Honoring Female Photographers on Int'l Women's Day

I'm a huge photography buff. With all the running around I do it's hard to make time to notice the little things, but when I'm confronted with a powerful image, it almost demands that I stop and take a moment to contemplate it for a while, and when I do it brings my mind down from 100 mph to maybe 20. Like taking a relaxing bath. In real life it's impolite to stare at someone, but pictures want us to gaze at them, at our leisure, unhurriedly. Taking a long, hard look and noticing the details that make it special. And that's why I quickly signed up for the panel & slideshow entitled Women In Photography hosted by B&H Photo this past Sunday. It was in honor of the little known (at least here in the US) International Woman's Day, which is March 10th.

There were five fantastic women of all ages presenting their 'best of the best' portfolios. Barbara Bordnick started out as one of the only women fashion photographers in the industry and then went on to do portraits (she did an amazing series of women in jazz which you can find in her site), and nudes, and then - the flowers, which came about as a happy accident when she had to find something to photograph quickly. Wow. Georgia O'Keefe taken to the upteenth level. Heavenly.

Then came Arlene Collins, who contrary to Barbara, does her work outside the studio, in the outdoors, or on location. She showed us some early shots she took of boxers in the Bronx, rodeos in New Jersey (see right - cowboys in the Garden State - who knew?), and later the Middle East and New Guinea.

She was followed by Jill Enfield, who specializes in hand coloring photographs (like the one on the left), and Scout Tufankjian, who followed Barak Obama on the campaign trail and was able to document all the different ways that people responded to the candidate.

Kate Engelbrecht came last. She started out shooting weddings and then moved on to family documentaries, or still photo essays that tell "a day in the life" of a family. Looking to move into a new direction, she recently created The Girl Project, to chronicle what it's like to be a young women in today's world. Her goal is to get 5,000 girls to participate so that she can compile a book and then do a traveling show. At first she sent out emails to her friends and family asking them if they knew and teenage girls for the project. Sadly she only got back two replies. But then she created a Facebook page and it went viral. (I have to include at least one element of social media in my posts, and here it is!).

Kate sends out disposable cameras to whoever signs up and then she uploads them onto the TGP site. Some of the girls also get interviewed on the TGP blog and the pictures also get posted on the TGP Flikr page. The images really tell a story. They give us an inside peek at how teenage girls see themselves, and Kate says she was surprised to find that they're more innocent than they seem. Right now she's bankrolling this all herself, but I can see how this could be a perfect fit for a sponsor. Dove, are you listening?

Kuddos to B&H for setting up such an inspiring event (for free!) , but it's very smart of them to provide photography fans with another way to feed their passion, to learn something and interact with each other, while at the same time visiting the store (and perhaps buying something).

How are you celebrating National Women's Day?

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Art Gets Social with Brooklyn Museum's "tweets of art"

What makes New York City such a creative place to be these days is people extending their online social networks into the offline world. I've never seen so much enthusiasm in the air. Whether it's through Meetup, where so many groups are thriving, or through events like Social Media Week, which was conceived a short 3 weeks ago by Toby Daniels and has turned out to be phenomenal.

The first panel at SMW was all about two of my favorite topics: art & social media. Will Cary, Membership Manager at the Brooklyn Museum talked about how he is testing the social media waters by offering a Twitter feed where followers get "tweets of art" - and organizing events around that. It's part of what they're calling the "first-of-its-kind socially networked membership", and charging $20 a year for it. So far they have about 100 followers.

The museum had noticed there were a lot of people attending their monthly "First Saturday" events, where they allow free entrance from 5-11pm. A lot of visitors would come and view the art but they wouldn't join as members. They also had a huge following through their Facebook page and through Twitter - but those weren't joining either. The question was, "how do we get these people that have an interest in us to want to be more involved?"

The museum's mission is community based, so they tried to set up communities online, like "members only" groups on Facebook and Flickr, but that didn't work. Then a month and a half ago they came up with 1st fans, where if you sign up you get a Twitter "art feed" that features a different contemporary artist every month, exclusively for them. The artists tweet everyday for one month, then on 'First Saturday' they'll show all the art they tweeted, plus a lecture for '1stfans'. An Xiao was the first artist to participate, and she tweeted in morse code (see her video preview here). About 100 supporters have signed up so far.

