MumsNet BlogFest

This weekend I attended the MumsNet BlogFest at Millbank Tower.  Having attended several events in London in the past 10 days, I must confess to being slightly weary of meeting new people and doing the whole chit chat network thingymajiggy.  Plus, I've been to so many "conferences" in my past incarnation as an IT Professional that I just wasn't sure I was up for another event where we all jostle for the a quick cup of bad coffee which we try to drink balancing a dozen other things in our hands whilst trying to shake hands with people you pretend to be excited about but can't remember their names 2 minutes after you've walked away.

But as stated in previous posts, I am at a crossroads/fork/meltdown in my life and am exploring options in every corner of the capital and beyond.

What is MumsNet? And what is BlogFest? I had no idea which is why I attended. I signed up for MumsNet a few months back but to be honest, I have been a very passive user.  I get emails and when I have the time and/or inclination, I read them but I would be lying if I gave the impression that I have invested the appropriate amount of time in exploring and extracting all the value I might be able to find.  I was hoping that BlogFest would show me how to get more from MumsNet and how to get more from my blog.

The trouble is I'm not sure I want to get more from my current blog.  My blog started as a training tool when I worked in the IT industry and quite inextricably found myself in charge of the corporate intranet with no skills beyond being able to spell intranet. It soon morphed into a way to keep friends and family involved and informed about our family adventures.  Now I might, just might, want to earn some money from it.  Or maybe not.

 

The morning started superbly with an Opening Keynote by Miriam Gonzalez Durantez who is an EU policy advisor, solicitor, mother, oh, and before I forget, the wife of the UK Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg. She was stunning, not just to look at with her shiny black hair and beautiful white jacket.  She was stunning to listen to.  The wisest words of the day came from her when she said "Woman's rights are human rights." and "Helping the next generation have choices is our responsibility."  I could have listened to her all day.  She was intelligently inspiring.

 

The next session was all about the blogging and finding your voice.  It featured some Blog Royalty including Zoe Q Williams ( journalist for The Guardian), Zoe Strimpel (author, journalist and blogger), the very funny Rachel Cusk (another Guardian journalist and author), and the pee your pants every time she speaks funny, Jenny Lawson (author and blogger extraordinaire).  I found little information that I didn't already know, having written a blog for the last 6 years, but I did find affirmation in the general consensus that I was doing things right, even if hundreds of thousands of people weren't reading my blog.  My big takeaway from this was keep doing what I am doing.  It is authentic.  It is real.  It is me.  It is my passion.  It keeps me sane.  OK, that last point is debatable.

 

I thought there would be a problem with queues for the loo.  I mean there is always a queue for the ladies room, even at events that are predominately male in attendance.  Just so you all can sleep at night, I want you to know I didn't have to queue once for the loo.  Phew!  Glad I got that out of my system.  Literally!

 

After a quick loo and coffee break (with the best cupcakes ever provided by Beverley Hills Bakery), there were several breakout sessions to choose from and I attended the photography session, mostly because I am shit at remembering to include images with my posts, but also because I don't seem to have any images which seem appropriate.  The session was presented by Carrie Barclay and Darren Baldwin.  I picked up some super duper tips about using a 3x3 grid to frame my photos, changing point of view, and some useful apps to download.  My biggest takeaway from this session was not to fear editing a photo to make it better.  I usually avoid this as it feels unauthentic but I think I might be able to forgive myself if I just crop a bit here and there or wash away a power line and enhance the colours.  I mean, it's not like I'm airbrushing 30 pounds of anyone or giving them a flawless complexion when they are well past 60. 

 

Then we had lunch and a lovely lunch it was.  Just for the record, the mushroom risotto was scrummy and I'd like to say thank you to the anonymous ones who prepared it.  It was delish!

