The NSA International PEG (Professional Experts Group) is a group of around 100 NSA members with an interest in speaking in different countries. Many members travel internationally as part of their speaking career.

I was asked by the PEG Chairman, Garth Roberts, to develop a multi-author blog so that his members could both read and post items of interest to the group. This is a wonderful use of blogging as a community resource rather than just for the writing of a single individual.

After some discussion of the merits of Blogger and Typepad we decided to use Typepad Pro, which allows multiple authors to post to one blog. In a surprisingly short time I was able to create the blog and Garth is currently recruiting a stable of authors from among the membership.

Take a look at Internationally Speaking and let me know what you think.

If you are interested in what professional speakers who travel the globe get up to, subscribe to the blog and find out.

My NSA Blogroll has recently expanded to include bloggers who are members of various Speakers Associations around the world. My first international review is Timothy Hyde’s blog. Timothy is a member of the National Speakers Association of Australia (NSAA). He’s new to blogging and off to a great start.

I’d like to ask anyone who is a formal member an international speakers association and has a blog to please send me the URL so that I can add it to the Blogroll in the right column.

Blogging since: September 16, 2006
Posting Frequency: 3-4 times a week
Post Length: 50-600 words
Aesthetic Appeal: Clean and simple Typepad template. However, does not integrate with the look n’ feel of his main website.
Graphics: Witty and fun
Categories: Assumptions, Books, Brainstorming, Creative Challenge, Creativity, Film, Gen Y, Humor, Innovation, Marketing, Speaking, Travel, Weblogs, Web/Tech.
Blogroll: My blog (This is not the reason I chose his to review!)
Target Audience: Corporate employees who need to create more, with less, in a shorter time.
Comments allowed: Yes
Trackbacks: Yes
Alexa.com traffic ranking: N/A
Sites that link to this blog: N/A
Yahoo Links: 70
Google Page Rank: 0/10

Review:

Timothy bills himself as a Corporate Education & Entertainment specialist who brings creative thinking to the world of business. His blog supports this claim.

The photograph he posts of himself is a great image that immediately sets the tone.
Here’s a guy in a business suit acting goofy, a mad professor scrutinizing your organization.

He blogs on conferences in Australia where he has been hired to facilitate the general sessions, introduce guest speakers, run panel discussions and keep the delegates focused and awake using a range of creative techniques including Magic, Comedy & Interactive Ice Breakers.

It’s refreshing to read his blog for the ‘Only in Australia’ moments: the photograph of a 4′ long croc at Port Douglas in FNQ (Far North Queensland); the meeting with top Australian public speaker and cricket legend Max Walker (Max Who most Americans would no doubt ask); saying a great book is “just a cracker”.

Timothy points to a range of valuable resources, from books to creativity aids to optical illusions. He’s based in the Blue Mountain area, west of Sydney. One of his roles has been MC’ing the Australian NSA national conferences for the past four years.

I wish Timothy well as he continues to grow his blog. More reports from his Australian road trips would be appreciated. Concrete examples from his audience interactions could throw light on the cultural differences between Life Down Under and the rest of the world. After all, he’s living in a country where politician’s lambaste each other with insults like these. And you can’t get much more creative than that, can you, mate?

Sandra Schrift’s Exective Speech Coaching blog supports my recent contention that speech coaches make better lovers. Sandra is obviously skilled in the arts of the podium, shares her special talents liberally and transforms speaking weaknesses to strengths. She’s a highly regarded international speech coach, featured in Business Week, Fast Company, Newsweek and Inc., who offers a wide range of teleclass, small group and 1:1 speech and professional coaching. She owned a speaker bureau for 13 years. Her blog bears witness to her vast experience.

Blogging since: June 19, 2005
Posting Frequency: 3-4 times a month
Post Length: 100-300 words
Aesthetic Appeal: Purple haze…does not integrate with the look n’ feel of her main website.
Graphics: None
Categories: None
Blogroll: None
Target Audience: Speakers wishing to improve their game
Comments allowed: Yes
Trackbacks: No
Alexa.com traffic ranking: 2,324,563
Sites that link to this blog: 173
Yahoo Links: 725
Google Page Rank: 4/10

Review:

Her main web page lists the results she delivers as a coach:

Even if you don’t hire her, you’ll benefit from a careful reading of the content in her blog.

