I’m starting the year with a resolution to continue supporting the good works that bloggers can do by becoming part of the Mom Bloggers for Social Good with 400 founding blogging Mums.  I know I am in great company and hope that we can make some noise in 2012 for all these good causes.

Mom Bloggers for Social Good is a global coalition of mum bloggers who currently span eleven countries – United States, Canada, UK, India, Spain, Nigeria, Singapore, Netherlands, Malaysia, Jamaica, and the Philippines  – who care about spreading the good news about the amazing work non-profit organizations and NGOs are doing around the world.

When the campaign partners need to reach the masses about new initiatives, advocacy campaigns, or fundraising efforts we will work collectively to spread the word through our social media and blogging platforms to spread the word.

Here’s where you can follow the campaigns in social media:

If I don’t see you there, please follow the hashtag to join the conversation.

When: 17 September 2011

Where: Save the Children, St Johns Lane, London, EC1M 4AR

Time: 9.30am for tea and croissants, 10am start, 4pm finish.

Children welcome

Save the Children’s blogging conference is for all bloggers and vloggers. It’s going to be a fun packed and informative day with sessions from leading bloggers, prominent You Tubers and special guests.

Whether you’re a You Tuber, a parenting blogger, food, politics blogger or travel blogger we’d love to see you. We’re putting together a day packed with brilliant workshop sessions for all levels of experience.

Join our campaign

Come and spend the day with your blogging friends, learn new skills, meet Save the Children’s healthworker heros and join our healthworker campaign.

Health workers are critical to saving lives: they are the single most important element of any health service. Without them, no vaccine can be administered, no life-saving drugs prescribed, no family planning advice provided and no woman can be given expert care during childbirth.

We’ll be providing lunch too. Workshop details below.

Register now using the sign-up form to the right of this page.

9.30am: Arrive for tea and croissants

10am : Welcome and introduction

10.10 :  Amanda Mealing, actor and Save the Children Ambassador, talks about her experience visiting our work in Sierra Leone and hosts our live video chat with a healthworker in the field.

11.00 :#Pass it on:

Hear from our three mums who followed the journey of a vaccine from a warehouse in Maputo, Mozambique to a rural clinic. Together we reached just under 30 million on Twitter, had over 150,000 You Tube views, had hundreds of bloggers up and down the country blogging, we met politicians and encouraged world leaders to pledge enough money to pay for vaccines. With Chris Mosler, Tracey Cheetham, Lindsay Atkin and Liz Scarff

11.30:Tea break – sponsored by Netmums

12.00: First workshop sessions:

1) Blogging 101: Everything you need to know about blogging but were afraid to ask

If you are new to blogging or want to know how to set up your blog from scratch and how you can blog to support Save the Children then this session is for you. This roundtable discussion will be led by our expert bloggers.

• Chris Mosler, http://christinemosler.wordpress.com
• Nickie O’Hara,  www.iamtypecast.com
• Kate Gunn – representing Netmums,  http://katetakes5.blogspot.com
• Jennifer Howze -  http://www.britmums.com, www.jenography.net
• Elinor Shields, Mumsnet - http://www.mumsnet.com/
• Sarah Blakemore, Save the Children

2) Get Vlogging: Inspirational stories of how to use YouTube for social good

This roundtable discussion will enable you to get top tips on vlogging from the experts and get inspired as to how you can use your skills to support Save the Children. Our speakers:

• Lindsay Atkin, http://www.youtube.com/user/liliesarelike
• Myles Dyer,  http://www.youtube.com/user/Blade376
• Kristina Horner,  http://www.youtube.com/user/italktosnakes
• Liz Scarff, Save the Children

13:00:  Lunch break: we will be providing lunch.

