Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt

In Jakob Nielson’s latest alertbox, he advises businesses to write in-depth articles rather than short blog posts that have a little or no value. He provides several diagrams to support his claims. However, one factor not shown in his diagrams is the magic of blogging. In-depth articles may better demonstrate your expertise in your field and increase your credibility, but they typically don’t promote interaction between the author and readers, and amongst readers. Oftentimes, that interaction is as valuable, if not more so, than the original article or post.

Within that interaction is where the magic of blogging occurs and, sometimes, it can be quite amazing. Allow me to share three stories to illustrate my point.

First story: Last Wednesday, Darrell and I had the pleasure of meeting with Norman and Dru from Sheffield, England. They have a daughter with cerebral palsy and have faced the all-too-common struggles in accessing the necessary services for her. Ten years ago, along with a group of other parents, they established the Paces School for Conductive Education so their children with cerebral palsy may receive what they need to thrive and succeed – to reach their full potential.

In preparation for his Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship study tour to Canada, the United States and Sweden to study the education of children with cerebral palsy, Norman found me in the blogoshpere and was impressed with my autobiography. We arranged to meet while they were in Vancouver. My book tour came to me – how amazing is that! I can see trip to Sheffield in the near future.

Second story: Last month, I listened to Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman of The Blog Squad interview Allan Voivod who was talking about re-purposing content. Being a one-thumb typist, I’m all for getting the biggest bang possible from my typed word! I emailed him a question, which he kindly answered on his blog, giving my blog more exposure.

Apparently, my left thumb made quite an impression because, last week while sitting on the beach with another couple, watching their young sons play in the surf, my name happened to come up in conversation (I’m never sure how that happens, but it does!). The other fellow David happens to be the lead attorney in Burke & Eisner’s Cerebral Palsy and Pharmaceutical liability practice. He was also quite impressed with my blog. Thanks Allen and David for your support!

Third story: This morning I received a follow-up email from Nicole. This past school year she was the one-on-one assistant for a young boy with cerebral palsy in second grade. He worked hard this year and made much progress. He likes to do things by himself. When he does he says in his strongest voice, “I DID IT!”

Nicole made him a scrapbook to show his journey over the last year. In researching inspirational quotes and stories about having cerebral palsy, she came across my blog and asked me to write a note for his scrapbook, which I gladly did. Inspiring young people to keep trying and to do their best is why I’m “in business”.

The scrapbook, with my story and note featured on one page, has been viewed by everyone in his school, his mother, his grandparents, home health workers, and friends. They all loved it. How magical!

Touching the father of a girl with cerebral palsy, a lawyer representing parents and children with cerebral palsy and a special education assistant – my target market – is why I blog the way I do. If today’s business is built on relationships – on the “liked, known and trusted” factor, then, surely, this interaction found in the blogoshpere is as valuable as lengthy, in-depth articles that people may not have time to read.

(Photo credit: Jay Simons)

After a two-week hiatus from blogging, I’m back! Darrell and I were busy preparing an introductory training session “Web Accessibility: The What, Why and How” for a local city’s Information Technology (IT) staff. When I’m in the midst of a major project, everything else decreases in importance – this typing thumb can accomplish only so much.

I had a few late nights creating the PowerPoint presentation and adding the text-to-speech sound files with my speaking parts, which was a tedious process that seemed like it would take more time than I had. I thought the burning eyeballs and the floating spots were simply from a lack of sleep.

A trip to the optometrist just to be sure on Monday morning revealed otherwise. After several tests, measurements and hold still moments, it was determined that my perfect vision, the only perfect thing with this body, is no longer perfect. I now need glasses for reading. Apparently this is normal when individuals turn forty – finally reached a normal milestone!

However, I profusely object. If I am so-called developmentally delayed, then the perks of turning forty should be equally delayed! This is not fair; it can’t be both ways! I want a lawyer to fight this unfair ageing practice!