Through '1stfans' the museum interacts with people that they would otherwise have no access to but who are big supporters of their art. "It's a way to enlist them and offer them a way to have a closer relationship with the museum", explains Will. "We first addressed it through our blog to show them that we're not trying to trick them. It's just something cool we're offering. For those that enjoy what the museum does, this is the next level of involvement. It's what can we do to address their needs", he adds. Which is smart because it's getting to them early in the process and letting them know that they're valued even though they're not full members.

"Artists go through a heavy vetting process. They have to submit a proposal to be considered for this program. They must be consistent with what the museum stands for. Once we review the proposals we then discuss it with the curators and other departments," says Will. '1stfans' don't have a say in picking the artists.

'1stfans' are very active Twitterers and this requires that someone be engaged with them all the time, which basically means Will has no life. But he was the one that came up with the idea so he's passionate about it. The '1stfan' initiative is a philosophy that's carried across all the departments, whether it's technology, membership, or any others - they'll are engaged.

How do you approach a museum's board to get them on board? "It's trust between the museum and the trustees, and the museum and the members. Even though we have no idea of how it will turn out, it's no different from walking into a museum and taking the leap of faith that you will find the art worthwhile. '1stfans' get access to the museum in a new way - we get back to them and answer their questions and comments. Listening to what people have to say is like having checks and balances", Will points out.

For those that are already members, the Twitter art feed is an added benefit. '1stfans' however, don't receive the regular benefits that full members get, like free admission anytime and invites to special exhibits, and store discounts. "It's good we're growing slowly so we get to know the people and let them get to know each other. People don't think of the Twitter feed as a membership. The second '1stfan' event was last weekend and 30 people came. We make the extra effort to educate them about the museum. We want to be sure they know we believe in growing the community and offering them a variety of experiences online and offline", he adds.

Organizations have a tremendous asset: employees that are passionate about what they do. People like Will, who spends nights and weekends answering tweets, and caring about people that right now may only afford $20 but tomorrow might become members or even one day, who knows, platinum donors? He's spreading Brooklyn Museum love to those on the fringes, and making them feel good about being part of the community, which is something advertising can never do. And they're even making a little money from it.

How are you engaging with your community? Blogging and Twitter are some of my favorite ways, so please, connect with me!
Twitter: @mogulette

More tips on How to Blog More Often

I received a great comment from one of my readers in response to my last post on blogging more often, and it had so many useful tips I decided it would be better viewed as a post than as a comment, so here it is...

Great topic, Carmina. I suppose I'm on one extreme of the spectrum; I've made the time to publish 3-5 articles a day while working a full-time job, but at the sacrifice of sleep! Most days I wake up at 4am (sometimes 3:00) and work on my site over several cups of much-needed coffee until I get ready for my "real" job at 7am to be to work by 8:00. After work I usually spend 6:00pm - 11:00pm working on the site, and then am back up at 3 or 4 the next morning.

I just launched TheDailyAnchor.com - a marketing and advertising blog - at the beginning of January and it's been doing very well, but I'm not sure how much longer my body will survive on 4-5 hours of sleep a night! I'm blessed with an incredibly supportive and understanding girlfriend, but the time I dedicate to the site is most certainly unfair to our relationship.

In my case, I think there are four things that will help restore a little sanity in my life...

1. I've given up blogging on weekends. As much as I'd like to post content 7 days a week, I've found I need weekends to handle site maintenance (advertising, design, etc.) That, and I think my girlfriend would kill me if I didn't have at least some downtime.

2. I've started an editorial calendar, which is basically broken down by date and article categories (marketing, advertising, news, etc.) I use my weekends to spec-out my article ideas for the upcoming week. Sure, things pop up on a daily basis and I tend to modify the schedule on a daily basis, but having a schedule down on paper (er, Excel) helps me stay organized and focused.

3. I can't do it alone. My site is The Daily Anchor; I can't exactly get away with posting weekly or sporadically! I have big goals and high hopes for the site, so I've enlisted a few friends and colleagues of mine to help develop content. I'm still developing 80% of the content myself, but even if 1 out of 4 articles a day is by a contributing editor, that's a HUGE help and a huge time-saver. I have 4 contributing editors right now, and hope to grow this to 10 within the next month.

4. I've scaled back my expectations. Even though I knew it from the start, quality matters more than quantity, and I'd rather post 2 GREAT articles a day than bust my hump to produce

5. Last night I took a rare break from the blog to go out to dinner and a show with my girlfriend and her mom, and fell asleep as soon as we got home. I woke up at 4:00 per usual, but instead of racing to publish 4 stories I decided to write just 1, and am darn happy with how it turned out.

