Ah - the joys of BlogTipping. So many great blogs… so little time!

The BlogTipping tradition? Pick three blogs. Say three great things. Offer one tip. I’m taking a more minimalistic approach this time, simply because life in eMoms-land is awfully busy these days!

Kiddley

1. They have great content - really fun projects that I would *want* to do with my kids - nice!
2. The site is one of the prettiest blogs I have seen (and I am a sucker for pretty!). Your site would be pretty too if your Chief Editor was a phenomenal illustrator too!
3. For a ‘commercial’ blog, you have done a great job of keeping the layout clean and easy to read - I’m impressed.

Tip :: I’d love to see more projects for older kids - my daughter is turning 12 this week and still loves to craft. It’s getting harder to find things she would be interested in doing. Help!

Dooce

1. Heather, I LOVE your work. I don’t know HOW you take so much crap from your readers and turn it into the most delightfully hysterical stuff I have ever read.
2. Your photographs are phenomenal - and so crisp and sharp. Even at high res I can’t get my camera to take such great pictures. Must be the photographer…
3. You’ve done such a great job monetizing your blog - I know my readers would love to pick your brain on the subject. If you ever decide to write a post about it please let me know!! (We would settle comment though… just askin’ )

Tip :: Keep your heart in the right place woman, and remember Psychology 101. Your not-so-favorite readers are doing what’s called Projection. It’s “a defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits.” Thanks to Heretical.com for the definition. (So, yes, the religious fanatics are basically jealous that John gets to touch your breasts. Go figure!)

Pronet Advertising

1. I think I picked all three blogs this month based on what great designs they have - your blog has a unique template that I love. Nicely done!!!
2. You offer great tangible blogging info and I really respect you for that - and you are definitely my goto source for understanding Digg.
3. I didn’t realize you had such a big section on Analytics. I’m usually a big picture thinker, but I LOVE web analytics. I’ll be spending more time there to read what you have to say on the subject.

Tip :: I am a scanner and scan fast to determine whether I want to stick around and read more. Although I love the layout of your home page, I would invite you to consider having more than 4 story headlines for new readers to review. I have been a reader for a while, so I know to dig around and find good posts. Newbies to your site might not give you the benefit of the doubt (or might, as you DO have an impressive Alexa going on!!)

Elana! It’s been a while since we connected, and I don’t know if you know this or not, but you were my FIRST inbound link.

My blog is doing really well these days, and you know what? I can give you a little credit for that. You see, I didn’t realize the power of the conversation in blogging until we had our little exchange about Mastermind Groups. And I will seriously never forget the thrill of looking at my referrer logs and for the first time EVER, seeing an actual URL! For this, I thank you!

One of the things I love about your blog is that you really tell it like it is. In fact, your invitation to Douglas Steenland, CEO of Northwest Airlines, to go dumpster diving is downright hilarious - but at the same time, you deliver it with an edge. You GO girl!!

I also admire your ability to write so thoroughly on stuff that just isn’t common knowledge. Either you spend ALL day researching this stuff, or you have some dang good Fortune 500 business contacts! Check out this scoop Elana unearthed from the FunnyBusiness Blog intro page:

Take the vice president who invited her team for a holiday dinner even though her boss had sent a memo saying all holiday parties were canceled as part of the company’s aggressive cost-cutting measures. (The company had just announced 6,000 layoffs.) How did she pull off her holiday party? She had her administrative assistant charge the dinner and then she, the VP approved the charge. And where did she learn such devious behavior? From her boss of course, who had the VP charge their holiday get-together the week earlier.

And to keep with the BlogTipping format, I must also offer you a ‘tip’. Your posts show up beautifully on the BlogHer blogs, but on your Typepad blog, the images seem to get jumbled. It might just be a browser issue - if you don’t see the same thing on your end, let me know and I’ll email you a screenshot.

My friend Ben is a passionate blogger who is really active in the blogging community. This shows up in his work - and I have really enjoyed getting to know him over the last few weeks!

