Making It Up

as we go along

blogfest

How to share links to facebook with just one image.

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If you’re in the habit of sharing your blog or brand links to facebook, you may have noticed that recently something changed and instead of the one link with image preview, you get a kind of carousel effect. This is, quite frankly, kind of irritating.

You’ll be pleased to hear that it’s easy to avoid.

So, from my facebook page:

using-facebook-image-previe

As you can see, I’ve pasted in the link to one of my recent, (highly popular!) posts, Getting up, going on. Facebook has popped to my blog and harvested three images, two from the post, and one, slightly irritatingly from the sidebar.

Scroll down under the preview carousel and you’ll see the three images are there, with blue boxes and numbers. Click on the images you *don’t* want, to deselect them. Then when you hit publish, after you’ve edited the text into something inviting and shareable of course 😉 you get the one image preview instead of the somewhat bizarre carousel effect that all lead to the same place anyway.

This tutorial relates purely to the web interface, I haven’t investigated thoroughly from mobile or apps but hopefully that gives you some hints as to how to make it all look a bit cleaner.

If you found this tip helpful, do please share, and if you’re coming to Mumsnet Blogfest this weekend, do find me in the tech clinic and pick my brains. Looking forward to seeing you there!

I look a bit like this. But not hugely, given I won’t be wearing glasses and my hair has grown a bit. Will replace with more up to date picture when there’s enough light to take a decent shot 🙂

jax short hair selfie

Blogfest – meeting people

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One of the double edged swords of attending blogfests is meeting lots and lots of people. Double edged because yay! meeting people I’ve never met but spend so much time talking to online (or people I have met and *still* spend lots of time talking to online 😉 ) but also aargh! lots of people that I won’t remember who they are even though I’ve met them before and/or spend lots of time with online.

Yes, traumatic.

I should possibly remind people at this point of the recently diagnosed quirks of my neurology. (In case you can’t be bothered to click through, I’m autistic. It doesn’t really show. I made it 40+ years without knowing myself.)

Don’t get me wrong, I like conferences. I’ve been to quite a few, from the first Cybermummy with a six month old Smallest, a blogcamp, couple of Cybhers and now three blogfests. At each of them I’ve done techie things – blog clinic, and even last year, a panel.

blogfest opening session

(That’s not my panel, I don’t seem to have a picture of that!)

This year we had a roundtable for our techie tips, which meant I was only occupied for one session, and had plenty of time to circulate, and meet people.

Except.

Except I had this kind of mental tick list of people I wanted to meet, and once I get there, I’m hopeless. I can’t put names to faces to blogs. If you introduce yourself with your twitter handle I stand half a chance – last year with the bumpable badges (as described on Jo Sandelson’s Heir Raising) at least I got a record at the end.

This year? Nope. I think I handed out three cards, and I don’t think I was given any. (If you gave me a card, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did with it!)

I know I spoke to AnOunceOfMe over coffee in the morning about spam solutions on wordpress. (On wordpress.com basically you’ve got akismet. You can’t install plugins. On self-hosted wordpress there are a lot more options. There are on blogger as well.)

And Elizabeth and Helen from Speech Blog UK caught up with me during the roundtable.

Of course I managed to meet Anne-Marie from Child Led Chaos. Given it was sort of my fault that she was there (thanks Skimlinks!) it was really great to get to spend time with her. I may have shrieked slightly when I met her. And I even have a pictorial record 🙂

Yes, I got to meet Sue Black properly as well. And Rachel, and Jo, and I had the evening with Rachael and Monika, and there were lots of people that I wanted to talk to properly and I only got to squeeze in passing, like Hayley and Kiran and Adele.

And lots of people whose names I didn’t get. Who was it who took a picture of me in the morning? Hello, whoever you are. I should have taken one back! (Bumpable badges next year, please.)

I did see a lot of people actually didn’t I? Jen, and Chris, and Sandy, and Liska, Emma (baby!) and Beth! (nearly forgot Beth, I tweet lots with Beth often at this time of night 😉 ) (If I’ve not put you in here and I did talk to you, I’m sorry – I’m really sorry!)

But I’m sure there were lots of people I didn’t see. Or that I spoke to and didn’t click who they were. In the morning I was slightly hyper and excited, (up at 5.45, 3 cups of coffee before food. Wheeee…..) I crashed just before lunch although the fabulous think bomb from Francesca Martinez revived me somewhat. And food. Should have eaten more than one pastry for breakfast.

