this woman’s work

This happens more often than I care to admit. We have a french press because my husband likes to have these little morning rituals like grinding his coffee beans and boiling the water and plunging the plunger and sitting down to one perfect cup of coffee. Me, I just want caffeine so some mornings — like today — I just drink the cold coffee he left in the press instead of going through the bother of making more. Some mornings I’m just that desperate. If I really cared I’d make up a new batch or go drag our old, convenient coffee maker out of the basement but I think of cold coffee as a gift horse — why look it in the mouth? It’ll get me moving even if it tastes like old socks. I’m not picky. Put enough cream and sugar in there and you can’t even tell it’s been sitting on the counter for a couple of hours. I’m just wishing he left enough for two cups so I wouldn’t have to decide whether I should stay groggy or go through the bother of brewing more.

WordPress 2.7 is about to come out and I’m trying to decide whether or not to approach my clients and offer upgrades. It’s a huge change and for some of my clients, it may not be worth it. It might break their themes and likely some of their plugins and the interface is so different that it might also send them on a whole new learning curve. My typical client doesn’t love the backend of technology, which is why they hire me to make it easy-peasy for them. I think some of ‘em ought to just stay put if they like how their site is functioning. I need to look into how to turn off the pink “hurry up and upgrade!” warning bar that shows up in WordPress so that I could offer that as a service, too. I mean if you know you’re going to stick with 2.6, you don’t need to get hollered at every single time you login to your site.

I’m thinking I need to give it more time and test it out on some of my false installs to make sure that the common plugins I use work and also test out some of my clients’ themes. That way I’ll know ahead of time if the upgrade would make sense for them.

I’m even hesitant to upgrade here just yet because I’ve had trouble making giant upgrade leaps what with my blog being so big. I need to have enough time to back everything up four hundred different ways and time is precious right now. And when I type right now, I mean right NOW because Madison is calling with some small disaster (I think she’s got her shirt all twisted so she can’t get it on right — it’s driving her insane).

Came home to 109 blog posts in my reader. Yikes. Luckily my inbox wasn’t as bad because I checked in all day in my iPod. God bless the iPod Touch.

Got to talk to Julia tonight after a long, long time. Way too long. Life is better with Julia in it!!!

Tomorrow isn’t as busy. I’m getting started on a client project that’s been waiting on some info and I need to prepare for a workshop I’m giving Thursday morning and a training I’m leading Thursday afternoon. Also I have an interview thingie in the morning. Then Thursday potluck!!! Then Friday will be quieter ’til late afternoon when I’ve got a phone conference then Madison has her first soccer practice and I think there’s dinner with friends (not sure about that part). But! Still quieter because at least tomorrow I don’t have to leave the house at all on Wednesday and not until late on Friday.

I got a great pep talk from my dad this afternoon after my meeting. He helped me focus on how to do some things I wanted to do but wasn’t sure how.

Sometimes there are lights at the end of tunnels!

I’d love to hit that drupal one but that’s my dad’s 70th birthday so we’ll be busy that day. Courtesy of the Fuse Factory!

Workshop 1: Introduction to Marketing Yourself on the Web
Instructor: Alison Colman
Date: Wed., Sept. 10
Time: 11:30am - 1:00pm
Location: GCAC conference room
Fee: Free

Workshop 2: Intro to Web 2.0: Building a Better Blog
Instructor: Dawn Friedman
Date: Saturday, Sept. 13
Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: Junctionview Studios
Fee: $15

Workshop 3: Intro to Drupal
Instructor: Jennifer Deafenbaugh
Date: Saturday, Sept. 20
Time: 1:00 - 4:00pm
Location: The Vault (this will be part of the Independent’s Day festivities - visit http://independentsday.nu/ for more details!)
Fee: $15

Workshop 4: Intro to Flash
Instructor: Phong Nguyen
Date: Saturday, October 4 (Phong, plz let me know ASAP if you think this workshop warrants two sessions! This can be scheduled for both the 4th and the 11th)
Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: Junctionview Studios
Fee: $25

This is what I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks: Open Book Strategies

You can see I’m changing out my links to Smart Cookie Communications because we’re really going to focus on marketing this other business instead. Here’s how it came about:

• There are a lot of marketing communication professionals here in Central Ohio and I’ve been having a hard time figuring out how to market myself so I’d stand out.
• Even though I was reluctant to see this, what differentiates me from my marketing communications competition is my web 2.0 experience: I’ve managed email lists, enormous forums, and of course all the blogging I do. I understand virtual relationships and I know that web 2.0 content isn’t just regular old content with hyperlinks thrown in; I know it’s about relationships. So that’s what I ended up talking about with folks.
• Every time I said the word “blog” ears pricked up and that’s where people had questions. I did a lot of consulting on the side but kept brushing off requests to do more of it thinking I needed to focus on the writing.
• And yet the blog jobs kept coming.
• Finally one of my mentors said, “Take the leap!” She advised me to come up with blog service packages to make it easier for people to understand my services.
• So here we are.

My ideal client is a small to medium local business owner who’s a little nervous about web 2.0 and blogs. I like to work closely with people and I don’t mind doing a lot of hand holding. I’m pretty darn patient with people who have a lot of questions. (Ask Kristen!) And I understand narrative so I can help people find their most compelling bloggable stories. (This was my favorite part about this project — listening to them talk, asking lots of questions, and identifying blog entries in what they shared.)

Anyway! That’s what we’re doing and now the writing is on the side instead of the blog consulting.