B.O.

Coming from my kid?

Nobody expects to smell the “sweaty boy smell” coming from their baby. Well, my son is in double digits and will turn eleven in about month, so I guess that makes him a “tween”. Have you had to talk about “the stink” with your tween yet?  It was a pretty straight forward conversation in our house but I have to admit, I wasn’t prepared for how quickly all of these changes would be upon us.

I had the opportunity, along with several other moms,  to talk to Rosiland Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabees, about the tween years, and the challenges moms face.

Check out dontfretthesweat.com Don’t Fret the Sweat Facebook page (sponsored by Unilever – maker of Degree, Dove and Suave deodorants) for money saving offers and expert tips, tools and real life stories about how parents helping their ‘tweens become confident and self-reliant teens.

*This post has been sponsored by Bliss TV and Unilever. Opinions and experiences are my own based on my own experiences.

Do you ever sift through your blog “drafts”? You really should because you never know what gems of fabulous-ness you may find. I was digging through the archives of my own insanity this morning and came across this funny, yet random, bit of drivel that I obviously wrote last year on my way to BlogWorld Expo 2010. I wonder why I never published it? Why didn’t this silly bantering make the cut… or at least warrant editing? And why did I feel an exclamation point was necessary in the title? Hmm, you tell me. Enjoy…..

Here I sit in the most fabtastic airport, DIA, where the girls are pretty and the WiFi is free. I’m headed to Las Vegas for Blogworld Expo 2010 … Vegas Baby!  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, my flight is delayed by a few hours.  Like any responsible blonde mommy blogger, I headed to the nearest wall outlet and am now gadget charging and diligently writing….

Sadly, DIA is a Pepsi-sphere and there isn’t a Diet Coke to be seen so I made my usual stop at the news shop for the most important travel necessities-skittles and water. I usually like to grab a magazine like Runner’s World but today I was stopped short as I perused the rack.  There, right in front of me, was the most beautiful picture of Rob Lowe! I snatched up the magazine and actually giggled when I realized that it was a copy of Architectural Digest. What? I’m not exactly a regular reader of this particular genre of magazine. I’d love to be someone who could dress a room and match colors but I was not blessed with an ounce of decorator talent.

I’m a total dork when it comes to digging deep for more information on anything that strikes me as curious or interesting. So, of course, I Googled around and found out that this People & Places edition of Architectural Digest, will serve as the last under the direction of the magazine’s editor in chief since 1971, Paige Rense Noland. What a gift she has given her successor by transitioning with Rob Lowe! Out with a BANG!

I’m sure celebrities are not a rarity on the cover of this particular publication, but to choose Rob Lowe as your final cover gift is brilliant! I’m almost 40, I’m aging, my children are old enough to wipe their own bottoms (although, Lord knows when they’ll be coordinated enough to aim accurately and remember to flush) – the timing for this cover is perfect! I picked up the magazine because I wanted to touch Rob Lowe but I’ll actually read it because I’m interested in turning my house into a home.  This mag is filled with pictures of home libraries decorated with couches that just scream “Come on in, put your feet up and read a good book.” Of course, it also look like nobody has set foot in any of the rooms. Nobody has dropped a granola bar wrapper on the floor, there’s no science book with yesterday’s math homework crammed into it-propped open by a lone sock ….

It’s OK though, because we’re finally past the stage of family-hood where safety gates grace every doorway and 4-ply bumper pads protect every possible exposed corner of death. I’m free! We’re free! Free to have glass tables and WHITE furniture… well, maybe I’m a little premature with the white….

Head to Architectural Digest to see more photos of Rob’s home and read the article. There’s also a tour of director Oliver Stone’s Manhattan apartment, Las Vegas mogul Steve Wynn’s new duplex villa, Yankee pitcher C.C. Sabathia’s New Jersey residence, oil legend T. Boone Pickens’s Texas ranch, hotelier Jason Pomeranc’s renovated midcentury LA home, and more.

Say what you want about Charlie Sheen, this is the most hysterical Funny or Die ever!  I had to watch it twice…..

Guess what happens when a duck poops in the pool at Disney?

Today’s post is brought to you by the letter N, as in NEVER assume the professional you have hired to do anything to your blog or website is smart enough to back it up before getting down and dirty… just a little PSA from your friendly neighborhood blonde.

When is the last time you backed up your blog?

What does that mean?

It means save your work somewhere so that when you or someone else, or some freak act of internet mess, makes your blog go “poof” you’ll be able to magically re-“poof” it back to where it belongs. I’m all about empowerment and if there is anything I hope to empower you to do today it is BACKUP YOUR WORK!

