Deadline for the March 09  session LVS Blog carnival is fast approaching!  The deadline to submit your blog post is 4/8/09. This carnival is open to all LVS students, staff and alumni.

The theme this session is “If I knew then, what I know now…”. Your submission can be a new or previous blog post that tells us something that you learned the hard way or maybe just a lot later in life. Share your wisdom, your wit and/or your humor with us! Full details about this session’s blog carnival and submission instructions.

Want to get a sneak peek at one of this session’s submissions? Check out 10 Life Lessons.

To get a better sense of what the finished carnival will be like, check out last session’s blog carnival on Inspiration

I am excited to see what you submit!

Blogging contests can be a fun way to promote your blog while discovering other blogs that might entertain, inform or offer insight. There are three main ways to benefit from a blog contest:

• Explore a lot  of posts on a topic of interest to you. Blogging contests consolidate links from posts all over into one central place, making it easy to browse. In this example, it is a consolidation of pet pictures.
• Increase the number of visitors to your own blog. Once your link is part of the contest, it becomes part of that central resource, making your post easier to find for those interested in your topic.
• If you host a blog contest, you benefit from the traffic drawn to your site for people searching on that topic. Most contests require a link back or some kind of button like the one below. This brings attention to your blog, as the contest host, on every blog that enters.

• Some blog contests offer prizes other than just bragging rights. These can range from free services from the blog contest host, to money, to free products, to gift certificates.

Here is my entry for this week’s I Heart Faces blog contest on pets, with an optional theme “The eyes have it”.

Here is Ebony, my service dog, as a puppy looking adoringly at Fergus. She was absolutely devastated when Fergus passed this fall. He was her everything and this picture captured the adoration, trust and respect she had for him.

How it works

1. Check the contest guidelines. Here are the guidelines for the pet photo contest this week.
2. Prepare your post according to the contest guidelines.
3. Submit your post to the contest. Be sure to submit the permalink to the post, not your general blog address. Most contests will have an entry form on their web site to enter your permalink.The entry form for the pet photo contest is a form on this page at I heart faces for week 4. NOTE: This page and form make not be available after the contest closes. They host weekly contests, but only accept submissions Mon-Wed. No entry form will be available Thurs-Sun.
4. Browse and comment on other entries in your spare time.
5. Check back at the end of the contest to see if you won. If you have time, it is nice to congratulate the winners.

Let us know if you are participating in any blog contests. We would love to see what you are doing.

The deadline for the Inspiration Blog Carnival is 2/3/09. Submissions have been trickling in slowly and I am opening that there will be a last minute rush.

Many of my students have told me that they feel overwhelmed by the topic and/or the lack of time in their lives to create a new inspiring post. Creating a post specific for the Blog Carnival is just one way of participating.  I bet that 80% of the students who tell me that they don’t have time or know how to tackle the topic, already have inspirational posts on their blog! One of the cool things about a Blog Carnival is that it can  serve as a directory, a central gathering place for readers find a group of articles on their area of interest.

In the blogging classes, I am always stressing to my students the need to provide content and a service to their readers first and promote your blog second.  A Blog Carnival is an excellent way to provide content to your readers and you provide a service by providing your readers an  easy access to other articles of interest. By doing so, you also end up promoting your blog and carnival participation opens your blog up to a new audience.

The form to submit your blog post is here.

Twitter was the first to break the story of the  US Airways crash into the Hudson river. Just moments after the crash, Janis Krums used his iPhone  and Twitter to post a picture of the partially submerged plane in the Hudson river and announce to the world that he was on his way to help. The news was on Twitter before the news media was aware of the situation. The picture and story were posted before the news vans even turned the keys in the ignition.