 

The afternoon started with more breakout sessions.  I choose the Advanced SEO  session after a bit of soul searching.  Was I a beginner?  Was I going to get lost in the mumbo jumbo of technology acronym soup if I went to the advanced session?  Did I know as much as I think I know and be bored to tears, not to mention frustrated, in the beginner session?  I opted to stretch myself and became frustrated in the advanced session.  We seemed to go seriously off piste with some very individual specific questions and the presenter was unable to make it even halfway through his slide deck.  Although as he whizzed through his slide deck, I'm not sure I would have felt like I had any better grasp of the subject matter than I did when we began.   I think the big takeaway for me was if I'm writing about things people are looking for, they will find it.  If I'm not then no one will.  Duh!

 

I then stumbled and fell with my one wrong choice of attending the Blog Beautiful session.  If I had read this properly I would have found that this was a session for bloggers writing about fashion and beauty products.  Oops, nothing could be further from my blog.  And here I was thinking it was going to be about blog layout and what makes a blog beautiful.  Silly me.  This session featured Sali Hughes (another Guardian journalist who also has her own web page although oddly the blog link on her website doesn't actually go anywhere.  Her videos look informative.) The panel inlcuded Avril Keys who blog about what to wear at the school gate.  Not my cup of tea as I'm just not that fussed about what people think of me at the school gate hence being caught out in my slippers from time to time.  but if this is a priority for you, then this might be the place to go.  Not sure how it fairs for plus size women though.  Also included was Alyson Walsh who writes a blog of fashion for the over 50 demographic.  A cursory of look at the blog though featured home interiors and quite a few young, skinny models so I'm confused but I will return to give it a better seeing to.  Finally on the panel was Louise Woollam who has an extremely funny blog even though it is about beauty products.  Seriously, I read it for pure entertainment value.  Other than that, I confirmed that I wear clothes that are comfortable and just enough makeup to avoid scaring the shit out of people but not enough to have to remove it with more than a baby wipe.

 

Let's just say I did get TWO samples of Boob Goo (which might not be the correct name but it's what I'm calling it) from Mama Mio.  Now this stuff promises to get rid of all the wrinkles from the chin down to my below my boobs.  It does not promise to lift my knee sagging boobs which I must say is a vast disappointment but I am willing to continue to use the product simply because it smells divine.  My take away from this session is that there are a lot of blog about beauty and fashion and this area is best left to the women who are passionate about this subject.  I am not one of them.  Oh, and whilst many deny there is any conflict between bloggers and print journalists in this area, many feel there is.  I'm going to leave it at that.

 

There was then another coffee break and opportunity to spread delicious cupcakes all over my face again but I chose to retreat to a quiet area to do some thought catching and avoid that whole social awkwardness that causes my face to twitch when I constantly smile.  Can you imagine the self control it took to walk away from the cupcakes.  Let's not go there.

 

We were heading into the home stretch with the Keynote Panel which had all the promise of a duck egg blue box from Tiffany's.  Regrettably, upon opening it there was a gigantic turd right in the centre of the box.  Let me explain.

 

The panel included Zoe Margolis, whose blog about sex was at one time considered the 24th most powerful blog, although I notice she hasn't written a post there since September and only 2 blog posts for all of 2012 so maybe this has run its course or just isn't has titillating since she was outed by the Sunday Times.  She stood out with her amazing long, dark, black curly hair, her amazing rack bubbling out of the top of her top (Zoe, if you read this, you've got great boobs), and her acerbic observations and witty advice.  You can bear witness to her success from her web page which is far more up to date and professional, and far from being "just" a blog, although not nearly as entertaining and thought provoking as she was on the panel (or as her original blog was).  My takeaway from Zoe was that massive success is possible using blogging as a springboard.

 

Also on the panel was Tim Dowling, the testosterone contributor of the day.  There had been a few men lurking about but Tim took to stage with all the aplumb of a consummate professional.  He is yet another Guardian journalist and writes about family life.  I'm not sure how I feel about all these journalists pretending to be bloggers just because they write about family life.  To me a journalist writes for a paper and gets paid by the paper (doesn't matter if it is print or online - that line is increasingly blurred with every passing day).  A blogger is someone who doesn't get paid except by any tiny morsel of revenue generated by their blog.  This morself is probably so small that they have another job or source of support (husband, partner, family inheritence, benefits).  Regardless, a news outlet which is also a corporate machine does not support them.  I fell in love with Tim when he identified his litmus test for a good post as making his wife laugh.  A jolly good chap all round, then.

