Updated 08.16.07

Thanks for finding your way here. This post first appeared on July 27, 2007 at my former blog address and now includes other bloggers who covered the mentoring and coaching session along with BlogHer ’07′s description and my notes. Unfortunately, all comments vanished in the move. But, I’d still love to hear from you if you want to talk . . .

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BlogHer ‘07’s Mentoring and Coaching Session Description

Last year during the BlogHer Getting Deeply Geeky session the subject of mentors came up. So few of the techie women in the session had had women mentors and role models, and many felt a sense of loss about that. How do you find a mentor or coach? How do deliver effective mentoring to someone who needs it? And what’s in it for the mentor and the mentee? We’re bringing some mentors together to talk about their experiences and provide practical advice about how to create your own mentoring experience. Join coaching and mentoring expert Colette Ellis and blogger/educator Elizabeth Perry, along with Liz Strauss and Wendy Piersall who will talk about co-mentoring one another.

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BlogHer ’07 Mentoring and Coaching Session Notes by Barbara Rozgonyi

Colette: The International Coaching Federation says the coach is doing the work and guiding you through the process while being paid. Mentors tell you about their experiences and help you with yours and don’t get paid. In one survey, more people responded that they had informal mentors than formal mentors.

Elizabeth: Our school has a mentoring program for new teachers.

Question: Having a mentor would be so valuable. I don’t feel this sense of competition. Would love some advice on how to help people. When you branch out and want to talk to more successful writers, there’s a sense of competition and I’m afraid of getting that rejection. Both people have to be engaged in some sense of the relationship. How do you keep the direction going? If you have a relationship and you’re finding it’s not gelling how do you break up? How do you find or get a mentor?

Elizabeth: One of our students graduated and stayed in contact. She was interested in technology and was enrolled at a new school where freshman girls were certainly not supposed to ask for a certain kind of RCA table. She asked me: Is this the particular piece of hardware that I really want? She was in a situation where she was a path breaker and she needed support from me to get where she wanted to go.

Liz: It’s flattering to be asked when someone asks with sincerity. If you ask with genuine sincerity, it’s appealing and attractive.

Wendy: There are so many different ways to get mentoring and coaching to create mentoring opportunities with each other. Liz and I mentor each other and I have group mastermind calls once a week. Every week, 1 or 2 people ask questions. Bloggers could answer your questions in a post. It comes down to having the courage to ask and know what you’re asking for.

Colette: Do you think that in a co-mentoring experience you should each have different experiences?

Liz: [Responding to a writer’s comment that it’s hard to find mentors because of all the competition.]Being a writer, I understand what you’re saying, but writing bloggers are some of the most generous people I’ve ever met. Bloggers are incredibly generous people. Almost all of the people I mentor, some across the world, every one has started in my comment box. That’s the quickest way to find out if their blogging resonates with you.

Colette: Being an entrepreneur, I know some colleagues that have trusted friends in other places, like PR and technology. It’s getting a sense of who can provide the service you’re looking for. I call it the people who need to support me and the people who will challenge me. Once a friend asked me have you already sent that out? She found a typo I didn’t see.

Question: Do you have to bring something to the table?

Elizabeth: If you approach somebody with genuine openness, interest and respect, there’s some room there. The things I’m saying resonate with them. If I start throwing out terms like RSS, does this metaphor mean anything to you.

Liz: Everybody brings something to the table. Everybody does.

Colette: The fact that you’re thinking, you might run across a lead, you might find someone for that person that you never thought you would.

Question: I’m nervous about a mentor that I’m going to be reporting to.

Audience: I think an assigned mentor is bogus. It has a built-in officiality to it.Mentor relationships are based on common interest. What if Frank is a total jerk?

Elizabeth: This isn’t a real a mentorship.

Colette: You should feel like there’s an open door as you get a sense of the culture you’re going to learn more about what happens behind the scenes. Just because you have this formal relationship, doesn’t mean you can’t navigate through the company.

Wendy: There’s always going to be a line where you’ve gone too far. The more that you open you up and the more that you learn, the more you’ll get out of it – as well your mentor.

