I’m not offended. I’m actually quite flattered. You see, I perceive bloggers as cutting edge and I’m happy to consider myself as part of a new and upcoming industry. However, uninformed people don’t take me serious as a blogger. They think I’m playing. It’s so entertaining to me how people react to things they don’t understand.

You see, blogging is just another form of media like TV, Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, Outdoor Advertising. You can make money with blogging similarly to how Dr. Phil or Oprah make money with TV. It’s all about personal branding and having a consistent, authentic message. Not only is it another form of media, it’s the newest form and it’s GROWING…while other mediums are decreasing.

A career in blogging is a huge, personal commitment. I spend at least 20 hours per week on my blog/internet presence. That includes writing, marketing, programming, search engine optimization, strategy, research, benchmarking, making friends in the blogosphere, monetization, researching, helping friends in the blogosphere and much more. And get this, 20 hours doesn’t seem like nearly enough. (This doesn’t even include my torrid relationship with Twitter. Remember that from my previous posts? And, by the way, if you aren’t already, follow me @aaswartz on Twitter)

So, why am I sharing this and why is important to you? A couple of reasons:

1. I want you to open your minds to the outside-of-the-box career options that you might not have considered yet as a working mother. Perhaps there is something right there that could make a huge difference in your happy factor.
2. The Tipping Point for the Web 2.0 world is getting closer every day. Given the current economic situation and where the stock market is, might you want to consider investments in Web 2.0 space when you are thinking about reinvesting your money??? I will be. If you are skeptic about the Web 2.0 Tipping point. Check out my recent comment at Harvard Business Publications.
3. The Social Media community is fresh and inspiring. They have a lot to teach us. Go meet them and see what you can learn. The industry is fast paced, upbeat, positive and so inspirational. Why wouldn’t you?

Yesterday, it was my great pleasure to attend Social Media Simplified in Ventura, Ca with some of the brightest and most successful people in the industry. Make sure to stop back later this week when I’ll be talking more about what I learned from Mari Smith (The Pied Piper of Facebook), Deb Michek(Twitter Evangelist Coach Deb), Denise Wakeman (The Blog Squad), Linda P Taylor (”Insider Secrets”), Nancy Marmelejo (Viva Visability) and Simon Leung (Google SEO expert).

Hint Hint: If you can’t wait to read my post and you’re feeling twitventurous, go to http://www.search.twitter.comand search on #smsv and you’ll see all the tweets related to this wonderful event. Pretty sweet huh? And you wonder why I’m having an affair with Twitter?

For example, I once interviewed a woman who was previously a partner in a very large law firm in Washington DC making over $.5 Million per year. Prior to deciding to start a family, she was the major breadwinner for her family. Once she and her husband embarked upon becoming three, they decided her husband’s career would become the focus and hers would take the back seat.

They left DC and relocated to the Midwest where he settled into a lucrative lead position in a prominent company. She got pregnant, had a baby and started consulting. At the time of our interview, she was a bit lost and although she was doing great work and award winning research, she felt uncomfortable charging for her services. Why is this? It is certainly a phenomenon I see in many women once they off ramp from their high powered careers to care for their children. It’s like our identities are so tied to success and the path that planned for ourselves that we don’t know what to do once we take a detour. What’s up with that? Do we feel guilty? Are we just confused? Can it be that we have tied our self worth so deeply to our salaries that we don’t know what to do once we take a different path? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic so please post your comments and let’s discuss.

Very interestingly and conversely though, women just a few years younger and still without children, can’t imagine this being an issue. Last Friday, I had a discussion with Ginger, Founder of Girls Just Want to Have Funds , a 20 something women’s finance group in Washington DC. Ginger posed the question of “Why Do Professional Women Lose Confidence?” to her blog readers. These readers are a few years younger, well educated and most do not yet have children. They are likely the Six Figure Moms of the future. The responses indicate that this group of educated, young ladies feel they will not experience this same emotion once children enter there lives. Hmmm. I’ll be interested to watch them and to understand whether a younger generation is better equipped to deal with this juggle/struggle. It will be interesting to watch their responses over the next few days.