I'm still cutting my teeth on this blogging thing, and have yet to set a schedule that properly balances productivity, health, and "real life," but I'm learning as I go. Thanks for another great post.

All the best,

Andrew

Thanks Andrew, and keep up the good work!

Get On A Daily Schedule To Blog More Often

Do you wish you could "up" your blogging frequency? Unfortunately writing daily is not an easy habit to put in place for many of us (including, ah-hem, yours truly). “How do I find the time?” is the main complaint I hear from people that attend my blogging workshops.

My client, Moira Collins, seems to have figured it out. She publishes a post every other day on her blog, Kiddie Star Signs. She says it has really helped to bring traffic to her main website, Kiddiegram.com where she offers astrological charts for children. So I was curious to find out how she does it.

Moira says she was initially inspired by her close friend, cartoonist Nicole Hollander, who has to have a cartoon ready every day for her syndicated comic strip, Sylvia. "Even if she goes on vacation she always has a backlog of cartoons ready, so that's the model I followed", explains Moira.

Every morning while sipping coffee Moira checks Google news and other entertainment sources, like celebrity baby blogs and People Magazine, to get ideas on what to write about. Once she decides on a topic she gathers all the elements she'll need later on. "I'm often writing two posts at once - one for the next day and one for 2 days from now. I do the initial work on the astrological chart I will make reference to, and then decide what pages on my website to link to," she adds.

If, for example, she reads that Nicole Richie and Joel Madden are getting married on their daughter's birthday, she makes sure to have Harlow's chart and a link to an earlier post she wrote about her ready so she can easily include it in her new post. Then when the news actually breaks she has the post ready to go. “Forbes did a list of top celebrity babies so I have all those charts and the charts of their parents on file for when I need them.” She also takes notes on the sources for the quotes and photos she will use and get related links, then she decides on labels & titles

Moira says that since she's had the blog, traffic on Kiddiegram.com has grown tremendously, and visitors stay longer. "Once they get to the website people spend a lot more time there because there's more content to browse through", she adds.

By posting regularly Moira was picked up by Astrodispatch, a big astrology clearinghouse. Then Molly Hall at About.com, who has written about Kiddiegram.com a couple of times in the past, put the Kiddie Star Signs blog on her "best astrology blogs" list and linked to one of the posts on Ethan Hawke's baby.

“If bigger sites hadn't referenced me I wouldn't be encouraged to continue writing as often because I’m very busy. You continue writing because you realize that's what your peers read,” Moira points out.

Here's Moira's blogging schedule:

• She publishes a post every other day but writes everyday so she has posts in the pipeline. If something bigger comes up she’ll put aside what she's prepared in advance and features the breaking news first.
  
  
• She dedicates between 1/2 hour to 45 min. on average per day to her blog. If it’s a tricky post she'll spend an hour on it.
  
  
• She spends an extra hour a week researching.
  
  
• She tends to write short posts.
  
  
• She publishes her posts in the morning. To stay on track she'll do research for the 2nd post before publishing the one for that day.
  
  
• If there's nothing going on or she doesn't feel creative, she won't write. It's more interesting to give it a break or wait for inspiration to come the next day.

My friend and fellow social media enthusiast BL Ochman just wrote an entry on her blog interviewing marketing guru Seth Godin about why he decided to start posting daily. Check it out.

What are your challenges when it comes to blogging more often? Please share!



PS - Above is a slideshow of Moira's adorable astrologically-themed designs. They've just been selected for the new Flip HD & Mino. Congrats Moira!

Beat the Recession with Multiple Streams of Income

For Christmas I traveled south of the border, to Bogotá, Colombia. This Central American city has become quite Americanized -- Dunkin' Donuts and TGI Friday's have set up shop, and in the malls, Zara, Louis Vuitton and Paul & Shark share space with local retailers (click here to see all the photos I took).

I was there to visit my good friend Claudia, whom I've known since the mid 80's when I worked with her husband Rodrigo in Wall Street. Rodrigo is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for business, and it was fascinating to hear about his latest venture and how he got it off the ground.