Question: Isn’t there a fine line about how much you should reveal about yourself? They might think this person isn’t ready for a career.

Elizabeth: It comes down to the culture.

Liz: That question is the same outside of an organization, too. Whether you’re a mentor or a mentee, no matter what your role is, if you’re talking about business or you’re alike, you’re going to worry about what they think. Talk about the RSS stuff with the RSS expert. Find the experts. Because they’re already secure. They’re not going to have issues.

Colette: If you’re tapping in at the expertise level, you can almost bond on that concept of unfamiliarity.

Question: Don’t you think that traditionally it’s been assumed that men will mentor each other? Women had to work a little harder to find a mentor and I wonder if that’s some of the appeal for women. [mentoring/coaching]
Audience: Women, especially young women at home, often seek a woman who understands they have to straddle a second job at home. It’s just much harder to find women mentors. It’s much harder to find a female in the sciences.

Male questioner: We individually need to seek out mentors in many places. They should be people who will guide you in the first year of work. Career advice should come from somebody else. Find a woman friend that does that. We need to rely on our friends and colleagues to guide us.

Wendy: A really great place to get career advice is from a recruiter in your niche. They have a vested interest in giving you unbiased advice.

Elizabeth: Try to think of mentoring as teaching someone how to ride a bicycle. At some point, they’ll fall down and want to get back on. You need to give people room to make their own decisions.

Colette: You do want to know what works for you. There are different things, as the mentee you need to be clear about what you want to get from the relationship.

Liz: Authenticity and honesty is really, really important. A relationship is like a marriage – you have more people than just significant others. You also have your days that you don’t get along with your significant other. Whatever you do, don’t make it about you. After a venting call from a mentee, I didn’t feel very good. You know sometimes that your significant other is upset. But it’s not about you. It’s about keeping your perspective

Question: At what point do you consider a career coach?

Colette: The difference from a mentor to a career coach is you have to be committed to making changes. You can be very specific on what you want to work on, like feedback on preparing for an interview.

Audience: After I took on a life coach, I chose to leave my job. A friend of mine matched me up with this person. It actually was very useful to me and helped me to identify some patterns of behaviors. It helped me gel a few messages within myself. I had an amazing experience.

Audience: I had a not so pleasant coaching experience because the coach crossed into religion, marriage and went way beyond work issues. I left the company, but it was really a tightrope for a while until I left.

Colette: Goes back to setting the boundaries
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Liz: When I work with people as a coach, it’s very different. I joke around and say I’m relentless as a coach. The mentoring thing is a head and heart thing. You don’t mix money and love. You keep the boundaries really firm with coaching. Mentoring is much more fluid.

Colette: In the coaching world, it’s not about me. It’s more questioning and answering.

Elizabeth: The relationship in mentoring is more reciprocal and giving people a little bit more.

Wendy: Do you want to answer me as a coach as a friend? As a coach, I’ll say you need to hold yourself accountable. As a friend, I’ll be supportive.

Elizabeth: It can be diplomacy, especially in a work situation where there are power lines.

Wendy: I once redirected a coaching disaster relationship. I went to him and said this didn’t work for me. I want you to hold me accountable. I need you to give me my assignments. I ask people right up front: how do you want me to hold you accountable? If it’s not working, you either tell them how to work with you or let them go.

Question: Knowing that I need a mentor, but not doing it because I don’t really connect with anyone per se.

Elizabeth: Do some homework and then some personal interaction. You can practice with a friend so it doesn’t seem quite so strange. It’s very empowering to know that people care.

Colette: I like the way we talked about the approach. It’s that thoughtfulness. We’re all people. We all want to know other people.

Elizabeth: In the culture I was raised in, people were not asked to speak up. We don’t always have practice in asking.

Liz: At one conference, I sat in a room with 1500 people. We never met the speaker, but we liked her and we called her up for dinner. Her plans had fallen through. She said when you speak, everyone assumes you have plans for dinner. I constantly get emails that when someone recognizes me as a person, that’s a remarkable event in my life. So don’t feel strange about contacting someone. It’s how you come up to them. Say I know who you are and I respect your work. 