What do you think? My bet is, as sorry as I am to say this, that unless they’ve been able to build a flexible career for themself already, they’ll be dealing with the same issues that you Six Figure Moms of today are. What CAN we do to help create a different path for them? Well, for one, if you are in a supervisory role, think about what you can do to make change. If you have power, you can be a change agent. What’s stopping you? Your image? Shame Shame ladies!

I just returned from an 18 day trip last night. My last stop was Blog World Expo ‘08 in Las Vegas. I went to the conference to enhance my understanding of the New Media industry and to learn how to better serve you, my readers, as a writer/blogger. Little did I know of the almost limitless benefits that this little four day trip would bring me. I’m still digesting everything I learned over the past few days and I know I will be for quite some time. However, the one gem of the conference is this:

“If you’re a blogger, you’ve stepped up to your life, addressed your issues, cleaned things up enough that you’re willing to put yourself on stage to the world. You’re an entrepreneur, you’re authentic, you’re passionate, you’re open, you have a genuine desire to help others. You think outside of the box about life options.”

Those of you that know me or who have been reading my blog, know that this is my message to my clients and readers. Can you imagine how lucky I felt to be in a room with 1,000+ other likeminded people? SOOOO amazing!

That in itself would have been enough but in addition, I personally met and talked to at least ten bloggers on Technorati’s Top 100 list and I’m not talking about “Hi, How are you?, Nice to Meet You”…but real, genuine, meaty, helpful conversations. These folks are down to earth, modest, pioneers of their industry and they are ready to help open doors for the next generation to step through and join them. Crazy! I’ll be writing about some of them in the future in more detail but here are just a few of the folks I met, attended class or twitted with during the conference:

• Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV),
• Tim Ferriss (Author, 4 Hour Work Week),
• Mike Shinoda (Lincoln Park),
• Brian Clark (CopyBlogger),
• Guy Kawasaki (Alltop),
• John Chow (John Chow),
• Jeremy Shoemaker (ShoeMoney),
• Wendy Piersall (eMom)

So, the list of things we six figure moms can learn from the blogger community is long. This is a whole community of people making a living via flexible work options. They work long and hard but they love what they do and they live passionately. They are pioneers just like you can be. I feel like I just hit the jackpot.

As soon as I get a little sleep and collect my thoughts, I’ll share some more with you and we’ll continue on our journey together. In the meantime, feel free to email me with any specific questions.

So, you can imagine my delight when I saw this sign in upstate New York yesterday. Not only does this town not have a Starbucks, it doesn’t have an ATM either. It only has an HTM, Human Teller Machine. You have to go into the store (which incidentally is the only place you can buy gasoline and milk for miles around), swipe your credit card and a live person gives you cash. I LOVE it. A town that still has it’s local color. Not only that but the town has no Walmart, no fast food chains and no retail clothing stores.

Sure, I like the convenience of having ubiquitous Gaps, Starbucks and Banana Republics just like everyone else, but I must admit, personality wins for me over convenience. I just can’t live in Pleasantville. But what does this really have to do with working mothers? Everything! You can choose to live a life of vanilla inside the current obvious options that exist for you today or you can reach deep inside and create a life for yourself that works for you and your family. The current technological and economical climate is ripe for working mothers who want to create new revenue streams and careers with flexibility.

So, I ask you to ask yourself…will you choose Homogony or Out of the Box Options? I hope you will remember the irony of this HTM picture when your having one of those days where you look around at your life and wonder what your other options might be. You truly have the power to create whatever you want.

If you are a working mom who thinks she wants career change, I encourage you to spend a few hours playing around in Facebook to see how other people are making money on the web.  You might also have a little fun while you’re at it.  Maybe Facebook is your path to telecommuting, flexible work and the ever escaping work life balance.  Besides, don’t you want to keep up with your kids humor?

