Category: Meta-blogging

Get yer blog on – moving to your own domain

A couple of people have asked me about moving to a self-hosted domain, and recently Maggie (hi Maggie!) asked me about customizing a blog.

This is more a recap of what I did, rather than a tutorial. I only wish I’d done this years ago! I was so intimidated by the process, though, that I was too scared to try it out. Maybe by sharing this, I can show you how easy (no really!) it can be.

Anyway, this will be long, so I’ve tucked most of it below the fold…
Continue reading “Get yer blog on – moving to your own domain”

Marketing to Mommy Bloggers

I need to pick your collective brains again.

I’ve been asked to speak next month at a monthly gathering of local communications and marketing folks who have a professional interest in the tools of social media from a business and government perspective. They’ve had some amazing speakers this year, from Paul Wells to Stephen Taylor to Mitch Joel (tonight!). How I fit in with speakers of this caliber is both perplexing and daunting, but the organizers have said they’re interested in the “marketing to mommy bloggers” angle, and I do certainly know a thing or two about that… both professionally and, erm, bloggily.

I think what intrigued the organizers is something I’ve noticed recently: when I wear my “social media professional” hat and go to these conferences and events, I’m still inclined to be almost apologetic for my mommy blogger roots… largely because the folks that attend these things tend to be dismissive of mommy bloggers as a whole. But when I start talking to them in terms that matter to them (Google Page Rank, Technorati status, number of visits, etc) they’re often surprised… and I’m certainly not even among the rock stars of the mommy blog scene. Don’t diss the mommy bloggers!

I’m not so much interested in the whole advertising / no-advertising debate here. I think it’s been done to death for one thing, and I think the PR and marketing pitches are a slightly different creature.

I have some pretty strong opinions of my own, and some experiences to share, but I’d like to hear from you, whether as a blogger who gets solicitations, a blogger who covets solicitations, or a reader of blogs that might occasionally feature a post resulting from a marketing pitch. Do you get any solicitations from marketers, offers of free stuff or special perks? Have you been approached by that very insistent woman who asks for your home address and phone number so she can send you some soup? (I’m not kidding.) Have there been pitches that made you cringe, made you roll your eyes, made you jump up and down with excitement (like, say, a free weekend in Smuggler’s Notch!)? What kind of offer would entice you, what kind of offer pisses you off? Do you have any ethical standards that would prevent you from accepting any sort of offer, or only certain types?

For me, it’s actually to the point now that I have the luxury of turning down many more offers than I accept. I’ve recently said no thanks to a free cell phone for my kids, some shoes for me, a teleconference with Nicholas Sparks, additional Nintendo games for the DS, a winter blanket for strollers and slings … not because I didn’t want them, but because I’m a little bit worried about (a) seeming greedy and snapping up every offer that comes by and (b) sacrificing some sort of editorial integrity that I don’t even know I have in the first place. Is there a tipping point where a blog moves into the realm of advertorial, and does that matter?

As you know, I also make an effort to include disclosure information whenever I’m writing a blog post that results from a direct solicitation… how important is that to you as a reader? Do you care? Does it make a blogger’s opinion any more or less relevant if they are up front about how a product came into their possession?

If you had the ear of the marketing machine, what would you say? Would you want them to back off from the mommy blog crowd, or could you offer them a few tips on how to REALLY get your attention? What would entice you more: an invitation to an exclusive event, a chance to meet a celebrity via teleconference, the inside track on information or gossip, free stuff? (I’ve been offered all of these at one time or another.) Maybe something else would float your boat?

What do you think of the proliferation of “review blogs” hosted by bloggers on the side because their ad contracts (I’m guessing BlogHer Ads, but I’m not sure) prohibit them from accepting other endorsements? (If you can shed some light on this, either in the comments or via e-mail, I’d be very grateful!) If your favourite blogger has a review blog on the side, do you read that, too? Or does the commerciality of it turn you off?

Have you seen any really offensive pitches to mothers on the blogosphere? (I’m thinking here particularly of the *choke* Canada’s Yummiest Mummy contest, but there are many, many more.) Or maybe you think this is a fabulous idea? Please tell me why!

