Getting Web site development right

August 30, 2007 | Marketing, Web Marketing

Two of the most popular search terms for this blog are "b2b website" and "corporate websites suck." The second due to a 2005 post called Why Corporate Websites Suck and some ideas for fixing them.

But, as I was writing a memo about site development for a client, I realized that I haven’t written about Web development here in quite some time. Since people seem to be coming here for just that sort of information, seems like I should rectify that

So here’s a step by step outline that covers the most important part of the process: defining the requirements and navigation for the site. I strongly believe that you must have a clear picture of the path(s) you want your visitors to take through your site, to get to the desired result, before you commit one line of code or design a single page.

These are the steps I follow. Every time. New site or redesign.

1. Assemble a team that represents the key stakeholders in the site. You do not need every individual, but you do want to be sure that the representatives are truly cross-functional. In some cases, you will want someone from the actual business area. In others, it may be more effective to have members of your team interview the relevant people. Some of the functions that should be included are sales,  marketing, business development, communications and customer service.

I do not recommend having the Web designers or developers too involved in this stage. You want to keep the discussion at a business level until you have a solid idea of what is needed across the company. Developers often get too wrapped up in how to do something rather than what is necessary, which should be the focus early in the process. Involving developers too early also can steer the discussion toward what the developers can do easily rather than what the company really wants. Later, when you get to the development stage, you may make concessions due to cost or complexity but it is too limiting and undermines creativity to start this way.

2. Once the team is assembled, the first order of priority is to identify the objectives for the Web site. These objectives should be closely aligned with your overall business goals. Some of the questions to ask:
a. Who are you trying to reach?
b. Why?
c. What do you want to tell them?
d. What do you want them to do once they are at the site?
e. What are the priorities of the business now and for the next three years?

It is helpful to pull the web stats from the existing site to better understand what your site visitors are doing. What areas get the most traffic? What are people coming to your site to see and do? It’s okay to let the team refer to areas on the current site that they feel need to be kept or improved, but don’t let them get bogged down in what they don’t like or think does not work. The point of this work is to develop a specification for the new site; rehashing previous decisions, good or bad, is not useful and slows down the process.

You are going to have multiple audiences and multiple objectives – everything from sales to customer service to media outreach to things very specific to your business plan. This is exactly what you want at this stage.

3. Next, you determine priorities. Of all the objectives identified in the previous stage, three, maybe four, will be critical to your overall business objectives. These are the priorities and the elements that should get attention on the highly valued “real estate” of your home page. For the most part, everything else can go on inside pages. Typically, the core priorities fall into these buckets:
* Identify product set and market segments so visitors know they are in the right place;
* Communicate key company news/events/messages to constituents;
* Purchase;
* Customer service.

4. The team should then discuss content. Starting with the existing content. What stays/goes? What should be improved? What new sections do we need? What data do we need to capture from our visitors? How will we let people search our site? Keep the team focused on the desired result, not the technology that might be used to get there. And don’t worry about writing the content yet; that comes later.

5. One or two team members should be deputized at this stage to develop a straw man home page, home page navigation and inside navigation. Their job is to synthesize all the discussions into a cohesive navigation. You still should not be thinking about design or functionality. Keep thinking content. The key questions:
a. What action do we want or expect to visitor to take?
b. How can we drive the visitor through our site to accomplish our priority business and site objectives?

As mentioned above, you need to stay focused on the visitor. How does she use the site? What did she come for? Every click should move the visitor forward to accomplish her objective. The goal as we develop navigation is to ensure that she is never more than one click away from the next thing she wants.

This is just about the most important part of the process: Making sure you have defined a clear path through your site for your users so they get what they came for.

Never assume that the visitor will figure it out. If you want him to do something, make that the attractive option. If he wants to buy something, make sure he can do it easily and quickly.

So, if we sold apples, our home page would make it clear we sold apples, and perhaps the range of varieties. Within one click, the visitor could get more information on the specific varieties (product page). One more click gets him to the order page, or perhaps the dealer search page if we don’t sell direct.

We can offer more information about our apples, but we have to make the desired path crystal clear. Otherwise our visitors get lost.

Typically, the home page has its own navigation, and the inside pages have two levels of navigation: a top line navigation which contains all the items that are common throughout the site, and not that different from the home page navigation, and a side navigation, which contains all the navigation items for the specific section of the site.

