Monthly Archives: May 2009

I’d planned a post about E911 and the need to keep your land line. But today’s headlines have me changing course.

BusinessWeek wrote a short article about the “influence” that’s both paid, and unpaid in the blogging world. Naturally, they focused on the Mommy Blogging World, and naturally they focused on Jessica Smith. There is an 86 page PDF on the site that serves as proposed guidelines to bloggers. I recommend reading the PDF and then taking the the article as commentary.

Jessica Smith puts herself out there. She was one of the original Wal Mart Eleven Moms (I forgive her for that), she’s accepted a Ford for a year after writing a very complimentary review of their car, and she has been paid by just about every company a Mommy Blogger would hope to woo. I want to tell you two things about Jessica.

Jessica Smith isn’t a Mommy Blogger. I’ve scoured Jessica’s site and I can’t find anywhere that she calls herself a Mommy Blogger. Jessica refers to herself as a PR person and a marketer, and I totally respect her as such. Jessica has a blog. But a Mommy Blogger? No, is she a friend of the Mommy Bloggers? Yes. Jessica Smith might be the best friend a Mommy Blogger has. She’s a Mom and she’s a marketer with a blog that appears to be well compensated.

Secondly, within this space I’d consider Jessica Smith a friend. We’ve certainly had our go-rounds, but from my perspective she is completely up front and just working hard to support her own lifestyle. Jessica often recruits Mom Bloggers for paid work. I respect that. She’s introduced me to some pretty terrific women, and her reputation is stellar. She’s an honest woman. I give you honesty and demand it from the people in my life. Honest is good.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is looking to make some changes. According to these documents the the FTC will be attempting to hold bloggers to some of the journalistic standards that real journalists are held to. If the FTC has it’s way there will be no more eczema cures from hand creams or reviews of car seats that magically appear at people’s homes. I welcome this change.

I’m pitched every day. I have a filter set up for press releases, and for the most part I file them away, never to be seen again. I have a few publicists I’m happy to hear from. There’s one lady out of New York that always has a great small business to introduce me to. I desperately want to point y’all to small businesses and organic practices. I typically keep reviews or mentions of specific products off this blog, I write at a number of other places, and I like to keep my reviews there, where I’m paid, so I don’t have to worry about the messiness of accepting free crap, I can simply write.

Would I accept a laptop from Microsoft (as others have)? Maybe, if I needed one. Let’s be clear though, the price of free is high. Is my blog now a Microsoft Sponsored blog? Do you care what I have to say about a product if it’s been given to me? What if my policy is to only write nice reviews? How would I be taxed on that “free” laptop?

My promise to you is to be honest when I talk about a product. If it is given to me, I will tell you. Things do not just appear in my home. It is not acceptable (in my mind) for a blogger to say, “Occasionally I enjoy featuring something that I really like (sometimes it’s given to me, sometimes I buy it myself).”

I’m not the one making the rules. I love the blogosphere, I love that we’re writing the rules as we go along. Publicists will need to be more careful, perhaps asking bloggers for free reviews and then giving them eight pages of “product detail” will cease to be the norm. I doubt it.  As one of my favorite publicists once said, “there are legions of 23 year olds in fake Louboutins screwing this up for everyone.”

I’m sad for Jessica that she’s once again being held up as the standard of a blogger on the take. I could easily direct you to a dozen “mommy blogs” that call themselves Mommy Bloggers and haven’t a lick of original (or literate) content. I’m not really into giving them traffic though.

The advertising firms and the PR firms will need to choose their bloggers wisely. Thus far, the selections have been mind-boggling. I’d rather have no mention of me than a mention from ____.  I’ll give you a hint, the lists suck. I’m just going to grab a handful of popcorn, sit back, and watch the show.

This morning my children, once again, took my breath away.

It was unremarkable except that my son allowed me to apply his sunscreen. As I smeared the white goo across the bridge of his nose, I could not help but look at his long brown eyelashes and the curve of his lids. It struck me how hard we’d worked to give him sight, and the horrible months of swollen lids from surgery. I feel ownership of my children’s faces as they are smaller versions of my husbands and of mine. Every turn, every curve, every freckle is because I married the kindest, most handsome man I’ve ever met.

I wanted to stop the world and hug him for a moment. I wanted to beg him to try and understand just for one moment that I love him more wholly and completely than I’ll ever love anyone. I’ll love him and his sister with a force that they will never understand. Not until they become parents.

Instead I continued to apply sunscreen, and lamented the fact that my ten year old daughter no longer needs help with the bridge of her nose.

I’m so often alone in my bursts of Mother Love.

The Friday Confessions are getting  more difficult for me.

The sad reality is that almost every misstep of mine has been well chronicled. I would be a miserable criminal, because were I to successfully rob a bank, I’d feel compelled to show you how.

Which brings me to my confession.

In my Junior year of college there was an impromptu road trip to Vegas. From Colorado.
Sadly, we’d decided to drive to Vegas the weekend before final exams. (Yes, I know…) Since my major was in the sciences I was mostly free and clear because our labs were project based. There was this one tough final, Abstract Mathematics.

As I was driving north on I-25 through Trinindad, CO we saw sirens. The officer pulled us over and gave me a ticket at an estimated 125 miles an hour. I was ridiculously polite and grateful that he opted against impounding the car, but I did ask him please to hurry so I could get to the Math Final on time.

Maybe not so smart?

When the summons arrived in the mail, I realized that they were going to try and suspend my drivers license. I could have called my father, who was still doing some criminal defense work at the time. But then he might get a little mad at me for playing blackjack instead of studying. Actually, maybe he’d be furious.

So I did what any lawyer’s kid would do. I called his only friend in the region and hired him. Why? Two reasons; I knew he’d defend me well and if I was his client then he couldn’t tell my Dad that I was busy being an ass and driving all around the country just to count a few cards in downtown Vegas.