Blogging, and now Twitter, have provided us with first person accounts of diasters ranging from Hurricane Katrina to Tsunami to terrorist attacks. Twitter is designed to be used for mobile devices, even more so than the standard laptop and/or desktop computer. Coupled with a camera phone, Twitter can post images and news as they unfold. Microblogging, limits the user to posting their “stories” to 140 characters but it is ideal for updates like “Wow, watching coverage of plane crash in the Hudson River. Amazing that everyone survived. Pilot’s a hero, rescuers are heroes!” Traditional blogs can follow closely behind with more indepth coverage and stories.  It is interesting to note that in North Carolina, they switched the TV sets in the airport from CNN to ESPN to avoid panicking the passengers. Those with Internet or following Twitter on their mobile devices were the ones that first the real news on why their flight to Seattle was “terminated”.

LVS Online students and alumni are invited to submit their artwork, poetry, stories and other writing to the LVS Blog Carnival on Inspiration.

What inspires you? Do you have a story about a person, event or class that inspired you?

Where do you go when you need inspiration? Do you have a favorite place that you visit or a practice to help you find inspiration?

Show us the results of your inspiration!

How it works

1. Publish your art and or writing to your blog or web site.
2. Go to http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_6139.html and submit the URL of your work by February 3, 2008. In the remarks section, please indicate if you are a LVS student, alumni or staff. It is also a great place to summarize your post.
3. On February 7, a list of all the submissions will appear here with a brief a description.
4. Check out the inspiring art and stories of fellow LVS Staff, Students and Alumni  that will be posted here.
5. Post a link or story on your own blog or website about the carnival, letting your readers know about your participation and the inspiration that  found here. This will allow them to peruse the carnival submissions and visit the blogs and web sites of your fellow participants. It is a great way to be discovered!

I am really looking forward to seeing the submissions!

The theme for the 2008 World AIDS day is leadership so I decided to show some leadership and start a Blog Carnival. The Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune students are learning about Blog Carnivals right now so it seemed appropriate. Blog Carnivals are kind of like a magazine, bloggers submit their articles on a set topic to a publisher and their articles are assembled into an issue with notes from the publisher. The word carnival comes from the fact that in most carnivals, different bloggers take turns hosting the carnival, like towns used to do.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has impacted most of us in one way or another over the past 27 years. Although we have made a lot of progress since the first World AIDS Day 20 years ago, there is a lot more work to do in terms of prevention, awareness and treatment. Read more about the Bloggers Unite for AIDS blog carnival at  and you can submit your articles and artwork at the Blog Carnival clearing house

This is an excellent opportunity to promote your blog, learn a new blogging skill and more importantly, address a important public health issue. In addition, unlike most blog carnivals, there will be prizes available.

43 Things is a social networking site that brings people together to share goals and support each other in achieving those goals. Each session, the Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune students will have the opportunity to explore a social networking site together, in more depth and over time.

I chose 43 things this session for several reasons:

• stating goals helps you achieve them, be it goals about your blog, your health, your career
• the mission of this network is motivational and provides several options to offer support
  • Cheer someone’s goal and/or progress
  • Comments to offer ideas and supports
  • share the steps and resources that you took to complete your own goals
• the more support you offer, the more you are likely to receive in return
• create goals from scratch or get motivation from the goals of others
• it is a good fit if you blog about mental health, inspiration, life changes, health, travel and other personal topics
• blogging tools include widgets and the ability to post from 43 things to your blog

Over the course of this session, I will be updating my own experiences at 43 things. Students will have the option to add their own experiences here or in the more private environment of the class message boards.

Blogging can be a race, he who posts first wins when it comes to news. Too often that race sadly takes precedence over content. Ben Trombly at Frogstr wrote a thoughtful post on the need to publish with caution. He stresses the need to preview and review your post and I heartly agree. Even news posts can benefit from

• Previewing your post in your theme to make sure that it is legible, attractive and well formed
• Previewing your post to make sure that it is scannable, that your reader can quickly scan your post to identify its key themes and ideas
• Review your post for spelling and grammatical errors
• Review your post for clarity and comprehension
• Review your post for intent, did you end up saying what you intended to say?
• Review your headline to ensure that it captures the attention of your intended audience and the theme of your post
• Review your post to make sure that you will have no regrets tomorrow over what you post today

Since I work with students, I also sometimes see too much fear about the publish button. In Carol’s blog post, she talks about her blogging fears outside the publish button. Her post, however, reminded me of all of my students who are afraid of publishing their thoughts, ideas and experiences. Sometimes this fear is rooted in a lack of confidence about their writing skills or expertise. Most often this fear comes from the belief that they have nothing to offer. Blogging can be a great outlet for self expression, even if the intended audience is just yourself. If you don’t feel confident about your post, keep it private or keep it as a draft, but keep writing. You might be surprised what you come up with practice and patience.