6. Once you have your straw man, the team reviews it and the straw man is adjusted accordingly based on feedback. Continue the review and revise process until you have a defined home page and navigation that meets the approval of your key team. This should all still be in outline and very rough graphic form “FPO.”

Now it is time to involve the Web developers and designers.Whether you are putting the project out to bid or using an inside development team, I always recommend that the marketing team and key stakeholders get a clear picture of what they really want from the Web site before involving the techs.

I also stay away from delivering a “spec” to the Web team in the first pass. I find it more useful to present what the site needs to achieve from a business and customer perspective to see how the vendor(s) respond. You may discover that some of the things that you’d like to have require more funds than you have budgeted. This is where the priorities developed earlier come in so handy. The budget needs to deliver the priorities first, and the “nice to haves” come after.

The goal is to develop a scope of work that delivers as much of your core needs as can be accomplished, along with a plan to incorporate any additional elements as time and budget permit.

7. You then move into the development stage of your site which typically will have three main areas: Design, Development and Editorial. Your Web developer will probably offer both Design and Development (functionality, coding) services. Editorial, ie writing the site, is best project managed by someone in-house using a combination of internal and external resources. If you spend the time upfront as I’ve outlined, the actual development project will be far simpler and smoother than you perhaps have experienced in the past.

Tags: b2b website, b2c website, website, web development, web design, marketing

The W List

August 23, 2007 | Blogging, Gender

Good things about the W list meme:

• Lots of linky love for deserving women bloggers.
• Exposes new blogs to potential new readers

Not so good things:

No organization, except for one poster who took the time to categorize the blogs as of one moment. So, no way to quickly find new blogs you might be interested in unless the name is obvious.

Missing things:

The list started as a list of women PR/Marketing bloggers, and then evolved to women business bloggers, and then just women bloggers. But it’s pretty much missing a significant segment of the female blogging population: moms. Since my marketing colleagues have pretty much covered the PR/marketing and businesswomen I might have added, here are some of my favorite mom blogs:

• Mom 101, Liz Gumbinner
• BlogRhet, a group blog, all women
• Her Bad Mother, Catherine Connors
• Joy Unexpected, Y
• Picture This, Tracey Clark
• i am bossy, Georgia Getz

And here is the whole list, sucked up from this wiki.

