Haven't Posted Here In A VERY Long Time

Hey friends and fans. It just occurred to me that I haven't posted anything here in several years, since I established my newer blog at Typepad. Please visit me at: FeeFiFoto Blog, and thanks for dropping in here.

In Case You've Been Getting Lonely

In case you've been missing me the past few days, I've been putting my blogger boot camp training into action on a new blog dedicated to my personalized gift web site, FeeFiFoto.com. Visit me there at: http://feefifoto.typepad.com/feefifoto/. Eventually I'll transition to the new blog exclusively, but for now I'm maintaining two bases until I can get this place painted and on the market.

Little Baby Steps

Fresh out of my second week of blogging boot camp, and my hair seems to be growing back already. Yesterday we talked about making connections with other sites whose eyeballs are connected to my ideal customer base; at one point we discussed offering product giveaways to get some attention ("Helloooo? Anybody out there?") to our site. It seemed so obvious once Drill Sergeant Kristen suggested it that I was embarrassed not to have come up with the idea myself.

Today, while practicing maneuvers and spit-polishing my combat boots, I came across an announcement on Solo Mother of exactly the kind of promotion I need to get my feet wet, and just in time for the Christmas season no less! They're hosting the Family and Relationships Channel Blogtoberfest (guess which month it occurs in?). Among many other cool and desirable prizes will be a Personalized Photo Bucket Bag from my site, FeeFiFoto.com.

Take a look:

It's a microfiber handbag with your favorite photo printed on each side.

I have one of these. I printed a picture of our dog, the Tibetan Terror -- um -- I mean Terrier. It's one of the few things in our house she hasn't yet managed to steal and mangle.

Anyway -- check out the contest and look for my link. I'm so proud! (snif)

I Get It Now...

My fifth grade son, Robespierre, is exploring actual history this year instead of the more intangible "social studies." They've begun with prehistory, ie the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age (or is it Iron first and then Bronze? I was so young back then...) Anyway, he's been bringing home his assignments so I can help him, and so far the questions have to do with issues that seem instinctive to me but obviously must be learned somewhere, and I suppose fifth grade might have been where I learned about them originally. For example, he needed to write a paragraph about the effect of a surplus of food on people and society; I suggested he think about improvements in health and strength, increased population, and increased power of a community over their ill-fed, weaker neighbors.

Meanwhile I've signed up for a blogger boot camp to learn to maximize my blog exposure and help build my internet business, which was my original goal when I began blogging. As I browse other people's blogs and observe how they create their own communities, I see us engaging in the same kind of alliance development as our Stone Age / Iron Age / Bronze Age ancestors, although to my knowledge the Starbucks caves didn't offer WiFi.

I explore other blogs like eMoms at Home, 5Minutes for Mom and Mommy Haven and see a tapestry of connections whereby almost anybody can link to almost anybody else about almost anything, and I see the huge disparity between what they're building and what so many vanity bloggers do. The difference between community blogging and individual blogging is like the difference between participating in a book discussion group and standing on a street corner declaiming about your favorite book to anyone who happens by; in the first scenario you're engaged in a conversation with people whose interests resemble your own, while in the second you're throwing your thoughts out there in the hope that someone might be interested. It's an astonishingly potent tool, and those who harness it can be seen as having attained super powers.

And really, haven't we all at one time or another harbored secret fantasies of being super heroes?