 

Eliza Gray is the pseudonym for a woman writing about being over 50.  It's a pretty good pseudonym because without knowing the name of her blog, I coudln't find her on google.  When I found her blog, I found she wasn't writing about anything much different to what I (almost 50) have been writing about for the last 50 years, our life with all its ups and downs including dog destruction woes.

 

The last member of the panel doesn't bear mentioning and due to her insults to everything www.mumsnet.com BlogFest and I are about, I refuse to increase her visibility by even printing her name here.  Let's just suffice to say that she was a bitter, twisted, sad, mean wench of a woman.  My takeaway from her was to make sure that I never ever become anything like her.

 

And as if to prove everything that I do want to be like the Closing Keynote speaker took to the stage to a rousing round of applause and hoots.  I think I even heard a few whistles.  Caitlin Moran took to the stage in a burst of cut off jeans with black tights and doc martens paired with a trusty lumberjack shirt and a mane of black hair with her signature blonde stripes.  She has a husky, raspy, sexy face and from the start she made us laugh, at her, at ourselves, at blogging, at life.  I have to confess that when my book group read her book, How To Be a Woman, last year, I refused.  I mean, I've been a woman for the last 48ish years.  I don't need someone 10 years younger than me telling me how to perfect what I've already perfected.  I will be the first to admit that I might, just might, be wrong about this.  I'm going to go read the book and get back to you on this.  But my takeaway from her keynote was, and pay attention because this is the most important bit of the day, BE YOURSELF.  Be free to be who you are.  Express yourself.  She left me energised and ready to take on the world of the blogosphere with renewed energy and focus.  Which really is what the day was all about!

Favourite Bits:  the sound of babies cooing during the sessions and the seriously stuffed swag bag (with some seriously awesome stuff!!!!!).

 

Improvements Needed:  there was no feedback form either paper or online.  I have tons of suggestions for making this even better for next year:  QR codes on the name tags, additional sessions (eg getting started (ie blogging for beginners), monetizing your blog, blog usability), bags at the beginning for things like the newspaper you handed out in the morning.

 

Can hardly wait for next year!

Comment Settings

Regular visitors and commenters to this blog (that would be my mother) will notice that I've had to change the comment settings requiring you to enter some letters as they appear on the screen if you wish to leave a comment. I've had to do this in an attempt to reduce the amount of spam that I am receiving. Oddly, this spam is directed at one post which is actually quite old. Not sure how or why this is happening but as the comments appear to be in Cyrillic meaning I can't read them I am playing it safe and trying to prevent them. Deleting them one by one is simply taking too long.

I apologise if this is a pain in the back side but quite frankly deleting the odd comments is a pain in my back side. Don't stop reading though!

Neglect

Yes, I have neglected my blog. Yes, I have had a few other things on my plate. Yes, I will try to do better in the future. But quite frankly I'm not making any promises. Sometimes the cup just runneth over and mine is flowing down the hallway.

I've been so busy (with work, with family, with friends) I've not had a chance to sit down and get the creative juices flowing. I'm not reading. I'm not knitting, I'm not quilting. I was doing a lot of working. I am an over booked mummy taxi. I am an unpaid under appreciated director in a company which doesn't pay me (ok so my husband's business does pay me.....a little). But life is finally easing in a way that allows me to be more creative and think more. About life. About me. About you.

So let me just make clear I will try to do better. Because when I neglect to write I am neglected myself. This outlet is a non-negotiable extension of me and by not participating here I am not investing in myself. And we just can't have that now, can we? And, mom, get off my back! I'm back.

Blog Purpose

I had originally intended this blog to be a useful tool to keep my friends and family scattered all over the globe informed about the comings and goings of the Clare-Panton family. And then there was this realisation that by its very nature a blog could be read by and is indeed read by loads of people that I've never met. Not that it bothers me (although the fact that it doesn't bother me does seem to bother lots of people who know me - although I'm not really bothered about that either).