Wendy: If you have a hard time finding a mentor, leverage your friendships and relationships. On my blog, I’ll say if I don’t have five coaches interviewed by X date, I’ll give you $500. That way you don’t need to find a mentor.

Liz: It’s a whole lot easier if you’ve done your homework. Then you feel confident.

Elizabeth: You can have different mentors in different fields. Tell your friend I am going to do this this week and they’ll hold you accountable.

Wendy: It’s really important not to have a friend that’s an enabler.

Colette: You need a person that said you were going to do it.

Audience: Especially if you’re an old-school kind of person, my Christmas card list was the most amazing mentoring list. All of a sudden somebody who had worked with me became a very valuable contact. Look at your parent’s Christmas card list.

Elizabeth: The conversations with extended friends could turn into wonderful conversations.

Liz: Find one person and one thing that you can be mentored on that’s good at the one thing.

Colette: Go to that event with that one person and now it might be live – you’ll have to be accountable.

Audience: I brought a person who’s new to blogging, she understands who she can help and who can help who her.Audience: I discovered things about people I already know that I didn’t know. There’s interesting things that people put on social media sites. I learn things about people that I just didn’t know. Facebook and LinkedIn are other spaces to find people to connect with. I read about how Facebook and Twitter will bring us closer to our friends – giving us that bridge. It’s another way to be able to do your homework.

Wendy: I want to reiterate how much of a powerful mentoring tool a blog can be. You can email a blogger and say you’ve done so much. I love your work. Could you put up a post about ______? Think of a new topic they haven’t covered. 

Elizabeth: If there is something in the archives, they can bring it back by popular request.

Colette: I did an article about why I’m not a cookie cutter coach.How do you break-up?

Elizabeth: When you go on pause, then it can be gracefully dropped.Colette: In a professional relationship, you set terms, in mentoring it means relationship.

Liz: Seems like I’ve been mentoring people for a long time. What can happen is that there are some people who can put people in boxes. I have had a relationship started as a mentee then she started mentoring me. Eventually it reached a place where she would not see me as the person I was. The neediness in her personality made me see this wasn’t going to work. I think that’s how you know. If it’s making you feel negative.

Elizabeth: Consider yourself as a mentor and find ways of being there for that person and supporting them.

Other Bloggers who covered the session . . .

Three Seven, the Live BlogHer Blogger Coverage

Updated 08.16.07
Thanks for finding your way here. This post first appeared on July 28, 2007 at my former blog address and now includes other bloggers who covered the media relations session along with BlogHer ’07′s description and my notes. Unfortunately, all comments vanished in the move. But, I’d still love to hear from you if you want to talk . . . 

BlogHer ’07 Media Training Session Description
You’ve gotten yourself out there and noticed. It happens to bloggers big and small with regularity now. You’re in the public eye, and you finally get a big chance to be on TV or quoted in a major magazine or any number of amazing opportunities. It’s not always as easy as it seems, and journalists often try to get you to say something off-the-cuff. We will take a look at a couple of recent case studies of bloggers in the media…what went right, and what went wrong. What are the tactics journalists learn when preparing and interviewing subjects? What are they trying to accomplish? How do you take your self-branding skills to the next level and stay on message? This session will give you basic skills to help you control how you are portrayed. Cynthia Samuels and The Sarcastic Journalist will be the media training experts on hand to answer your questions. Stay tuned for our fascinating case studies.

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The first thing to do when the media contacts you is to get their name and phone number. Get them to differentiate with questions. Do you want me to talk from what angle? What’s the goal of the story? The bottom line?

If you want to get publicity on local television, watch what reporters are covering on their topic. Say: “I saw this piece and it was really great.” Always know about 3 or 4 things they’ve written. Get out on their blog. Make yourself visible.

Emails work with journalists about a trend that’s going on and sell as a new ground. Say: We found this on our blog: people have been posting on this and it’s not being covered. You may notice a phenomenon that your blog is evidence of.

Things that have worked in reaching out to the press . . . popping them an email about a story they wrote. “You know what, here’s a missing link that might be helpful. Here’s my book, my blog. Put me on your radar and call me.” It really helps if you present yourself well. State your blog and your area of expertise. Give them your website address, your book, a couple of ideas and ask for their email so you can send them an email.

