Tag Archives: Social Media

Of Change-Agents and Renegades … and a Winner is Announced

01 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Special Events, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

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Who won this book? Scroll down and watch the video to find out!

This is certainly quite a week for Amy Jo Martin.

The founder of the social media consultancy Digital Royalty has a new book out tomorrow, Oct. 2. On Sunday she was a guest of Melissa Harris-Perry’s on MSNBC, talking with other panelists about the influence of social media on politics, and the change-agent behind the sports and social media phenomenon covered in a Forbes article. And today (winking here) she’s making her second appearance on my blog. What a whirl!

As you know, I met Amy Jo at the BlogHer 12 conference in New York City. And here I must digress to tell you that I felt an immediate bond with her when she shared her experience of finding a lump in her breast the size of a golf ball. As a survivor of thyroid cancer, I’ve become hard-wired to relate on a deeper human level with those who have either had cancer or a cancer scare. As someone I admire once said, we become members of a club no one ever wanted to join. And it’s something of a paradox, because once admitted to the club, you want to remain a member in good standing, if you know what I mean. Amy Jo’s honesty—her fearlessness—in sharing her experience speaks to the very essence of what is so intrinsically valuable about social media: honesty. Being real. Or as Amy says in her book, “showing some skin.”

So I’m sitting in the Pathfinder session, listening to Amy discuss innovation, intention, ideas, influence, and inspiration—and writing as quickly as I can to take down what she is saying: “Coloring outside the lines without crossing the lines.” Sharing the corporate mission statement of Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh: “Be real and use your best judgment.” Explaining the value of “Random Acts of Shaqness.” (You must read this book. And yes, she’s referring to Shaquille O’Neal.)

In the midst of my flurried note-taking I had an epiphany: As a blogger, I’m ipso facto on social media. But I wasn’t really on social media. It was quickly becoming apparent that I had much to learn and I’d better get cracking. And that’s why I’m reading her excellent book, and why I want to tell you about it. I think that it’s a game changer for any public persona, corporation, brand, organization, or entity not yet on board with the new rules of the game. For those already using social media to enhance their relevancy, it will provide an entertaining and enlightening overview of where they have been. I suspect even they will learn things they didn’t already know.

On paper (in pixels?) it doesn’t seem as though I’d be such a social media newbie. I began writing content for Web 1.0 back in 1998 on behalf of Oberlin College. I was wired in for the advent of email, and only just slightly behind the curve on Facebook and LinkedIn, although I caught up fairly quickly. I did a bit of blogging and video interviews, and even composed tweets during our 2.0 phase. And yet I hovered there. It wasn’t until starting my own blog in August 2011 that I truly recognized the importance of communicating regularly and with intention across diverse social media platforms. I’m sure one reason is because I’m now working for myself, and so I feel a sense of urgency. But I am also a writer who blogs. And like every other writer who blogs, I want people to read me. How does a blogger find readers? On social media. Duh.

And so I advanced on the board from Facebook and LinkedIn until I reached Twitter. I opened my own account (kind of feeling the way I did when I first opened a checking account); passed “Go,” and in a year attracted more than 400 followers. (This is more than double what I had before the BlogHer conference, which shows you how much I learned in a very short time). These past weeks I’ve slowly begun to build my presence on Pinterest and Google+. This weekend I wrote my bio for Huffington Post and figured out how to upload a video to YouTube and connect it to what you’re reading now. Just today I sent out my first Instagram. (It’s fitting, on many levels, that it was a photo of Amy Jo’s appearance on the Melissa Harris-Perry show.)

@AmyJoMartin discussing social media & politics on @MSNBC’s @MHPerry #TeamRenegades http://instagr.am/p/QNA_tOSDze/ (Amy Jo is on the left.)

When you start a blog, and hope for it to be meaningful and authentic and actually read by people, it soon becomes apparent that it’s not enough just to hit “publish.” Bloggers control their own distribution. Those who take what they do seriously are not just members of the media, they are also the means of the media—the studios and the control rooms and the printing presses and the distribution houses. It’s exhausting, quite frankly—especially if you’re a team of one. Even a renegade team of one. Even a renegade team of one with an awesome husband to help with things like shooting the video you’re about to see.

