Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt

Motivational Speaker


Glenda Watson Hyatt shares her experiences living with cerebral palsy to motivate and inspire others to think about how they perceive their own situation and their own world around them. She does all this by typing with only her left thumb!

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I’ll Do It Myself by Glenda Watson Hyatt

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Rolling the Credits – Part 2

Filed under: Blogging — by at 1:49 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Hanging out tonight at Liz’s Open Mic Night, talking about blogging, while listening to my cd library now finally on my iPod, a thought struck: blogging is akin to performing live, while writing a book (in the traditional sense) is similar to recording an album in the studio.

Performing live, musicians draw upon the energy from their fans, and there is interaction between onstage and offstage. Performing live, more risk is involved: notes are missed, lyrics messed up, lead singer trips, or worse, wardrobe malfunctions. Other moments are purely magical and cannot be recreated.

Depending upon your approach to blogging, the same holds true: the blogger draws energy and inspiration from the interaction between her and her readers. Blogging is also risky: posts contain typos or are missing words, thoughts can be poorly communicated or incomplete, opinions can be too controversial, leaving the blogger open to a barrage of negative comments from throughout the blogosphere. Other posts result in overwhelming or unbelievable responses that can be life-altering.

Unlike live performances, most studio recordings are rehearsed, redone and remixed. Response from the fans is delayed until the entire album is released. The same goes for a printed book, which is rewritten, revised and reviewed until it reachesperfection as closely as is humanly possible. Readers’ reviews are months, if not years, away from when the writer puts the first words to paper.

Both forms have their place in music and in writing. I enjoy receiving emails and notes from those who have read my book. Some of their messages are so heartwarming and inspiring. I have each note safely tucked away in a folder. Equally, I’m enjoying the interaction and immediacy blogging. I value each reader who takes the time to read my words and to leave a comment. Your comments give me the energy to continue blogging and, for that, I thank you.

Continuing the list I began on New Year’s Eve, I would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions in making this live performance a success:

If you enjoyed this post, consider buying me a chai tea latte. Thanks kindly.

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Blogging Year in Review

Filed under: Blogging — by at 10:16 pm on Monday, December 31, 2007

2007 was an amazing year for me in terms of blogging! Here are a few trivial stats as the year ends:

I would like to sincerely thank the following people for contributing to this blog by adding your comments. You made this blogging year a success and very rewarding. Thank you.

Amazingly I am only half way through creating this list, but I need to go ring in the New Year with my husband. I will post the remaining list later this week.

Wishing you all the best in 2008!

If you enjoyed this post, consider buying me a chai tea latte. Thanks kindly.

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9 Ways to Use Social Media to Campaign for Votes

Filed under: Blogging — by at 6:30 pm on Thursday, December 13, 2007

(Election ballot)
(Photo credit: Steve Woods)

For the past several months I have been campaigning to win the opportunity to be paid to Blog for a Year (site is down at the time of writing this). During this time I have discovered new ways of using social media and related technology to spread the word. Some ways are more effective than others.

Here are the strategies that I have tried to date, with a few lessons learned:

  1. Use established networking groups to begin spreading the word. With one of my networking groups, I did a weekly mini newsletter with an accessibility tip along with current contest results and a reminder to vote. This way I was contributing something of value to a group where I was already known, liked and trusted. Several members then spread the word to their other networks or posted to their blogs.
  2. Start a fan club on Facebook. This may sound a wee egotistical, unless an enthusiastic supporter begins one on your behalf. This is an effective way to send out regular messages with updates and reminders to vote. The key is to not bombard fans with messages. Also, joining the group is the only action some members take, so the group needs to relatively large to have a measurable effect.
  3. Add a PS to email signature block. This is a no brainer! However, with some email messages, it is appropriate to delete the PS.
  4. Add a PS to blog broadcast. For four individuals who aren’t familiar with RSS feed readers, I use AWeber to email new posts to subscribers. With every new post notification, they are reminded to vote.
  5. Create a YouTube video. The video adds another medium to the campaign, enabling individuals to get a better feel for what they are supporting by seeing how I blog. It also gives other bloggers something interesting to post on their blogs.
  6. Ask supporters to change their homepage to the voting page or, if using Firefox, add a new tab. This is a brilliant strategy for reminding people to vote daily. The challenge is having people actually do it.
  7. Use Twitter. When I first began tweeting, I envisioned a tweet to vote being spread far and wide, and gaining several hundred, if not a few thousand, votes in a matter of hours. Obviously I was a naïve tweeter and, after several attempts, had my knuckles wrapped for being spammy. I then set up a separate Twitter account for the sole purpose of driving votes. People know that when they decide to follow @bfay. Building up a following mass takes time. Twitter isn’t the instant strategy that I thought it would be.
  8. Use Facebook’s FunWall to spread the message. Again, use this sparingly so not to annoy people.
  9. Use Facebook’s status line. Changing my status line regularly puts updates and reminders into my friends’ mini-feeds.