I hid in the green room for a little while. It was quiet, and had chairs, and you could get a drink without queueing or having to explain what you wanted, and Rachel and Sue and I talked about knitting and crochet. (And our roundtable session, yes, we talked about our session) (Oh, and I saw Sarah in there.)

But that wasn’t available for everyone. And I’m not always speaking at these things. (Why am I not always speaking at these things? I don’t put myself about enough, technically speaking, do I? *subliminal* hire me */end subliminal*) So, what would I like? What would improve blog conferences for me on a personal level?

First of all, a quiet space. Somewhere to retreat to when it all gets a bit much. Preferably with comfy chairs. Would also be nice for those with babies. Also, some easy way to meet people – maybe we could do speed blog dating? Or have a guest blog carnival before hand when we introduce a friend? Once we’re there, how about self identified tags for foodies, or book bloggers, or politicos, or funny people (I could just wear them all. Except funny, I’m not really very funny). Also, there was a conference recently where people put different coloured clips on to indicate how much they wanted to talk – that sort of thing sounds like a great idea.

Because while I do love conferences, they are exhausting. In case you’re wondering how much, I wrote something over on choosing different about it all.

Back to add another thought. Earlier I read the seemingly obligatory post by a newer blogger about feeling shut out by clicky(sic) behaviour. I can’t remember where, sorry, so I can’t link. But here’s a thing. I’ve been going to these conferences for 4 years now. I’m about as established a blogger as you can get, and I rate quite highly on various charts (not that I’ve ever won an award, sniff) but I would quite possibly have looked like I was blanking people at various points during the day on Saturday. That would be because I was completely dazed and confused. Plus there are a *lot* of people I wanted to see, and I didn’t manage it, even though it appears I did see quite a few in passing. It’s entirely possible there were no cliques. Just people talking to friends, and other people being overwhelmed by the environment, and trying to squeeze every minute out of their day. Just saying.

Blogfest – how does technology change the way we think?

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So, this weekend was Blogfest no 3, and again I was going along to provide a techie voice. This time it was a single roundtable session, rather than the clinic, and while I have loved the clinics (the challenge of helping someone right there on the spot for just 10 minutes really fires me up actually!) it was great to be able to go to more of the sessions.

The day kicked off with an introduction from Justine, and then the panel on Technology – how does it change the way we think.

blogfest2014

Rather than taking notes, I tweeted, fully intending to use them to build my posts afterwards 🙂

It has to be said that I was at a bit of a loss with this panel. They come from a very different place to me – I don’t read the papers, or watch TV for my news stories – I read twitter, follow links, get commentary there and then. And I’m very aware of how each paper has its own agenda. I do get very annoyed with the term digital natives, and people who go on about our children being so much more savvy than we are.

Several times people made the point that our children won’t ever know a world without the instant connection, the internet, the always on of social media. (Unless everything goes very horribly wrong of course…) This doesn’t mean that they are necessarily more aware of it or how to use it than we are though. I frequently comment about the time my nephew came to visit, and couldn’t find the internet on our desktop, purely because we used a different browser to the one he used at the school. It then turned out he didn’t know what a browser was. (What *do* they teach them in schools these days?)

So no, he’s not really a digital native is he?

Certainly most of the panel members weren’t. One of them said something about social media not being real. My response?

I did then get a teensy bit distracted by some of the technology on offer. Ooh, recursion.

First swearword of the panel from 10.01 was @fleetstreetfox I think? And no, I’m not going to share it 😉

Then there was the standard – social media gives us all an equal voice. Um, no. We might all be able to say things, but not everyone is heard, and even those who are heard aren’t always listened to.

And then the topic changed to keeping our children safe online. And I’m not quite sure who it was was promoting locking down the internet/ social media so that children can’t get online, but I don’t think much of that idea.

Cue a quick rant.

Good point from Chris Mosler about digital footprints.

And Ellen.

And my top tip for keeping your children safe online?

I wasn’t very impressed with the panel members recommending cybertracking apps, and leaning over their children’s shoulders at all times. That doesn’t seem to me to be very respectful of their children’s privacy or autonomy.

Really worth pointing out to children though, the point made by an audience member with a speciality in forensic IT (I think – does anyone know what it was?) there isn’t really a delete option on the internet. Once it’s published, there’s a record somewhere. So actually, not just the children, think twice yourself too.

