It’s that time of year again, folks!  October is almost here and that means it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month… a whole month of pink!  Our love of pink is well-documented, as is our love for our boobs (c’mon, who doesn’t love boobs?). That’s why for the 7th year in a row, we support and participate in the Boobie-Thon™. 

What is the Boobie-Thon™, you say? The Blogger Boobie-Thon is an annual event that runs the first week of October, the 1st - 7th.  Bloggers from all over the world send in photos of their boobage (covered and/or uncovered) to help raise money for breast cancer research.  They have lots of different galleries, Black & White, Props, they even have a Survivor’s Gallery, which is always inspiring.

This will be the seventh year for the Boobie-Thon and their goal is to beat last year’s total by a mile!  Over the last six years, Boobie-Thon™ has raised over

$40,000.  Way to go, ladies… and gents!

That’s right, Boobie-Thon™ isn’t just for the ladies. Men participate as well.

Visit Boobie-Thon.com to learn more about this fun annual event.  It’s all in good humor with wholesome intentions and has been a great time every year.  So unhook your bras, let the girls loose and start shooting! 

Healthy boobies make happy bloggers.

On this beautiful first day of Autumn, my one spot left has been filled and I’m now, along with Kathy, booked until December 2nd, when we’ll be scheduling projects for the New Year (Winter 2009 season, January - March). If you have recently submitted a Request for Proposal or are planning on it, please note the pink boxes that highlight our current availability.

Have I mentioned that our book, Blogging with Moxie, has been flying off the shelves lately?  It’s always been doing steadily well, but recently, it’s going like

hotcakes! If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, drop by Amazon and pick one up!  If you have interest in blogging and fancy an entertaining read, then check out The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie by The Moxie Girls… that’s us!

We would both

love to hear about your project, so if you’re interested in getting on our waiting list for the December 2nd bunch, please fill out your Request for Proposal as soon as possible — we respond to them in the order in which they are received.  In order to help expedite your request, please (pretty please?) be as thorough as possible on your form.  A quick “I want a blog”, skipping things like the name, vision and budget doesn’t really give us a clear picture of your project.  Hiring a professional designer and making an investment in your website is worth a few minutes to make sure we have a clear understanding of what you want, don’t you agree?  Help us help you. Thanks!

Thank you all so much for your patience while we sorted through the many, many Requests for Proposal we received through July and August. We’re lucky to have so many wonderful potential clients to work with, but alas, we can’t accept every project as much as we’d like to.

Kathy is booked for Fall — that’s me! — (October and November) and I’m no longer reviewing applications for this season.  I have contacted everyone on my list, so if you never responded, unfortunately that ship has sailed. Boo!  If you were contacted by me and are still interested, please respond by Monday, September 22 to get on the list for Winter 2009 or your request will be put at the end of the list. Boo squared!

Joelle is also booked for Fall, but due to a small twist, she has

one spot left for a blog project or very small business web project. She will be contacting the remaining people on our waiting list in the order in which the requests were received with either questions about the project or an offer to be first in line for the Winter 2009 schedule.

We’ll begin contacting people starting December 2nd for the Winter 2009 spots so any requests we were unable to accommodate for Fall (that are still interested) would be first, followed by any inquiries we receive over the Fall season.

We can’t thank you enough for your patience and your enthusiasm and look forward to working with you soon.  In the meantime, take a moment to check out our book, Blogging with Moxie (Wiley, 2007) for blogging basics, insider tips, blog design insight, reading recommendations and more! 

We are always looking for new ways to improve our clients’ businesses and websites.  We’re also looking for ways to make your blog or your website work for you, integrate with your business and not just be a separate entity that sits around, waiting for people to visit… maybe… someday.  We want them to visit you NOW and a blog, RSS feed and even a newsletter are great ways to get people to visit your business website again and again.

When Kathy was in town recently, we visited one of my favorite local burger joints, Urban Mo’s (mind the music!).  Urban Mo’s (formerly Hamburger Mary’s) is a very popular bar & grill in the heart of the gayborhood. They have fantastic burgers, fun service and various events or “nights” for dancing, cocktailing and social goodness.  And I love their breakfast/brunch on the weekends.  Faaaaaabulous!

In addition to our great service by Taj, we received a slip at the end of our meal.  Taj said if we enjoyed our experience and we would like to receive free offers from him, personally, in our inbox to leave our email address.  Since I’m local, I did and promptly forgot about it. I figured I’d get some promo email for a club night or something, but really didn’t think more of it.

