Got A Dream? Do It!

Sorry I have been quiet for a couple of days, no I haven’t gone off on my holidays just yet! Far from it, I have been working on a huge new project that is probably the biggest undertaking I have ever thought about doing.  However, it is something that I am passionate about getting off the ground so with some hard work and long hours, this will happen soon.

Before I start anything new, I also question whether or not I could actually ‘pull it off’, not just personally, but financially, time, how it will impact my family etc.  There is also that saying ‘don’t jump in with both feet’ which is true with some ideas, however if we all just dreamt about what we wanted to do and never actually did it, nothing would ever get done. So sometimes, going in with both feet is just what you need.

If you don’t think and dream big, how will you ever know just what you are capable of? If you don’t get out there and (to steal a popular sports brands phrase!) and ‘just do it’, how will you know whether or not you could make a difference?

It is easy to get bogged down with the ‘what if’s’ and to worry about what could go wrong, but even the most successful of business people have these niggling doubts at the start, you just need to ask yourself  ‘do I really want this?’  if the anwer is yes, then go for it.

For those of you who don’t know me very well, 12 years ago I was told I may have a brain tumour.  I was having a series of strokes and lost my speech, the feeling in my legs and the grip in my hands.  I was in a wheelchair and I that is where I thought I would stay, forever.  I was told I would never have children and the chance of me walking again or using my hands to grip were slim.  My world collapsed.  I was newly married, I had a great job and it was meant to be the happiest time of my life but then BANG, all my dreams stopped.

I admit I got very down with everything that happened, not only did my illness get worse but because I could not work, we (as a married couple) ended up in extreme financial difficulties.  At that point, I thought my life was over.

Or was it just the beginning?…..

Luckily I am married to someone who has more faith in me than anyone else in the world, even through the really bad times when he was being told I could die,  he was there saving my life, quite literally on two occassions, telling me to look forward and to keep going, that no matter what was in the way, I could do it, I would be able to beat this.  I am also quite stubborn and once he ‘flicked the switch’ inside me to fight, I started to push myself to get through it.

With therapy and support I started to walk again and use my hands, my speech became less and less slurred and finally in 1998 we had a massive breakthrough when I was told I was pregnant, I am sure you can imagine our joy.  This joy was later followed in 2000 when I fell pregnant again.

12 years on, I can not only walk, but I can run (although to be honest, I don’t like running, I don’t think Sally’s were actually born to run, we wobble ), I can write, cook, type (again, something that I can do but as you will notice from some of my posts, not that accurately, nothing to do with being ill, I just think my brain goes faster than my fingers!), I can do everything that I should be able to do.  More importantly, I am a Mum, somthing I never thought possible.

Life is hard, it throws things in our path that are so huge and so life stopping that it is a wonder that as a human race we haven’t just all sat down and shouted ‘WHAT IS THE POINT?’ but we don’t.  We carry on.  We dream about making things better and it is those dreams that you have to grab with both hands and really work hard to achieve.

So not only ‘think big, dream big’ but also ACHIEVE BIG!  Whether your ‘big’ is employment, work, family life, health or just trying to lose a few pounds on a diet, just go for it. Life is too short to waste away. You can do it!

Is Gaming The New Social Networking?

What do most people do on Facebook?  We chat to people, add friends to our friends list, join groups, add applications, play solo games, compete against each other in multi player games, send each other private messages and network.  This is exactly what most gamers do every day whilst playing their favourite online games.

As a  closet gamer (keep this under your hat though, I don’t want everyone to know……what do you mean it’s a bit late now? ) I run my World of Warcraft account rather like I would any social media or social networking site.  I have made a lot of good quality contacts through gaming that I would not have made through Facebook or LinkedIn, these contacts have not only brought me business but also a new window into my marketting.  I have also made a lot of good friends through gaming, which I have through Facebook or LinkedIn, so this is just the cherry on top of the cake!

Gaming, these days, is not only for adolescent teenagers who spend hours locked away in their rooms, a wide variety of people and ages play online interactive games just for the sheer relaxation of it.

So to prove my point I wanted to show you my comparison between both Facebook and World Of Warcraft, you’ll see that it really isn’t that different and in fact it could work wonders for your network.

Friends List

Of course the famouse ‘add friends’ aspect to Facebook is known throughout the land, you also have a friends list on World of Warcraft that works in a similar way.  It let’s you know when the are offline/online and tells you where they are in the game.

