ZKQ Blog

I'm Being Santa: an everyday look at how to be Santa

Lyrics by Arita Trahan, author of The Santa Story Revisted. Music by Mark Horwitz.

The Santa Story: a New Twist to an Old Tale

My friend, Arita Trahan, is a talented actress, songwriter, storyteller and now author. Her book, The Santa Story Revisited: How to Give Your Children a Santa They Will EckroateNever Outgrow was co-written with Norma  and published in October of 2009.

Arita based the book on own experience as a mother and how she handled The Santa Story with her own children.

As her friend and as a writer, I'm thrilled by the press her book is getting! Here's an excerpt from a review by Tom Matlack (below) that appeared in The Huffington Post on November 11, 2009:

Tom Matlack: An Extreme Make-Over for Santa?

Motivated by her own childhood wounding when she learned the "truth" about Santa, Arita Trahan wanted her children to have a Santa that would never lead to disappointment and that they would never outgrow. So, almost 30 years ago, Arita gave Santa a big make-over. (Click here to continue reading)

via www.huffingtonpost.com

For more good news about Santa, visit these related links:

• A Santa for These Economic Times: New book, "The Santa Story Revisited," Inspires Parents to Tell an "Expanded" Santa Story (Press Release)
• The Santa Story Revisited (Facebook Page)
• Arita Trahan (Twitter)

TypePad Tips the Scale

SmartCollegeVisit is the fourth blog I've developed using TypePad. I've found TypePad to be feature-rich and very easy to use. Both their knowledge base and help desk have been terrific resources. I'm not an affiliate of TypePad, but I am a happy user.

My other sites include:

ZKellyQueijo - serves to promote my freelance writing and PR/social media services

ZKQ Blog - my personal blog which up until a few months ago did not have a specific focus, but is now emerging as a reflection on my journey as an entrepreneur, marketer, developer, presenter, and so on. I guess you could say it's about what I know or am learning.

QCatsBiz - a blog I started to promote my eBay store, which has unfortunately taken a backseat due to the recent shift of time and energy to SmartCollegeVisit.

Obviously, I like TypePad and, over the past few days, I've come to like it even more. They've added some new features that I'm sure were developed for people like me who want to do more -- faster -- better -- and now!

Blog It is a "bookmarklet" that allows you flag a web page or video you are viewing and share it on your blog. All I had to do was drag the "Blog It" icon to my toolbar and then click on it when I wanted to share something on my site. Growing Up Among Towns and Gowns on SmartCollegeVisit is an example of this. I read Crossing the Border Between Town Life and University Life on Handshake 2.0 and decided to share an excerpt on my site. All I had to do was click "Blog It" to copy the post into a TypePad window. I added my intro and related links, then clicked "Publish" and it was done. It took less than five minutes. Since SmartCollegeVisit is a sponsor of the First College Visit series on Handshake 2.0, it made sense to link the content to my site and Blog It made it easy to do so.

Blog It is just one of tools that falls under the category of Point. Click. Publish suite. Another is the ability to post to a blog from within my email account. TypePad provides an email address that sends the email as a post to your blog. The subject line becomes the title and the body of the note becomes the body of the post. This is so easy and what a great way to keep a blog updated when you're on the road and only have a few minutes to get a post done. 

As as someone constantly looking for ways to work more efficiently, TypePad weighs in on the plus side.

First College Visit Series

Yesterday, I announced the launch of SmartCollegeVisit, a college visit portal with tools and resources for planning campus visit travel, college visit advice from parents to parents, not-to-be missed focal points on college campus sites.

Today, I'm announcing that SmartCollegeVisit is proud to sponsor First College Visit on Handshake 2.0., a series of first college visit stories by business professionals.

Two wonderful stories are included the series so far:

• A Tale of Two Visitors by Tom Field, publisher of Valley Business Front, a regional business magazine serving the Roanoke and New River Valley communities.
• Age Regression Via the College Tour by Robert Geller, executive vice president of Fusion PR, a public relations firm headquartered in New York City.

It's delightful to visit and re-visit college campuses through the eyes of these parents. There's more to come--tune into Handshake 2.0 throughout the week for more from the series. A digest of these will also appear on SmartCollegeVisit.

On Launching a New Business

It's only 8:04 a.m. on a Monday morning and though the work day is barely begun for most, I feel like I would at day's end. That feeling comes from a experiencing a sense of accomplishment. Today marks the launch of SmartCollegeVisit, a blog site I created to help families of the college-bound access resources to help plan their college visits.

What you see today on the site is the beginning--what you will see over time is the development of a blog into a robust site. How will that happen? With a strong work ethic, good ideas, good friends, good contacts, a well-thought out marketing plan, and a great social media public relations strategy.