Blogging is fulfilling my childhood dream of having a regular column in which to share personal experiences of living with a disability so that readers may come to know me, the person, and to realize that I am more than my cerebral palsy. My goal is to alleviate people’s fears of those with disabilities in a non-confrontational and humorous way. Unlike writing a column in a local newspaper, blogging has allowed me to touch people from around the world. My dream would be even sweeter if I could find a way to be paid for blogging.

Charles Jolley has launched a social sponsorship experiment Blog for a Year. The aim is to find out what would happen if patrons from all over the world could come together to give one deserving writer the boost he or she needs to launch a professional career as a blogger. Blog for a Year awards one winner a year-long contract to blog full time on a blog of his or her own choosing. The award is funded by donations from participants and sponsors. The competition ends when the Blogger Fund reaches $160,000 or on January 1, 2008, whichever comes first. In either case, when the competition ends, the person with the most votes will be offered the job.

The winner will be paid $80,000 (or half of the Blogger Fund) in even bi-weekly installments, like a regular paycheque. Personally, $80,000US would keep me blogging for two or three years! The fund is currently $1350; enough to buy a bagful of pre-cut fruits and veggies bi-weekly for one year, which would save a few fingers!)

At this point, I would like to request your support in votes, please. And you can vote every day until New Year’s Day, 2008. I am several thousand votes behind the front runner, but, with your support and help in spreading the word, I am confident I have a fair chance in being offered this job.

Thanks for your support!

I have eagerly awaited this day for a few weeks. Today, I am participating in my first carnival; blog carnival, that is. This is the closest I’ll come to joining the circus!

According to the Wikipedia, a blog carnival is:

…similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on the particular topic.

…typically, someone who wants to organize a carnival posts details of the theme or topic to their blog, and asks readers to submit relevant articles for inclusion in an upcoming edition. The host then collects links to these submissions, edits and annotates them (often in very creative ways), and publishes the resulting round-up to his or her blog.

There are hundreds of blog carnivals on every conceivable topic. If there isn’t one on your particular topic or interest, then it’s easy to start one. Carnivals are a great way to build community, to organize posts around particular topics and to increase visitors to your blog.

I have been reading the Disability Blog Carnival for a few months and decided to give it shot. Coincidentally, my first carnival is themed “firsts”; hence, my post Firsts Expand Our Comfort Zones So Dreams Are Reachable. Visit The Gimp Parade to enjoy the rest of the carnival!

The blogoshpere’s version of playing “Tag” is known as a meme. According to the Wikipedia, biologist Richard Dawkins popularized the word meme, which refers to a “unit of cultural information” which can propagate from one mind to another. Dawkins’ examples of memes include tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, and clothes fashions.

With blogging memes, bloggers share trivial (or not so trivial) information and then pass it on by tagging other bloggers. In addition to being a seemingly silly game bloggers play, memes do have benefits:

• discover new blogs,
• further connect the blogoshpere, and
• increase incoming links (also known as “link love”), which increases your blog’s ranking. (Hmm, maybe I’ll start a meme as an experiment to see what it does to my Technorati ranking).

Memes are truly grass roots and content driven, and have specific topics. Melody Thacker began this particular meme about where we hang out online. I have to:

• Say who tagged me
• Tell you where I hang out, and include links
• Tag two other blog owners to keep this going; and you will discover new places to hang out online in the process
• Add this post’s link to Melody’s “Mister Linky” at the bottom of her post

Professional Virtual Assistant Tracey Lawton tagged me for the “where do you hang out online” meme. Tracey kindly interviewed me during my “40 Blogs in 40 (Business) Days” virtual book tour and a follow-up interview is in the works.

Where I hang out depends upon the mood I am in and the type of information I am seeking at the time. I mainly hang out at blogs, like Pam Slim’s Escape from Cubicle Nation, Patrice-Anne Rutledge’s The Web Savvy Writer Blog, and Liz Strauss’ Successful Blogs. I also spend some time at MyBlogLog and a bit of time at Ziki.

I am now tagging freelance writer Harmony Cornwell and strategic planning Liz Strauss. You are it!

I have also been tagged by Anja Merret for the “gotta get goals” meme. That post will be forthcoming; I’m still pondering my goals!

Okay, now back to serious work.