This is why Amy Jo’s book is important to me. As a team of one, I have to think about economies of scale. If I spend three hours writing a blog post and only 30 people see it, I’ve just poured four minutes of my life for each of those 30 people. If 300 people see it, I’m starting to get some traction and make some impact for the time I’ve invested. If 3,000 people see it, well, you can do the math. The greatest impression one of my post’s has had was last November, when WordPress featured an essay of mine on ‘Freshly Pressed’ and more than 5,000 people read it over a two-day period. That truly felt relevant. That’s what a writer hopes for.

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here. Every one of my readers is valuable to me. Whether 30 people visit a post or 3,000—each reader means something to me. Each has invested his or her own time in reading what I had to write. Economies of scale work both ways, after all. That’s why I hope I’m providing interesting, informative, and entertaining content for you.

Time is money, as they say. And I’m as busy as the next person—I also run a business and freelance. So these things inevitably begin to matter, especially if your blog is part of the foundation of your livelihood.

Amy Jo learned something early on about the time factor, and she has shared the anecdote widely—in a TEDx talk, at conferences, and in her book. Her former boss, who wasn’t wild about all of this social media business, challenged her by sliding a sheet of paper across her desk. On it were written three words:

Work. Family. Self.

“Choose,” her boss told her. “You can’t have all three.”

Since Amy ultimately left that employer and formed her own business, I naturally wondered if she ever did have to end up choosing. I asked her about it, and she replied via email:

“Since founding Digital Royalty a few years ago, I have been able to design my own day, whether that means working late at night while on the elliptical machine, or taking a conference call from a mountaintop. Through creating Digital Royalty, and especially Digital Royalty University, I have been able to find my Royal Bliss. That’s what balance is to me. It’s not a perfect equilibrium. It’s finding that sweet spot, where your purpose, passion, and skill collide.”
I love that, don’t you? The “sweet spot where purpose, passion, and skill collide.” That’s what balance is. And now, before this post gets too unbalanced by growing too long, I think it’s time to let everyone know who won a signed galley copy of Amy Jo’s book. Watch this video to find out!

Related Article: “Who Wants to be a Renegade? Enter to Win this Free Book!”

A note about the contest: The winner was drawn from the Facebook fans of The Midlife Second Wife. A drawing held Friday evening, Sept. 28, did not yield a winner because I was unable to reach the person whose name was drawn despite two attempts via Facebook. A subsequent drawing, represented in the above video, was held Sunday afternoon, Sept. 30. Out of fairness to my fans, members of my family were excluded from this drawing. I should also note that I received a signed galley copy of Renegades Write the Rules for the giveaway, as well as a free download for my Kindle. Other than that, I received no compensation to write about the book. 

If you would like to like the Midlife Second Wife on Facebook, click the embedded link at the start of this note. You can also follow me on Twitter: @midlife2wife. Thank you for your support!

Want to be a Renegade? Enter to Win this Free Book!

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by in Special Events, The Reading Life, What's the Buzz?

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Be the Queen (or King) of all the social media you survey with this handy book. SPOILER ALERT: there are photos of—and tweets from—Shaquille O’Neal inside!

If you use social media to further your business or enhance your brand profile, please keep reading. If your use of social media is purely recreational, but you would like to understand how it affects the ways in which information reaches us, thereby changing our cultural landscape, please keep reading. And if you claim not to use social media at all yet you are reading this blog, well, you just told a teensy little white lie, now didn’t you? Don’t worry. I won’t report you to the FBI-U (Federal Bureau of Internet Users). That agency probably doesn’t exist. And yet, you never know…*

The regular readers among you are aware that I attended the whopping big BlogHer12 conference in New York City last month. I’m still amazed by how many critically essential connections I made there, and by how much useful knowledge I gleaned. I’ll be writing a post soon, for example, about a wonderful new phenomenon known as the midlife blogger (Hey! That’s me!). But today I want to tell you about an energetic, inspiring, and game-changing woman that I met at my very first BlogHer session, on Pathfinder Day. I was trying to find my path in this labyrinth of social media, and Amy Jo Martin is helping me do it.

