Watching you, watching us.

Zero Dollars a Little Talent and 30 Days –

Day 20 – Blog Comments Roll in, New Milk Bank Shirts and Analytics Get Fun
By the end of the day, I already had some data showing up in my ClickTracks account. A great example of that was when I noticed in the “What’s Changed” report that traffic from the Making it up blog* had suddenly increased dramatically. I followed the link and found that my new Little Britain inspired “bitty shirts” were causing a bit of a stir. Since keeping tabs on what folks say about your company is a vital part of online reputation management, I responded and bookmarked the page to keep tabs on what public opinion is.

I’m really enjoying keeping up with this series on searchengineguide, even more so now that I keep cropping up in it. I’m seeing ppl drop in from there as well, so hello!

But even before that it was interesting. Breastfeeding, if you’ll pardon the pun, is a topic close to my heart. Although I wouldn’t call myself an activist, I am aware that several of my friends would probably designate themselves that way. So the topic of the business featured in the article series is interesting, and the lactivist blog is one that I’ll doubtless recommend in the future. I’ve even been over there and commented, as I couldn’t resist the post that put the image of breastfeeding on a stage while spinning a tassle from the other nipple into my head (how many of you could???)

But the setting up of a small business in 30 days, especially right now, at a point in my life when I’m desperately trying to figure out how to get out of the ratrace (again!!), is utterly mesmerising. Especially when many of the tactics being used are those I’ve recommended to friends and clients in the past. Don’t think Sarah at Ethics Trading would deny that I recommended a business blog to her quite some time ago, though neither of us has leveraged it in quite the way Jennifer Laycock has used either of her current blogs. New Yorks Times eh? Well impressive!

When I first read the series, my reaction was bugger, someone has gone and done what I should have done, before I got around to doing it. Then I realised that Jennifer is just a touch out of my league, but she’s offering a helping hand to all of us out here who are trying to make it. She is doing it from a slightly different starting point, it’s true, (not many of us would choose to handicap ourselves in the way she did to start out with!) but what’s the point of having talent if you don’t set yourselves a bit of a challenge every once in a while? So instead of being jealous , I decided that I would read along, and do what little I could to help out. And it seems like you lot, gentle reader, have a closer fit to the profile of lactivist customers (get your T shirts here!) than most of the industry reading search engine guide, so our traffic is interesting. Plus that of the friends I dragged over from Feminist Parents as well

And what am I learning? I’m learning that there probably isn’t a get rich quick formula in here, but that it is possible to build a business a lot quicker than I had thought. Which makes it even more tempting to start out, and I’ve got a couple of ideas that link in with some of my more political interests, as well as some life long ambitions, that I’m working on right now. (No, not *right* now, not even I can multitask in quite that way! )

I’ve also got plans for more traditional business products, and I’m setting up to talk with some other ppl with skills that complement ours. It might be new year new start in more than one way in a week or two.

And somehow, I need to keep in mind the fact that I do all of this so that I can spend time with my children, instead of paying someone else to do it. As well as because I like playing with computers of course!

*Do feel free to pop down to the Bitty post discussion if you haven’t already, would be as interested as Jennifer in all of your views.