05/30/2006
Ann Hadley, The Diva of MarketingProfs***, posted her
Top 10 Signs You Might Be Addicted to Blogging. I relate to #s: 1, 4, 7, 8 and 10.
And while we're being bloggy silly ... if you are addicted to blogging you may want to check -in at Bloggers Anonymous - or even if you're not. This is one blogger who, while he may be drinking the Kool-Aid, probably has splashed it with Tequila. A refreshing, fun read.
***In true bloggy transparency, I've been ask to join the group of prestigious bloggers, like my pal Tris Hussey and nope-don't-know-him-at-all Tom Peters, at MarketingProfs. Ann had me at "occasional" posting. Which I promise to do soon..soon..soon..before they take away my membership card.
Technorati Tags: Blogs, MarketingProfs
05/28/2006
If it's Tuesday it must be Tokyo or Beijing or Hong Kong or Cape Town or Amsterdam or London or Paris or Florence or or or.....
.... OR it's Shel Israel's around the world in 23-days tour to find out about companies that are empowering communities of people, rather than attempting to command and control them. Shel will use the material he collects for his next book - Global Neighborhoods.
Sidebar: Shel along with Robert Scoble wrote the book Naked Conversations.
Now wouldn't it be cool if someone sponsored a trip around the world for me to collect Blogger Stories?
Technorati Tags: Shel_Israel, Global_Neighborhoods, Social_Media
05/27/2006
Blogger Stories is a new blog that I launched to tell the stories of how people have
been touched by blogs. It's an opportunity for bloggers to tell their
personal stories of how their lives have been influenced by social
media.
Yvonne Divita, Lip-sticking, recently interviewed me about the back-story of Blogger Stories. In her usual savvy style she brings more to the picture than one might anticipate. Next to the words kindness and generosity in Wikipedia must be this sketch 
Thanks in helping a new blog find its way into the blogosphere.
This weeks chapters includes the stories from a farther and son team, a guy who has gone from working on a shrimp boat in Alabama to cycling and blogging around the world and more!
Tim Jackson, Masiguy; Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid! Blogger Story
Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog; truesurvior Blogger Story
Mike and Ben Yoskovitz , IGotNewsForYou.com Blogger Story
Rita Arens, Surrender, Dorothy Blogger Story
Gil C. Schmidt, Gil The Jenius Blogger Story
So, what's your blogger story? Drop me an email at bloggerstories at
yahoo dot com with how blogs have touched your life and include:
1. Your name
2. Your blog title and url
3. Business or personal blog story
4. Your blogger story (please limit to 500 words or less)
Technorati Tags: Blogger_Stories,
05/26/2006
Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's
virtual happy hour from cosmos to Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the
weekend 'playground' time to be sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just
plain silly.
Memorial Day starts summer-time 
cook-outs, graduations and for some lucky divas holiday r&r. Came across this grill cookbook that just had to be written especially for us Divas. I'm thinking of buying it just for the title: Dressed To Grill: Savvy Recipes For Girls Who Play With Fire. The promotional copy for is a hoot too.
Here's every aspect of modern grilling girl-dom-from Animal Magnetism Steak for that hot date to How Could I Be Sarong if the romance goes sour.
Capturing memories at special times is a must. Sharing your memories is a must as well. Have you seen the cool new mash-up (my new fav word) Amiglia? It combines photos, blogs, videos, music, calendars, tags, chat, Google maps all in the format of an interactive family album.
Amiglia is a family owned small business. Milena Berry, one of the founders, and I exchanged a few emails. I was intrigued with the name of the company - Amiglia. Milena told me it's a wordplay of the Italian word for family "famiglia." Here's a peek inside this famiglia start-up business..from the perspective of Diva Milena.
Diva Marketing: What's your role in the business?
Melena: While Paul slaves away at the programming, I basically tell him what to do and when. Kind of a joke, but, I'm constantly interacting with customers, using the site and taking charge of press relations. And so much of the feedback has shaped the site.
We're a tiny team really, using my connections to Bulgarian programmers through Paul's talents as well, but we've bootstrapped this so far and not gone looking for funding. We see this as an advantage in a way, as we're fast and agile. Vange has played a much more distant role, but important -- the site has to work for grandmothers!
Diva Marketing: You indicated you were giving away a free year membership. When does the special end?
Melena: This is a special that we offer to anyone signing up during Beta. And although the site is more and more stable every day, we're planning to be in it for at least a couple of more months.
You can see about our plan for pricing. It's important to note that even if you use it for a year, and then stop paying, we won't delete your album, but just freeze it so you can come back to it later.