I had the pleasure of meeting the awesome Amy Jo Martin after her talk.

Amy Jo is the author of Renegades Write the Rules: How the Digital Royalty Use Social Media to Innovate. And with more than 1.2 million followers on Twitter, she knows whereof she writes and tweets. (Forbes Magazine named Amy Jo to its list of “Best-Branded Women on Twitter.) Because I learned so much from that BlogHer session with Amy Jo—and I’m learning so much by reading her book—I’d like to share that knowledge with you.

This Friday, Sept. 28, I will choose, at random, a Facebook fan of the Midlife Second Wife.** The lucky winner will receive an autographed copy of Renegades Write the Rules. If you’ve previously “liked” The Midlife Second Wife on Facebook, you’re already entered. But if you haven’t, and you’d love a chance to win this fascinating book, all you have to do is go to the blog’s page on Facebook and click “like.” I’ll announce the winner here and on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, on Monday, Oct. 1, and I’ll tell you a bit more about the book. Now isn’t that a great way to start a new month?

Really, that’s all it takes. “Like” the Midlife Second Wife on Facebook, and you have a chance to win. Just think, you have a chance to become a renegade and a member of digital royalty. Because even renegades know that it’s good to be the Queen. Or King. (Both are fine. We’re nothing if not inclusive here at TMSW!)

*Guess what I just learned? To be absolutely positively certain that my made-up agency is non-existent, I Googled it and lo and behold! I discovered that the FBI actually has an organization called iC3—the Internet Crime Complaint Center. You’ve now been warned. Remember Google’s original tagline: “Don’t be Evil.” And to paraphrase Amy Jo, perform “random acts of your own Shaqness.” This footnote has been brought to you as a public service of the Midlife Second Wife. You’re welcome.

**Here’s how the drawing will work. I will print out my Facebook list of “likers” and create an entry card by painstakingly cutting each name into a separate bit of paper. I’ll then put all the bits of paper in a beautiful box, and ask the Midlife Second Husband to draw the winner. (I’ll have removed his name and mine from the pool in advance.) Although I can’t afford to have accountants from Price Waterhouse verify the results, I do hope to video the drawing with my iPhone and share it here.

Buh-bye, Cookie. I’ll be Blogging it Off With the Digest Diet

06 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by in The Healthy Life, The Writing Life, Transitions

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Do you see this? This is a cookie. A rich, chocolate-coconut-walnut-laden cookie from one of my favorite lunch restaurants in Richmond, Café Caturra. Take a good, hard look at it. I’m certainly going to. Because if good intentions have anything to say about it, this cookie and I won’t be seeing each other for a long, long time.

Sigh. It is a delicious cookie. I enjoyed every decadent crumb yesterday for my mid-afternoon snack. With coffee, of course. And then I promptly decided to join Team Digest Diet. Starting Monday, September 10, I will officially begin the Reader’s Digest’s “Blog it Off!” campaign. For 21 days, I will study this book, follow its guidelines, try its recipes, and—if there is a God—watch the pounds melt away. I’ll also blog about the process.

I’m telling you this because I’m going to need all the moral support I can muster. Eating delicious food is one of my favorite pastimes. Dieting? Not so much. But as I’ve gotten older—and especially since I had to bid farewell to my thyroid gland after it went and turned on me by developing cancer—the pounds have crept on. I know how important it is to my health to lose weight and exercise more. I’ve been bad about this, especially as I’ve gotten busier and more sedentary. (Computer, I love you but we’ve got to stop meeting like this. Is there an app that will boot me out of the house for a nice, long, invigorating walk? I didn’t think so.)