Most freelancer writers go to ProfNet for resources. It’s a searchable database with links to experts. You can search the topic on the paper and then send it to the reporter, not the assignment editor. 

One person got quoted in the New York Times based on a comment she made in a conference. Use your connections.

In TV, the assignment editor goes to the same meeting as the producers. When someone comes in live, the booker tracks down the three best people. If you can make friends with bookers at local stations, you’ve got great connections. They usually run the list on a Friday newscast – look for associate producers and researchers.

Print is pretty simple. There is an editor in the audience right now. You can sometimes contact the reporter if you want someone to write about your specific story. You can find out a lot about the media if you’re a good detective. Search Google for the editors’ names.

Use GoogleAlerts to comment on articles and get to know the editors. Write personal thank you notes. This is a very high stress job. Say, “I enjoyed speaking with you.” A little bit of graciousness goes a long way. Always remember that the story brings the best truth they can bring. Never act like they’re doing it for you and your blog. They’re writing for the truth, for what America needs to know.

Connect with the media contacts on LinkedIn.

Put out the best site and product that you can so reporters can find you and identify you as an expert. It’s hard to get on the radar, but once you get on the radar – that’s going to help you.

Where’s the line between being persistent and being annoying? When you’re calling the reporter on their cell phone. One or two emails is okay.

Having sound bites is key to keep you from talking too much.

Stories have gone from over a minute to under 15 seconds on TV. It’s really important that you have it down and stay on message.

Message discipline is how people win elections. When you get asked something you don’t want to answer, you say, “That’s really interesting, but you know – “ Then go into the sound bite. Don’t push them to let you say something you don’t want to say. It’s very easy to be impulsive and not think before you speak. Know that anything you say can get used.

Some bloggers are refusing to do live interviews and then they pre-empt the interview by publishing the interview on their blog before it’s published. Emailing is very different than speaking with someone. If you insist on email you’re limiting how good you and the story could be. That puts you in a really odd spot.

As bloggers, some of the best material comes from what you said. One reporter asked if they could do an interview with IM.

Pieces on TV sometimes drop 15-45 seconds off before it’s the air so your quote may get dropped.

People sometimes get their feelings hurt when they open up. When the wall goes down, the reporter has to make a judgment.

Two things about running on in TV interviews: 1. Look at the person you’re talking to – take a deep breath, look at them and try to explain it just to them. There’s nobody else around. 2. Practice. Have a friend ask you 15 questions. You don’t want to sound memorized. It’s like a bookmark. Have your thoughts together.

What do you when someone shoves a microphone in your face that asks you a question? Be polite, take a deep breath, think and find some nice neutral thing to say. Even in a live interview, if you don’t think you’re ready take a breath and think.

On the phone or in person a connection can happen that’s warmer. When you feel like one question didn’t go so well, ask if they could email the questions or ask if you can email them back. Give them other sources – now you’re their friend.

Question about what do you think about social media releases? Presenters liked the idea, but hadn’t seen one yet. They think bullets would work well both in TV and local media.

Why don’t they talk about what I want to know on the news? The fact is, the excuse is, better ratings come from screaming on TV. Every time anything like that gets more ratings, it keeps bringing down the quality.

We can change it and the people in this room can tell the media we’re tired of all the fighting. Get the Benton Foundation’s report to see what the media’s covering.

What if you’re misquoted? The Wall Street Journal published a clip from a personal email to the editor on the front page. Don’t write down anything – even in email – if you don’t someone else to see it. Write a letter to the editor and the reporter. 

The two words press release have been mentioned only twice. Is the press release dead? Send your press release to a name and that is more effective.

Final thing . . . if you’re going to go on television, you need to be ready. It’s not that hard. It has to be that you know exactly what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it. You can turn things closer to what you’re about. Bloggers are rebels. You have to be prepared in advance. Google the reporter before you call them back to see what they’re interested in. All we’re talking about is not that it’s the end of the world. It’s crazy not to be prepared. Reporters are busy. You have to help them.