2020 Hindsight by Susan Kitchens
21st Century Collaborative by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
45 Things by Anita Bruzzese
Affirmagy Blog by Kristen Schuerlein
A Girl Must Shop by Megan Garnhum
A Little Pregnant by Julie
All for Women by Leigh, Naom, Patricia, and Barbara
Alkamae by Susan Reid
Allied by Jeneane Sessum
A Look at Art & Design: by Lisa Mikulski
andHow To Reach Women by Tami Anderson
angiemckaig.com: still a great pair of legs by Angie McKaig
Ask Dr. Kirk by Dr. Delaney Kirk
Average Jane by Average Jane
Babylune by Kate Baggott
Back in Skinny Jeans by Stephanie Quilao
Bag and Baggage by Denise Howell
Becoming a Woman of Purpose by Carolyn Townes
Becoming your StellarSelf by Mary Kearns
Be Relevant! by Tamara Gielen
Blog Fabulous by Tracee Sioux
BlogWrite for CEOs by Debbie Weil
Blogaholics by Arienna Foley
BlogRhet, a group blog, all women
Blog Til You Drop by Laurence-Hélène Borel
Biz Growth News by Krishna De
Brain Based Biz by Dr. Robyn McMaster
Brain Based Business by Dr. Ellen Weber
Brand Sizzle by Anne Simons
Branding & Marketing by Chris Brown
Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
Breastfeeding 1-2-3 by Angela
Build A Better Blog by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff
Build a Solo Practice, LLC by Susan Cartier Liebel
Burningbird by Shelley Powers
Career Goddess by Susan Guarnieri
Chatting to my Generation by Anja Merret
Cheap Thrills by Ryan Barrett
Christine Kane by Christine Kane
Church of the Customer by Jackie Huba
CK’s Blog by CK (Christina Kerley)
Communication Overtones by Kami Huyse
Conflict coaching and resolution for the workplace by Dr Tammy Lenski
Confession of a Marketing Addict by Sunny Cervantes
Conscious Business by Anne Libby
Contentious by Amy Gahran
Conversation Agent by Valeria Maltoni
Conversations With Dina by Dina Mehta
Corporate PR by Elizabeth Albrycht
Cottontimer by Hsien-Hsien Lei
Creating Passionate Users by Kathy Sierra
Creative Curio by Lauren Marie
Crossroads by Evelyn Rodriguez
Cruel To Be Kind by Nicole Simon
Customer Experience Crossroads by Susan Abbott
Customers Rock! by Becky Carroll
CustServ by Meikah David
DailyAffirm by Jeanie Marshall
Debbie Millman by Debbie Millman
Deborah Schultz by Deborah Schultz
Decent Marketing by Katherine Stone
Designers Who Blog by Cat Morley
Design Your Life by Ellen and Julia Lupton
Design Your Writing Life by Lisa Gates
Diary of Claudine Hellmuth by Claudine Hellmuth
Diva Marketing Blog by Toby Bloomberg
Do It Myself Blog by Glenda Watson Hyatt
Dooce by Heather B. Armstrong
Downshifting - by Anne Howe
Driving Traffic - Carol Krishner
Eie Flud by Heather
Elise.com by Elise Bauer
Email Marketing Best Practices by Tamara Gielen
Emily Chang - Strategic Designer by Emily Chang
eMoms at Home by Wendy Piersall
EmpowerWomenNow.com by Ponn Sabra
Enter the Laughter by Marti Lawrence
Equip and Empower! by Carolyn Townes
Escape Blog by Melissa Petri
Escape from Cubicle Nation by Pamela Slim
eSoup by Sharon Sarmiento
Essential Keystrokes by Char
Every Dot Connectsby Connie Reece
EvilHRLady by Evil HR Lady
Expansion Plus by Sally Falkow
Experienceology by Stephanie Weaver
Fish Creek House by GP
First Light by Julie Keyser-Squires
Flash and Accessibility by Niqui Merret
Flooring The Consumer by CB Whittemore
Forrester’s Marketing Blog by Shar, Charlene, Chloe, Christine Elana, Laura and Lisa
Franke James by Franke James
Full Circle - Nancy White
Funny Business by Elena Centor
Fusion View by Yang-Amy Ooi
Garden Variety Family by Karin Marlett-Choi
GenPink by Elysa
Get Fresh Minds by Katie Konrath
Get Shouty by Katie Chatfield
Getting Granular by Aimee Kessler Evans
Giant Jeans Parlour by Anjali
GourmetStation Delicious Destinations by Donna Lynes-Miller
Great Presentations Mean Business by Laura Athavale Fitton
Hartsock Communications by Nettie Hartsock
Her Bad Mother, Catherine Connors
Hey Marci by Marci Alboher
¡Hola! Oi! Hi! by katia adams
Horse Pig Cow by Tara Hunt
i am bossy, Georgia Getz
ifelse by Phu Ly
Illustration Friday by Penelope Dullaghan
In Women We Trust by Mary Clare Hunt
Infomaniac by Liz Donovan
Inspired Business Growth by Wendy Piersall
Internet Geek Girl by Stephanie Agesta