Diva Marketing: I'm assuming that all of the "family members" must be part of Amiglia.
Melena: While Amiglia can be setup and maintained by one family contributor, it definitely gets a lot better with more and more family members involved. You can have one Amiglia site with the whole family part of it, or you can make related albums.
So while you have one for your nuclear family, your cousin might have one for his nuclear family, and your brother-in-law for his etc. And just like in the real world some people from different nuclear families overlap. So when these albums are related they can share photos and family information between them. You can read more about related albums.
Biz Astro Tips
business astrology for fun
By Diva Astrology Bloggers Paula Dare & Donna Page
The new moon in Gemini tomorrow is about communicating and listening. Are you hearing what your customers are trying to tell you? What needs to be communicated so you attract the right clientele? A proliferation of new blogs will develop over the next few weeks. If you haven’t been blogging now is the time to start.
Gemini energy can over promise and then need to talk their way out of, or excuse themselves from projects. What if you committed less yet delivered more that you promised? Try it. Venus will be in Aries for a few more days; take advantage of her aggressive side and ask for what you want. You may be pleasantly surprised at the results.
undefined Tags: Amiglia, Blogs, Mash-up, Astrology, Friday_fun
05/24/2006
As a card carrying Diva, I must admit I love to shop. Shoes, clothes, books, music I even like grocery shopping. However, there have been a few traumatic experiences in my shopping life and several of those were centered around car shopping.
I hope those good ole boys have since wised-up and figured out that women purchase 50% of vehicles sold in the U.S. That amounts to over $80 Billion. Not a bad deal.
Join me in welcoming Ask Patty to the blogosphere. Never again do women (or men) have to be afraid to ask questions about cars. Ask Patty is billed as a safe place for women to get advice on car purchases, maintenance and other automotive related topics. The women behind (no guys on the panel) Ask Patty are experts in the automotive field. There's even a Nascar professional driver - Deborah Renshaw who holds a very pretigious win record. How cool is that?! The rest of the impressive line-up includes:
Karen Salvaggio - professional racecar driver and Vice President for Women in Racing with the Women's Automotive Association International.
Sandra Wingate - Concept Schools, Inc.
Heather Becklin - Ford Motor Company. Heather's degree includes a concentration in Automotive Marketing Management.
Gayle Clark - Motor City Sales and Services, L.L.C.
“Daytona” Dayton - Producer/Host of Daytona & Friends National Radio Talk; first female licensed mechanic for NASCAR and a former race car driver.
Karen Payton - On Wheels, Incorporated
One more creative note .. Ask Patty is sponsored by three organizations including Women's Automotive Association. Elisa Camhort knows all about sponsorship blogs.
Another group of women recently joined the blogosphere. Babson College - Center for Women Leadership Babson's Women Business Blog. The blog has potential of providing interesting information but beware of the obnoxious video.
Heard it from: Michael Chmua, Director of Public Relations, Babson CollegeTechnorati Tags: Ask_Patty, Business_Blogs, Babson_College, Marketing_to_Women
05/22/2006
Blogger Stories
is a new blog that I launched to tell the stories of how people have been touched by blogs. It's an opportunity for bloggers to tell their personal stories of how their lives have been influenced by social media.
This chapter of Blogger Stories includes how a law student began one of Austalia's leading fashion blogs, how blogs changed the career direction of a broadcast journalist and a speech writer, how a blog is being used to help write a book and stories that the world spins smaller every day when people have global friendships.
- Ed Garsten, Chrysler Media Blog - Blogger Story
- Nick Jacobs, Nick's Blog - Blogger Story
- Jane Genova, Jane Genova Speech Writer-Ghost Writer - Blogger Story
- John Cass, Backbone Corporate Blogging Survey; PR Communications - Blogger Story
- Jane, Average Jane - Blogger Story
- Sybil F. Stershic, Quality Service Marketing - Blogger Story
- Robert Bruce, Knife Gun Pen - Blogger Story
- Millie, My Mom's Blog - Blogger Story
- Andy Howard, Camarilla - Blogger Story
- Wendy Maynard, Marketing Maven, Kinetic Ideas: A Marketing Blog - Blogger Story
- Holly Buchanan, Marketing to Women Online - Blogger Story
So, what's your blogger story? Drop me an email at bloggerstories at yahoo dot com with how blogs have touched your life and include:
1. Your name
2. Your blog title and url
3. Business or personal blog story
4. Your blogger story (please limit to 500 words or less)
Technorati Tags: Blogger_Stories,
05/20/2006
In March, Dan Greenberg Greenfield, VP Corporate Communications at Earthlink, invited me to his midtown Atlanta office to chat about blogs. Earthlink has a blog, authored by resident blogger Dave Coustan, and Dan was familar with the good, bad and ugly of the blogosphere. But he wasn't quite ready to jump into the game himself.