Edited to add tweet from the audience member

And then the panel finished before I lost my rag over the quick advert for coding in schools as introduced by Michael Gove. (Scream.)

All in all, it was an excellent discussion to kick off the day, but I would have liked to see someone a bit less traditional media and a bit more digital up there to give the other side of the story. It was a teeny bit like people discussing a country they’ve only visited on holiday and don’t quite approve of.

Oh, and if you can’t build real connections online, I’d like to know where these four children came from 😉 (Tim and I met on an email list in the days before social networks 😉 )

So it turns out that I can only fit one panel into a post. More to follow during the week, including Think Bombs, Making money from your blog, and of course, Techie tips and tricks.

Power and perspective.

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Since the weekend, and the whole feminism/blogfest thing, I’ve read an awful lot of blogposts about that particular session. I’ve seen people upset, and angry that they were misunderstood or misinterpreted, people who were there upset about the reaction of the room, people who weren’t there alleging that the panellists were bullied and misheard.

And I don’t think I’ve seen anyone discussing power and perspective.

I sat on a stage in a different room during that conference, and it was an odd experience. The room below us was dark, and it was difficult to see the faces of people asking us questions. Each time I looked out into the room, I could see various arms waving, but we could only take one question at a time, and I’m sure some people never got the chance to speak. No big deal, perhaps, when all we were discussing was technical issues around blogging, hosting, and so on.

But, go back to the feminism/ mummy blogging panel.

You had a select group on the stage, who presumably were chosen at least in part because they were deemed to have some authority on the topics to be discussed. (Obviously they might also have been chosen to draw a crowd, but I don’t think there was any particularly big name on that panel, unlike the group who kickstarted the day.)

There were two topics – feminism, and mummy blogging.

The panellists mainly didn’t appear to have much knowledge of what they deemed to be mummy blogging – apart from Alison Perry from Not another mummy blog. And the bloggers, and non bloggers in the audience, reacted predictably to being judged and found wanting just by virtue of not being interesting enough to be read.

Their voices were shown on the large screen, scrolling behind the panellists and creating predictable waves of reaction in themselves.

Then someone turned the screen off.

Instantly, what small amount of power and voice the audience had was removed from them.

Now, what happens when you have a power imbalance? Is it ever good? I’ve seen a lot of people saying that the panellists felt bullied and put upon by the audience reaction. And I didn’t like the feeling of the room. But I’m betting the largest number of people in that room were sitting muttering to their neighbours or tweeting, and practically sitting on their hands to stay out of the discussion. We weren’t hissing people. We weren’t booing. We were dismayed that in coming to address an audience of strong opinionated women, there to learn about technology and how to raise their voices, most of the panel hadn’t really bothered to think about who they would be talking to or what their concerns could be.

I do think that staying at home can be a feminist act actually. Because it is expressing my power and choice and not just taking the path chosen for me by anyone else. It’s a struggle, financially, some of the time. I’d be a lot better off if I were in my IT office, but I’d just be in the ratrace, and I wouldn’t be doing anything to change it for anyone. My choices and changes are made by writing here. By, to coin a phrase, commodifying my family life.

I don’t particularly like that either. It feels like selling out this place that started as my over the fence chats with my long distance neighbours. But it really only feels that way *because* other people put their expectations on to my behaviour. And I’m not about to let other people decide how I behave.

I’m sorry that anyone on the panel felt upset or bullied. The majority of the women in that room I suspect to some extent felt sidelined and diminished by some panel members. Does that make us even? It doesn’t. Because for each reader I have here, numbering in the 100s if I’m lucky, thousands will have seen the panellists’ responses in places like the New Statesmen.

It’s always about power and perspective. And I think that some members of the panel, and their online friends with their louder voices and larger audiences are forgetting the very people that perhaps they should be speaking out for and to, when they speak about us.

Blogfest – so much more than a feminism debate.

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blogfest opening session

I will admit at the start I am biased. This is the second year I’ve taken part in Mumsnet Blogfest, last year I was a clinic adviser, and this year I was in the clinic and also on a panel. I absolutely loved it last year, and it fired me up to become much more of a part of our family business. This year it has revitalised me, I met lots of people for 10 minutes at a time and helped them, and I’ve extended that to emails and tweet conversations today.

So yes, I’m biased. I thought the venue was fabulous, the food lovely, the people running it excellent and the company fascinating. I wish I’d been able to split myself in two and hear the lovely Rachael Lucas (now an author with a book deal!) and Emily Leary in the making money session. I’d love to have heard Dr Sue Black enthusing about tech mums (but I managed to meet her later, and I’m chatting with her tomorrow) and I was really sad that Jack Monroe didn’t make it.