14:00:  Second workshop sessions:

1) Taking your blog to the next level

Roundtable discussion: this session is designed for those who have been blogging for a while. Learn how to build a loyal following, create quality content and build an audience around a particular niche topic. Our speakers:

• Eva Keogan - www.nixdminx.com
• Sally Whittle - www.tots100.co.uk , www.the-mads.com ,www.whosthemummy.co.uk
• Maggy Woodley - www.redtedart.com
• Josie George - www.sleepisfortheweak.org.uk
• Tracey Cheetham - www.tchee.co.uk
• Saira O’Mallie – Save the Children

2) From floods to famine: multimedia storytelling using photography and film

This practical film session is hosted by Rachel Palmer our multimedia expert. Rachel will give a fascinating behind the scenes insight into both our life-saving work and her job producing and commissioning photography in some of the world’s most challenging environments.

From Niger to Somalia Rachel’s job is to commission and shoot incredible photographs that we can use to bring the world’s attention to events like a forgotten famine or under-reported natural disaster. This session will be practical and you will come away armed with top tips on how to film content for your blog, how to shoot for your edit and what makes a good visual story.

• Hosted by: Rachel Palmer, Save the Children

15:00: Gareth Owen: When disaster strikes- dispatches from East Africa

Gareth is our Director of Emergencies, when a humanitarian disaster strikes Gareth is the first to know. But how do we do what we do? Gareth will be focusing on the current crisis in East Africa.

15:55:Closing statement and thanks.

16:00:Finish.

As someone who is heavily involved in research every day, I tend review a lot of statistics and insights. This research is really quite something, especially since it’s a look into the future and the resounding stats are still ringing around my head; over 80% of 0-2 year olds have a digital footprint and 20% of those are not even born. Like it or not (and I don’t mean in a facebook way) this is the future we are all facing. Social networking, social media, social web, social whatever, is not going away anytime soon – but some of us might be embracing it while others are just none the wiser.

The launch of the research coincides with The Bailey Report, reported here in The Guardian recently. This worthy report about protecting children needs further thought, and I’ll review it in more depth in another post. So back to Digital Diaries; it’s not a flawless piece of research as it compares tying shoe laces and bike riding to internet usage in the under 3s and 5s; I don’t think comparing those skills stack up. However, what was really pertinent was the way it was presented; as a study, a hard back book aimed at children and also an iPad app. It was well thought out and even though there were some great headline stats, I don’t think we should really be suprised by the statistics. Many of us post pictures of our children on facebook – I’ve noticed a lot of those photos are around birth, hence the post-natal digital footprint.

While looking into the digital future is akin to stargazing, it doesn’t hurt to think about it. In fact, it’s something we all need to face up to.

For those of us who are bloggers, there is a badge of pride that comes with followers, friends, likes, recommendations, reviews and badges. So why wouldn’t children be any different? I know several teenagers and younger, who blog, run big pages on Myspace (what’s left of it) and of course, Club Penguin, Bin Weevils and Moshi Monsters are all open to under 13s.

But my big drum to bang is who is showing the way to the new generation about online behaviour? Are schools teaching children how to manage this? No, they are far behind. Is our major public service broadcaster aka the BBC giving how to guides? No. So what’s left for parents? Very little except the common sense of those who are digitallly savvy.

According to the spokesperson from the IWF at our roundtable, it is the remit of influencers, namely Mummy bloggers who have a digital space, to show the way – and that is the way we should all be moving. As a blogger, I don’t know if that’s the right way, I am teaching my daughter the ropes of online behaviour, but what else can I do? Who or what is galvanising our communities to share knowledge and experience without scare mongering? Children’s issues are always so low on the agenda, I don’t want to see this slip through the net, hence my post.

Here are some of the key take outs of the research:

- More than half (51 percent) of 6- to 9-year-olds use some kind of children’s social network such as Club Penguin

- Roughly one in five use email, and despite being underage, 14 percent are on Facebook, according to their parents.
47% of 6- to 9-year-olds talk to their friends on the Internet.