Ben also has it goin’ on when it comes to creating the viral experience. Check out his Where is Basil Blog for some sheer brilliance and viral marketing in action. Did I mention brilliance???

I love that you take the time to feature the participating bloggers in the Where is Basil experience. I only normally get to interact with these people via email and their writings. But I am such a visual person, and I feel like I am getting to know these bloggers on a whole new level thanks to your project. Very nice touch.

I also want to congratulate Ben on launching his new InstigatorBlog (very aptly named, Ben!!!). He’s taking a new twist on his writings to focus on Entreprenurialism, business, and some of his “projects” (I can only wonder…!!). A post on small business hiring is right on the money Ben - great post.

My Tip for Ben… I guess would have to be that I can say from past experience that people get easily confused - and if they don’t get something right away, they won’t take the time to understand. So my invitation to you, if you will, is to come up with an explanation of the Where is Basil project in one sentence.  HA! Better you than me, my friend..

Yay! It’s BlogTipping Day! I [Heart] BlogTipping!!

First victim.. I mean, lucky lady, is Kristie Tamsevicius who writes at Home-Biz-A-Pa-Looza. Since I’m all about the inspiration behind starting up a home based business, I needed to start including some nuts and bolts details on the hows, whats, wheres, whens… you get the picture. Kristie has been working at home and doing it well for a very long time. Her blog is chock FULL of really great home based business know-how.

One of the things I LOVE about her blog is that she frequently talks about the law of attraction. I’m a big fan of the movie The Secret, and so is Kristie. Creating your own business relies heavily on the premise “what you think is what you get”. I love that Kristie incorporates the material into her content.

Kristie is also a bit talented in the PR realm - and has appeared on quite a few talk shows in her career. So I definitely perk up my ears and listen when Kristie talks PR and Publicity.

I was feeling the need to write a how-to book on home based business startups - until I saw Kristie’s book on the subject, and realized she did a far better job than I would have. It’s called the I Love My Life ToolKit! - and I’m including a link here for your purchasing convenience and downloading pleasure (a mere $15 get’s you loads of stuff!!) –>

And my Tip for Kristie is that I dug around a bit, but didn’t see a lot on the woman behind the grand show. Do you have a page with your own story of success - something that let’s people know more about who you are and can find some common interests? If so, make it more easy to find - and if not, dish it up, woman!

I’m really excited to pull off this blogtip for the day - not only because it’s my last one (these BlogTipping posts, done right, take a LONG time to write!!) - but because I’m getting to tip one of the members of our new eMoms BlogJolt group! Kelly is a writer with some seriously hilarious posts. I wish I could share all the good jokes with you here, but then I would be stealing her thunder, so you can go read them for yourself over at Mommy Grows Up.

Onto the business of compliments…

1. Kelly is a lawyer - very authentic, very full of heart, and very in touch with being a working mother. She self-reportedly brings her youngest child to work with her (you GO girl!), knows taxes like the back of her hand (I can’t even comprehend that you are capable of that, woman!), and calls it like it is in the courtroom (YES!!). I can tell just from reading a few of her legal posts she is the antithesis of any lawyer joke you can come up with - go on, try her!
2. I l-o-v-e her willingness to be a strong proponent of breastfeeding - even when she doesn’t particularly enjoy it. But that’s only half of it - some of her posts on the subject are simply laugh out loud funny - you HAVE to read this one… ok, AND this one too!
3. I can’t seem to get off of her “Sometimes I’m all about Mummy” category - there’s so much good stuff in there I could take up the rest of my night posting about it (though her writing deserves a sleepless night, I’m just not up for it!). If you want to read about everything Mom - the good, the bad, the ugly, and laugh about it all, run, don’t walk, to this section now!!

And now for the hardest part of blogtipping (because I chose really great blogs to tip this month!!). I’d have to say to beef up your About page - tell us more about this great woman behind the brilliantly funny writing. And make it prettier too, like you obviously are.