Other than throwing my life out there for all and any to read about, my other blog topics seem rather haphazard and don't really follow any of the blogging rules of thumb that I've read about. Rule Number 1 of blogging success seems to be find a topic and stick to it. That just seems rather dull really.

I have been searching internally for that motivation to keep on blogging as I have watched my visits plummet (must be the fault of the financial crisis) and discover that most of my family rarely reads -who are all those strangers reading?

I have found it. The meaning and purpose behind my blog is to help me remember what has come before today. It seems that my memory is fading. I started to write my annual Christmas letter and much to my frustration I couldn't remember what went on this year. A quick troll through the blog archives and suddenly I am reminded that we have had a very busy year indeed. I was trying to recall if I've read the book Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller or just seen the film. A quick search in my archive revealed that whilst I have read Notes from an Exhibition I have not read Notes on a Scandal. I am buoyed by the hope that at some point in the distant future my children will read these words and find me, the wacky person they happened to call mummy but who was really an obsessive compulsive big hearted neurotic who loved to read and above all else loved them very much.

So whilst this blog doesn't appear to be of much interest to many others I am quite interested by its contents which I suppose is the ultimate test. Although that won't ever pay my mortgage.

Saturday Visitors

I've noticed some rather strange behaviour from my reader community. It seems Thursday is the day that everyone and their brother, sister, mother-in-law, second cousin twice removed reads my blog. Why? Are my blog posts better on Thursdays? I don't think so. I went through the Thursday posts and they are pretty much of the same dull variety as the rest of the week.

Saturday readership on the other hand plummets to an almost non existent low. Why? I thought initially because people don't read on the weekends. But that didn't hold true when further analysis revealed that Sundays are my second highest readership (after Thursdays). Is it because everyone is way too busy on Saturdays and Sundays are a bit more relaxed leaving them some leisure time? To read my blog? Don't you have anything better to do with a Sunday?

My blog visits have never recovered from my February vacation went I just ran out of things to say. Partly because I don't think I've recovered fully. I've increased the frequency of my posts recently but due to increased demands on my time from just about everyone and everything in my life over the last 9 months or so I find blogging unfortunately falls to the bottom of the heap.

When do you read my blog? And why?

Sabbatical

Sorry devoted followers....I'm juggling work and children off school for half term and dozens of magazines and books that I want to read. So for just a short time I've put blogging on the back burner. I'll be back and I hope you will too!

PS I've got a wee bit of writer's block. I hear this happens to the everybody so I'm just going with the flow.

Lights Out

Yesterday, the UK suffered from a brief (about 1 hour) of really horrendous weather. Gale force winds blew in from the arctic and tried to kill us all.

When we got home it was obvious that we had lost electricity at some point during the day as all the clocks were blinking except for the battery powered ones (obviously, doh!). And the computer needed rebooting. At least, that was my original assessment.

In fact our network card had been fried. Not entirely sure how that happens. Entirely sure that I don't care.

Marc was able to replace it last night and we are now back on line. So that's my excuse for no post yesterday. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

There is more bad weather predicted. Might miss a couple more. Stay tuned.

Search Findings

Check this out.

How odd it is that someone is talking about me and I didn't even know it. Wish I could read Japanese.

A Year of Blogging

In December 2006, I finished the month with 231 visits to my blog. I was thrilled. I had just climbed aboard the blogging ride and didn't quite know what to expect or where I wanted to go with it.

December 2007 I finished the month off with 990 visits. 2007 saw more than 12,000 visits in total. Holey Moley!

Whatcha y'all doin' here?

Blogging has proved to be a weird and wonderful ride. It has captured moments of joy and moments of sadness in the life and me and my family. It has captured all the chaos that surrounds and the peaceful moments I find in the eye of the storm.

Mostly it has shared this roller coaster ride of the life of me and my family with everyone out there in cyber space. I've offended some which a respected journalist and blogger informs me is inevitable. I've entertained some which the same journalist tells me is much more rare.

I don't plan on going anywhere and I hope you don't either. Bring your friends.

Happy New Year!

Happy Blog Birthday!