- Almost one in six 6- to 9-year-olds and one in five 8- to 9-year-olds have experienced what their parents consider objectionable or aggressive behavior online

- 58% of parents admit they are neither well-informed nor understand their children’s online social networks

- 56% of parents were certain their family computer has parental controls or safety programs in place

Internet usage is part of our regular conversation at home and I aim to keep it that way.

Here’s the view from the panel, it’s a full house and a few familiar faces are here.

I’m on the panel with Sian To @Mummytips, Liz Scarff, and in the photo below are Sacha Anthony and Gareth Jenkins from Save the Children who are engaging with the attendees and showcasing some great NGO work which has been done across the blogosphere for many other causes which are emotive and topical.

A-lister Gywneth Paltrow has established her llifestyle and family blog/newsletter Goop and a year or so on, there’s still lots of negative backlash. I’m not exactly sure why – it’s a pretty, well designed, considered, and sometimes wistful, statement of who she is; yet it’s had a pasting. It’s more genuine than, say, the lifestyle pages of Vogue. At least when I read her thoughts on London, I don’t feel I’m being sold something, which I so often do when I ready glossy mags fattened by advertising. I love what she does, and by the way, if you haven’t seen Glee, you have to watch her in this.

Celebrity Mommy bloggers aside, Dooce is the leading US Mom blogger, and a great success story to boot. One of my favourite blogs, Gawker, has run a piece on the amount of attention she receives which you can read here. There’s a bit of ‘So what?’ about it when I read it – and I wonder why shouldn’t she get media coverage if she’s a trailblazer, and why is a blog bashing another blog? Well, there are no rules in the blogosphere which makes it such an interesting and frustrating place to be.

Sadly, blog-on-blog bashing is becoming an all too familiar story. I don’t do it myself because I have neither the time nor the inclination, but it’s tough to be on the receiving end one way or another. It’s a very weird feeling to read a blog post written about something you do, or are doing, and the comment trail that follows. It’s then that you have to take on board that blogs are to some degree public property once they are put out in the web at large (and don’t ever forget it, for good or bad). It’s a sympton of the cyber conversation culture that love and snarkiness co-exist – free speech resonates with others and comments can take as little time as a text message to write and post.

But all hope is not lost. Dooce is owned by Heather Armstrong and if you’re into blogging and you can’t fail to have heard of her, she has very resourcefully turned snarking on its head and her army of dissenters into a new art form. It makes me laugh out loud that she has developed a huge ad revenue stream from her ‘hate mail’ by publishing it on an area of her blog for people to read – it turned out to be hugely popular, obviously people love to read a good snark if it’s at someone else’s expense – if only I could the same from spam comments!

And who are the other US Mommy bloggers worth checking out? I’ve just got two super special reads to recommend, and both of them have made me cry with laughter and they also are shit hot writers, so well worth taking a few quiet moments to read and enjoy the stillness (by that I mean after the kids have gone to bed!):

Nashville, Tennessee based Suburban Turmoil is a favourite of mine which I have definitely not had enough time to read of late. While it’s a window on another world it airs the common themes of modern life with a large dose of humour

MTFF is another one, she’s a Brit with a massively creative life, and her blog is choc full of beautifully written prose

And if you don’t know what snarking is, it is by definition:

a) A strange creature created by Lewis Caroll

b) A sarcastic, caustic comment or interaction in cyberspace

This magazine wants everyone single one of us lovely ladies to get involved and is calling on all of you real women – whatever your size, shape, height, or age to join the party.

If you would like to appear in a glossy womens lifestyle magazine this is your chance to shine!  Simply visit www.goodtoknow.co.uk/essentials for further details on how to enter, and follow the campaign on our Facebook and Twitter pages…they can’t wait to hear from you.

I’ve been asked to write a little bit about ‘Who is the most important real woman in my life?’.

That’s a hard question to answer because I can’t really go for just one, so I would like this opportunity to call out to all the amazing women I know – you are thought very highly of and you’re incredibly special.

Every minute of every hour, of every day, I’m surrounded by real women who I admire, and also the one who I’ve lost and others who I’ve come close to losing.  It’s all part of life’s beautiful and poignant tapestry which is why it should be celebrated.