From stocks to steak
In 1988, after 4 years in New York, the couple decided to move back home, where Rodrigo had plans to open his own brokerage business. His office started out with 5 people in a small room, and today it's grown to 350 employees with 8 lines of businesses. Four years ago he branched out into dining, launching a sushi restaurant at a time when raw fish was still a novelty in Bogotá. His first foray into the culinary world ended in disaster, but not one to quit easily, he took the lessons he learned and opened a steak house instead, "La Biferia" along with other investors. Bogotanos love beef but there were very few dining options to chose from, so Rodrigo and his partners came up with a totally new concept: a mid priced steak house with a modern, minimalist decor, and serving 12 different cuts of prime beef. It was a hit from the very start, and now it's grown to 3 branches.

Colombia gets "Cool"
To expand his knowledge of the wines offered at his eatery, Rodrigo took a university course on wine, and one of his instructors was Colombian oenophile Hugo Sabogal. The two became friends and Hugo later invited Rodrigo to Mendoza, the wine making region of Argentina, to the extreme west of the capital city of Buenos Aires. While there, at a wine tasting event, they came across Domaine Jean Bousquet, a 12 year old winery owned by a 3rd generation French wine maker. Frustrated with the humidity in France, Jean went in search of more ideal soil and climate conditions and finally found it in Tupungato, at the foothills of the Andes. The steady temperatures and lack of rain are perfect for growing the organic grapes they produce.

When Rodrigo visited the vineyard he was mesmerized by the crisp, clean air and beautiful countryside, as well as by the smooth, distinct flavor of the local Malbec and Torrontes grapes, along with the Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots, which are all produced by the winery. That's where he conceived the idea for Cool Wines Global, the company he launched to distribute the Cameleon and Jean Bousquet brands. He was going from dining to wining - it was a natural extension of his restaurant. So again he found some partners, and chose a very sleek and sexy look for the website and logo, to make the wines "friendlier" and less intimidating to their target market. He sells them at his restaurants as well as retail, and sales are growing steadily. In the future he plans to expand into wines of other regions. They have started hosting wine tastings at his restaurants, a great way to cross-promote both businesses.

Colombians take a liking to wine
Until recently the most popular alcoholic drinks in Colombia were beer and "aguardiente", a strong local beverage made of sugar, but that has changed dramatically in the last few decades. According to a 2007 GAIN Report, wine consumption in Colombia has tripled in the last 5 years due to increased demand, while Old World countries like France and Italy have actually seen declines. And local wine enthusiasts are starting to congregate in Facebook, with the "Bogotá Wine Club" page attracting 791 members, "Club del Vino" 1316 and "Buenvivir" 1013. These are great places to announce events and promotions.

Wine on YouTube
I couldn't resist showing Rodrigo one of my favorite video channels, Gary Vaynerchuck's WineLibrary TV which he loved. He says he'll definitely look for ways to incorporate video into his new site.



Rodrigo watches the Wine Spectator channel which has better production values but gets much less traffic (go figure - which one do you like best?).





This empresario isn't stopping there - he has investments in other businesses as well and is looking to add more to his "portfolio". When I asked him how he's able to juggle so many balls in the air, he credits the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, which he read years ago. The economic environment may be different now from when the book first came out, but the major theme still applies and is more pressing than ever: save money and invest it in productive assets that generate income so you can get out of the "rat race", where you only work to pay your bills. Time to dust it off from my book shelf and re-read it!

Another book he recommends is Blue Ocean Strategy, which describes companies that take an existing product or service and revolutionize it by making it bigger/better/different, like Starbucks did, and Cirque de Soleil, and is what he did with his steak house.

Rodrigo saw the trend towards more wine consumption in Colombia and decided to capitalize on it. If you'd like to read more about what areas are hot here in the US, check out Entrepreneur Magazine's 2009 Trends To Watch piece, definitely a must-read.

Do you have a social media marketing plan for 2009?

Well another year is coming to an end, a year of hard work, scary decisions, exciting surprises and countless g-r-o-w-t-h opportunities (in more ways than one!) which makes it a great time to take stock of our businesses, see what worked (accomplishments!) and what didn't (lessons learned!), and map out a marketing plan for 2009 (let's dust off those business resolutions & wishlists!).