Jane Geneva by Jane Geneva
J.T. O’Donnell Career Insights by J.T. O’Donnell
Jemima Kiss by Jemima Kiss
Joyful, Jubilant Learning by Rosa Say
Joy Unexpected, Y
Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog by Katya Andresen
KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog by Katie Delahaye Paine
Kinetic Ideas by Wendy Maynard
Kristy T’s Home Business Blog by Kristy T
Learned on Women by Andrea Learned
Lifeblog by anina
Lindsay Pollak by Lindsay Pollak
Lip-sticking by Yvonne DeVita
Little Red Suit by Tiffany Monhollon
Live The Power by Karen Lynch
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog by Liz Strauss
Lorelle on WordPress by Lorelle VanFossen
Making Life Work for You by April Groves
Marketer Blog by Leslie Jump
Marketing To Women by Holly Buchanan
Manage to Change by Ann Michael
Management Craft by Lisa Haneberg
Managing With Aloha Coaching by Rosa Say
Mandarin Design Daily:The MEG Blog by Michelle Goodrich
Marketing Roadmaps by Susan Getgood
Mary’s Blog by Mary Schmidt
MediaBlog by Daria Rasmussen
Media Influencer by Adriana Lukas
Mediation Mensch by Dina Beach Lynch
Misbehaving by Dana Boyd, Hilde Corneliussen, Caterina Fake, Meg Hourihan, Liz Lawley, Fiona Romeo, Dorothea Salo, Halley Suitt, Gina Trapani, Jill Walker
Mkgmd - le mag du marketing multidimentionnel by Christelle Alexandre
Moda di Magno by Lori Magno
Modite by Rebecca Thorman
Mogulettes in the Making by Carmina Perez
molly.com by Molly E. Holzschlag
Mom 101, Liz Gumbinner
Muddy Boots
My Beautiful Chaos by April Groves
Narrative Assets by Karen Hegman
Newbie NYC by Mary Hilton
Netdiver by Carole Guevin
On My Desk by Linzie Hunter
Orlando Avenue by Colleen Kulikowski
Passion Meets Purpose by Kammie Kobyleski
Peggy Payne’s Boldness Blog by Peggy Payne
Picture This, Tracey Clark
Poultry Discussion by Louise Manning
Presto Vivace Blog by Alice Marshall
Productivity Goal by Carolyn Manning
Purple Wren by Sandy Renshaw
Purse Lip Square Jaw by Anne Galloway
Quality Service Marketing by Sybil Stershic
re:Invention by Kristen Osolind
Rebecca’s Pocket by Rebecca Blood
Resonance Partnership by Marianne Richmond
Sacred Ingredients by Nicole Hanley
Sanctuary for Change by Susan Hanshaw
Sent From My Dell Desktop by Alejandra Ramos
Shiva’s Arms by Cheryl Snell
Small Biz Survival by Becky McCray
Small Business Trends by Anita Campbell
Small Failures: Sustainability for the Rest of Us by Jess Sand
So Close by Tertia
Solomother by Christina Zola
Spare Change by Nedra Kline Weinreich
Spirit in Gear by Debbie Call
Spirit Women by Carolyn Townes
Subterranean Homepage News by Sheila Lennon
Susan Mernit’s Blog by Susan Mernit
Sweet|Salty by Kate Inglis
swissmiss by Tina Roth Eisenberg
Talk It Up by Heidi Miller
Tech Kitten by Trisha Miller
That’s What She Said by Julie Elgar
The Artsy Asylum by Susan Reynolds
The Blog Angel by Claire Raikes
The Brand Dame by Lyn Chamberlin
The Budgeting Babe by Nicole
the Constant Observer by Tish Grier
The Copywriting Maven by Roberta Rosenberg
The Curious Shopper by Sara Cantor
The Engaging Brand by Anna Farmery
The Entrepreneurial MD by Philippa Kennealy
The Floozy Blog by Kate Coote
The Kiss Business Tooby Karin H.
The Krafty Librarian by Michelle A. Kraft
The Kristasphere by Krista Summit
The Marketing Mix Blog by Ilse Benun
The New Charm School by Jennifer Warwick
The Parody by Sasha Manuel
The Podcast Sisters by Anna Farmery, Krishna De and Heather Gorringe
The Qualitative Research Blog by Reshma Anand
The Shifted Librarian by Jenny Levine
The What If…? Women by Randee, Lori, Anne, Lynn and Norka (Pink Collar Club)
Think Positive! by Kristen Harrell
this is rachelandrew.co.uk by Rachel Andrew
Toddler Planet by WhyMommy
unstruc chitchat about information by Daniela Barbosa
Veerle’s blog 2.0 by Veerle
Water Cooler Wisdom by Alexandra Levit
Wealth Strategy Secrets by Nicola Cairncross
What A Concept! By Sherry Heyl
What’s Next Blog by B L Ochman
Wiggly Wigglers by Heather Gorringe
WomensDISH by Diane K. Danielson and Friends
Wonder Branding by Michele Miller
Woolgathering by Elizabeth Perry
Worker Bees Blog by Elisa Camahort
Write Ideas Marketing by Andrea Morris
You Already Know This Stuff by Jodee Bock
Ypulse by Anastasia Goodstein