Updated 08.16.07

Thanks for finding your way here. This post first appeared on July 27, 2007 at my former blog address and now includes other bloggers who covered the mentoring and coaching session along with BlogHer ’07′s description and my notes. Unfortunately, all comments vanished in the move. But, I’d still love to hear from you if you want to talk . . .
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BlogHer ‘07’s Self-branding and Self-promotion Breakout Session Description
Ask yourself this: if you’re a blogger, do you consider yourself a writer? If you’re submitting paid pieces, or running ads, or making money either directly or indirectly by being a blogger, do you consider yourself a professional writer? Do you call yourself that when people ask what you do? If The Business of You track called your name, then you should probably be answering “yes” to all of the above. And if You are the Business, then you might want to get comfortable with self-branding and self-promotion. This session will explore how to think of yourself in what might be a new way…and how to use both online and offline media to promote your work. Putting yourself out there isn’t always comfortable, but it is good Business. Featuring Nina Burokas, “Brazen Careerist” Penelope Trunk and Stephanie Cockerl, who will coach you towards owning your own personal voice, your own personal brand.

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Live Blogging Notes by Barbara Rozgonyi

Here’s the random notes version . . . fresh with minimal editing updated version.
Please leave a comment if you mentioned your blog during the session and would like a link. Also, feel free to add resources.

The room is crowded, people are sitting on the floor. Forty-eight seats at tables hold laptops. A newborn sits on its mom’s lap. It’s mostly women – about 15 men.

Penelope Trunk is greeting everyone. This is personal branding; each speaker will give an introduction about who they are what they bring to the personal branding issue. Then, we’ll see what we want to get out of the session.

Penelope Trunk got her start as a professional beach volleyball player; this was her first personal branding position. She took that experience to the Fortune 500 industry and told them you really need to be noticed.

After finding that everyone at the top Fortune 500 had demanding lives, she started her own company, sold it, and moved to New York. She was in the World Trade Center when it fell and she thought she was going to die.

At the time she wrote a column about her life as a software executive and her life. Penelope decided to re-brand her life as a columnist. She wrote for the Boston Globe and although she said everyone should be blogging, she didn’t have a blog. And, everyone she interviewed that had one didn’t make any money.

For the past year, she’s been blogging at Brazen Careerist with 350,000 page views per month. That’s her new personal brand.

Nina Burokas says branding is about leveraging your strengths and differentiating yourself from the crowd. She was in operations for 10 years, then sales and marketing. This is the type of situation where you’re not in control. As a Scorpio, she needed to be in control. She wanted to understand her expertise, and how to communicate that.

The power of blogging is the range that you can get – you’re going outside of your geographic location, etc. With women it’s important for us to be proactive, to figure out our area of expertise. We need to ask: how do I connect the dots between who I know, and who I need to know?

A lot of times we don’t take to think about what success means for us – are we an executive, an owner, a mom? It’s probably a lot different than traditional consumerism. Make sure your blogging is moving you where you want to go.

Nina’s final foray into the corporate realm was in a Fortune 50 company. After going through four reorganizations, she found her vision. To have a sustainable, global society – we need to unleash the power of women. She’s now honed in on personal branding.

Stephanie Cockerl, the third speaker, finally signed up for Twitter this morning. Her branding began almost 34 year years ago when she was born.

She bought her first domain name in 1999, using her initials and her last name. As an HTML programmer and school of business consulting major, she took her inspiration for her company’s name, next Steph, from Next Step, a college magazine. She added an h – and that’s how Next Steph came to be.

Steph’s involved in so many things, but now her focus is on search engine and marketing. She says, dig into your passion and figure out what works for you.

After the introductions, Penelope asked the group: What do we want to get out this? A blog is a conversation.

The group contributed these comments . . .- recommendations about how to get your name out there, build traffic- logistics – how do you build a brand – step by step process- challenge- interested in how you separate yourself from the business if you’re both- how do you maintain the sense of brand that you’ve created in a world that 1- how to establish so it doesn’t get harassed2 -once you have that brand how do you build traffic?