And so this diet challenge. I discovered The Digest Diet at the BlogHer conference I attended in New York City last month. Reader’s Digest, one of the conference sponsors, had a suite at the Hilton where I happened to saunter in one day because I heard they had cupcakes. (They were delicious. But they were from a different book—Reader’s Digest’s new Taste of Home Best Loved Recipes. Oh yes. I’ll be trying some recipes from that book, but after the diet challenge, as a reward for good behavior.)

In the interest of full disclosure, the kind folks at the Reader’s Digest suite gave me a copy of the diet book to try. (They probably saw me eating the cupcake.) And at my request they also sent me a copy of Best Loved Recipes, from whence the cupcake recipe came. But that’s it. There was no expectation on their part that I’d do anything with either book. This is something I want to do because, as I’ve already established, I need to lose some weight. And, as you already know, this blog is chock-a-block full of recipes, and I’m always on the lookout for more to share with you. Reader’s Digest is not paying me, either.

Now that I’ve dispensed with that business, I will tell you that because I signed up for the challenge, I will be checking in with you a couple of times a week to let you know how my experiment with the book is going. (I’ll share some of my favorite recipes from the Digest Diet, too.) And I’ll be tweeting and facebooking about it. You know, I’ve tried Weight Watchers before and enjoyed great results, largely, I suspect, because of the communal nature of the enterprise. But since I’m working from home (alone) and on the computer all day anyway (walking for exercise the exception), I view social media as just another way to supplement my efforts to lose weight. It’s kind of like keeping a food journal, but in a very public way.

Don’t get me wrong. This is a huge step for me—not just the jumping-on-the-diet wagon part but the being-so-public-about-it part. I’m a little fearful of things like letting the world know how much I weigh. Nevertheless, one of my editorial missions for this blog is to present you with good information and resources. If this diet works for me, you’ll observe it happening. If it doesn’t—for whatever reason—you’ll see that, too. You’ll learn while I learn. (And if I lose my resolve or willpower, I hope you’ll cheer me on.)

So there you have it. Starting Monday. That gives me the rest of today, Friday, and the weekend to gear myself up for the Digest Diet challenge and strengthen my resolve to leave the sweet treats and rich foods behind me for a while. After all, turnabout is fair play; they’ve certainly remained on my behind for a while.

Other than providing me with a copy of The Digest Diet, Readers’ Digest is not paying me to blog about my experience on the program. (If I lose the weight I hope to lose, that will be compensation enough.)

The One-Year Blogiversary of The Midlife Second Wife

24 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Special Events, What's the Buzz?

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Happy anniversary, TMSW! Read through this post for important news about a giveaway to celebrate our first year together!

The month of August is an important one for me as far as anniversaries go. For starters (and most importantly), John and I got married on August 14, 2010. Then, one year and ten days later, I began publishing The Midlife Second Wife. If you’re counting along with me, that means today, August 24, 2012, is the blog’s first anniversary, or “blogiversary,” to employ a technical term. (I’ve learned a lot of blogging jargon since embarking on this social media journey, and yet have miles to go before I sleep.) This past year has been a fascinating time—filled with wonder, exploration, discoveries, and new friends. Please join me as I look back at a year in the life of a blog.

Readership
It’s all well and good to talk about marketing, SEOs, awards, and metrics, but there’s no doubt in my mind what brings the greatest value to the Midlife Second Wife the blog, and holds the most meaning to the Midlife Second Wife the blogger (that would be me). In a word: readers. Or in another word, you. Every time you hit “like” on a post, or comment, or share a blog link on Facebook or Twitter; every time you bring a new reader into the fold; every time you even click open that new post waiting hopefully in your inbox, it’s kind of like the bell ringing in that great Frank Capra film, It’s a Wonderful Life—an angel blogger gets her wings. This blog would have precious little meaning if it weren’t for you, gentle reader. Thank you for your support and continued interest.

MorgueFile image
This angel blogger just earned her wings

You might like to know that as of today, there are 555 of you who subscribe to the blog—either through email or on Twitter. Put another way, that’s as though more than one-and-a-half new readers signed on each day last year. Wow. Just wow. And while we’re on the subject of readers, as of today the blog welcomed a grand total of 24,308 visitors to its portal (An ephemeral number that has changed already because you are reading this now. But at 24,308, that is  1,706 more than the entire population of Avon Lake, Ohio, as of July 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.)