Tags: W list, women bloggers, gender

Blurring the lines — just what is advertising on a blog?

August 12, 2007 | Advertising, Blogger relations, Marketing, Media, PR

Most online advertising is easy to spot. Skyscrapers  or banners with blinking lights and  flash animations. Text ads with the clear tag "XYZ Ad Network" or Google Adsense.

But what about blogs that are sponsored by a company. For example, Scratchings and Sniffings, a pet blog sponsored by Purina.

Or Pay Per Post? Or blogging networks like Parent Bloggers Network in which companies pay a consulting fee for review coordination and the bloggers keep the products?

Or blogger relations — where companies reach out directly to bloggers with products and exclusive stories and other blog-worthy material?.

Are the posts that result from these efforts advertising or editorial? It has to be one thing or another, right? After all, in the" good old days," it was black or white. It was advertising or it was editorial and never the twain shall meet. Right?

I mean, we’ve never had evaluation labs that did paid reviews of products and applied a seal of approval. Oh wait a minute. Yes we did.

Magazines and newspapers never sold editorial-like space for advertisers to write their own stories. Oh wait a minute. Yes we did. And do.

And it wasn’t really a problem. It just was.

And is. Readers have always been, and still are, able to apply their own judgment to the material they read, no matter how stupid advertisers seem to think we are. The Web is no different.

And all these approaches have their place in our informational ecosystem. So, let’s put a little definition around the issue.

What is advertising, what qualifies as "advertorial," and when can we expect that a blog, podcast or Web site is serving up "pure" editorial content?

Advertising. The advertiser has complete control over the ad content and landing pages. Paid or pro bono, using rate cards not that different from the old magazine CPM. Examples: site advertising, Google AdSense, BlogHer ad network, Blogads.

Advertorial. This is where I put things like Pay Per Post and blog networks like Parent Bloggers Network. In the print world, of course, the advertiser has complete content control and the magazine simply dictates a common format. Online, it is a bit different, but the end result isn’t. Online, the advertiser has control over the initial factors — what is to be reviewed or written about and who will be writing. But, after that, the blogger is more or less free to write what he pleases.

That said, we can certainly expect a certain cognitive dissonance effect; paid reviewers will be more likely to be positive about  a product, regardless of their opinion, or lack thereof, before starting the review. While they aren’t being paid to voice a view contrary to their own opinons, as were the subjects in Leon Festinger’s original research in the 50s, the mere fact that they are being paid by an entity with a vested interest is bound to shape the review.

But so what. Readers can make up their own minds. And will. However, full disclosure of relationships is absolutely essential. If the service or network does not require full disclosure, I strongly advise both advertising companies and bloggers to stay away.

Sponsored blogs fit in the advertorial category. Even if the writer is totally independent, a certain sensibility is bound to affect the blog. The sponsor may not say "don’t trash me" but the writer isn’t going to. Unless there is such an egregious situation that the blogger wants to divorce the sponsor. Likewise, I consider review networks like Parent Bloggers to be advertorial because even though the writer is free to write whatever she wishes about the product or services, there is a prior agreement that there will be a post.

Caveat: Do not confuse pay-per-post type writing with freelance writing. Paid posts on a personal blog reflect the personal opinion and style of the blogger — some are short and breezy, some funny, some deep and introspective. The clients are not paying for the in-depth research, impartiality and writing skills that we might see on a sponsored blog or from a professional freelance writer.

This does not mean that bloggers cannot be freelance writers. They can. It just means that we need to understand that there is a real difference between pay-per-post writing and freelance writing, and the fees each type of writing should command.

Independent editorial. The blogger may take advertising, but the expectation is that the blog contents are 100% owned by the blogger, in all senses of the word. The blogger may be receptive to pitches from blogger relations, marketing and PR firms, but there is no quid pro quo. The company making the pitch had better tell a compelling, relevant story that offers something of value to the blogger. Or risk being ignored, or worse, ridiculed.

Companies that get this right can have long, mutually beneficial relationships with bloggers. Get it wrong? Just ask Wal*Mart.

Pay Per Post and other paid blogging services can supplement blogger relations, but in my opinion, do not replace it.

They can however coexist. Just as advertising, editorial and advertorial have been working together to tell us the story for years.

Tags: blogger relations, advertorial, pay per post, parent bloggers network, advertising

Buzzzz…

August 9, 2007 | Blogging

Geoff Livingston was crazy kind enough to ask me to be one of his victims interviewees over at the Buzz Bin. Check it out.

A week or so ago, Kami Huyse took Todd And’s (and now Advertising Age’s) 150 list and pulled out the women bloggers, pointing out that we make up only 13% of the top-ranked marketing/PR bloggers, which was surprising to her given how many women are in the profession.

As readers here know, I’m not crazy about rank-ordered lists, for a lot of reasons. So, I was pleased when this week, the meme took a turn and people started adding new or overlooked women bloggers to the list. And someone, bless her and apologies for not remembering who at this point, converted it to alpha order. When I have a few moments, I will definitely make some additions.