Lo and behold, a week later, I received an email from Taj offering me a free appetizer for the entire month of September. All I had to do was present the email to any server.  He also directed me to his blog on Urban Mo’s community website, Mo’s Space (haha!).  I think this is a brilliant way to use a blog to get butts in the seat.  I could see many ways this sort of marketing could be useful.  Sure, offering people stuff on a mailing list is nothing new, but there’s a modern twist that Mo’s has added — giving their waitstaff and bartenders blog space on the restaurant website.  This lets them personally build a clientele, as well as makes them feel like more valued members of the company.  It lets them have a voice, it lets them promote your company and it’s really how people connect these days.

Let’s say you own a spa (or a tattoo parlor or a nightclub or a…). Give each of your spa employees blog space on your company website. They can write about new products that are available, new services their clients might be interested in, show off their latest work, even about their own passions for what they do.  All of these things gets your staff marketing *for you*.  RSS feeds allow people to subscribe to your staff member’s blog so they can be kept abreast of new info, just as they would on any other blog they subscribe to, be it news or friends.  And a blog allows staff members to update people about things *right now*, not when they eventually open their email or sift through their spam folder (where often HTML newsletters go to die).

Let your staff know to ask clients at the end of their service if they would like to be added to that staff member’s personal contact list.  Providing a more intimate mailing list builds rapport, allows them to receive notices about services they would be interested in, and the stylist or esthetician or masseuse can offer the client discounts, samples, freebies or offers based on their needs.  I’ve signed up for salon mailing lists and gotten emails about weaves and chemical peels when I was really interested in pedicure and nail services.  This eliminates unwanted content and allows the client to feel like their personal stylist (or whomever) is treating them to something special.

It’s a new twist on an old standby… and I’m happy to see a local establishment embracing new marketing.  Viva Mo’s!

As some of you may know, we are both avid supporters of various causes and charities.  One of my chosen recipients of charitable goodness is AIDS Walk.  For the last 4 years, I’ve participated in the 3k AIDS Walk San Diego and through donations from friends, family and people like you fine folks, along with fundraising events, I’ve raised close to $7000 since 2004 for this cause. 

For those who aren’t familiar with AIDS Walk, here’s a bit from their website:

AIDS Walk San Diego is San Diego’s largest one-day HIV/AIDS fundraiser and the biggest non-governmental financial provider for HIV/AIDS in San Diego County. Dozens of agencies — serving thousands of clients — rely on funds raised at the annual AIDS Walk to help provide essential prevention and care programs to thousands of men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS.

I don’t need to wax poetic about all the reasons why we need to provide support and services for those living with HIV/AIDS all over the U.S.  What I can do is ask if you could throw a dollar into my kitty, or whatever you’re willing to donate. I’m about half-way to my modest goal of $500 this year and with only a couple more weeks until the walk, any donation would be appreciated.  I’m walking whether I’ve got a three dollars or three thousand, but every little bit helps.  If you’re unable to or don’t feel like kicking cash my way, consider walking with me, if you’re in the area. Or, if you have an AIDS Walk in your city, sign up and hustle your

own tuchus for donations or volunteer at the event.

There are so many way in which you can help. I hope you will.

p.s. Burn your bras!  Boobie-thon is coming!

I’ve received a flood of emails this morning from clients concerned that their site is “broken” or “busted” or “hacked”.  None of the above, I’m happy to say, but there is definitely something afoot.

It seems Flickr updated the script they’ve written to display images on your website. They call it a badge.  In doing so, it appears they’ve added a 1 pixel by 1 pixel (or maybe even 0 x 0) geo-tracking something-or-other that is shoving people’s images all akimbo.  Unless it’s been there all along, but then it would have been wonky before, n’est-ce pas?

In a nutshell, I’m not sure how to resolve this yet, as the script is generated by Flickr, not our programming, but we’re looking into it and as soon as we find a solution, either with news from Flickr, a CSS trick or whatever, we’ll let you know.

Update:  The fix seems to be to apply the style to the link styling, not to the image styling.  You can read more about it here.

Hello!  We’re back in action today, pumped full of coffee and ready to tackle our Fall schedule (October - November). We have begun reviewing all the wonderful inquiries we have received (thank you!) so if you submitted a Request for Proposal (RFP) over the Summer you will be hearing from us shortly as we set up phone consultations and/or ask questions regarding your project.  We’ve received lots of faaaaaaaabulous inquiries and we’re excited to get started on some fresh new projects! 

We will continue to accept requests for projects

beginning Winter 2009 (January - March). Any requests that came in after September 1st will be eligible for our schedule in January. We will begin reviewing requests for our Winter schedule December 2, 2008.

Thanks so much for your patience over the Summer. We’re looking forward to speaking with you and learning more about your vision for your web project.

Is it time for spiked cider yet?