I look at the photographs I have of my Mother everyday and even though she has passed away she is with me.  I see her in myself and of course my daughter, who is going to be an amazing woman one day.  And of course there’s my sister and her daughter who is about to become a new Mum.

I’m certainly not forgetting the brilliant friends of mine who I’ve known for so many years and so well that we feel like sisters.  We’ve known each other for decades and through bad hairdos, boyfriends, bumps and more than our fair share of cocktails.

At my daughter’s school there is one amazing woman in particular who runs the before and after school club – we adore her.  There’s also the passionate and caring head mistress who can’t get through a school event dry eyed – we totally love her, please don’t ever stop sobbing at sports day or the end of term, it just wouldn’t be the same.

And finally, here’s to all the amazing working Mums I know who hold it together and carry the can and keep it together wonderfully, come rain, shine or champagne and duvet days!

This a Handpicked Digitorial in association with essentials

Agencies in media need to get more social to survive, so what should you do if you want to be a great social media practitioner? My answer is to immerse yourself in it and become an integral part of it – but how?

The holy grail of digital is getting things right; link baiting (how to earn links organically instead of industrially/commercially) and non-paid SEO (free search engine optimisation can be done through brand mentions, linking, online articles) and general online social buzz all need to be mastered in this fast moving world.

Blogging delivers all of the above so it should be the first port of call if you want to learn from the inside out and gaining new skills is a bonus too.

I’ve yet to meet a single agency person who knows what a blog carnival or a meme is, that may come as a total surprise to bloggers who spend quite a lot of time getting involved in them. If you’re an agency person and you don’t know what a blog carnival is you should definitely find out and there’s a great 101 at blogcarnival. There’s also a great new phenomenon in consumer blogging which moves this on to another level. It is the brainchild of Tara Cain on her blog Sticky Fingers hosts the weekly Gallery. This amazing has been rocketfuel for linkbuilding and you only need to check out her engagement on postrank to realise what a great job she’s done. If you are running a blog for a client, you might want to spend some time getting to know Tara personally and analysing what her success could mean for a social media campaign.

If you’re really keen to get more out of social media, have a read of my Top 5 Tips; please feel free too add your suggestions at the end too.

1. Get some training
I’m notoriously opinionated but I also know when to shut up and listen. As a corporate blogger I have received a lot of training on social media. I listened, learned and applied it to my work. In the corporate world, it may take up a month to get a blog post from inception to publication. Still, it meant a lot to me because I loved the whole process. One of my really early posts even meant to trip to Berlin to meet the inventor of MP3 at IFA, you can see it here. It was pretty involved, I was there for two days and had a professional camera kit with me. I shot and edited the footage too. Even though I was blogging, I couldn’t really equate what I was doing with many of the high profile blogs such as gawker.com or perezhilton.com. The thing is, like everyone else, I had to start somewhere.

2. Get involved
Well the easy part is that most of us are on facebook; how about twitter? Do you know your blogspots from your typepads and your nings from buddy press? Sign up for a social media accounts; try out stumpleupon, digg and then look into other places like yelp.

3. Get blogging
What’s your passion? Photography, travel, shoes, your city? Start a blog. Amy a PR from Wolfstar is a great example, her blog PR Gossip lent her the credibility she needed to belong to British Mummy Bloggers and also do an event with them. I discovered this blog earlier this week Started a Fire by another PR and it gave me a great feeling about the agency. I’m not going to tell you that writing a blog is easy; it’s a voyage of discovery and that’s only going to help you grow.

4. Get out there
Social media is now a lifestyle choice for many. Gone are the days of hiding behind a computer screen and 2010 sees us social types mass mingling. If you really want to be more than just an asset manager in social, make sure you sign up for meet ups like London Bloggers, and volunteer for events like socialmediacamp. This is last year’s agenda from socialmediacamp – I had a brilliant time and lots of debate too.

