Look!  Our very own Joelle was interviewed for a great article in Entrepreneur Magazine this month called “8 Tips for Working With Web Designers: Get exactly what you want for your business’s website — on time and on budget”.  The article, written by Johnathon Williams offers some great tips for anyone looking for the right designer and gives you a better idea of what to expect when starting out.  Joelle lends her experience and savvy to the list of tips, including some insight on how a new project starts.  Check it out at Entrepreneur.com! 

For those who don’t know, my best friend and co-Moxie Girl, Kathy, is the brains and beauty behind the very popular child safety site for parents, SafeMama.  She also is the founder of it’s sister site, Lovely SafeMama, which provides eco-friendly beauty and personal care items for women, moms specifically.  This week, Kathy was featured on TodaysMama.com’ South Florida Mama “Dream Big” section. Yay, Kathy!

How did you accomplish [your big dream]?
A little bit of luck, some unforeseen circumstances and hard work. I was working at a big fancy consulting firm and was laid off right before 9/11. I knew it was my chance to pursue what I really loved. I started my own business designing websites that year and have been a self-employed entrepreneur ever since. I don’t regret that decision for a second. Now I am the co-owner of a popular design company Moxie Design Studios, a published author (I co-wrote The IT Girls Guide to Blogging with Moxie with my business partner Joelle Reeder) and the Editor of SafeMama.com and LovelySafeMama.com.

Read the whole interview here — hurry before it’s gone!

We had the pleasure of being interviewed by Angie, editor of BlogCoach.org this week.  They’re also having a book giveaway: one free copy of our book, The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie (and a cocktail shaker, too!).  Simply read the interview, then join the BlogCoach Community if you haven’t already and leave a comment on their “Giveaways” board by next Tuesday.

Thanks for the spotlight, Angie! 

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!

This year has been incredible on so many levels.  We’ve experienced a great deal of growth in 2006 that required cat-like reflexes!  We learned a lot about what to do (and what not to do!).  We also experienced growing pains that somewhat smarted, but one can’t complain about growth, right?  Yay for that, we say! 
We still can’t discuss the most exciting thing to happen to us this year (soon!), but I’ll touch on some of the highlights. In 2006, we…

• ... garnered a full 30-second glowing testimonial on Air America’s Majority Report from our fabulous client, David T. Harris, which totally made us make dolphin-like girl noises and clap a lot.
• ... were asked to participate on a panel of esteemed judges for the Six Apart Style Contest.
• ... flew to Austin, TX for SXSW Interactive 2006 and participated on a panel called “How to Make $$ with Your Blog Design Skills” (listen to our podcast!), which made the Honor Roll for best panels.
• ... were interviewed and featured by the fine folks at pMachine.
• ... were each interviewed by Six Apart Pro Network.
• ... participated in a charity fundraiser for our client, Hot Sauce Blog, by designing a label for his signature hot sauce. $5.00 from every bottle purchased went to the American Cancer Society.
• ... were featured on Designers-Who-Blog.com (thanks, Cat!)
• ... supported and participated in the 2006 Boobiethon!
• ... had two (not one, two!) of our Moxie Signature Cocktails featured as Drink of the Day on Extra Tasty.
• ... became a registered trademark (well Moxie Design Studios℠ did! — ® status is processing).

and last, but not least…

• ... welcomed a new Moxie tot — Kathy’s gorgeous (and I do mean gorgeous) son, Reilly (a.k.a. Mr. Poop, which is what I call him).  I could eat that boy with a spoon, I tell you.

Amidst all that, we also managed to accomplish quite a bit of work, completing projects for Chick Chat Radio, The Panama Gourmet, Oh! The Oxygen Network, Mommycast, Architexture Studios, Darby Creek Dog Bakery, madTV-regular Crista Flanagan, Legal Mojo, and author Paula Schmitt, just to name a few!
We are so grateful for all of our patient and wonderful clients, some of whom have been with us since the beginning, some of whom are welcome additions to our Moxie family.  We wish each of you a beautiful, healthy and happy holiday with your loved ones, whatever holiday it is that you choose to celebrate.  May 2007 bring you peace.
And lots of martinis.   Merry Christmas.