What’s good, what’s bad, what’s ugly in the way marketers are approaching the momosphere*? I know, I asked about a million questions, but I’m fascinated by this topic and I’d love to hear your thoughts, either here or at danicanada (at) gmail (dot) com.

(* Of course, I’m interested in what the dads have to say, too. “Mommy blogger” is just an easy shorthand for the parenting blogs in general. And, speaking of which, why don’t they have a Canada’s Yummiest Daddy contest, anyway? I could think of a few worthy candidates.)

Bloggy navel-gazing

I started out writing this post thinking about a meme I saw over on Mad Hatter’s blog a while back. I thought it was a neat question, and I loved Mad’s answer. Mine isn’t so impressive as Mad’s, but I still thought it would make good blog fodder.

1. Go back to your first or early post. How would you describe your voice back in those early days? Who were you writing to? What was your sense of audience (if any) back then?

AND

2. Do you remember when you received your first comment? What was it like?

I started blogging in February of 2005, just after the end of my maternity leave with Simon. The boys were one and three (!) and I started on a whim. You want to know what really inspired me to blog? I was bored, and playing around with Google. (How bored do you have to be to be poking around on the Google page? REALLY bored!) Google had recently acquired Blogger, and on the Google main page there was a link to some other Google toys. I clicked through to the Blogger one and thought, “Oh yeah, blogs. Hmmm, I should have a blog.”

The first blog I’d read, before I even knew what blogs were, was the now-defunct Chez Miscarriage. Getupgrrl was a regular poster on the IVF Connections bulletin board, my online addiction of choice before blogging, and I loved her cynical and hilarious take on infertility. At the time I started blogging myself, I was sporadically reading Chez Miscarriage (though her graphic logo made me cringe every time it appeared on my computer at work), Mommy Needs Coffee, Dooce, and maybe two or three others.

So, back to the meme. I’ve been told that I have a very distinct bloggy “voice”, though I’m still not entirely sure what that means or how it comes across. When I read my first month of posts, I seem to be quite a bit more hyper than I am now – I guess I’m getting older! – and I was rather transparently trying very hard to be funny and clever. I think I’m a little less self-conscious now, and a whole lot more verbose. Can you believe sometimes I posted just a single paragraph? Oh for the good old days!

I was writing primarily for myself (I’ve always loved the sound of my own voice, Leo that I am) but even in that first month I can see the burgeoning awareness of my audience of close friends. I think I pulled a lot more content from the media back then, too. I really should get back to blogging more about the shiny bits that fascinate me from the mass media, from astronomy to Monty Python. Not everything has to be a treatise with a well-considered defense.

Now, I say that I was writing primarily for myself, but as early as the first week, I was raving about comments. I was beside myself with excitement to get three comments on a single post – which I promptly and accidentally erased when I installed Haloscan for the first time.

What I really like about those first three comments, though, is that two of them are from bloggers I adore to this day. Ann and I have become fast friends over the years, and she has nurtured my spirit as a mother and as a fledgling writer. And though we’ve never met in person, I’ve often wished Dean Dad lived in my neighbourhood so we could sit on the porch with our respective spouses and a bottle of wine or a couple of beers and watch our children gambol in the yard while we discuss matters of deep philosophical impact – like, say, whether SpongeBob has contributed more or less to kid culture than Sesame Street.

What I could have never imagined in those tentative early days was where blogging would lead me. Beyond the connection, the sharing, the growth of community and of myself that I attribute directly to this crazy little blog, there’s more. In just a couple of weeks, I’ll be switching to a new position at work, where I’ll spend the best part of a year dedicated solely to developing and implementing policies and projects relating to social media. I’ll be looking at the tools of social media – including blogs, wikis, podcasts and the like – as communication tools for the Government of Canada. It’s very exciting, and I couldn’t be more surprised or proud to pull together what I do for a living with something that inspires me – and confounds me! – so completely.

A Just Post Award

Just a quick post to say a very belated thanks to Mad Hatter and Jen at One Plus Two were kind enough to award me one of February’s Just Post Awards for my Code Blue for Daycare rant.

