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Redesign Update: Not yet folks

I spent a good hunk of the weekend working with H-band on my header concept. He's a Creative Suite impresario, but he ain't no creative director. "Just tell me what you want," he said, "and I'll make it." But the thing is, I'm no creative director, either. I don't have a visual in my mind. In my perfect world I'd share some key words and phrases, and what I want to accomplish with my blog, and someone would take my order and come back with a visual representation that I could yay or nay. When it comes to design I like it or I don't. I don't build. This limitation pisses me off.

But we did manage to start a visual. I'm worried it's looking too much like the cover of The Secret meets daylight. So I think up some flair.

"Can we throw in a wine stain, something like that?"

"Why?"

"I don't know. Just throw one in."

It's still a work in progress.

Wait, aren't we all media professionals?

So I find in my personal email account about 30 angry replies to a spammer, Beth Brody, who took it upon herself to spam the whole digital media world with "Jump Start Social Media Guide For Small Business". I wonder if she's read her product, it might make mention of the best ways to approach "influencers".

The angry replies, while justified, amused me because they were from savvy media people who, following Beth's lead, perpetuated the spamming with such requests as, "Take me of your f*%^ing list!" I believe that is because Beth had all of us blind copied, so we weren't aware others were on the list who could see spam fury at its greatest. Though after the tenth or eleventh angry request, I would think someone would notice they weren't just pinging the spammer.

Next came emails from some in the group, informing the uninformed that they were, in fact, spamming the whole list. And yet spamming the whole list while doing so. 

And so it continues.

For all of you who are wondering how to make the madness stop please contact Patient Zero: [email protected].

Post-BlogHer '09: A Reminder of the Power of Listening to Influentials

My latest on Jack Myers.com. BlogHer '09 from the marketer's perspective

Some thoughts on BlogHer'09: A founder's and a blogger's view

Every year after BlogHer, I take a few days to take in the wrap-ups and accounts and to assess the role our event, and even our organization, plays in the women's Blogosphere. It's a level of introspection that I rarely achieve anymore on my personal blog, but considering that this blog, and the opportunities it created for me, are what encouraged me to take on BlogHer with Lisa and Elisa to begin with, so it seems appropriate.

If you read my personal blog you will notice a few things, other than I post so rarely that I am no longer participating in the BlogHer Ad Network (our community managers practice what we preach when we say you must post regularly to run ads!), namely this:

• I'm not a Mommyblogger
• I've never participated in a review program. In fact, the reviews I have written were mostly posted without the publisher even being aware I was planning to (I've only reviewed books and the occasional film). Many of the books I bought myself and felt moved to review them.
• I've never made more than $40 a month on my ads, never had Google Ads or BlogAds supplementing my BlogHerAds, never placed an affiliate tag or ad on my site, or ever optimized my site for making money (something my husband questions me about constantly)

What Presidents Both Dead and Alive Tell Me About the Future of Social Media

Wonder where social media is going? Ask our Founding Fathers.

ThirdAge Blog Carnival is at The New Charm School

Jennifer Warwick has graciously taken on the last stop of the ThirdAge Carnival in 2005.

Of course, stop in for all the goodies, but also take a moment to check out Jennifer's site. I stumbled upon Charm School early this year and found a kindred soul who sees the personal and professional as the same thing. She infuses her posts with her personal experience and sass. I love it!

In Memory of Progenitor: 1945-2005

I remember back to September 2004, when I first started writing this blog. A few people read it, mostly people I knew, and they commented more about me writing the blog than the blog itself. I hadn't found my stride yet. I wrote about the exercise gym chain Curves and my issues with Dell, but a lot of my career angst and issues with corporate life were still corked.

Finally I wrote my first series about the corporate world--Paralyzed: Life of the Mid-Level Career Woman. I felt expressed and rather satisfied with myself. My greatest fan, my mother, wrote, referring to my blog, "It just gets better and better..." I thought, even though commenters were still unrealistically positive and related to me, I was doing quite well.

But then I got my first negative comment. One that very well may be my worst one ever, regarding the angst I expressed about being a single woman in the corporate world:

"Whining doesn't become you. You lead a life that is the envy of your peers. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and you took the one less travelled by..... and it HAS made all the didderence [sic]."

I didn't see the good in this message. I figured it was an old boss, or someone that I worked with who thought I was a complainer. The word "Whiner" always struck me as an insult--I never saw the implied compliment of being in a position of seeing things from a stance much more privileged than others. Though I am a whiner, I always saw myself as more of an observer of all things personally troubling--a very big distinction in my mind.

This being my first negative comment, I wondered whether I should delete the damn thing or be bold and leave it there. I did what I always do when I wanted unconditional praise and support; I called my mother.

"Did you read the blog today?" I asked.

"No--did you post something new?"

"The comments, Mom! The comments! Did you see what was written about me? I think this person may know me!"

My mother read the comment and then laughed,

"Well, of course this person KNOWS you, Hun! It's your father!"

Next Stop for the ThirdAge Carnival: Crossroads Dispatches

Yoohoooooo! Where's the ThirdAge Blog Carnival now? Over at Evelyn's Place. Check it out, and for a list of the upcoming venues click here.

The Adults in the Room

My dad is sick. Real sick.

People ask me, how couldn't he know he was sick? He's lost 80 pounds in six months and hasn't had an appetite. And I tell them, "You don't know my Dad," and I explain how he has found it a point of pride that he hasn't been to a doctor in over 35 years. He used to boast that it was a sign of his robust health.

Of course, we knew that wasn't true. My father has chain smoked since he was a teenager, often eschewing engagements where he couldn't light up. He could never sneak up on people, his labored breathing gave him away. He never complained about it; it just became part of him, like his smoky clothes and deep, resonating voice (he's moonlighted as a commercial announcer). My siblings and I learned to make a joke of it, when we heard him sauntering into the room, slowly drawing breath in, then out, one of us often said, "Here comes Darth. May the force be with you."

ThirdAge Launches a Blog Carnival

Come one, come all! Come all who appreciate things Baby Boomer. No, I'm not officially a Baby Boomer, but I like to play one on TV, and on the phone, when I use my adult voice to sound older than I look. I was told a few years ago that I was a 47-year-old trapped in a 27-year-old's body. I basically sweat the stuff of someone approaching midlife. I suppose I like to be prepared.

So it stands to reason that I edit the ThirdAge Blog, a collection of some of my favorite blog writers, and have the privilege of launching the ThirdAge Blog Carnival, which adds a few more. I managed to get the likes of Elisa Camahort at Hip and Zen Pen, Evelyn Rodriguez, Troy Worman, Jennifer Warwick, Janeen Armstrong, Marilyn from California Fever, Steve Sherlock, and, of course, the ThirdAge bloggers to cough up some kickass content on work, health, money, relationships, culture and life.

Check it out here.

Want to submit or post to our carnival? Check out the details here.