It’s easy to find news about Fortune 500 and other corporate women CEO’s.  They seem to be featured everywhere.  I guess featuring them comes with the ever popular gender pay difference topic that promotes big readership.  I applaud these women but I’m always wondering about everyone else.  The Average Joyce, if you will, of highly educated and capable women who are happily succeeding in the $75,000-$250,000 income arena.  That’s still something to celebrate I’d say.  I want to hear about the others who might not be in the mainstream public eye but are making it work in forward thinking, sociologically changing jobs using remote work options and telecommuting.  I want to lavish in the stories of  women who are thinking outside of the box and creating a best life option for themselves and their families.  Those stories are everywhere but not so often covered by the media.  However, I think Pink magazine just might get it.  Seems they’ll be focusing on at least a part of this demographic starting in the September issue with “My Beautiful Business, a section devoted to women who own or dream of owning their own firm”.  I’m looking forward to seeing the contents.   I’ll also be adding a Feature section to this site highlighting an accomplished business woman doing her own thing.  Want to be featured?  Add a comment to this post and I’ll get back to you.

Speaking of Pink, they are sponsoring a Women’s Conference in various cities on various dates.  Until Maria Shriver helps with some tickets to her Women’s Conference , you can still buy tickets to these Pink events. 

Check out the post and tell me what you think?

The other interesting thing to note when visiting Business Week’s blog is how vehemently readers respond to working women’s issues. Sometimes the posters are downright angry that women want to work and raise a family. If your family is safe and happy, whose business is it anyway?

Throughout your career, employers have likely invested thousands in your professional development. Maybe you took personality profiling assessments like DISC or Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Although you thought this was important, some of you just wanted to get through it so you could get back to mastering your core job duties. Understandable, but now take a second look. You might just have a drawer full of insightful things to use in building your Best Life.

If you don’t have these tools, Facebook is here to help. You can take the MBTI for free. All you need is a Facebook login and then you can download the widget.

NOTE as of October 22, 2009:  The Facebook MBTI application has been taken down due to a trademark infringement.  Because I have been contacted by the lawyers who protect the trademark of MBTI, I’m amending this blogpost.  You can no longer take a free MBTI on Facebook and actually the attorneys at CPP, Inc tell me that the Facebook Application never factually represented the MBTI. So, if you are looking for the MBTI, you’ll have to pay a certified professional for the test. It’s worth it =-)  The Facebook application was fun while it lasted but the professionals tell me it only approximated the real thing.  Once again we learn, you gotta pay to play!

Further, I’m certified in a great competitor patented personality profiling tool, The Knowledge of YOU, which is more holistic look at YOU.  It provides you with your personal “Owner’s Manual”.  I’ve used it in coaching for C-level organizational development, career transition, communication improvement in the workplace and relationships, and much more.  If you’d like to learn more about the Knowledge of YOU.  Take the survey with my certification number PC#AAS1102p3c.  I’ll be happy to followup with you to schedule a coaching session with me or another certified professional.

Assessment tools are great for helping open communication lines, confirming our talents and helping us deal with people different from us. Specifically, you could use MBTI on Facebook to:

• Get back in touch with you (builds confidence and self esteem).
• Influence others in the workplace.
• Identify potential career alternatives if you are thinking you might want a change. (Are you a natural entrepreneur who could start a Mompreneur business or someone who prefers to work for someone else in a flexible work arrangement?)
• Improve relationships with your family

I’m a big fan of assessments. As working mothers, we certainly have lots of pressures to make us doubt who we really are. I’m all for anything that helps us be more comfortable in our own skins… especially when it’s free and so easy to access in the late hours of the day when we finally have a little time for ourselves.

There are many resources that help you understand the results of the MBTI and how to use them in your life. I recommend the book What Type Am I? Discover Who You Really Are by Renee Baron which you can purchase from Amazon.com. It is a short and sweet look at each profiling type. You can get a pretty thorough understanding of your type in less than 5 pages. Happy Discovery!