I’m absurdly pleased by this. And be warned, I’m also encouraged. Just this morning, I choked on reading in the Citizen that Stephen Harper was quoted as telling party supporters this weekend, “We must always think first of the unspoken interests of millions of working families.”

It’s a lovely platitude, but Harper’s policies have been anything but working-family friendly. First, the universal child care benefit, which is neither universal nor child care. Now, rustlings in the wind that they are considering income splitting for families. I could go on, but I don’t want to sully this proud moment with another rant.

Instead, just a simple thank you to Mad Hatter and Jen and all the people who participate in the Just Post movement every month. Get on over to their blogs and take a look at some of the excellent posts from this month alone. It will do you good.

A Thinking Blogger – that’s me!

I’ve been had an honour bestowed upon me which is also a tag, a meme that is an award. Because you know this motherhood thing? It’s all about the multitasking. The clever, witty and insightful Mad Hatter has kindly tagged me with the Thinking Blogger’s Award.


Nice, eh? She nominated me on the basis of my little rant on child care, but she said that it was your comments, from all points on the political spectrum, which increased the “think factor.” I’ve long known this little blog of mine wouldn’t be half the fun it is if it weren’t for you guys, so we can share this little award.

And speaking of sharing, it’s all about the sharing. Now I’m supposed to come up with five other Thinking Bloggers worthy of nomination. Except at least three of my favourites have already been tagged. Am I allowed to repeat? No? Okay, but I’m a little behind on my blog reading and this is spreading like the flu through preschool, so I hope I’m quick enough.

First off, I’d like to tag Phantom Scribbler. I heart Phantom. She has a way of using her own life as a lens to examine some weighty issues, and while she’s opinionated as hell, she’s never didactic. I like that in a smart blogger. But I’m nominating her for this particular honour because of a recent post written in response to a recent article in New York Magazine called the “Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids.” I thought the idea of over-praising your kids was totally bogus until I read her post and the subsequent comments from the Pixies. One of many, many posts that I’ve found myself contemplating long after my browser window was closed.

Next, I’d like to tag Kerry at Popwatch Canada for her post on religion a week or so back. She also posts great Grey’s Anatomy recaps, and has an obsession with Justin Timberlake that continues to perplex me, but threaded through the shiny bits about pop culture, Kerry blogs some pretty interesting ideas and opinions. And I’m not just saying that because she writes my performance reviews, or because my boys are both in love with her and she may yet end up to be my daughter-in-law some day.

My next nomination goes not to a particular post, but to the blog The Smartmouth Mombie in general. For starters, I love any blog with a permanent preamble that says something like “This is what a feminist writes like.” Like the other blogs I’ve tagged so far, Chris strikes a lovely balance between weighty thought pieces and ‘minutiae of mothering’ pieces.

Sadly, my next nominee has gone on temporary hiatus. Angry Pregnant Lawyer is freshly back at work after maternity and painfully sleep deprived. I already miss her quick wit and cutting sarcasm, and I have learned a lot about American culture and politics from her. And yes, that’s a compliment!

And finally, my last tag goes to JF Scientist at A Natural Scientist. I’ve only just started reading this blog, but Jenny writes, according to her tag line, about “science, education, feminism and religion.” I love love love her “ask a scientist” series, and the incredibly wide scope of her posts. I never know what I’ll find when I drop by, but I am assured I’ll learn something – often something I didn’t know I needed to know, but sure enough, turns out I did.

Wow, this was way harder than I thought. I tried to wander away from my usual favourites with this process. Thanks again to Mad Hatter for nominating me, and if reading my nominees makes you crave even more thinking bloggers, there’s five more back at Mad Hatter’s place, and five more at Bub and Pie’s place, too. I’m not going to get any work done at this rate!

Another mothership??

Just a little post today, because I am being steamrolled by the beginnings of what I think will be a nasty chest cold, augmented by a headache that makes my whole body hurt.

I wanted to ask your opinion of something, though. Lurker Julianne (*waves*) sent me a note saying that she noticed a blog launched last month with the rather familiar title of Postcards From The Mothership.

Hmmmm.