Leading that great social media launch is Anne Giles Clelland, founder of Handshake Media, publisher of Handshake 2.0. If you know me or are familiar with my work as a writer, then you may have read my articles on Handshake 2.0 and you may know Anne as a writer, an editor, and publisher. What you may not know is just how darn smart and creative she is. Even after working on her team as a writer, I have been blown away by the ideas she presented to get my new business of to a great start. 

Anne wrote about this in a post titled Watch This! Then, Watch Out! on her personal blog. In that post, she used a photo from an underwater photo shoot my daughter and I went on at her request.

Anne is a competitive triathlete (she swims, bikes, and runs on purpose) so requesting an underwater photo shoot was a natural for her. My daughter took the photo below using the Olympus Stylus Tough camera on loan to me by Olympus (@getolympus). This is, without a doubt, one of my favorite photos taken during my first year as a freelancer.

I feel good. A business begins with an idea. A handshake puts it on the winning path.

I invite you to follow that path by visiting SmartCollegeVisit often and by reading the First College Visit series on Handshake 2.0.

The Never-ending Blog Post

One of the things I like about Amy Africa is that she's not afraid to bend the rules--make that not afraid to crush the rules and stomp them into the ground--especially when it comes to helping someone. Her blog post "The Heart of Being a Chef" is a rule breaker. For one, it's 1214 words long. Ask any expert on blogging and they'll tell you that 300-400 words is the ideal size of a blog post, which is just long to convey a message without overloading a reader and, in the same breath, experts will tell you "content is king." If that's true, then Amy's post reigns.

But the story does not end there, in fact, the story continues in the comments that follow. 7,704 additional words make up the comments. If you add the post to the comments, that's 8964 words. In the last print publication I worked for 1200 words was the length of a feature article. Amy's Qlog post and comments equates to 7.5 features! Now,that's a lotta words.

In a recent #blogchat, a discussion that takes place on Twitter on Sunday nights, hosted by Mack Collier, there was a lengthy discussion about the value of posting comments to others' blogs and to commenting on your own blog in follow up to comments posted. Amy's post is great example of how both the author and the person profiled (Lois Geller) used comments to engage the readers and create a conversation which added greatly to the quality of the blog post. If Lois had not commented and acknowledged her own concerns over her blog, then Amy's post would have seemed like an attack instead of an idea-packed, thought-provoking post about how her friend Lois could improve her blog.

So what's all this mean?

• #blogchat is right--comments create conversation and enhance the quality of the post. 
• Breaking rules is a good thing, especially when it comes to helping a friend.
• Quality content continues to reign and it can be found, not only the post, but in the comments as well.

If you read Amy's post and come away thinking she's not a friend to Lois, then I suggest you also take the time to read Lois' blog post "Amy Africa, the Internet Guru, and an Amazing Friend, Knows That “The Only Thing You Have To Fear is Fear Itself" before passing a final judgement. Comments welcome. 

How to Build a Better Blog

As someone who has managed web development project teams, designed web sites, developed web content, and is currently a blogger, I am constantly learning how to do it all better. In a critique of Lois Geller's Marketing Blog: Joy of Direct Marketing, I found myself returning to my own blog throughout the day to make changes based on the open review that took place on Amy Africa's Qlog: The Heart of Being a Chef....

I recommend spending the 30-40 minutes it will take to read all of the comments. While the comments are directed at Lois' blog design and content, there is a gold mine of good advice for the rest of us.

I threw my 2-cents into the conversation by recommending what to take out of the blog with respect to blog features that blog-hosting services like WordPress and Typepad make readily available (like archives and calendars). Donna Sciarra provided a tremendous service by stating what to add to the blog, even down to the column by column layout and menu navigation. 

Others who know Lois or just happen to be fans of her books on marketing, or her insight as a blogger, showed, without a doubt, why Lois' blog is worth reading and why she must continue to blog. I hope Lois' take-away was that not blogging is not an option.

For now, I plan to continue to check the Qlog comments throughout the day and later will create a digest of good ideas to refer to as I move forward with my own blogs and sites. In the meantime, I'll keep reading Lois Geller's blog in anticipation of continued great content and a new look to show it off.

Fav Quote on Friendship

"Friends are the family you choose."

This was said to me 25 years ago by someone I'm thankful to still call my friend. At that time, we were having one of our many discussions about how our respective families drive us crazy. Our families still drive us crazy, but we're there for them, just like we try to be for our friends. Friends are that ray of sunshine we can always count on.

If you have a favorite quote or comment about friendship, feel free to share it below.