Today my blog is 1 year old.

I never could have imagined the journey this blog would take me on.

I've formed numerous new friendships. I've reconnected with misplaced friends and I've lost one. I've helped new friends find each other.

I've explored my life: past, present, and future. I've documented the life of my children in excruciating detail. I explored the experience of motherhood.

I've been published on Time.com.

I've learned a lot about myself and others.

I've vented about my career.

I've had ups and downs. I've suffered writer's block. I had writer's diarrhea.

I've bored you to tears and made you laugh out loud.

I wouldn't change it for the world. And the words will just keep coming.

Writer's Block

I'm having writer's block. I don't know what to write about. Ideas?

I Met a Man on the Internet

As far as strange things go, this might just be one of the strangest things to ever happen to me and my family.

I've been doing this blog for nearly a year now. On the back of this, my sister started one and my extended family (Janell and her crew of siblings) proliferated too many to link to here. In a stranger twist of fate, one of my sister's university/college roommates/sorority sisters (Leah)decided to start one.

Now hang on for this. Leah has married a man named Adrian. 'sbest friend and best man at his wedding is a man named Joe. Joe would regularly comment on Leah's blog and you could count on us disagreeing. Before I knew what had happened Joe was a regular visitor to my blog.

Inevitably, Joe disagreed with what I wrote and would express himself passionately all over my comments. Other regular visitors to my blog assumed I knew Joe. He visited Janell's blog and her family's catalogue of blogs. You can see the passionate opinions he has incited on the current post about my new boss.

So, the really strange thing is I barely know Leah. I've never meant Adrian. Joe has met my sister because she was Leah's maid of honour and Joe was Adrian's best man but they aren't buds and haven't really had more than a 10 minute conversation. But Joe visited my home Friday evening.

Yes, you read that correctly. A man I had never met and vehemently disagrees with me on just about everything had dinner with me and my family in our home. How does this happen, I ask myself (and you are probably asking me as well)?

Joe works for an international company and just recently gained responsibility for the patch that has an office near our home. When he found out he was going to be in our neck of the woods (so to speak) he dropped me a note and we arranged a time to get together.

Janell will be pleased to know that there was no physical violence. We didn't even have a single argument. We marvelled at the photographs of Joe's beautiful family and his homes (both soon to be old and soon to be new). We ogled his technology gadgets. We giggled at his Americaness. We shared a meal of traditional English curry take away. We drank more and stayed up later than we should have. We got up way too early and met up for coffee and a whistle stop tour of Windsor and the castle. Then we dropped him off at the airport.

My husband is revelling in telling people that "my wife and I had a man over that we met on the Internet." I've asked him to stop saying that.

Joe will be returning to England on a regular basis and he is more than welcome to visit us. We hope he brings his family one of these times and stays for a wee bit longer than a couple of hours late at night. We hope to show him a bit more of my adopted country.

Anyone else planning a visit?

Analytical Mind

My analytical mind wanted to solve the mystery of my unpredictable blog traffic. I may have just found a causal relationship between the number of posts I write and the traffic I experience in any given month.

I have realised that the number of posts per month is nearly directly related to higher traffic, ie the most posts, the more traffic. This doesn't make any sense to me.

I check out my blog roll (blogs I read) on a daily basis. So if there is more than 1 post on any given day I read them all on the one time I visit that day. I rarely, if ever, check a blog more than once/day.

There are only 2 blogs that I take an RSS feed from straight into my email box (soon to be just 1). Everything else goes into my pageflake. My pageflake takes forever to build so I only load it once and once I've caught up I shut it down.

So if I post more than once/day do you come back to read? If so, how do you know I posted more than once? How many of you subscribe to my blog using the RSS feed? How many of you don't know what an RSS feed is?

October Traffic

October saw my traffic go up from last month. Phew!

I reached once again the heady heights of June and July and managed to go over the 1,000 mark for the third time in the blog's history.

I'm still having a great time writing. It has changed the way I look at my life. It has changed the way I look at me.

Thanks for reading.

