friday.

Friday night, Liz organized a karaoke get together in the East Village. About 25 of us — local NY parent bloggers, moms who’d been at Johnson’s Camp Baby in New Jersey and some of us from BlogHer — all crowded into private room, courtesy of Cool Mom Picks, and proceeded to make our eardrums bleed with such classics as Like A Virgin, Bohemian Rhapsody, Summer Nights and a bunch of others that I can’t remember. I have some Flip video, but it is really dark. If we can find some editing software and lighten up the images, I’ll post some of it here.

It was a great time, and really nice of Liz and her CMP partner Kristen Chase to cover the room. It was way more fun having the privacy to just all sing together and act a bit foolish, versus standing up and performing the “normal” karaoke way.

Technorati Tags: BlogHer, BlogHer Business, Susan Getgood, Cool Mom Picks

Happy Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2008 | Holiday, Parent bloggers

We’re off to Vermont tomorrow for school vacation week. I’ll be working most days but hopefully will get to ski a bit too. And take some pictures. I literally haven’t had my camera out of the case since I got back from Sundance.

In the meantime, please check out my Media Bullseye article, Some Advice on Reaching Out to Mommy Bloggers.

Technorati Tags: Media Bullseye, mommy bloggers

WhyMommy & give Peas a chance

December 21, 2007 | General, Parent bloggers

cross posted to Marketing Roadmaps

Over the past week or so, a movement took shape on Twitter to support a fellow blogger Susan Reynolds recently diagnosed with a difficult-to-treat form of breast cancer. As a result of a comment she made about using frozen peas to relieve pain in the affected breast, folks started adding images of peas to their Twitter avatars in a show of support. I don’t know Susan, but many friends and acquaintances do, and I truly admire bloggers facing life-threatening diseases who write about their battle in an effort to help others.

So, I decided I would put up a new Twitter avatar. A decision made easier when the Queen of Spain’s talented husband offered to make pea avatars for people, meaning you wouldn’t be subjected to my sketchy graphics skills.

However, I decided I didn’t just want peas. I’ve written before about a courageous woman fighting inflammatory breast cancer, Susan Niebur, also known as WhyMommy, who used her blog and the community of mommy bloggers to spread the word about this rare form of cancer.

I wanted my avatar to honor both Susans.

So today, in their honor and also in memory of friends and family lost to cancer, my Twitter avatar is a pink Y, for WhyMommy, wearing a pea necklace, for Susan Reynolds.

Tags: Susan Reynolds, WhyMommy

Photographic Memories Update

November 9, 2007 | Parent bloggers, Photo Contests, Products

We’ve created a badge for the Photographic Memories interviews that links directly to the page on the HP site with all the interviews. If you would like to use it on your blog or website, you can download the graphic or, even easier, you can link to it here using the code on this page.

Don’t forget to check out the HP Photo Books contests and giveaways, listed in my sidebar, and the 20% discount on the HP Photo Books at the HP Store until December 31st. Get the code for the discount here.

Thanks to Tracey for the suggestion to do the badge and Kristen for requesting the code version. I now know how to do something I didn’t know how to do yesterday !

Announcing Photographic Memories

November 1, 2007 | Equipment, Interviews, Parent bloggers, Products, Projects

Cross-posted to Marketing Roadmaps

As I’ve mentioned here before, I occasionally help HP with social media projects. I’m thrilled to announce that the most recent one, Photographic Memories, went live today.

Part of the US launch of HP Photo Books, Photographic Memories is a series of interviews with mom bloggers about the photos that have captured the memories of their lives. I interviewed 23 women across the US – young moms, older moms, moms of newborns, toddlers and teens. Working moms and stay at home moms. Professional photographers and moms who simply carry a point and shoot in their pocket, just in case.

HP Photo Books are a great way to share photographic memories, and in these interviews, the moms share theirs with us. The first group of 10 interviews was posted today and the rest will follow later in the month.

A little bit more about HP Photo Books

With an HP Photo Book, you can easily create a professional quality photo book at home. Particularly cool is the innovative binding system – think of a big clip – that lets you replace or rearrange pages and add mementos like invitations, children’s artwork and so on. They are available in two sizes, 5×7 and 8.5×11, and multiple colors.

If you’d like your own Photo Book, HP is offering a 20% discount until the end of the year.

Or you can take your chances in one of the many contests and sweepstakes the women in the Photographic Memories series will be having on their blogs over the next couple months. Some contests have already happened, others are going on right now, and some will be starting next week. As I get the details, I’ll add them to the Photo Contests list in the sidebar of Snapshot Chronicles.

Later this week, I’ll be writing more about the project. For now, please enjoy the interviews.

Tags: HP Photo Books, Photographic Memories, photography, mommy bloggers