This is the number one MUST if you spend any time at all blogging. Whether it’s a documentation of little Johnny’s first poop or a tutorial on keyword searches, someday you’ll be sending me a box of Fran’s Smoked Salted Caramel Chocolates because you read this post and were able to restore your site after it disappeared. I’m not psychic, I’m just experienced.

Backing up my blog sounds technical and scary…

Nope, it’s simple. If your blog is built on WordPress (which it should be because ultimately you’ll end up spending sleepless nights fretting over when and how to make the switch-it’s OK 98.2% of your blogger friends have gone through this, I’m beginning to think it’s a rite of passage.) just find a plugin and schedule your backups, consider it an insurance policy for your website. You’ll still be bawling your eyes out on the phone begging your developer to drop everything STAT but at least you’ll be able to do so knowing that you’ve got a copy of your work somewhere. I actually have all of my client sites set up to automatically email me a backup, they are all set up on different schedules according to the volume of content they are publishing. If you are on Blogger you can use the export function and then you’ll be able to just import if you ever need to restore – there may be an easier way of doing this but I’m not up on the latest Blogger tricks. The beauty of the internet is that you can Google pretty much anything and someone out there has probably posted a step by step guide – Google is a hero maker. I have clients that think I’m a tech goddess because I can do, fix, or answer almost anything with little to no brain damage. I outsource the dirty stuff but for the most part I’m just really good at Google.

So, what are you all going to do right now? That’s right, go backup your blogs!

Chris Brogan thinks moms in social media are like “Crabs In A Bucket” trying to pull all the other crabs down to get to the top. This is what he told us last week at the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration. His point was that women in social media are powerful, that the moms have it going on, but we tend to tear one another down. He preached lifting others up; it was very Zig Zigler-ish. Zig Zigler, is one of the original great quotable sales and motivational speakers. One of my favorite quotes, and the one I preach to my own children, is, “You can have everything you want in life if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” I’ve seen this in action more times than I can count, and I believe this is what Chris Brogan was talking about.

I’ve been thinking about the crab analogy a lot because I don’t think there are any crabs left in my bucket. The crabs that I’ve come across have all drowned themselves or built sandcastles to house their baby lemming crabs a long time ago. I’m no crab; I like to think I’m more like a Nemo. I like to rally the fish to swim down and bust the net wide open and set everyone free. It’s a very big ocean out there and there’s plenty of reef to go around. (What? I just spent a week at Disney, if you aren’t following along you’ll have to rent the movie. It rocks but if you are a Dad prepare to shed a few tears.)

Here’s the way I see it. Most of the women online are extremely supportive and giving to others, some are not. The reason women in social media, who happen to be mothers, get lumped in with the crab crowd is that anyone with a computer can start up a blog and blogging has become a great way to document motherhood and network with other moms. Let’s face it, blogging, Twitter, Facebook, all of these social media platforms put us in touch with people who share similar realities. Where the landscape becomes blurry is when moms begin to monetize their blogs or seek professional work within social media. Suddenly, there are moms operating as “professionals”, they are no longer just bloggers but the Mommy Blogger label follows them everywhere, no matter what. I was once introduced to the board members of a start-up company as a Mommy Blogger when I had been invited as a paid consultant to discuss the integration of social media with their current marketing strategy. Really! True story, friends.

Some of us have professional experience, some don’t but social media is new, and to many companies it is a mystery. This has allowed many women great opportunities to transition from staying home with their children for many years (ten in my case) to re-entering the workforce in higher level positions than generations past. This is a great place to be and so many women with and without prior experience in the professional world are building amazing businesses and joining great companies. Still, the ugly rotting seafood stench of the crabs among us lingers and taints our reputations.

How do we differentiate ourselves from the crabs?

I don’t really care if you call me a Mommy Blogger, it happens all the time and I barely flinch anymore because for some reason people who use it think it’s an endearing term, but when I walk into a room and present a revenue model that cuts my client’s expenses in half and increases profits by more than 100%, they don’t ask me to wipe their boogers and they certainly don’t call me MOMMY. So, a few rotten crabs are stinkin’ up the pot. I may get snarky and opinionated on this blog but I could care less who is getting what and doing what to whomever. I DON’T HAVE TIME. I started out blogging for fun and it opened up a whole world for me. I’m frustrated that because I’m a mom I’m considered a crab but I’ve got enough work to keep me busy for now so I have to hope that eventually the stench will clear.

What do you think? Are there crabs in your bucket? Are you a crab or have you been a crab? How do we get people to look at us as business women and not just another crab?