Penelope Trunk has some strong opinions about brands. She used to have one that was separate from her name, but now it’s the same. She found that being separate has no purpose. It’s very hard to build a brand that you do not actually feel is you. If you’re establishing a brand that can’t be you, that’s dishonest.

Once you establish a brand that is you and you’re out there, then you do open yourself up to harassment. Women understand that – being harassed online is a lot safer than in person. Be true to yourself in life and online. Then you have to be only one person. Blogging is such a great expression of who you are.

Comment: I have two blogs –a personal one and a reporter, which personality should I use?

Penelope: We’re all really practical with our personality. We’re really good at what to be where. When you blog at seriousbusiness.com – you take the part of you that’s really serious. When you’re with the smart kids be smart.

Comment: From a generalist: How important is it to be a specialist?

Nina: strong brands are known for something, not a bunch of things. If there is something that you want to be known for, it really should be a couple of things, not a bunch. An integrated mindset is good, but keep it focused.

Stephanie: keep it succinct. Recommendation: Laura Allen of 15secondpitch.com, Sometimes it takes time to develop a narrow focus; give it time and go with your gut.

Comment –I’m trying to brand myself as byjane.blogspot.com, also my byline. It’s my magazine – politics, knitting. Have a number of different things I’m writing about, but now I find that I’m moving into another direction. Is that too diffused?

Penelope: Yes, it’s too diffused – can’t do knitting and politics on the same blog.

Nina: What’s your unique promise or value? Executive Recruiter vs. Bringing Wisdom to the Talent Process, focus in on a byline on what you uniquely bring to the party.

Comment: Can you recommend a self-guided workshop to build a brand communication plan so they know what to write about?

Nina: Recommends and collaborates with the authors of Career Distinction, Standing Up by Building Your Brand, which is a really inexpensive way to do that. It’s written by the two folks that wrote The Reach.

Comments – How do I brand within the mom blogger sphere

Penelope: What do you stand for?

Nina: That’s what it’s all about.

Penelope: If you find something where you’re the only one who does – say, diapers – you’ll stand out.

Nina: You need to express your point of view. You need to alienate a certain number of people, but you’ll attract the people who are interested in you.

Comment: Should you stay within your community – is it okay if you see an interesting thought to venture out of your community to see something valuable?

Penelope: It’s interesting to think about how narrow you can get. The value in pegging yourself to a narrow topic is much greater than being broad.

Comment – girlwithpen.blogspot.com – 2 books, has a blog since January, blogging from book tours, has a dedicated audience, how does she grow?

Penelope: You need a 3 word tagline. You have to have that umbrella to cover all of your book topics. The blog doesn’t need to include your book. Focus more on the blog topic, than the book topic. Also gives you more freedom to write a wide variety of books.

Comments – Beth’s blog, how non-profits are using social media for social change, technology is very broad, how non-profits use YouTube, Flicker, etc. How can I boil that down to a tagline?

Penelope: How non-profits use technology

Stephanie: Technology’s changing every minute.

Nina: As long as you know what your thing is, stick to it.

Comment: For those women who’ve had a lot of success and want to take it to the next level – is there a transition space: you know who you are and what you want – and generating income. Is the tagline issue the thing or is this a magical leap? Art in pictures and books.

 Penelope: If your goal is to sell something, you need to know who you’re selling to and then send your switch there.

Nina: I don’t get that from the tagline. Think about a Business Etiquette Consultant: Etiquette for Business and Social Success, basically college and older people who want to lead the good life. Create a tagline that lets people know what you’re selling.

Comment: Food scientist – how do I use my blog to advance me in the corporate world?

Penelope: Blog about what you want to be hired for. Your blog is your resume, you want to be hired for your ideas.

Comment: emomsathome.com being a home business blog, there’s a really wide range of topics. Strayed away but come back are the most popular posts like one on kids’ activities.

Penelope: This is a great transition on how to build traffic. The posts that do really well are those that meet at intersections: combining two topics that are not typically combined. When you take three posts that have nothing to do with each other and then tie them together, you get some of the most interesting posts.

Comment: Personal growth – you can do almost anything if you bring it back in. If I want to jump ahead, how do I get my blog beyond my email list?