This year we saw how social media evolved from being a cool site for kids to hang out at, to a major marketing tool for corporations to engage with their customers. Are you making full use of this new trend? Nowadays a big chunk of marketing plans should be dedicated to social media, so I've put together a list of questions to help you get started on that:

Online Social Networks
Are you active in at least one online social network (signing up alone doesn't count!)? Selling is all about repetition - the more you connect with your customers -- in a helpful, friendly way -- the more they'll think of you when they're ready to buy the type of products you offer or refer you to a friend. Online social networks are perfect for this. These are some ways you could be using your networks:

• Facebook - update your wall & your status with comments, events and links of interest to your target market
• LinkedIn - showcase your talent in the "Answers" section, download your virtual resume, get testimonials
• Twitter - let others in your industry know when you attend conferences or networking events; comment on articles or breaking news

Make sure to also check out niche sites that fit closely with your brand, for example:

• A Small World - if you're targeting the luxury market
• MiGente - if you're targeting the Hispanic market

(For a more complete list visit this Wikipedia page)

Strategy: Schedule 15 minutes a day to participate in one or two sites of your choice.

Blogging
Blogs are a great way to keep your community updated on your business/industry, plus they're great for search engine optimization. Are you regularly updating your blog? How long has it been since you changed the widgets on your sidebar? Have you explored the different affiliate sales programs so you can sell complimentary products and receive commissions? Do you know what the best sources of ad revenue are for you, whether it's joining an ad network or striking deals directly with advertisers?

Strategy: Enter at least 1-3 posts a week. Designate a special time or day to do this and stick to your schedule. Freshen up your blog's sidebar once a month by adding a new poll, or widget or product announcement. Track your site's analytics monthly (or more often if you have a special campaign going on) to see if there are ways to increase traffic/ad revenue.

Online Directories
Forget the phone book. The new online yellow pages offer you lots of space to add company info (including video), feature special promotions, offer discount coupons, and allow customers to engage with you by writing reviews and posting pictures. Users can also send a link with your information to a mobile phone, and this is important because mobile is the next new internet frontier. Are you on these local online directories?
Citysearch (basic package is $149/mo)
Yelp
Superpages
Yahoo local ($299/yr)
Google local, maps
Local.com
Judy's Book

Strategy: Get on as many of them as you can, especially the free ones! Also check if there's any specifically targeting your industry, like if you're a restaurant there's MenuPages.com, etc.

Collectively these actions will help you build your online reputation the way you want to, and you won't have to wait around for the press to find you and write about you, when and if. The more you participate in social media, the more you'll get out of it, it's that simple. If you need help creating and/or executing a customized social media marketing plan for the new year, please contact me.

I'd like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season, and here's to hoping 2009 bring lots of good things to all of us.

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Mogulette Holiday Mixer

Nothing like throwing a party to get into the holiday spirit! That's why I decided to throw my 2nd annual Mogulette Mixer early in the month this year, and had a terrific time with a most talented group of businesswomen.

Luckily my mom was visiting and she helped me put up the Christmas decorations (thanks Mom! I copied the idea for the cute tree on the left from this month's Domino magazine). The orange-pine scented candles were aglow and classic holiday tunes played on the stereo as the first guest arrived, right on time. I was still arranging the baked ham and potato salad on the table (The Silver Palate Cookbook saved the day, as usual) when the doorbell rang.

Moments later more ladies walked in and the networking began in earnest. Marisa works in Wall St. and just started a blog, Jodi recently became a holistic nutrition and wellness coach, Alix is a writer & a journalist, and Simmy owns Nyingzemo, a company that makes Tibetan rugs with modern designs. There were about 15 women in total but the wealth of knowledge and expertise was huge.



Ginny, left, is an architect and Lillian is Director of Admissions at Loyola School and also a writer.

Melody, left, who makes educational video games for children, chats with Karmina, who works for MediaLink.


Jen, above, has a PhD and runs her own management consulting firm, WhiteWave.

Donna, a therapist, far left, who's wearing a sweater she made herself, gave everybody a quick numerology forecast for the new year. Others in this picture: Jennifer, in the beige skirt is owner of Greenwich Jewelers, and Cecilia, dressed in black in the middle, has worked for many years at Brasserie Julien, which she co-owns with her husband but is currently looking for a job in social media. She snagged the grand prize at the raffle: a free makeup lesson valued at $150 from Laura Geller. I also gave away four free 1-week passes to the new, ultra sleek Equinox gym on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Other fempreneurs in attendance: Stacey, director of global production at Sesame Workshop, Stephanie, a web consultant, and last but not least BL Ochman, a social media consultant & blogger who is thrilled to be launching her new venture, Pawfun.com.

