We certainly had a good time at SXSW Interactive this year. We had an opportunity to chat and network with many of our colleagues, as well a chance to promote our book, The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie. Our reading went very well and the signing was such a great chance to meet new people and put some faces to the many names we encounter online.

We also had a chance to meet the team at Ellis Lab, the folks behind our favorite content management system, Expression Engine.  They are such a wonderful group of people and while we loved EE before, seeing what they have in store for their new release of Expression Engine and how passionate they are about their product and their users makes us want to become EEvangelists!

Our interview with BlogTalk Radio went smashingly!  We really enjoyed chatting with John Haven and look forward to working with BlogTalk Radio again soon.  You can listen to our interview by clicking that little player or following this link.

We’re starting to review the very beautiful flutter of questionnaires we received in late January and throughout February.  Kathy and I will respond in the order in which they were received and will do our best to get back to you as quickly as we can.  Kathy’s been feeling under the weather lately, so please be gentle.  We appreciate your patience!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week and a Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

It’s that time of year when the bell-ringers are out, the smell of pine trees fills the air and people will cut you for the last Thomas the Train, but it’s also a time for giving. And we think you should give Blogging with Moxie for the holidays this year.  We’re very subtle like that. 

We also have some great announcements!  We’ve received wonderful reviews on Amazon and the book has been doing steadily well!  The fine folks at Expression Engine offered up an adorable video review for their readers and several bloggers have shared their thoughts both on Amazon and on their personal blogs.  Our publicist CJ has also beenbusily pimping us (we love her!) and on December 19th in the evening, Kathy and I will be appearing on the Derek & Romaine Show on Sirius Channel 109.  Tune in and listen!  We’ll also try to get a transcript or a recording of the interview to post here, as well.

HOLIDAY HOURS: For the holidays and because we are working diligently to roll out many new internal projects we’ve been working on before the New Year, we will be CLOSED from December 19th - January 2nd. We really need these two weeks for administrative and year-end wrap-up, and like you, we wish to spend time with our loved ones for the holidays. We appreciate your consideration and will respond to inquires sent during that time on our return in the order in which they were received.

We are booking for the first quarter of 2008 right now and we’re wading through a stack of inquiries that came in over the last week or so. January is almost booked solid for me, though Kathy may still have some openings. We will also be out of the office March 6-10 for SXSW Interactive in Austin, TX. — just a heads up. Our schedules fill up fast and we are doing our best to respond to all of the requests in our inbox as quickly as possible.    We didn’t forget you!

If you are interested in having us design your blog or small business website, please fill out a Design Questionnaire. If you submit a request for a quote without completing a questionnaire, you will just receive an email from us asking you to please fill it out, so if you’re serious about working with us, please take a few moments to fill that out… yes, even the bit about the budget and timeline. Thanks!

I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe and joyous holiday season.

Well, it’s been about 6 weeks now, but our book is finally out and available both online and in stores.  The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie debuted to a great response and it only gets better.  It’s been in the top 10 of blogging books on Amazon several weeks in a row and we think it would make a perfect, reasonably-priced addition to anyone’s holiday wish list.

If you’ve recently hired us to build a blog for you, you’ve recently started blogging or you just aren’t sure where to start, pick up our book, The IT GIrl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie.  We share the ins and outs of setting up your blog for the first time, the pros and cons of various blogging tools as well as dish on how to get the most from your blog.  We even include great beauty tips, cocktail ideas and relaxation goodies to keep things lively.

And of course, everything is delivered in our usual trademark style, full of fun and cheeky humor. Check out Amazon for our latest reviews, along with our Flickr group of happy Blogging with Moxie owners.

We hope you’ll consider adding The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie to your library!

Happy Holidays!

With all the book stuff going on, we’ve kind of let this site simmer on the back burner for a bit.  Now that we’re approaching our final edits on Blogging with Moxie, we’re ready to start thinking about the future!  We have a lot of plans for the Moxie Girls over the summer and into the holiday season. We hope you’ll stop by from time to time to see what’s new.  Since we’ve been so quiet, you may wonder what we’ve been up to…

Kathy put together a fabulous site for virtual assistant (VA), Mia Chambers.  Her company, Acumen VA, was looking for a new logo, as well as a completely overhauled website using a green and purple color palette.

Kathy also did this very traditional design for return client, Athenian Properties.  For their business, they requested a more “gothic architecture” style with minimal color, which Kathy delivered in an elegant, sophisticated format.

Brandi Baldwin wanted a fun design with a sexy blonde woman and lots of cake for her home bakery business in Wyoming, Brandi Bakes!. Brandi definitely wanted “more Anna Nicole, less Martha Stewart” and requested the popular palette of pink and brown.

FashionJunkie was one of the biggest projects we’d worked on to date.  Utilizing lots of illustrations by Micho Illustrations, the client Dara Fleischer requested a bold design with lots of color and action.  This site utilizes lots of bells and whistles and features a variety of scripts, plug-ins and modules.

Wifeville, the online wife-wear boutique created by Jen Gorman, was a bright, cheery design project with a whimsical concept. This project was design-only and developed by a another firm.

It’s a rare opportunity that I get to meet my clients, but I did get the pleasure of meeting Carol Flake at our 2006 SXSW Panel.  She hired us to create a logo and an inviting design for their woman-centric financial website, Woman with Portfolio.  This project was completed in summer 2006, but the client is still finalizing a launch date.

Whew!  So, in addition to a book and a handful of small projects, this is what we’ve been doing with our time.  We also are working on a complete overhaul of this website (including pre-designed exclusive blog templates and small business website templates for those of you looking for instant gratification), as well as the impending launch of our Moxie Girls website which will feature so much cool stuff, I don’t even know where to begin.

And, of course, don’t forget to grab your copy of The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie available for pre-order now from Amazon.  It’s been selling like hotcakes (or so we’re told) so make sure to get in on the action!

Kathy and I have finally been given the green light to announce the Big Secret we’ve been keeping for months.  If you haven’t figured it out yet… we’re writing a book!  *cue the confetti*

Late last year, we were approached by Wiley Publishing, the fine folks who put out the “for Dummies” instructional book series.  On recommendation from our colleague Susie Gardner (who I had the pleasure of sharing a panel with at SXSW in 2006), we were contacted by one of their acquisitions editors (Hi Melody!) about authoring the first book in a brand new series they’re launching called The IT Girls’ Guides.

The series is a technical instruction series with “girlfriends” conversational style.  It’s perfect for the savvy woman who’s interested in learning more — in our case, about blogging, podcasting, blog design and the hottest trends for women in the blogiverse!  Action-packed with all the juicy content you want and very little of the dry geek speak that bores you to tears.  Toss that waterproof mascara, ladies because The IT Girls’ Guide to Blogging with Moxie will be hitting a bookseller near you (and Amazon!) in Fall 2007.

So there it is, the cat’s outta the bag!  For more information, keep an eye on our site for more details as they develop!