Groups

Facebook has literally thousands of groups on a wide variety of topics ranging from the serious to the stupid.  World of Warcraft has guilds.  Guilds work in the same way, you can chat and discuss things in your guild or work together to obtain a goal.  Through guild websites such as GuildOMatic you can even have forums, photo albums, calendars and more, just like a Facebook group.  Just like Facebook groups, there are serious and stupid guilds. There are guilds that are adult only and even business breakfast guilds where business people play for an hour at breakfast time before going to work to get themselves ready for the day, share new ideas about their business and make contacts, and before you think that is very odd, our local business advice centre offers the same type of business breakfast meeting in real life. (Obviously not playing games, but it’s still networking!)

Adding Applications

With Facebook you can add applications to enhance your personal profile and how you use the site itself.  The same is true of World of Warcraft, you have ‘add-ons’ that enhance how you play, chat and connect.

Private Messaging

Both Facebook and World of Warcraft have a private messaging system for all those networking discussions.

Playing Games

A lot of people add games to their profiles, whether it is to play solo or to compete with their friends.  World of Warcraft – I don’t really need to explain this one do I?

So there you have it, not such a big difference after all, however some of you more serious social media and social networking types may snub this post as gamer having a ramble.  I’ll let you into a secret, when you play games you have fun and you relax, the perfect time to network, as believe me most people playing the game are feeling the same way and they open up = easier to network with.  The true test of a good marketeer and networker is to connect with people no matter where you are or what you are doing, it works!

Not so silly after all eh?

Why YOUR Company Needs To Hire A MUM!

“Listen up you lot, come close, I want to let you into a little secret, I’m a mum……sssshhhh…don’t go telling the whole world because I won’t get employed!”   Ever felt like this when looking for a job?  Well don’t, because many companies and business NEED Mum’s, let me tell you (AND THEM!) why

We can help work with you and your products or services to make sure that each one is family friendly, not only in design and manafacture but also labelling, wording, advertising etc.  We know what other Mum’s are thinking, we can give you that insight and make your product stand out.

Mum’s talk.  We all talk together about what we like and what we don’t like.  Wouldn’t it be great to have that on your side?  Imagine all that free advertising!  Take a look at all the so-called ‘Mummy Bloggers’ (Mommy Bloggers if you are from the US!) out there, literally thousands. We are savvy, we know what we want and how we want it delivered to us.  We can give you all this inside information and advertise it on our blogs and websites.  A little insider information goes a long way!  There are so many Mum’s out there who are tech savvy and can network their way to the top using social media and social networking, this would be a great tool for you and your company.

Mum’s are naturally good marketeers, those of us who have websites and blogs, promote it.  We know how to do it and when to do it, we can get your company involved in, what I like to call ‘MLMM’ – Multi Level Mum Marketting!  One Mum passes information and a review to another, then another and so on.

We can not only help you develop your products or services but test run them too.  How better to test something for family safety, appeal or value for money, then letting a Mum get her hands on it.

Having  Mum on board in a ‘consultancy’ role would not only benefit your products and services but also your public relations outlook.  You want to appear family friendly, of course you do, then how better than to hire a Mum Consultant?

As a mum, we multi-task 24 hours a day.  We know how to work hard under pressure, by jove we do it all the time, and we do it well.

So come on businesses, listen up.  Mum’s really DO know best and we are there to help you too!

If you are a Mum in the UK and would like more information on this topic or would like to chat about it please email me, as I intend to get UK companies listening to us!

New kid on the block – 'thisMoment.com'

thisMoment.com is a new social networking site offering members a place to show their ‘moments’ in a timeline to share with friends, family and new contacts.   thisMoment.com is like having your own vitual scrapbook that you can add blog posts, events (past, present and future), photos, podcasts, videos and more. Each entry becomes a ‘moment’ that appears on your ‘MomentFlow’, a timeline of entries on your profile page.  However being a social networking site, this brings the idea of a personal scrapbook to a whole new level, because users can now add to each others pages and collaborate on moments.

thisMoment.com say “It’s incredibly easy to capture Moments using our Moment Maker. Just give your Moment a name, and then easily add things like photos and video, how the Moment made you feel, who shared it with you, and much more. The Moment Maker connects with your existing Web services – including Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and others – allowing you to illustrate your Moments with photos and video you’ve already uploaded to the Internet. You can even pull in publicly available content for any shots you may have missed, utilize high-quality professional media from our partners, and invite your friends so they can contribute as well.”   I would have to agree on how easy it is.  I went straight in without using any of the ‘how to’s’ or watching any videos and set up with my profile page, arranged a dedicated url, linked it with Facebook and Twitter and had my first moment published all in 7 minutes.