Penelope: How many blogs do you comment on each day? Questioner – two times a week. If you want to have a conversation, do blogging. If you don’t, do print. If you’re not really interested in the back and forth, then blogging’s not right for you. The way to get known is to be authentically known and to be interested in people. If you’re going to be in the conversation you have to want to be there.

Stephanie: It starts with community. Find similar sites. Some things get lost in translation.

Comment: another way to get traffic is through blog carnivals and see if other sites need guest bloggers

Comment: www.dontgeltoosoon.com blog is like the Today Show with lots of topics

Penelope: There are a few people online who can blog about anything online. Go read the people who blog about anything.

Comment:.debrashultz.com – technology changes, humans don’t. Apply business principles to our personal lives. Recommends Made to Stick. When you blog about a lot of different topics, you can be a curator for everybody else. If you’re passionate about a topic, blogging should be a secondary benefit to what you do naturally. You have to give to get. My most popular photo ever is on Flickr with an eye patch [I saw that! comment from audience] – example of how unexpectedness can pop up. Headlines get attention.

Penelope: If she’s not scared to post something, if it’s not new, it’s not interesting. If you’re posting every day and you’re not worried that someone will call you an idiot, then you’re not taking enough of a risk.

Comments: Tags are important, www.copyblogger.com great for headlines and how to develop a niche market.

Comment: Holly from .babyfaith.com – a lot of people read my entire blog. People are touched and send emails. How do you balance the people that read your blog contacting you, you want to be friendly with, but how do you respond to personal requests? She wants to continue interacting, but she can’t council one-on-one sessions.

Penelope: I asked a lot of people how they handle email. For example, Guy Kawasaki said he spends 4 hours a day on email – “it’s better than being a garbage man, that’s my job.” A lot of people said the same thing. Then I sent emails out and asked for advice to people like Seth Godin. They would email a one-liner that was really courteous.

Nina: What do you want to do with you blog? A-publish a book. B-have the fans come out on the book tour.

Stephanie: Make it a win-win. Ask them if they can ask the question on the blog.

Comment: Another way is to offer online calls where people can buy the time.

Comment: I’m curious about syndication and how that works and how it affects the traffic that you get.

Peneolope: It’s totally archaic and a waste of time. $500/month from 50 different papers – it’s a waste of time.

Comment: suburbanturmoil.com, I want to expand beyond the blog world to get a book deal or a sit com.

Penelope: You can’t take a blog and go to a book. If you have a blog, you get $15,000. If you have a blog and something else like an idea for a book, then you get your money. Your blog is not your book.

Comment: Try www.PRLeads.com – ProfNet puts out a query, a generalist writing a story looks for sources. Then, PR Leads connects you to the journalists. Start connecting with the journalists and the reporters. I looked on PR Leads and contacted a journalist to let them know that I had a source.

Comment: I’m on the team at Harper that decides about what gets acquired. The blog cannot translate to a book. If you have a platform, if you have an interesting idea, then the book can be acquired. Every publisher asks – is this book beyond the blog? In publishing, we’re seeing a great deal of failures in blog to book publishing. I would certainly make the steps to develop a clear and concise proposal.

Comment:What is the brand risk and how out there you are in the appropriate business context? She is totally out with her lesbian family blog, because she needs to be herself. If you’re a blogger in your authentic voice, you can only gain from that.

.Comment: I’m in the mommysphere with a masters, how do I wear both hats in the same site to help people and parents? How do I transition and balance between giving advice and telling them what to do?

Penelope: I write about 5% of the time I screw up at home. This makes me more unique. You have an opportunity to do both together.

Comment: For those of you have blogs, there is no money in syndication in print – no money, but it is a good way to get noticed. How do you make money blogging?

Comment: You can make money blogging with affiliate revenue. AdSense is a joke. Also find ways to spin off and tap your audience in different directions.

Check out these blogs for more BlogHer ’07 self-branding and self-promotion coverage . . .

Stephanie’s Notes 

eMoms at Home

Silicon Valley Moms Blog 

Blogher.org

Felicia Sullivan 

Don’t Gel Too Soon