In addition to what I have tried, other enthusiastic supporters have offered a various suggestions, including befriending people on Facebook who have large number of friends and asking for their support. This strategy may work for some people, but, personally, I don’t have chutzpah to try this. Similarly, others have asked people to befriend me to support my efforts. Although I appreciate the gesture, I’m realizing this is diluting my friends’ list because these friendships are not based on a mutual interest or connection. It’d be better if these kind people offered their support by joining the fan club.

As with any campaign, the strategies used reflect upon your personal integrity and reputation. One misused strategy could mean more harm than good in the long run.

Running a successful campaign means trying various strategies and finding the right to balance to keep the campaign running smoothly…until the voting site crashes…then what do you do?

Dec. 17th update: The Blog for a Year site is back up! Please resume voting daily until New Year’s Eve. There’s a ways to go to reach first place!

If you enjoyed this post, consider buying me a chai tea latte. Thanks kindly.

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5 Lessons I’ve Learned about Blogging This Year

Filed under: Blogging — by at 1:32 pm on Friday, November 30, 2007

With the year’s end fast approaching, I find myself reflecting upon the amazing year I have had and how blogging has played a major role in 2008. Highlights include:

From all of this and much more, I have learned:

  1. Blogging is as much about fostering relationships as it is about writing. Yes, you can focus solely on pumping out content, but, by not engaging with your readers or other bloggers, you are missing out on the magic that the blogosphere offers.
  2. Steadily increasing traffic over the year, except for a decrease in AprilConsistently posting content is crucial. Being the Left Thumb Blogger, I can write only two or three posts per week, which I try to do consistently to keep readers engaged. Having bronchitis for a month after my “40 Blogs in 40 (Business) Days” virtual book tour, and, hence, wrote few posts in April, my traffic dipped drastically, which was frustrating after building momentum while on tour. (Note to self: eight weeks is way too long for a virtual book tour, particularly for your first one and without an assistant!)
  3. Blogging is instant publishing, the results are not. A traffic spike is not immediate once the “Publish” button is pressed. Patience is the key here!
  4. Anything can happen in the blogosphere. For example, last week’s post on tracking your contribution to the blogosphere was the result of a suggestion I had received on Andy’s blog. I created the spreadsheet for tracking comments and then decided to share with my readers, resulting in a flurry of comments from new readers and, at last peek, 50 diggs!
  5. I can make a living from blogging! This is the most exciting and affirming realization I gained from BlogWorld. All my life I have dreamt of having my own syndicated newspaper column in which to share my thoughts, ideas and perspective with the world. With blogging I no longer need to find that one newspaper willing to give me a break to get started. Blogs are my medium! And, at BlogWorld, I listened to bloggers who are making a full-time income from blogs and blogging, so I now know it is possible. In fact, this week I landed my first paid blog article, a direct result from BlogWorld. I know this is only the beginning!

    6. And my bonus lesson:

  6. The more I learn about blogging, the more I realize I still have to learn!

What you have learned about blogging this year? Feel free to share by leaving a comment below.

If you enjoyed this post, consider buying me a chai tea latte. Thanks kindly.

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Tracking Your Contribution to the Blogosphere

Filed under: Blogging — by at 11:08 am on Monday, November 26, 2007

The blogosphere is all about building relationships. One great way to build those relationships and to contribute back to the blogosphere is to comment on other blogs.

A few weeks ago, I had set a goal for 2008: to comment on ten blogs per week; five comments on blogs I had previously commented on to further strengthen those relationships, and five comments on new-to-me blogs to expand my network by forming new relationships. Reading posts by Tara Kachaturoff and Caroline Middlebrook confirmed my goal was sensible; that spending time commenting on other blogs isn’t another time-waster, it is actual work!

But, I was stumped on how I would easily track where I had commented. The easier and quicker the method, the more likely I will keep it up and reach my goal by year’s end. Tara kindly suggested creating a spreadsheet for tracking the blog names that I comment on.

Excel spreadsheet for tracking your blog comments in 2008

I have created the Excel spreadsheet and offer it here to assist with tracking your blogosphere contributions and reaching your commenting goals for 2008. (Left click on the image to open the spreadsheet or right click to ‘Save As’ to your computer.)

To use, enter the blog’s name (e.g. Do It Myself Blog) or main URL (e.g. www.doitmyselfblog.com) and then tally your comments for the week. A running total will be calculated near the bottom of the spreadsheet. In theory, using Excel’s sorting function can determine the number of times you have posted to a particular blog. I have yet to test whether the sorting function works for this particular purpose, so I’d welcome any feedback or tips on using this feature.

This spreadsheet is intended as a starting point. Feel free to tweak or customize as needed, and then share any changes in a comment below in case they may also benefit others.

Blog on!

If you enjoyed this post, consider buying me a chai tea latte. Thanks kindly.

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