The business cards were flying left and right but some people ran out of them so to make it easy for everyone to stay in touch I have created a Facebook page, which everyone is welcome to join (females only!). I added more pictures there and will post upcoming events and other info. Hope to "see" you all there.


This was so much fun I hope to be adding more networking nights to the calendar next year, along with my regular workshops. Now the big question is, what will I do with all the leftovers?

Til soon!

Pondering Past and Future for Women In Media

Entrepreneurs from all over the tri-state area gathered in droves at the NY Xpo For Business 2008 last week, held at the cavernous Jacob Javitz Convention Center. WCBS sponsored the Working Women's Business luncheon at midday and had media mogul Cathie Black as a keynote speaker (I snagged a picture with her at the end, see below...apologies for my cellphone camera's fuzzy resolution). Ms Black, who is busy doing the speaker circuit promoting her now book, Basic Black, gave us some interesting anecdotes on Helen Gurly Brown, who paved the way for women in media by becoming editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine and staying on the job for an impressive 32 years. Ms. Black, who oversees Cosmo as president of Hearst Magazines, told us how HGB, who is now in her late 80s, still goes into the office and writes letters to the editors around the world.

While we munched on roasted chicken and vegetables, she recounted the story of how back when HGB started out, corporate America was like an episode of Mad Men. There were absolutely no opportunities for women to advance their careers. As a secretary at an advertising agency, part of her job was to deliver her boss's itinerary every day to his home, and she would fill it with personal notes and light-hearted comments. As luck would have it, her boss's wife noticed her clever scribblings and asked him to give her a chance. That's how she got a job writing copy, and rose through the ranks to become one of the highest paid copywriters in the 60's. This original "sex in the city" girl also wrote various books - her first was Sex and the Single Girl - and was a big champion of women's sexual liberation.

As a blogger, I see myself as a pioneer of sorts as well, as social media is rapidly transforming the webosphere and we're still in the early stages of change. So during the Q&A I asked Ms. Black how her magazines, which include O, Harper's Bazaar and Esquire, were embracing user-generated content. Unfortunately she really didn't answer my question, but she did say that she spends 80% of her day on the digital side, and every one of their titles has their own site with blogs, video and games. Although not all of their digital properties are yet profitable, she sees profitability by the second half of 2009. The future, she says, is about "engaging the reader when they want it and where they want it".
What I was curious about was, when it comes to magazines, what is the future for bloggers? Forbes has created a Blog Network where they feature hundreds of blogs on their site and shares advertising revenue with the bloggers. MTV is doing the same thing except theirs is much smaller and more exclusive. Will Hearst follow suit?

Finally, a plug for fellow blogger Nichelle Stephens, whom I met at the table. She pens the Keeping Nickels blog and who also wrote a post about the luncheon. That's her on the left, with the glasses.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Building a Business Around an Online Community

I attended a Town Hall Meeting for Yahoo Groups this week and was so impressed with one of the stories I heard I had to immediately start writing about it. There is a woman that calls herself FlyLady who has over half a million -- yes 500,000+ -- members in her Yahoo group. Now that's pretty astounding. Yahoo was impressed too, and they even sponsored an event just for her members to celebrate that milestone, which they videotaped and showed to us. With a name like FlyLady I was thinking maybe her group was about hip hop dancing or something like that. Well, not even close. On the screen we saw a cuddly middle-aged housewife with the sweetest southern accent and an infectious smile thanking her audience and telling her story. Marla Cilley, as it turns out, built her huge following by helping women get rid of clutter. I kind of figured the topic was of some interest, given there are so many home organizing shows on cable TV (which I'm addicted to, BTW). But a club with 500,000-plus declutterers? Wow.

Her site (which actually could use a little de-cluttering itself, but maybe that's just me), is chock full of suggestions, advice and routines to help you live a more orderly life. I found one about instituting an evening ritual before you go to sleep, which sounds perfect for me. Usually at bedtime I'm struggling with my inner brat who refuses to go to sleep, which means I end up staying up too late and then tossing and turning until I finally, reluctantly succumb to the Dream Gods. The next morning of course I'm dragging my butt. Marla's bedtime routine has a series of steps that prepare you to wind down for the evening. She recommends straightening out the house, checking your appointments for tomorrow, setting out the breakfast things, taking a warm bath, reflecting on your accomplishments, and so on. But if you don't have time for all that, she has a short version: clean the dishes, lay out your clothes for tomorrow and brush your teeth. I can do that!