Lurkers

My blog community mostly consists of lurkers. These are visitors to the blog who never ever leave a trace that they've visited except for me to see they've been counted on my sitemeter.

Janell faithfully leaves comments to nearly every post I make. Clare makes occasional but deep and meaningful comments. My mother used to comment. My sister used to comment. My sister's blog has fallen into disrepair due to lack of attention. A few work colleagues rarely comment (you know who you are).

But now I'm having a crisis of confidence. My lurker audience is shrinking and I'm not sure what I'm dong wrong. I'm still getting those faithful commenter but my site visits have sharply dropped off in the last month.

Visits fell during August. I chalked that one up to my lack of posting for nearly 2 weeks due to annual leave/holidays/fun in the rain (or not).

But this month the visits dropped even more. Unless I get over 300 visits in the next 2 days (unlikely given it is a weekend which sees my lowest daily visits) I will fail to exceed my visit high set in July this year. Should I care?

Ideas? Tell everyone you know to visit my blog, please!

Blog Hiatus

My mother rang earlier this evening and asked if I was ok. I was knee deep in homework and laundry and dinner preparations and animal feeding time and was puzzled by what she meant by "ok". I mean I was as ok as I ever am at 5:30 on a Monday evening (or any weekday evening at that time).

I should actually make it a rule not to answer the phone at that time but sometimes returning phone calls takes more effort than just answering the dang phone.

I told her I was fine and asked why she asks. Seems my mother got worried that something had gone horrifically wrong in my household because there had been no blog post for the last 2 days and there was no explanation for the lack of blog posts and my mother thought that was just a bit too out of character. As any mother does, she jumped to the worst case scenario and thought we had possibly been murdered in our homes.

Man, that would be something to blog about! But no, I've simply been racing around like a maniac and having some 'puter problems and man oh man, Facebook is sucking some time from the blog. There, I've said it.

Similar to my sister's Guitar Hero addiction, I just can't stay away from Facebook. And this isn't good. Mostly because I don't enjoy it as much as I do the blog. And some things on Facebook I just don't get. Like can anyone tell me why we are throwing food at each other?

Anyway, I will try to not skip 2 days in a row without posting unless there is a good reason. but if it does happen, please look for me on Facebook and don't assume we've been hit by a tornado (although a tornado did hit the UK today in a couple places - but that's another post!)

Blog Traffic

I knew that taking 2 weeks off blogging was going to have an impact to my site traffic. Luckily it wasn't as bad as I had feared. This month was the very first month that there was not a growth from the previous month since the blog birth. There was even a last minute surge which ensured I hit 1,000 visits this month. Spot on. Exactly 1,000. How odd is that?

I had been experiencing an average of 46 visits every day. With my blog sabbatical I saw the average visitors/day drop to 19 although that recovered fairly quickly and I ended the month back up to an average 39/day. (Who are you all?)

So all in all not as bad as I had feared but not as good as I had hoped! I would have like to have kept up my growth but 1 months in 8 ain't all that bad!

Keep visiting! Comment more! Tell me what you like and what you don't. Most of all, I hope you enjoy reading about our mundane and extraordinary adventures!

If there is anyone out there reading who would like to start their own blog but don't know where to start just let me know and I can walk you through the easy peasy steps. I'm thinking about hosting a blog masterclass at my home in September. If anyone is interested just drop me an email note.

If you aren't in the UK, ask Stephanie if you are in Colorado and Janell if you are in Nebraska. Both are proficient bloggers. If you aren't in any of those locations just go to Blogger and follow the seriously simple instructions. If I can figure it out, anybody can!

The Process

Just so y'all know what is going on here with the blogging:

I've kept copious notes during our travels and am trying to get them transcribed into posts (complete with photos) that make sense as well as entertain and inform. Bear with me as I go through 14 days worth of travel notes and share our family's fun with you.

France

We are off to France this morning (hence the early morning - silly hour post). I am going to try to post whilst on the road but I don't have much faith that it is going to work. So you will all just have to read some other blogs.....this post has some really good ideas!

Blogs to Read

Or you could just wait patiently for my return.

Best Blog About Stuff

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