I'm excited to tell yoy that Dan has taken the dive and lauched a blog where he can "muse on my profession but (not) my job at Earthlink. As Dan puts it, "Names will be changed to protect the innocent and to ensure further employment." If you have an interest in PR and want a fresh persepctive check out Bernaise Source.
Welcome to the blogosphere Dan Greenfield!
Update: Ooops..sorry Dan corrected your name.
Technorati Tags: Blogs, PR_Blog, Earthlink,
05/19/2006
My how time flies when you're having fun. I almost forgot today Diva Marketing (Blog) celebrates its second birthday or blogversary. Join me in a virtual cup cake as I blow out the candles and make a wish that includes special thanks to Diva Marketing friends for your kindness.
Wonder what is around the corner for Diva Marketing in year 3?
05/19/2006
Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's
virtual happy hour from cosmos to Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the
weekend 'playground' time to be sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just
plain silly.
Maxie 
is very cute but cuteness doesn't always pay for the doggy treats. Sometimes I think little Max should be helping out with the expenses of his doggy chocolate kisses and cookies. I might have found the perfect gig where cuteness does pay. Old Navy is on a search for a new spokesdog mascot to star in ad campaigns and commercials.
All kidding aside, Gap, Inc. has created an innovtive and fun strategy that is attracting the attention of dog lovers online and off. You can nominate your pooch for the honor by submitting a photo on a special website. The site is loaded with games and pet information. Don't have a picture? Take Spot to a casting call where photgraphers will snap your pup.
Of course you want to see your dog in the cast of thousands so you click back to website. The technology falls flat at this point. It's almost impossible to find your dog's picture and the photos are not showing up. Very frustrating.
There's one more surprise and this is totally awesome.
Coming back into the site <after submitting your photo> you are greeted with a splash page film about your very own pooch's adventure becomeing a star. How cool is that?
Diva's just for a giggle let's spin this and show The Gap how they could have included a little Web 2.0 magic and extended the buzz even further.
- Make it easy to download the film. I'm betting we'd see a lot on YouTube, blogs and websites.
- RSS feeds for updates of specific breeds
- RSS feeds for contest updates
- Podcasts and vlogs of the casting calls
- Ability to add your dog's photo to the send a friend an e-card
- Blogs written by the judges: Katherine Heigl (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Alfre Woodard (“Desperate Housewives”), Malcolm David Kelley (“Lost”), Kristin Chenoweth (“RV” and “The West Wing”), Betty White (“Golden Girls”) and celebrity dog trainer Andrea Arden.
- Blogs written by the dogs' peoples
- Dare I say a character blog?
- A customer video element - perhaps a contest within the contest
You have until May 29th to enter the contest. 
Biz Astro Tips
business astrology for fun
By Diva Astrology Bloggers Paula Dare & Donna Page
Mercury, the planet of communication and commerce is moving into its own kingdom of Gemini today. This position is excellent for getting your message out. What do you need to communicate about your business in order to connect with your customers?
The sun enters Gemini on Sunday giving a one two punch to communication, connecting, and sales. However because Mercury is traveling with the Sun, essentially hiding in the suns shadow, it is best to keep your marketing plans under wrap until you are ready to launch.
Monday is a daydreamer’s paradise, let your creative thoughts flow, and just remember to click the save button so your brilliance doesn’t disappear into never never land.
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Old_Navy, The_Gap, Web_2.0, , Marketing_Strategies, Blogs
05/16/2006
Spent the better part of Tuesday on planes traveling to Tucson where I'm speaking on blogs to the Tucson Chapter of AMA. Gotta love the title of the program - Blog It Danno! These people must have a great sense of humor. Maybe I should tell them about Shels new best bloggy friend, Shiny Flora.
Sidebar: Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson was handing out little cards that asked people to take an online survey about their travel experience. Interesting.
Stephanie Rosenthal and Mary Jankovosky, both of Radiology, LTD, rolled out Southwestern hospitality with dinner at one of the best Mexican restaurants ever ... Cafe Poca Cosa. The only thing that chef/owner Suzanna Davila is missing is a web presence. Bloggers are blogging but not Cafe Poca Cosa. I'd bet a yummy chicken mole that Chef Suzanna isn't reading the thoughts of her patrons. Perhaps after the blog session some nice person will clue the chef in.
Top 10 Signs You Might Be Addicted to Blogging. I relate to #s: 1, 4, 7, 8 and 10. 