The site itself is very sleek and grown up looking with an ‘easy on the eye’ design and sophisticated colour scheme. Offering mobile web for any SmartPhone and a new iPhone application in the pipeline, navigation and access is certainly not an issue.

With Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Picassa  intergration you can update all your contacts in one place, sharing your moment not only to thisMoment.com viewers but all over your social media/networking profiles.

The ability to add moments from past, present and future make this site stand out from the ’scrapbook’ trend.  For those of us who have scrapbooked in the real world (yes actually cutting out our die cut shapes and using our acid free 12×12 papers, come on your scrapbookers, you know what I am talking about!) you know that your scrapbooks are filled with moments of your past.  thisMoment.com allows you to add future events, which is not only very clever but also very uplifting.

The possibilities of how you could use thisMoment.com are wide and vast.  You could use it just as a photo album/scrapbook, or as a photo blog, or as a podcast blog, or as a calendar for both personal and business events.  You could even set up a business page and use this as another ‘latest news’ outlet.

I have been very impressed with all functionality of this new site as well as the sheer look of it.  Well done thisMoment.com – keep up the good work!

Social Media & Networking – Do Mums Need It?

With all the fuss these days about social media, social networking, twitter this and plurk that, are all these ‘ways of communication’ actually needed by Mums?

There are a host of social media and networking sites these days, ranging from simple ideas like Twitter to full on website making profile page ideas such as Facebook or MySpace.

However, as a Mum, do you need them? Will they benefit you?

As Mum’s we have enough on our plate with housework, being a taxi for our children, cooking, cleaning, working out the weekly menu, doing the shopping, washing etc.  We might also have a full or part time job on top of all that, so do we really need endless websites to try and keep track of too? Well maybe…

As you know from previous articles I am not the biggest fan of social media.  I would much rather meet someone for a coffee and have a good old fashioned chinwag about life, than try and fit a conversation in 140 characters on twitter.  However, this is the time when, now this is going to be hard for me to say, but, I may have been a little harsh on poor little social media.

I am a member of Twitter, Facebook, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Digg,FriendFeed to name a few, now that is quite a few sites for a self confessed Anti-Social Media mum BUT they do have a place in my online world.

Twitter is the tool I use most often.  I use it to meet new people, to let people know I have done a blog post,  to join in ongoing conversations and to have a giggle.  I don’t use it seriously like some professional bloggers do (in fact I mostly talk drivel on there), but I do meet new friends and us it to get word out.  It is a simple concept and that is it’s appeal.

Social Networking sites such as Facebook also offer a good place to meet new people and to hook up again with old friends, however, personally I find Facebook bland and boring, plus you get spammed but endless notifications of people inviting you to join various applications. No! I don’t want to install the ‘Do you have hairy armpits?’ application thank you very much!

You then have FriendFeed and websites like these, which import all your information from all the other sites and cram in all on to one page.  A nifty idea if you are out and about on your mobile phone, you only need to login to one site each time, so you can network to your hearts content!

Now after all that (are you still with me? Do you want to get yourself a cuppa and come back to read the rest?) you have the Mum-specific social networking sites.  Now, I have to admit, I find 95% of these sickly sweet and quite nauseating.  Yes, I am proud to be a mum, very proud, but I don’t need to have a 1000px banner on my website to tell me that nor do I want to talk about breastfeeding or how to knit a blanket all day.  I am a grown up and want to be treated like one, I am a woman as well as a mum, I HAVE NEEDS!  As much as my love my kids, I want to talk about other things too and even other aspects of family life.

So apart from the 95% of ‘Fluffy Mummy’ networking sites out there, there are some gems to be found….

Type-A Mom, although a US based site, does allow and encourage worldwide Mums to join and guess what, they treat you like a real person! The topics are all ‘mum’ or ‘family’ based but in a factual way.  You can get advice, network, meet other mums in a non-fluffy way, and not a pastel colour in site, brilliant!  A well designed, well thought out website and I support Type-A Mom 100%.