It’s on a blogspot address, and has an unrelated URL. To be honest, I’m not terribly threatened, but I have to admit feeling a little territorial. I don’t imagine there is anything I could, or even want, to do about it. I suppose since I came up with the title, it’s conceivable that someone else could come up with it as well, but I can’t help but feel like someone filched my idea. (It’s certainly not as bad as bitacle.org or any of those splogs, at least.)

What do you think? Would it irritate you to find another blog with your title, or am I just cranky because I’m not feeling well? And how much can anyone ‘own’ anything on the blogosphere? You can own your domain, and slap a creative commons license on your content, but does that cover something like a blog title? Interesting questions….

730 days, 762 posts, too many words to count

Today marks two years since I started this blog. Two years = 730 days, and in those 730 days, I’ve put up 762 posts. This is what a year of blog posts looks like when you kill a small forest of trees in fear of losing your precious words to the interwebs, stored somewhere far from you with no backup:

I saw over at Elizabeth’s place in early January that she had put up a post with her favourite posts of the preceding year, and I liked that idea. So, if you’ll pardon the inherent narcissism, here are a selection of my favourite posts from the last year:

Coincidence (February – on registering Tristan for kindergarten)

Picture this (February – on getting our family portraits done)

Transitions (March – on the boys growing up)

The day my pants betrayed me (March – anecdote)

Bad words (May – on what makes a ‘bad’ word)

The one with the conspiracy theory (June – on sleep deprivation)

The one with too much information (June – on frostie and buying an OPK)

Sketches of Quebec City (July – a six-part series on our trip to Quebec City)

Saying goodbye to frostie (August – the end of our frozen embryo cycle)

Notes from a therapy session (August – on Tristan)

The memo (September – early pregnancy results)

Getting ready for school – a monologue (September)

I’m outraged (October – a rant on grammar rules)

The one with the coconut (October – anecdote)

Random attempts to cope (November – after the miscarriage)

An open letter to Proctor and Gamble (December – consumer rant)

CBS announces Rockstar: Wiggles! (December – a bit of fun)

How do you know? (December – on families)

Don’t ask me what criteria I used to category a post as a ‘favourite’; I have no idea. Some of them I liked because I think they’re well written, some of them are funny (to me, at least), some of them mark significant moments in the past year, and some of them just resonate with me.

It’s been a truly amazing year, and I’ve had the chance to do things and meet people I never would have imagined because of this blog. Thank you for making it possible, and thank you for coming along for the ride.

New blog toy: MyBlogLog

I’ve signed up for MyBlogLog. If you haven’t been there, it’s part stats and referrals, part blog widgets, and part online community. I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time over there lately. (As if I weren’t already piddling away enough of my time playing with the sitemeter, let alone bloglines, not to mention the blogosphere as a whole.)

So far, I’m intrigued. I like the stats page, with information about where people have come from, what they read and what they click on while they’re here. I even installed a little widget that keeps track of the most popular out-clicks every day and gives a little pop-up window when you hover over a link, showing how many people have clicked that link today. (Try hovering over the comment link from yesterday and you’ll see what I mean. The top 5 outclicks box is waaaaaay down on the sidebar, near the bottom.)

But there are a couple of things I am less sure about. Another widget you can get shows an avatar (photo you upload) and the name of the most recent visitors to your blog. So, if you’ve signed up for MyBlog Log, and the blog you are reading is also registered, even if you are only quietly lurking, your avatar and name appears in the “recent visitors to this blog” widget.

That, for reasons I don’t entirely understand, freaks me out a bit.

I have always liked the anonymity of blog surfing. You can peek in, take a look around, and leave without saying a peep. Yes, your IP address leaves an electronic signature for those who are tech savvy or simply persistent enough to know how to trace it, but it’s a long way from an obscure character set representing my internet service provider to my name and photo right there under the ‘recent visitors’ column.

(I still haven’t figured out whether you can turn off the recognition thing, or whether you have to be logged in for it to work, or whether it follows multiple IP addresses. One of the reasons I actually signed up for MyBlogLog is because they are sadly lacking in useful FAQs and so I signed up out of curiosity to see if I could figure it out as I went along.)