Because I was clinic-ing, I only made it to two actual sessions. The first one, with Stella Creasy MP and Richard Bacon, and that bloke who opened a free school, and a lawyer chap. There seemed to be an almost willful lack of understanding of the issues on the part of that bloke, and I found the argument a bit irritating. But Richard Bacon was funny, and the tweets were excellent, and overall it raised a few interesting points.

And after that I dashed out to find my clinic spot. We had vintage chairs to sit in, which was a bit nice, and drinks brought throughout, which is just as well, as I’d have lost my voice otherwise. There was a gap planned in for lunch, which I eventually tracked down in the green room with Emily, and we had time for a brief catch up as we ate. Back to clinic for another couple of hours and then a brief gap before my panel session. By now I was really twitching – although I loved doing the one to one stuff, I was nervous about being up on a stage. But the panel was beautifully organised and went really well, even if Maggie (RedTedArt) and I did disagree on the best format for an RSS feed 😉

Lisa from VerveSearch and SEO Chicks was great on aspects of SEO – her top tip about headlines excellent (I’m hoping to be able to link to an article on that very soon.) Annie from Mammasaurus gave great advice about getting out there and commenting when you’re starting up. Maggie talked about using social media, but targetting different audiences differently. Know how it works.

And my top tip? Self host. Yes, I know some people love blogger. I know wordpress.com is free. But when it comes down to it, I believe that having full control of your content is only possible if you’re self hosting. And I really do think having full control of your own content is good. Once you’re there, learn to backup! I’ll be writing more about self hosting, how to go about it and what to look for in a host over the next few days, as well as covering other questions that cropped up repeatedly.

So that was our panel. It seemed to be pretty popular, and a few people have followed up with further questions on twitter and by email already. (To all those people I spoke to in clinic, I meant it, you can email me 🙂 )

And after that, back to clinic briefly. Then just time to run down to the main hall where the mummy blogger feminism debate was just kicking off.

Yes, that was a carefully chosen phrase. Emily and I arrived just after the jam comment, and trying to catch up by reading the twitter wall was confusing to say the least. Something about you can’t be a feminist and make jam? Or making jam can’t be a feminist act?

Supposed to be a joke I think, but badly chosen or delivered. The problem, from my perspective was that you had a room full of women who were really buoyed up by a fabulous day. They’d been told about changing the world, shown how to make money, had their writing ambitions encouraged. They’d been plied with free cocktails and offered chances to win all sorts of exciting things, met virtual friends in person for the first time, and very definitely left their comfort zones.

Then, suddenly, they were supposed to sit passively while a group of individuals some of whom readily admitted they didn’t actually know what a mummy blog was discuss them.

Never going to go well. The audience wasn’t ready to be passive, and the panel were, I think, somewhat taken aback by the response. The feminism panel at Cybher last year was barely attended if I recall correctly – for many women, feminism seems an academic pursuit far removed from making ends meet, or far too concerned with behaviour and appearance instead of childcare and cost of living. Yet if there’s something feminism should be addressing, it’s exactly those concerns.

Why is commodification of family life an issue? (I take this to mean that sponsorship and monetization of blogs is a bad thing.) It didn’t start with blogs. And I actually think that proliferation of commercial blogs isn’t so awful. It’s allowing women another way of making money around their family, and giving them a voice and a chance to form a network completely outside the usual power structures. And of course people tend to present their best side on blogs – bit like I didn’t see anyone there in a onesie. We dress up for strangers. All of us. Or perhaps the panel would like us to believe that’s what they wear when relaxing in front of Strictly on a Saturday evening.

There are a huge number of blogs out there at the moment ranting about this particular debate, and I think it’s a great shame if it overshadows what, for many people, was a massively positive day. I think blog conferences offer us so many chances, and I’m sorry that this one ended on a slightly sour note. Having said that, I think the gin on offer afterwards did a lot to rescue things.

Personally, I’ll be back for Blogfest 2014 if they’ll have me. And before then, I’m going to be building on connections I made on the day. And did I tell you I got to take a picture of Sue Black with Jo Brand? (I was too star struck to say hi to Jo Brand, even though I was in the green room with her.)

Oh, and thank you for the cake.

beverly hills bakery cake tin