It takes a lot of nerve to turn up to events where you don’t know anyone but all the people I’ve met are so friendly that I’ve never had any problem being the newbie. If you have any budget available you should also consider sponsoring events like The Sway and BarCamp8 you will get some good online publicity too.

5. Get Outside your Comfort Zone
There is a tendency for birds of a feather to create communities be it technology, beauty, sports, entertainment and so on. Let’s not forget how the agency community sticks together too. The problem with agency blogging is that it’s all about the clients and I wonder if there is a great deal of real interaction with bloggers. This is not a criticism but a fact of life. I have been to many evening events and spoken to the organisers who are a little upset that some bloggers have not turned up. I always say ‘Go to them, blogging is alive and kicking outside of EC2 – these people have day jobs and families and no rules’. I’ve never been averse to sorting out cab fares, hotel stays and train tickets for must have guests at social media events.

And there you have it, quite a lot to take in but it’s definitely a worthwhile pursuit. Things change rapidly in social media and many of the barriers to publication; fear, panic, paranoia, have been replaced by openness and transparency and even to the point that companies have changed their language from the formal to the vernacular.

Week in week out, social media never ceases to amaze and surprise me with all the innovations and quirkiness that evolve and launch out of nowhere. Wdgets, platforms, plugins, networks, APIs, apps – they all sound really dry until you see what they can do and what a wonderful place they make our shiny little world become. While it’s worth checking out sites like mashable and econsultancy for news and industry gossip, it still makes sense to gen up on your topic by getting to know it from the inside.

So go ahead, jump in and leave a comment.

My point of pain which I feel with both facebook and youtube, is that as a blogger, I have to split my blog name up. So nixdminx becomes Nixd Minx (see below). Because this is a personal blog I just don’t see the need to create a fan page or group, may I should have but it doesn’t seem right. It’s the same with my youtube channel, I really want to rename my personal channel to my blog name but I can’t. It seems such a simple thing to do so why can’t I? Don’t you remember when you could change your IM name on a whim on messenger? It also means that people miss out on me when they’re looking for me. Grrrrr.

Nixd Minx

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I grew up in a very political household. My very Conservative Mother believed that women should earn less than men so in response to the challenge I grew up as an ardent Leftie feminista (replete with designer handbag, shoes and champagne flute). My elder sister though is a dyed in the wool Tory. But she still wears nice shoes (not as nice as mine though).

So how do you explain politics to a 10 year old? Especially when that child is your one and only daughter? It’s quite a passionate topic so I have to admit I’ve found it a bit difficult to stay calm and unemotional. Deciding to rise above it all, I did watch two of the televised debates with my daughter and friends (hers and mine). Not soon into the screenings I had to excuse myself as I became bitter and enraged by the discussion and was on the verge of hurling stuff at the TV. Grrrr.

1997. I was overjoyed when Labour got in, I got in at 5am and rang people singing. The world has definitely moved on however since those heady days of champagne socialism and the shiny new optimistic-modernised-’Brit Pop’-dot com-wonderworld we lived in for a while. So roll on tomorrow. It’s going to be very different from back then.

And today? We’ve been hassled by the hustings left, right and in the middle here in leafy riverside Chiswick and not least of all at the school gate. On the homefront, I’ve had far too many leaflets through my door, including the BNP ones, to find it funny anymore.

I’m not saying it is a waste. I’ve been interested in the whole process and politics has a rich and complex place in my life. If only it were really simple and the decision could be clear cut.

For a 10 year old it appears that is really is. Miniminx has been giving me daily updates of the campaign trail at her junior school. She was a wobbly voter and undecided for a while. Unconvinced by policies, looking to make a decision on who her vote went to by how much she liked them.

She came home yesterday with her mind made up. She has decided that since the LibDems have nothing on offer it’s a two horse race between the Conservatives who are offering Mac Air notebooks and the Greens who are offering wind up laptops.

What happened to Labour is anyone’s guess I suppose.