The good news was that I’d won quite a bit that year, and I was able to pay my attorney. I kept my licence and my good driving record. I think there was divine intervention, because all these years later, it still makes no sense.

The bad news? My lawyer thought it was funny that I’d sassed the cop and gotten away with it. He told my Dad and then was all, “oh she didn’t tell you?”

Ugh, like I was gonna sue him for malpractice?

Sheesh.

Yesterday I was horrible. Not like calling out large corporations horrible, but really and truly awful. I broke my own social media rule.

I picked on a person.

It’s a long story, and the details of it don’t much matter, but I’m a rules person. I know you won’t really believe it when I tell you. I love rules and boundaries. I like to know what the norms are and where the bell curve peaks. I am completely capable of operating within the rules, and when I’m breaking one, it’s typically with some forethought.

I’m prickly, I wouldn’t call myself edgy, but perhaps I am honest to a fault. I’ve said that Penelope Trunk is a lunatic and ought to be shunned because she had an outburst wherein she published a man’s name and city. He had accused her of being a bad mother. Yesterday I behaved like Penelope Trunk, poorly. Yesterday, I came to understand why Penelope Trunk acted as she did. She was feeling protective of her kids. The fury that can surround us defies description and rational behavior.

I was called a bad mother by another woman, and rather than moving towards adulthood and ignoring her, I took the bait and called her every name in the book from c to f. I am not proud of it, in fact I’m deeply ashamed. In the spirit of authentic conversation I will not delete the twitter stream. (I also feel free to do so since twitter is all but unsearchable with their updates).

When I read another woman name calling my kids, I sat in front of my computer screen thinking of ways to kill her business. It’s easy enough to do, there’s the stumbleupon thumbs, down, shill bidding on eBay, spamming multiple sites from a blocked isp while using their URL…. really there are loads more, and I won’t give them all to you. Trust me, although I’ve been blogging a matter of months, I’ve made my living online for more than ten years. Nothing is sacred. Make no mistake, one enemy can dismantle you here.

After a few minutes of simmering rage, and fantasy smear campaigns that I’d never actually carry out, something remarkable happened.

Twitter went down for maintenance.

So I sat here with no chatter for a few moments and realized that I’d become the woman I never wanted to be. I quickly reached out to the other woman with an email, and an apology.

Guess what? She apologized too, and then we “spoke” a little via email. We have operated similar businesses and know some of the same people. I like her. And I feel bad, because as I was sitting here stewing, she probably was too. I used social media to make someone else feel awful.

That is not okay.

After reading Brian Solis’ latest article which references the social contract, I realized that I was more upset with breaking mine, than anything else. I was upset because I failed. I used this sizable platform (Twitter/Friendfeed) to hurt rather than help. It’s not okay, not even for a few moments.

I broke our contract, our heretofore unwritten contract.

At this moment I will put it in writing some of my goals with New Media:

• Creating community and dialogue
• Reminding women, mothers in particular, to trust themselves
• Showing you the businesses that will destroy my children’s futures and holding their feet to the fire
• Entertaining you
• Directing your attention to news stories worth reading
• Sharing our common experiences
• Infusing our days with laughter
• Calling attention to the leaders in our communities who are doing things right

My list will change, because every day I learn something new. What is on your list?

Every day my mother takes a picture with her iPhone camera and emails it to me. I post the pictures here, they are never edited, but they are reduced to 70% of the original size.
See all her pictures by clicking here.
Follow My Mom on Twitter @iPhoneGran

I’ve been a little lax in my Technical Tuesday posts. Here’s the thing, what seems uninteresting and rote to me, just might be interesting to you. Understand that I am the woman who wants nothing more than to get into the Wolfram Alpha because I’m fascinated by Rene Descartes and his ability to “discover” the Cartesian Square.

Yes, I am that nerdy.

To my credit, I also can recognize the value of a sexy pair of heels, iron a shirt like nobody’s business and feed a family of four an organic yummy meal for $5 or less. Yes, I’m a Mommy Blogger, I cast a wide net.

I use Firefox to surf the net, I know people like Safari and IE, but I don’t. I have both installed and I check my sites from time to time using a Mac and the other browsers. I rely on Firefox, and though I know this slows the process, I rely on add ons. My connection speed may be compromised by microseconds, but I don’t have to search for programs and utilities. Long term, the adds ons save me time.

From Left to Right, top to bottom I’ll list and link to what I use.

I am forever adding applications, feeds and addons. What is pictured today, has delighted me today. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but I heartily recommend everything pictured. Especially NAG.

Firefox by Mozilla: It’s the best way to surf the web.

Reddit: It’s really great if you are into politics, especially libertarian stuff.

Fireshot: The perfect addon. You can capture the screen and edit it all in their cloud. I’ve used it here.

gMail: Google’s cloud based email. It’s highly searchable, easy to create filters, and yes, I realize that I have 923 unread email messages. *le yawn*

Facebook: If you don’t add content to facebook it’s like picking up the telephone without speaking.

My own RSS feed: I want to see what you see.

Delicious: I don’t use this as much as I should, but Delicious is a great way to keep interesting content well organized.

POPrl: Do you want to know what works and why? Then get this and use it. Trust me. Here’s a link to the feed for my posts.

Compete: Yes, I want to know about your traffic, and I do know. When y’all are talking about how smart/stupid/relevant/irrelevant I am, I do check compete and respond accordingly. I’m more polite in big crowds.

StumbleUpon: I love StumbleUpon and you’ll see part one and part two of how to use it here.

What am I missing? What is your essential addon? Remember the addons do slow things down, so make sure that they’re worth it. These are the addons that I reach for several times every hour.