If you join the FlyLady Group you'll receive a barrage of emails daily, guiding you through your day. Housecleaning, decluttering, menu planning - she'll put you on a detailed schedule from morning to night but she makes it sound more like a fun game than actual chores. It's like having a personal assistant reminding you to take care of all the little things. My first thought was, when do I have time to read all those emails? Marla recommends spending 2 minutes scanning them and then deleting them periodically.

You'll find a ton of free information on the FlyLady site, but there's also plenty of stuff for sale - her CD's, books and decluttering products - all of which are pretty inexpensive. I guess when you have half a million members it all adds up. Plus she also does speaking engagements so I would venture to say this is probably a pretty lucrative business for her.

This successful entrepreneuress found her life's calling - decluttering - by giving and helping others - I like that business model!

Well, I have to go now. There's some dishes to be done, some clothes to be laid out, and some teeth to be brushed...over and out!

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Adding Pages to Your Blogger Blog

I love Blogger and how much easier it is to add widgets and gadgets to it than Wordpress, but one big gripe I have is that it doesn't allow you to add pages, which I've been wanting to do for a while. Luckily I found a way around this problem, well two ways actually, which I will share with you.

For both options there's 2 steps:
1) create the page, and
2) put a link for it on the sidebar.

The first is super easy. You just create a new blog post and back-date it so it's "hidden" in the archives. For example, I recently created a "Press" page for one of my clients so she could put a list of links to all the articles and blogs she's been mentioned in. Once I entered all the info on the post, I dated it to last January, so it won't appear as a recent entry. To add a link on the sidebar I clicked on the "Layout" tab and then "Page Elements". From there I went to the "Add a Gadget" list and selected the "text" option, where I composed a little ad with a link pointing to the new page. Voila!

The second option takes a bit more work but it enables you to attach a full website to your blog. I built my "Services" page using Google Sites, and as you can see from the image below, I was able to replicate the exact same 'look and feel' of my blog, to make it seamless.

Although overall it was pretty simple to set up, there are some tricks I learned. This application is for groups to build sites that many people can collaborate on, but it allows you to change the defaults so that 1) you make it available for the public (as opposed to only those in the group), and 2) you disable the sharing features, since you'll be the only one entering information.

To start out you'll need to go to Google Apps and open a free account. Then go to Google Sites and click on "create new site". It'll ask you to enter a name for the site and also whether you want it private or public. Next you'll need to select a theme from a number of available templates, but since I would be customizing mine I just chose the default option. From there you'll automatically be sent over to your new home page, where you can begin making your changes.

Since I wasn't going to have any collaborators on my site, I wanted to get rid of the links for Attachments and Comments on the bottom of the page. To do that, I clicked on the "more actions" tab and selected "page settings". Then I unchecked "allow attachments" and "allow comments".

To change the colors and fonts, click on the "site settings" tab and select "site appearance". The "change site layout" button allows you to tweak the dimensions of the sidebar and the overall page, which I re-sized to match the width of my blog's sidebar.

To replicate my blog banner I took a screen shot of it and cropped it using Microsoft Paint. Once I saved it to my hard drive I could then download it by clicking on the "change logo" link under "Header" and selecting "custom logo".

To match the background and font colors, click on the "colors and fonts" tab and enter the same hex code that you have in your blog's layout.

In the navigation bar I removed the "recent site activity" by clicking the "delete" link. The default title was "navigation", which I changed to "Services" by clicking "edit".

I also added a picture of myself to the sidebar and a link to my profile by clicking on "add sidebar item" and then selecting "add text".

Once all that was done I was ready to insert the copy for my services, so I clicked on the "save changes" button on the upper right hand side and then "return to site" on the upper left. That'll take you back to the main page, where you'll find an "edit page" button that will open up a text editor similar to the one Blogger has for entering posts. You can insert all kinds of things like images, calendars, videos , Google Gadgets, etc. but unfortunately it blocked me from entering html code with certain tags in it, like for affiliate widgets, so it's a little limited (hopefully Google will fix that soon?!@*#).

The last step is to add a link to it on my blog's sidebar, and that's it. I was pretty impressed with how much I was able to match it to my blog and how user friendly the software was. Now I'm planning on adding a few more pages, which I'll be letting you know about. I'd love to hear what you think of my new services page or if you've found another way to solve the Blogger "page issue".

'Til soon!