And then there’s the whole community aspect. I’m wondering if I’ll be any better at this one than I am with any of the other social media sites. I’ve got my Flickr account, and a Linked-In account, and I’m still terrible about the ‘friends and contacts’ part of it. (This would probably be why I’ll never have a MySpace or Facebook account!) If I know you and you ask me to make you a contact, I’ll happily do so, but I never actively seek out contacts.

I’m shy about approaching people. MyBlogLog makes it as easy as a single click to join a blog’s ‘community’(you don’t need to have the community owner’s approval), and when you do your avatar and name are shown on that blog’s community page (here’s mine). I wasn’t too sure about that whole aspect – I was more than content to grab the outgoing-click widget and play in happy solitude on my stats page when one blogger I’ve never encountered before joined my community, and my courage to be social was bolstered. I even ventured out and joined a few communities of my own, mostly because I’ve had personal contact with the blogger. But my barely-repressed inner 14 year old worries that maybe these fairly popular bloggers don’t want awkward me attaching themselves to their blog. (Terrible the scars that high school leaves on you, isn’t it?)

What do you think? I’ve temporarily installed the ‘recent visitors’ widget so you could see what I’m talking about, but I don’t think I like it. Do you also find it vaguely unsettling to be ‘outed’ every time you drop by for a visit? And of course, if you have an account or you sign up for one, let me know while I’m still in a social phase and I’d be happy to join your community!

Worlds collide

I have a confession to make. I wanted to tell you before somebody else did, or before you figured it out for yourself. I knew I couldn’t keep it a secret much longer.

You see, I’ve been cheating on you. I have another blog.

*waits for gasp of dismay and betrayal*

Don’t worry, you’ll always be my first bloggy love. But I needed somewhere to put my ongoing research into the field of government communications and social media, and no amount of non-sequiturs and failed segue attempts could bridge that in with Tristan’s potty adventures and #26.

I wanted to tell you about it because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to lead this double bloggy life. I went to this absolutely fabulous meet-up yesterday of people who are interested in public relations and social media, and I was having a massive identity crisis the whole night. I earned my blogging “street cred” here, but my professional blog stuff is over on the other blog. Every time I joined in the conversation, I vacillated between veteran mommy-blogger and newbie communications blogger. As if I don’t have a hard enough time keeping track of just one identity!

And then there was the sharing of information. I have government of Canada business cards with the standard contact info on them, but no URL; and I have my funky little Moo cards with pictures of the boys from my Flickr account and this URL. (Love love LOVE my Moo cards!!) Which is more likely to give me professional credibility: a biz card with a URL scrawled across the white space in the middle, or a picture of Simon colouring Easter eggs or both boys in the bathtub with my blog title and URL on the back? Of course, I went with the Moo cards, because in the end it’s all about my boys, isn’t it?

So I figured I’d let you in on my secret bloggy life now, because it’s getting increasingly difficult to keep the two blogs separate. I have no intention of linking back here from there, as the goal of the blog is more to be used as an internal collaboration tool, but if you’re interested in the intersection of government communication and social media, feel free to stop by for a visit.

But, um, please keep in mind that many big bosses above me, who are responsible for important things like my paycheque and my computer access, will be following the comments on that blog. As opposed to here, where they probably also read but with a lot less scrutiny and a lack of proprietary interest. I’m just sayin’.

So, without further ado (and you know how I love the ado), I present for your link-surfing pleasure, the Canadian Cybrarian.

International delurking week

Hey you! Yes, you! The one who sashays over here, checks out what’s new, and leaves without a peep. I’m talking to YOU!

I see you visiting, you know. I wonder who you are, and why you visit, and whether you like what you are reading. I wonder why you come often, but never say hello.

Well, this week is International Delurking Week, and you are morally obligated to leave a comment. It doesn’t have to be a pithy comment, or a witty comment, or a verbose comment. Just say hello, for goodness sake. I don’t ask much (okay, so that’s a lie, I shamelessly ask for stuff all the time), but today I’m asking, nay impelling you, to give up a little comment in return.


(Props to Paper Napkin for the idea, and the funky graphic. Go say hello to Sheryl and pick up a graphic of your own!)

Now go forth and comment on all your favourite blogs. Share the bloggy love!