Coming soon: some thoughts on paid blogging inspired by the conversations at and post-BlogHer. And more on the SciFi network digital media tour earlier this summer.

BlogHer Recap Part 2: Everything and the Kitchen Sink

August 5, 2007 | BlogHer, Politics/Policy, Social media, Social networks

There was a lot more to BlogHer than a bit of a fuss about public relations, including seeing so many old,  and meeting so many new, friends. Since I am bound to leave someone out if I do a list, know that I was so happy to see or meet you, and was sorry I missed so many people that I know or read. Next year….

This post is going to cover a variety of things, from the unconference on Sunday to politics and why the major media didn’t come to BlogHer.

In fact. let’s start there. Joanne Bamberger of Pundit Mom and  Jennifer Pozner at  the Women’s Media Center have done an excellent job of summarizing the issue: the national media didn’t bother with BlogHer, with 800+ women bloggers in attendance, even though a major policy effort, BlogHers Act, was a key element of the program and Elizabeth Edwards was featured in the closing keynote. Yet a week later. everyone finds time to go to Chicago for YearlyKos. 

Why?

As I posted in a comment yesterday to my previous BlogHer post, I wonder if it was in part because of the absence of assholes?

Bear with me a moment.

It’s a well known fact. Disagreement and invective make better stories than agreement and community. At least as far as the mainstream media is concerned. Don’t believe me? Just pick up your local morning paper and look at the front page. Besides, there really is no other explanation for Ann Coulter.

Why doesn’t the mainstream media understand that 800+ women bloggers are a powerful political presence? Especially in the context of BlogHers Act, a collective effort to make a difference on a significant issue, global health?

 I’m wondering if it is because the BlogHer community generally embraces its diversity instead of encouraging controversy? The media loves arguments and assholes and division, and you know, there is plenty of all three over on most political sites. But 800 women coming together out of a mutual interest in using blogs to share their experiences, whether professional, personal or political, and agreeing to respect the diversity of the community, not proselytize?

Nah. That’s no fun.

It’s also not right. Think about how you can change it.

Moving on, let’s be crystal clear. Just because the BlogHer community isn’t a bunch of jerks doesn’t mean that there aren’t  political differences among the members. Julie Marsh, mothergoosemouse, touched upon them on both her personal blog and on Imperfect Parent. As she notes, the women in the BlogHer community are good at coming together on the areas upon which we agree. But there seems to be a liberal bent, which may be off-putting to more conservative women. How do we embrace both groups? It’s not a trivial question.

Especially in context of the thing that worries me the most about US politics, which is that we seem to have become so polarized (call it red/blue if you must) that we cannot come together on anything. I posted the following on BlogHer a few weeks ago and Lisa Stone referenced my question during the Edwards keynote:

A word about breast cancer

August 4, 2007 | BlogHer, Community

Cross posted to Snapshot Chronicles

Just before BlogHer, I started reading Toddler Planet, the blog of an incredibly courageous woman who had to change her plans to attend the conference because she had been diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, a particularly nasty and often undetected form of breast cancer, and her chemo was scheduled to start the same week.

She has written a post about the disease and asked fellow bloggers to repost as much or as little of it as they wished. Please spread the word, and if you are so inclined, make a donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Here is WhyMommy’s post:

We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?
   

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.
   

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.
   

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.
   

 

P.S. Feel free to steal this post too.  I’d be happy for anyone in the blogosphere to take it and put it on their site, no questions asked.  Dress it up, dress it down, let it run around the place barefoot. I don’t care.  But I want the word to get out.  I don’t want another young mom — or old man — or anyone in between — to have to stare at this thing on their chest and wonder, is it mastitis?  Is it a rash?  Am I overreacting?  This cancer moves FAST, and early detection and treatment is critical for survival.
   

Thank you.

Bad pitches… everybody gets them

August 2, 2007 | Blogger relations, PR

Just to follow up on both my previous post and comments I’ve left on a number of blogs this week:

All bloggers — even PR and marketing bloggers — get crappy email pitches. I thought I would share a couple with you. Names redacted because I’m irritated, not mean.

Dear Sirs:

COMPANY will be releasing a revolutionary new software package that I thought might be of interest to you. It is easily adaptable to any language and to vendor private labeling.