And where have you all been coming from? Well, most of you live in areas throughout the United States and Canada, as you might expect. But you also hail from the United Kingdom, India, Australia, The Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Uruguay, Brazil, France, the Russian Federation, Montenegro, Sudan, Israel, and Denmark.

While we’re on the subject of numbers, I should also add (the pun is intentional) that 66 people “like” TMSW on Facebook. Would you like to help push that number up to 100? Please encourage your friends and family to like the blog on Facebook. I’m giving away a prize to the 100th liker. That’s pronounced LIKE-er, not liquor. And no, the prize isn’t a bottle of vodka. It has more permanence than that!

I should also say a word about The Midlife Second Wives’ Club. As previously announced, the first 110 subscribers to the blog automatically became charter members of this newly-minted association. About half of them have already received something in the mail from me, and I hope to get the rest of the mailings out before the end of the year. Although I don’t have a designated page for the club on the blog just yet, I do hope to get to that in the coming months. In the meantime, I invite you to think of names for other membership levels. There will be more on all of this in a future post.

Writing
I mentioned metrics earlier, and would like to digress a moment to pass along an observation. As many of you know, I began my writing life as a poet. Back in the day, metrics meant the scansion of my poetic line. Now, in the Age of Social Media, it has taken on a whole new flavor. A blogger’s success is measured not by the stressed and unstressed syllables in her sentences, but by the number of unique visitors to her site, whether they click through on ads and what-not, and, well, you get the picture. This is what measures a blogger’s worth, at least in ROI (Return on Investment) terms. But in ROW terms—Return on Writing, I proclaim my metrics stratospheric. Advertisers, do you care? Readers, I think you do and so I will explain.

This blog has allowed me to do something I’ve not really had the chance to do before: set aside time to write. Before, when I worked full-time, I wrote all day long, but for my employer, not for myself. And if any of you write for someone else for a living, you know that you’re often left too drained to create work of your own. But when you blog, you blog for yourself (and your readers). Speaking only for myself as a writer, I find there is nothing richer or more satisfying than knowing I have an opportunity to clarify my own thoughts, using words and tones and rhythms of my choosing. And, of course, there’s the immediacy and intimacy of the inbox—knowing that what I’ve written has resounded with someone else. In fact, the very first daily writing challenge that I did, sponsored by BlogHer, resulted in an essay about writing that the publishing network syndicated. And paid me for. When I checked a moment ago, that one post was read 5,636 times. This is quite astonishing to me, because I’m still adjusting to having so many readers. To quote Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “I am amazed and know not what to say.”

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing....

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing. From William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writing this blog has also resulted in at least one book-length manuscript-in-progress. I attribute this to the BlogHer writing challenge (also known as NaBloPoMo) I just mentioned.

Accolades
The manuscript that is emerging from BlogHer’s daily writing challenge is for a book about my mother, and BlogHer honored the post that started it all earlier this month with a Voice of the Year award at their national convention in New York City. As noted in an earlier post, the essay, “Have You Met My Daughter?,” will appear in an electronic anthology featuring other VOTY winners. BlogHer and Open Road Integrated Media are jointly publishing the e-book.

Last November, WordPress, my blogging platform, featured TMSW on its “Freshly Pressed” site, an event that brought more than 5,000 visitors to the blog in less than two days. Also that month, a funny thing happened that I also attribute to blogging, although indirectly. I submitted a humorous essay to a contest sponsored by Marlo Thomas on her Facebook page, and was one of five winners chosen. The prize? Two tickets to see “That Girl” in the play Relatively Speaking on Broadway. Of course the essay, and the enjoyable experiences that ensued, ended up on the blog.