Tonight, I reviewed all of the blogs in the Hall of Fame blogroll. With regret, I removed blogs that had no posts for the month of August. It was with regret, because several of those blogs were quite funny, insightful and well written. I am hoping that it was the dog days of summer and as summer draws to a close they will return to entertain and educate us. If I removed your blog from the Hall of Fame and you post this month, add a comment here. I will reinstate your blog.

Spending several hours reviewing the blogs, I noticed several trends amongst these Hall of Fame blogs.

• The more specific the information in the headlines and in the posts, the more search engine traffic generated.
  Last session, I browbeat poor Anita in to changing the headline on a post on a brain tumor to specifically identify the tumor but she started getting hits off that post soon after she changed the headline
• Blog posts with examples get more comments.
  Quirky Artist gives lots of examples of the art that she creates and receives. In general, the more examples she gives the more comments she gets. The great thing about the Learn to Do it Right blog is how she provides clear and detailed examples. We have a lot of art and course blogs in the Hall of Fame that could really benefit from more specific examples for their readers.
• Bloggers often would mention a product or an article but they rarely shared with THEIR readers THEIR personal opinion or experience with that product or article
  It is when the blogger personalizes the experience, that it becomes interesting. Most of us visit blogs because we think the blog has some authority. They are coming to get YOUR opinion and perspective. You may not always agree with the opinions on For the People, By the People but you will always know exactly what her opinion is.

I hope that you will be able to find the time to explore some of the blogs in the Hall of Fame. They are varied in topics, personality and writing style.

The popular and prestigious Bloggers’ Choice Awards are now underway. You can nominate your favorite blogs, vote for the blogs that you like the best and peruse other nominations. Blog awards are given in a large number of categories from best humor blog to best blog design to best travel blog. They even have blog award categories for the Hottest Mommy Blogger and the Blogitizer.  Following the old advantage of there is no such thing as bad publicity, they even have blog categories for the Worst Blog of All Time and the Most Obnoxious Blogger.

So how does it work?

• Go to the Bloggers’ Choice Awards web site to create an account. You need to create an account to nominate and to vote for favorite blogs. The account creation is quick and easy. Reading and figuring out their CAPCHA images is the trickiest part!
• Click the nominate button. This will take you through a brief wizard to fill out details about the blog you want to nominate. You can nominate your own blog or any blog that you think is worthy of recognition. In the nomination process, you can choose up to four blog award categories.
• Once the nomination is complete, it will appear on the home page of the categories it was assigned. Go to those home pages and vote! I am amazed at the thousands of blogs nominated that don’t have a single vote. Voting is easy, just click on the vote button.
• Click on the blog’s link to see its Bloggers’ Choice Award page. It shows who voted for that blog and any comments that they made. This page will list a number of links. If it is your blog, use the claim link to give them a contact email.  There is also a link to add a voting badge. I have two on this blog, for each of the two categories nominated. The badges let people know you are running and makes it easy for them to vote for you.
• Start stumping for votes! Use the Invite Friends link to let your friends now about Bloggers’ Choice Awards. If you are in Blog Catalog, add a voting badge to your profile there. Go to Manage Blogs and there is a section to add in one blog award category badge to your blog profile. Announce it in your social networking groups.  Although you might not end up with an award in a category, you can still get attention and traffic  to your site. Even after the awards are announced, the nominations are kept up and many people use the Bloggers’ Choice Awards site to search for interesting and informative blogs.

If your blog is nominated for an award, let us know about it here. This is another good place to help rally the vote.