We are notifying certain companies involved in Online Marketing to let them know about our software, prior to its release to the General Public.

Below is a copy of the Press Release that will be going out.

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRODUCT creates quality web content from wasted web pages.

PLACE August 1, 2007 - A new age of e-commerce dawned today with the release of PRODUCT; the software package that makes dynamic web pages visible to the Search Engines.

PRODUCT creates static HTML pages, which Search Engines can easily index and use, from dynamic pages like shopping carts, forums, blogs, databases or ANY link-navigated web pages created from a database.

PRODUCT uses a two-step process; first creating a static page from a dynamic page, then changing the URL address of that page to one the search engines will visit.

Search Engines do not give dynamic web pages much import and they seldom appear in Search Engine top listings, if at all. Until PRODUCT, there has only been a partial solution; using complex server-installed modules beyond the range of 99.9% of web masters, which offer nothing to help the readability of the resulting URL. Unlike these previous so-called "fixes", PRODUCT is simple-to-use, quick-to-setup, easy-to-understand and the program installs on any web master’s personal computer that runs Windows.

COMPANY’S PRODUCT has changed the face of the Internet by turning wasted content into visible pages for the search engines.

About COMPANY

Established in 1997, COMPANY has over 250,000 copies of its ANOTHER PRODUCT, in use in over 30 countries.

NAME, CEO of the company says, "COMPANY is dedicated to helping businesses to become more successful on the web. Ten years ago, we changed the face of the Internet by developing the first linking software and now we are changing it again by making the ability to optimize websites available to the average web master. There are over a billion web sites on the net, and if you are invisible to the search engines you are virtually INVISIBLE. If the search engines cannot see your pages, they cannot visit them and list them. We have just changed the face of the industry, by making it simple to index hundreds or even thousands of pages of previously wasted content."

Yeah, this PR person took some time to get to know me. Susan. Before they sent me a release in which I have absolutely NO interest. YAWN.

And here’s another beauty. No cover note.

Publicity Firm To Represent Former PLACE Prosecutor in News Marketing Campaign
COMPANY will market former PLACE prosecutor NAME OF PERSON in a campaign for news publicity.

DATELINE / August 2, 2007  The news publicity agency, NAME, which has landed clients on Good Morning America and into the pages of top national magazines, today added a former PLACE prosecutor to its list of publicity clients.

NAME is a former PLACE criminal prosecutor. He’s now a criminal defense attorney in ANOTHER PLACE and a professor at A COLLEGE teaching Criminal Law.

“NAME has the qualities that news executives and booking agents look for in a legal expert,” says PUBLICIST, of PUBLICITY FIRM. “He’s smart, knows his stuff and has the experience to debate topical legal issues with the best attorneys around and I look forward to seeing him do it.”

PUBLICIST is a former reporter, investigative reporter and anchor. He left a successful TV news career after 20 years to form his own publicity agency. He represents individuals and businesses seeking news publicity.

“My goal is to make NAME a regular on local and cable news,” says PUBLICIST. “I think he’s got what it takes to do really well.”

NAME is a graduate of A UNIVERSITY. While with the PLACE District Attorney’s office he was assigned to the Narcotics Bureau where he prosecuted drug crimes. He also has extensive experience prosecuting and defending drunk drivers.

About PUBLICITY FIRM: PUBLICITY FIRM is a news publicity agency that specializes in writing and distributing press releases and representing elite clients in their quest for news publicity. PUBLICIST, a former TV news reporter, investigative reporter and anchor, who left a successful career to start his own publicity agency, runs the company.

Lovely. Really. I wish them well in their quest to make NAME a sought-after legal expert. But why in the world would I care? Last time I looked, I was neither local nor cable news…..

Want to read some more bad pitches? Head over to the Bad Pitch Blog.

Tags: blogger relations, public relations, pr, bad pitches

Post-BlogHer Recap: In Which I Contemplate the Woodshed

August 1, 2007 | BlogHer, Blogger relations, Gender

This summer, BlogHer was a completely different experience for me than in past years. It was the first time I wasn’t speaking, although I did end up volunteering at the Birds of a Feather sign-up, which was a great way to see everyone, if only for a few moments. It was also the first time I went as both a marketer and a mom. In previous years, including this past Spring at BlogHer Business, I went to the conference with pretty much with just my marketing hat on. Don’t get me wrong - I was a mom then too, but I didn’t have a personal blog.