Photo credit: Marlo Thomas’ Facebook Page

TMSW has also won a few awards from other bloggers: the Liebster, the Versatile Blogger Award, and one I haven’t even had time to properly showcase yet—the Illuminating Blogger Award. To the kind food blogger who bestowed that upon me, I promise to give it its due soon. I’ve just been a little busy.

And I’m pretty proud of this one, especially given my love of coffee. Zabar‘s featured me on their blog. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did not receive either a lifetime supply of coffee or rugelach. Darn it.)

Opportunities
Earlier this month, I attended the aforementioned (and phenomenal) BlogHer Conference in New York, where I learned enough about social media to know that I still have tons to learn. I also met many incredible, bright, talented, and fun women, and joined up with some of them on a Facebook page for Bloggers Over 45. (Hi everyone!)

There’s also something else—something REALLY AWESOME AND AMAZING—that I just can’t tell you about yet. But when I am in a position to do so, you’ll read about it here.

Looking Ahead
I want to continue bringing you the best writing that I can, and the most interesting posts and articles. I hope to beef up the different sections of the blog, and I really long to enhance the look of it. I want to shelve all my books in the “Open Book” library, and experiment with new recipes for you to try. If you have a story idea, please let me know about it. There’s a contact link at the top of the page, or you can leave a comment at the end of this post. Either way, please stay in touch!

Thank you for indulging me in these few moments of revery. It’s a satisfying exercise to look back and take stock. I hope this first year of The Midlife Second Wife has been as enjoyable for you to read as it has been for me to write. Thanks again for being here.

And don’t forget! The 100th person to “like” The Midlife Second Wife on Facebook will receive a prize. If you know someone who should be reading this blog, who will love this blog, or who needs this blog, let them know and encourage them to like it on Facebook. And if you haven’t done so already, please take a moment and do it yourself, right now. It only takes a click, and you might be the 100th clicker. (If bells and whistles begin to blow, please let me know. I’ll try to find out how the Internet does that.)

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Cheers, dear friends!

BlogHer ’12: What I Saw at the Revolution

06 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by in Special Events, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

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The BlogHer logo on the floor of the Hilton in New York City, site of the BlogHer conference.

—UPDATED Aug. 15, 2012 to include links to video coverage of President Obama’s address and interviews with Martha Stewart and Katie Couric.

After six hours spent rumbling along the Amtrak rails and three days of total, intense, and heightened immersion in all things related to blogging and social media (Emphasis on social. Emphasis on media.), I’m back home in Richmond, Virginia. I’ve just attended my first BlogHer conference, and I’d like to share with you glimpses from what can only be called a revolution.

Since this was my first conference, I have no precedents with which to compare. But an informal poll, taken over brunch with a fellow blogger and friend (Hi Nancy at Dating Dementia!) suggests that this conference in New York City, held August 2-4, 2012, was unlike any of its antecedents.

Using their credit cards, three journalists and media experts—Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page, and Jory Des Jardins—launched BlogHer in 2005. These women—bright, motivated, and prescient—were early adopters of social media. They recognized that blogging was not a momentary dot-com fad, but something profound and paradigm-changing. And they wondered where all the women bloggers were.

Boy, did they find them. (And a few men, too. BlogHer is nothing if not inclusive.) More than 5,000 bloggers attended BlogHer ’12.

At the closing keynote address of this eighth and most successful conference, Stone and Camahort Page reported that over the last three years, BlogHer paid out $17 million to writers. This is just one benchmark achievement—there are others—indicating that BlogHer is fulfilling its mission: to create opportunities for women in social media to pursue exposure, education, community, and economic empowerment.

A wonderful essay by Darryle Pollack in the Huffington Post explains how BlogHer got to be such a player. Here’s one of her insights:

In a world where the Kardashians are the gold standard of success, for me, BlogHer represents a kernel of reality, a source of inspiration and an island of sanity where people are appreciated not for what they look like or what they have, but for who they are. Sometimes that feels like a rare thing.

As Darryle notes in her essay, Martha Stewart and Katie Couric understand this, too. Both media icons attended our conference, engaging in lively and informative keynote conversations; Camahort Page interviewed Martha Stewart, and Stone spoke with Katie Couric.

