For those of you who know me, you have probably heard me talk about how blessed I am to get such great gigs as this one, writing for this terriffic event. I knew that writing here would be a great opportunity for me, but I could not have imagined how much I would learn from the great people who are involved with Beyond Blogging 2006. Learning of Yvonne DiVita’s work is another one of the great benefits I have received as a result of supporting this event - in her responses to this email interview, you will find out why. She is another one of those cool people who just ‘get it’.

Yvonne DiVita
President and Founder
WME Books
Blog: http://www.lipsticking.com
Blog: http://www.ahablog.com
Blog: http://www.wmeblogs.com
Blog: http://blog.thirdage.com

Q1 - What are the 5 Blogs you can’t live without?

How can I pick only 5? Okay, TODAY, these are my 5. Tomorrow, it could be different.

1. Diva Marketing - Toby Bloomberg keeps me on my toes. She covers the right stuff at the right time.
2. Crossroads Dispatches - Where Evelyn Rodriquez offers insightful thoughts on women, men, world peace and the emerging creative class centers of the world.
3. Talking Story - Rosa Say manages to gather the great minds in marketing and business all in one place - here’s where I go for my daily dose of innovation.
4. Hispanic Trending - Where Juan Guillermo keeps me up to snuff on the Latino community. Since Hispanics are a strong, growing business community, and they have such a rich culture, I find this blog not only informative, but enjoyable as a nice read. I don’t get to read it nearly enough, however.
5. Ageless Marketing - David Wolfe has some interesting work on his blog - relevant to the baby boomer community and why businesses shouldn’t ignore us. [Editor Note: I used to love talking to David when I lived in DC - he was one of the sharpest knives in the local Company of Friends drawer]

Q2 - Tell us a little more about you and your company.

What’s to say about me? I wrote Dick*less Marketing to get some attention for the women’s market online, and it succeeded fairly well. It almost seems as if the world is more interested in ME, though. How could I give my book such an outrageous title? is a favorite question. To which I answer: I didn’t. A man did - and convinced me to keep it. The book begat the blog, and the rest is history. I write several blogs, and contribute to others, because I think the voice of the blogger is what’s important. It’s the chatty nature of getting together around a virtual table in a virtual café, sharing stories. It’s about bringing people together - to learn more about each other. To that end, WME Blogs (part of Windsor Media Enterprises, LLC), works with the people to teach them HOW to blog, so their blog will be as effective as they hope. There’s so much more to it than just throwing up a header and typing in a few paragraphs. And yes, blogs are search engine magnets…or, they can be, done right.

Q3 - What does Beyond Blogging mean to you? What does it look like?

What is Beyond Blogging about? It’s about women. I am confident enough of that to predict that over the next 5 years, more and more women all over the world will embrace blogging (in all of its shapes and forms - which is a topic for another discussion) to join hands, stand shoulder to shoulder, and share stories of their lives. These stories will bring our collective voices to the forefront - women will dominate blogging because it’s a social media, because women are social creatures. Because women are the ones in charge of hearth and home, husband and child, the collective voices of our stories will ultimately change the social contructs of the world around us.

Q4 - Do you have any sage advice for a communications professional trying to work with a client that wants to Blog? What are the 3 most important things they need to look out for?

Here are the 3 things communications professionals need to look out for, when working with clients who want to blog:

1. Thinking a blog is the be-all and end-all of marketing communications. A blog is a conversation - not a dialogue. A blog is a connection to real people - not a place to pontificate. A blog is a piece of the whole. I think most of the roundtable members are saying the same thing, in different words. Because, of course, it’s true.
2. A quick, excited beginning that gradually drifts off into - nothingness. Blogs are a lot of work. Too many people lose interest when they don’t get immediate feedback (comments and trackbacks). You have to give yourself at least 6 months to build a community of interested readers.
3. An inability to be flexible. During that six months I mentioned in #2, you need to be flexible enough to change focus, design, categories, even goals. You need to keep an open mind, allow the blog readers to lead you where they want to go. ROI is not always measured in $$ - sometimes it’s measured in the voices of your readers. Keep that in mind.

Q5 - What’s the one trend in communications that isn’t being picked up on, or understood, by mainstream communicators?

What’s being missed? The connective/collective power of women bloggers. But, don’t worry. We’re quietly in the background taking care of that.

Q6 - What are some of your past Blog posts you would like to highlight for our audience? Why?

First: Yvonne Discovers the Power of We - because of the words — power and we.

Next: Where in the World are the Women?- because women are the architects of society (so said Harriet Beecher Stowe)

And: I can’t choose any others…there are a lot of posts about other bloggers, cause that’s what women do - we support our friends, so, I leave the choice of which posts are worthwhile to the readers.

Q7 - Discuss briefly what you’ll be sharing with our audience at the Beyond Blogging event.

What am I going to talk about at Beyond Blogging? I’m going to go beyond blogging to show everyone that the talkers of the world, women, are also the bloggers of the world. I’m going to give folks reasons to start paying more attention. Stay tuned…

Categories: Blogging, Speakers