I do now. Snapshot Chronicles is all about taking pictures of and with my seven-year old son. A major reason to attend BlogHer was to talk about SC and a photo contest for kids I am co-sponsoring this summer with a couple of other women bloggers, Tracey Clark and Sheri Reed.

But I also had my marketing hat on.  I’ve developed a project for a client that I truly believe mom bloggers with a specific interest will want to participate in. I knew quite a few of the women on my "possibles" list would be at BlogHer, making the conference an ideal opportunity to quietly sound them out. How did I know they’d be there? Because I read and comment on their blogs. And for a lot longer than a week before BlogHer.

What does this have to do with the woodshed? Patience, grasshopper, I am getting there.

BlogHer itself was great, especially the unconference on Sunday (more on that in my next post), and I felt like I accomplished what I set out to do over the three days. However, I was a little disturbed by the anti-PR sentiment at the state of the momosphere panel on Friday, and my feelings of unease have only intensified over the past few days as the posts, and comments, have been flying fast and furious about taking PR people to the woodshed and how much we (marketing and PR folks) suck.

I’m not taking it personally, mind you. At least not too much. Helping companies do blogger relations right has become a large part of my professional work. I write and talk about it all the time,and work very hard to make sure that my clients’ programs are a win-win for everyone. In fact, I advise clients if they aren’t willing to do it right, don’t do blogger relations at all. Spend your money on advertising or trinkets & trash.

So even though I know it is not personal, it’s hard not to take offense at the blanket statement that "we know you don’t read our blogs."  I do read the blogs. I read about 500 blogs on a regular basis — mom blogs, food blogs, military blogs, tech blogs, travel blogs, health blogs, film blogs, marketing blogs, PR blogs, education blogs, and more. Sure, I enjoy the mom, marketing, photo and PR blogs the most because that is where my personal interests lay, but you cannot do blogger outreach well if you don’t get to know the people behind the blogs. Because it isn’t about inanimate things called blogs. It’s about people.

And getting really personal here, I think the momosphere has forgotten that there are people, real people, on the other side, trying to do this right. And a lot of them are women. An awful lot in fact. PR as a profession is well known to be a female-dominant industry. And by that I mean there are a lot of women in it, most often at the lower and mid levels. No matter what anyone tells you, PR is still male-dominated; men run most of the big agencies. And we sort of kept that meme going at BlogHer, since Jory only had time to call on two people from PR, both men.

Today, I feel like you want me to apologize for my chosen profession. And I just don’t feel like apologizing. Not for what I do for a living. Not for corporate America. Not any more. Women do that way too much for things they didn’t do.

So, my friends, readers and fellow BlogHers, I ain’t going to the woodshed. Not today.

Many of us want to get this right. And for outreach to all bloggers that our companies and clients might want to talk with, not just moms. Because those of us that "get it," get that there are much better ways to reach out to our customers. Not mass, generic, white-bread messages designed to appeal to all, offend none, and end up doing nothing much for our companies or our customers. 

Simple stories that speak directly to people, not at them. Programs that give the bloggers access to people (Gloria Steinem), places (backstage at Sci Fi Network) and things (umm "toys") that in turn provides fodder for posts and podcasts. Not to mention the possible other benefits

Programs that donate both goods and dollars to charity, often chose by the bloggers themselves. Outreach that focuses on the bloggers and their needs/wants, not just the company’s. There are good blogger relations programs, and good PR/marketing folks. Really, we aren’t all assholes. At least not all the time.

So judge me, judge us, on what we do. Not on what others do. Or don’t do. As I said, I try hard to get it right. If I fuck up, tell me. If you have suggestions, tell me.

But don’t assume that every PR outreach will be lame and impersonal. Some will be, but some will be interesting opportunities that you’d want to do. But you won’t get the chance if you completely close your mind to the possibilities.

One last comment, and then I will step off my soapbox. There is a diversity issue, no question. Mainstream media is pretty white bread, white man, and much of that has crept into the blogosphere as well. It’s why BlogHer exists, my friends; remember guys don’t link?.

How do we change it? Talk about it. Educate. Maybe even reach out to companies with products we’d like to evaluate and see if they come through.

I have some other ideas, which I am noodling around as I contemplate, but refuse to enter, the woodshed. And I may just be calling on you for advice.

So please don’t delete my email before you read it.

Tags: BlogHer 07, public relations, blogger relations, gender