Sorry for the bad joke but I just couldn’t help repeating it all day long. It’s just a mask for the fact that I’ve been having kittens about being stuck abroad and have had to keep my pecker up for the last few days and make it all seem like fun for my daughter. Actually, scrub that, it’s been an adventure of great magnitude and instead of coming home feeling a bit sad the holiday is over, we’ve both experienced a huge rush of appreciation for all things domestic, friendly and well, just our own doorstep.

Having told the world and his wife that we were delayed and unable to return from our holiday until next Monday, instead of last, things took a drastic turn for the better when the flights to the UK were announced again.

It would be an understatement to say that we’ve been in a state of crazed delirium for the last 24 hours. Having swapped Cote D’azur for a far chiller London W4, it feels brilliant and a bit lunatic.

I don’t know what it is about the human spirit but it has a homing device that propels the heart and mind in tandem towards reaching that destination against all odds, just to be there.

Last night after Miniminx and I had skyped,tweeted, texted and called everyone we possibly could from our French outpost, we found out before going to sleep that the skies over the UK were reopening. I did a celebration dance and downed another glass of wine then spent the night sleeping very badly as my daughter did her usual holiday prank; shrieking with laughter in her sleep throughout the night. It was all good, we could travel and get back home, lack of sleep permitting.

Not to be outdone by the general somnambulent squawking and whimpering, it was my turn to wake up with a fire in my belly at 5.50am and skittle around the room turning lights on and off, before settling at my laptop screen for some airline ticket motivated search action – I was determined to get us home.

As I flicked between tabs and screens and the abundance or search items, the flights were all coming up fully booked, and every few minutes there would be a change, prices would wobble, new airlines would be appearing, it all seemed a bit crazy.

‘Psssssssst, darling, do you want to go home this morning?’
‘Yeszzzzzzzz, but ….Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz I just need sleeeeeeeeeeep. Let’s go later.’

I was tempted to go back to sleep myself but I couldn’t. I was mad awake. Just the thought of being away from home with no good reason for a day longer was driving me a bit loopy. I let her sleep, and kept refreshing the flight screen. Two flights – oh no, gone already. Another one, at £1500. Another £386 with one stopover. Then after another 20 minutes, bingo. The 9.30am flight out of Nice, after the fourteenth try, had availability.

‘Wake up – we’re leaving in … oh quick, in 15 minutes, we have a flight to catch. Brush teeth, get dressed, close suitcase, do a room sweep*’

It was 20 minutes actually, but in that time I had to call reception to prepare the bill, shower, pack (yes for two) and dress and panic, oh and buy the tickets. The merry dance began and within 15 minutes we were out of the room and finalising the hotel bill and leaving, not before drinking a massively strong coffee. Our taxi arrived and I prattled on in French to the driver. It turned out his wife was stuck in Frankfurt, unable to return. Everyone had a story about some loved on somewhere, our waitress at breakfast had a boyfriend stuck in Thailand.

Determination and sheer bloody mindedness are one thing, but navigating the nuances of local traffic are another thing altogether. Needless to say as we lurched through the early morning traffic, 7.45am is never a good time anywhere, there was still a chance we would miss the check in period so it was all a bit touch and go. We arrived at 8.20 and had to go to the ATM to get the cab fare then to the check in desk, we had 8 minutes to spare. We got through the whole process, very smoothly in fact and boarded.

The flight was amazing, we arrived 30 minutes early and got back across town in good time. Arriving home was perfect – the sun was shining and London is full of Spring blooms. We are very very happy to be back.

So home and back to the grindstone it maybe but the simple pleasure of cooking an evening meal and having neighbours pop over to say hello is just the bees knees.

I’d always believed the old adage that travel broadens the mind, but it also emboldens the home loving heart much more than I imagined or remembered.
I wonder how long it will last?

*a room sweep is what I do after packing, moving around the hotel suite with military precision to check cupboards, wardrobes, shelves and drawers and underbeds for anything and everything I might have left lying about