You can experience some of the revolution yourself by visiting BlogHer’s Virtual Conference site. Here’s a glimpse from my perspective:

  • A live video address by President Barack Obama, acknowledging the importance of all women in our society. (BlogHer extended an invitation to Governor Mitt Romney, but he declined, although a member of his campaign staff participated in one of the sessions, as did an Obama staffer.)
  • The aforementioned keynote conversations featuring Martha Stewart and Katie Couric.(If you click on their names you’ll see videos of their interviews.)
  • An extraordinary display of talent as 15 bloggers read their winning posts at the Voice of the Year Keynote awards. There was hilarity from the humor category, heartbreak from the heart category, and keen insights from the op-ed, parenting, and identity categories. (Full disclosure: BlogHer honored 110 bloggers as winners of the VOTY awards. I’m proud to be one of them.)
  • Women from across the globe, making their voices heard in their own countries, were drawn to attend BlogHer. I met Ludmilla Rossi of Brazil, creative director of MKT Virtual Interactive Marketing. She came to discover ideas and find ways to encourage and inspire older women from her country, underrepresented in the blogging community, to share their voices.
  • Information. Information. Information.
  • New skills and tools.
  • New friends and contacts.
  • The BlogHer hashtag, #blogher12, trending on Twitter.

  • And finally, most importantly, inspiration and a tremendous sense of pride. It’s an honor to be associated with such a dynamic, influential, and game-changing organization.

To everyone who worked so tirelessly to make this conference happen—and to Lisa, Elisa, and Jory—thank you for the revolution.

You Have to Write to Win

03 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in The Writing Life

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Ummmm….do you remember the other day, when I posted a blog about posting? You know, the one about the National Blog Posting Month [NaBloPoMo] challenge to write and post a blog each day this month? I said something along these lines:

What motivates a person to write? More specifically, what motivates a pressed-for-time blogger to take on such a commitment during the portal month to the holiday season? I’m rather embarrassed to admit it, but in this case there are prizes involved. Now I’m not saying that I can be had for the price of a free book, but there exists a part of me that thrills to the idea of someone calling my name and handing me something. Lottery winnings, for example. And since we all know that’s never going to happen (well … maybe if I started buying them …), this is as close as I’m likely to get to that rush of adrenalin.

Now, I’m not altogether comfortable quoting myself, but in this case there’s no easy way around it. It’s not that I’ve had to eat my words, exactly. No, it seems that the fine folks at BlogHer liked what they read, because they’ve decided to syndicate the post on their site.

Here’s how it was explained to me in an e-mail yesterday:

It means we want to feature it, moving it from the general well of NaBloPoMo posts onto the front page of NaBloPoMo and give it a little extra social media love.

“Extra social media love?” Yes, please! And thank you!

What, exactly, is BlogHer? It’s a community. It’s also a media company. BlogHer was created in 2005 in partnership with women in social media, and, according to the BlogHer website, it is also the largest community of women who blog, with 27 million unique visitors per month. BlogHer hosts conferences—including the world’s largest conference for women in social media—and the BlogHer Publishing Network.

The icon beneath my headline will direct you to the post as it appears on the BlogHer site, under the title “Why We Write Even When We Have No Time.” BlogHer has featured the essay on its home page as well as the site page for NaBloPoMo. The encomium will be followed by a modest check, presented in the spirit that writers should be paid for their work.

Although I’ve been writing for nearly 30 years (51 if you count the time I learned how to write my name), I’ve only been blogging for less than three months. For that reason, being chosen for syndication by BlogHer comes as a surprise, albeit a wonderful one, and I am deeply and truly honored by their validation of my work.

Now you’ll have to excuse me. I’m going out to buy a lottery ticket, because, as I’ve learned, you can’t win if you don’t play. And especially if you don’t write. Although, as Shakespeare reminds us, “the play’s the thing.”

And, I might add, so is the writing.

To the editors at BlogHer, my sincere and joyous thanks!

For more information about BlogHer, please click here.