Wishpot.com, not strictly a networking site, but it hasn’t stopped me networking on there! Wishpot.com is a shopping list website where you can list items you have, want, need, wish for etc.  Wishpot opens it’s doors to its new Baby Registary soon, an excellent way to list exactly what you want or need for a new mum.  With ‘real mums’ on hand to give you ’straight down the line’ advice if you want it. Excellent and again I am right behind Wishpot.com!

And…before the cynical ones amongst my readers say “She’s only saying that because she is involved with them”…well thats the point, I am involved with them because I believe in them and what they do/represent.

So, do Mum’s need social media? No, we don’t NEED it, but if you want to spread the word about you, your business, your blog, meet new friends or even just to announce to the world that “I EXIST!”, then yes, it works wonders!

Social Evolution – Do We Need All Sites?

The four main branches of the internet social world are merging.  Is this evolution and will we really need all the individual sites in 2,3,4 or 5 years time?

It really depends on how YOU use social media and what social media does for YOU.

So let’s recap on what the four main sections of social media are and what they do:

1) Blogging – Blogs have been around for a while now, an online journal where you can either post your inner most secrets or talk a load of rubbish, whatever you do with it, it is your space on the web.

2) Social Media Micro Chat – Sites such as Twitter, Plurk and Kwippy.  Originally started as a quick way of telling people where you were and what you are doing.  It’s not like that anymore

3) Social Bookmarking – Sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.  A place where you can share your blog posts with a wider audience and (hopefully) get other readers to say how great you are by telling these social bookmarking sites they like your posts too.

4) Social Networking - Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn etc.  A place where you can meet new friends/contatcs and search for old friends.

When these sites all started they all served a specific purpose, but now, if you look closely, there is no difference to any of them really, they are merging and it is the Social sites such as Twitter and Facebook that are taking over.

On Twitter, you can micro blog (a lot of people do this, you get little excerpts of their life in under 140 characters), you can spread the word about your newest blog post and ask people to comment on it, or even retweet it (retweet – repeating a message you have sent so others can see it), you can search for new contacts, look for old friends and make new ones. So Twitter, however simplistic it is, could in theory, wipe out the rest as you can do it all on one site.

Facebook too, does the same.  On Facebook you can have a full blog add-on application, so you can blog to your hearts content with a fully featured blog.  You can also spam people with your latest blog post and even get other people to show your blog feed (rss) on their profile (who needs Digg when you can do that eh?), Facebook also allows you to import your twitter feeds into your profile, or even more snazzy, you could use Facebook to Tweet, by constantly updating your Facebook status message.

So do we need them all? Is it a status symbol of ‘how many online presences can I have’? Is it good to have all of them for self promotion? Or will it end up with one site-does-all?

I think a lot of it depends on what YOU want out of it and HOW you use them?  Personally I like to have a few accounts because, being female, I like to keep up to date with all the latest news and I wouldn’t want to miss anything would I? 

Those Were The Days, My Friend! Is Social Media A New Thing?

In the 90’s I started using the new and trendy (as it was then) IRC.  For those people who have no idea what that is, IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, chatting to people all over the world via online chat rooms.  Through IRC and using mIRC (a then and still popular IRC client) I got my first taste of coding new scripts and adding mods to applications.  I became a mIRC developer and loved every minute of it.

I became an operator and moderator on various chat rooms and steadily my profile grew within the IRC world, through chatting to people and making contacts.  It was about that time too that I started to chat on ICQ – this was, at that point in time, THE messenger to use. I had various websites and I used both IRC and ICQ to let people know about them, I was also a web designer then (still am) and used this method of communication and networking to find new clients.

Now it is 2008, I use Twitter these days to chat to people in a massive chatroom, because let’s face it, that’s all the timeline is really.  I also use Yahoo Messenger and Skype to chat too people in a ‘messenger’ format, i.e. one to one chatting online.

But what’s really changed?  Back then we were making new contacts, networking, chatting and sharing information, isn’t that what we do now?  Perhaps social media has been around a lot longer than a lot of users may realise and does that make me an ‘early adopter’ or somewhat prehistoric?

We never really took IRC that seriously back in the 90’s but we still used it to our advantage.  You certainly didn’t have so called IRC experts or IRC managers to help raise your profile.

It also proves that a lot of social media marketing is just using your brain.  If you want to network - talk to other people, if you want to get your latest blog post seen – share it,  If you want people to come back to your blog or website – give them something worth coming back for.  The basics are common sense and have been since the good old IRC days, nothing much has really changed!