I’m way behind in my tipping duties today - this should have come out hours ago!! But I have had a very productive day today, so I’m not complaining..

On to Jory. If you don’t know her, you dang well should. Jory co-founded BlogHer.org (yes, THAT BlogHer!) with Lisa Stone and Elisa Camahort. Now, Jory might get an awful lot of link love, yet there are important things for this particular audience of work at home moms that I want to highlight in her blog, Pause - Jory’s Thoughts While Sitting Still.

1. One of the reasons that Jory is so successful in her work is because she is so darn passionate about it! Frankly, the words “Blogging Evangelist” come to mind. This woman walks her talk and it comes through in her writing (#4 of my Top Ten Key Success Ingredients). Check out her amusing post on trying to recruit another fine woman into the blogging world - HA! She reminds me a lot of me in this post, talking about the things that really matter in blogging - actually in business in general when you get right down to it.
2. Jory’s Living Without a Net Series is a MUST read if you are fearful of starting up your own business. Guess what? We ALL are. We just don’t show it most of the time, because we’re so busy pursuing our dreams. In fact, this series almost intimidates me, because she writes about a lot of the things I need to get out of my own hands and head… yet she’s way ahead of me. I guess I just need to step up and get writing .
3. Lastly, in a wonderful and warm-fuzzy article for Fast Company (yes, I did say warm-fuzzy), Jory takes on a great truth and puts it front and center for us: being a woman in the business world is tough, we’re usually expected to strap on balls in order to succeed, yet embracing who we are is truly our greatest strength. When I was a marketing recruiter I brought in some of the biggest agencies in the city as clients - and I did it by treating my clients like friends. Friends, as in I even crocheted a couple of ponchos for my clients’ new babies. Unconventional, yes, but I was darn good at what I did because I never forgot who I am - a woman.

Alright, I know this sounds totally kiss-ass, but I am having a really hard time coming up with a “Tip”. The things I am coming up with even sound kiss-ass-y. So I’ll make an observation. Jory is open with her vulnerability :: it makes her an inspiring leader, allowing us to also be vulnerable, thus tapping our strengths. But I have had a hard time finding a post in which she totally and completely toots her own horn. So my invitation to Jory is for her to bask in her own glory for a post. Like I wrote in my previous BlogTipping post, embracing our power and our light is a good thing!!

FINALLY onto my BlogTipping project for the day…

My first shout out goes to Antonella Pavese, who’s blog is one of the first I ever read. I remember considering starting a blog, and I believe I was doing some research on what other women are blogging on. It was well before I launched my own efforts - yet I was so impressed. She writes about her passion - which is a great mixture of technology, psychology, women, and just her own voice.

1. The reason this is relevant to moms is this: Antonella has taken the time to know herself well enough to understand her strengths, find her inner wisdom, and has taken the leap to publish the whole kit and kaboodle together in a delightfully fascinating blog.
2. Antonella writes about the user experience, which is something that I believe moms naturally pay attention to without realizing it, or even being aware of it. If you are a true eMom (and I mean a mom who wants to start an internet based / tech business) this is a subject that needs true planning and conscious attention - making a site or blog easy to understand, navigate and read will make or break your business. Period.
3. I adore her most recent post on owning our own power and strengths. This is something I have been working on consciously recently. (Very) generally speaking, women seem to back away from their own power and light. I can go on and on about my ruminations as to why this is - but suffice it to say that when I made the decision to really embrace and LIVE the powerful woman I am, amazing things started happening in my life.

My tip? From our great little email chat yesterday, Antonella made a quick deduction that her blog isn’t really relevant to moms - perhaps she was kindly trying to decline my invitation to join the BlogJolt group. But if not, I would suggest simply that she think of herself as relevant to all women (and men) - because anything spoken from her true self is relevant, period.

By taking this identity on, she can continue to lead by example as she ‘owns’ her own great blogging success.