Sandra cleverly repurposes her blog postings as articles on her main website. So this posting becomes this article. It’s an effective way to get more bang for the buck that other NSA bloggers should consider.

In fact the articles listed here are easier to peruse than the blog, which lacks a search function and has a quirky way of archiving by date ranges rather than months.

Her blog has invaluable tips on everything from the importance of using stories in speeches:

Stories are everywhere. Speakers learn to retrieve them and retell them to audiences as a way to show their humanness to show they care; to open people to possibility thinking and how making mistakes will lead to the courage to finally help them succeed. Because most of us delineate our thoughts visually, great stories help to enhance and even transform our lives.

to ways to overcome a fear of public speaking, gain confidence and generate extra income from speaking. The main web site has some great tips not found on her blog, such as this FAQ for speakers.

I loved reading her 3-part series on How to Speak with E’s: Educate, Energize, Entertain, and provide an experience for your audience. There’s a total of 39 tips on professional speaking in that series alone. Example:

5. When appropriate smile a lot. Be enthusiastic about what you are saying. Make it fun. Learning is directly proportional to the amount of fun your audience is having. Laughter is like internal jogging. Aren’t adults just grown up kids?

Sandra’s blog and the articles on her main website are a great resource for all speakers and those, like speechwriters and communications professionals, who support speakers.

My hope is that Sandra invests in some basic functionality for her blog such as a Search function and a list of Categories to help readers find information more easily. Graphics and pictures would help brighten things up. There are formatting errors here and there that should be corrected.

It’s really the blog plus the website that is so compelling. While there’s a link to her Home Page on the blog, people might miss it. I’d recommend a clear statement Please read my Home Page for more valuable information to really high-light it. Sandra has a lot to share that both novice and experienced speaker can benefit from taking the time to read carefully. Heck, some of you reading this review should probably hire her. Go on, you’re worth it!

In addition to my weekly NSA Blog reviews I thought it would be interesting to do a monthly round-up and see what the bloggers in the National Speakers Associaton have posted in September. Here’s some of the noteworthy items that caught my eye.

Bert Decker highlights the master communicator Nido Qubein, who is familiar to all of us who’ve been to the NSA Convention. Bert also has an excellent post on handling Q&A sessions which should be in every corporate communicators playbook.

Bill Conerly started the month in an optimistic mood. This economist viewed September 1st job growth numbers as ‘Just About Right’. However, as the month progressed, the news he reported from the economics front went from bad to worse. In short order we had speculation that stagflation could return; that the housing market is in trouble, if not overdue for a collapse; that CFO’s think the odds of a recession are one in three and that steel prices will tank. Bill concludes the month by noting: I’m still not forecasting recession, but I’m a little more worried each day.

Hey, Bill, who called economics the dismal science?

It’s a relief to turn to motivational humorist Brad Montgomery. Motivational humorists definitely have a waaay cooler life than economists (sorry ’bout that Bill). Get this. He starts the month addressing 1,200 women at a Pure Romance seminar in Ohio. Then there are three (count ‘em) pictures of him surrounded by adoring hot babes at other events he spoke at. But Brad is not just an air-headed eight-ball playboy. He quotes, wait for it, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast which contains some of the trippiest, mind-bending prose ever written in the English language (Deep in a fist of stone a doll’s hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm. A shadow shifts its length. A spider stirs…)

As he wrote on September 6: I’ve gotta be the luckiest guy with the best job in the world. No question. Brad also gets top marks for blogging about his gigs as a professional speaker.

Chris Clarke-Epstein finds organizational lessons in her grandchild’s crawling and a box of crayon’s. Cute.

The Dating Goddess had a typically breathless month. She posts daily on the adventures of the aggressively single men and women on the dating scene she inhabits. There was more information than I (a happily married man) need to know on women’s shoes, dogs and sex. Not necessarily in that order.

I was on more familiar territory with Dave Pardi’s PowerPoint Blog. Dave considered the minutia on Fn+F8; photo loops and table titles. I’d love to lock Dave Pardi, Garr Reynolds and Edward Tufte in a room for an afternoon and record the conversation.

Over in Half Moon Bay, California, the writers collective shared gentle comments on the lifespan of refrigerators and Scottish sheepdog trails. These are not often topics one finds juxtaposed.

The second blog I came across which is easily identified as being written by a pro speaker is Glen Shepard’s Personal Journal. He details his September road trips to Florida, Ohio and Tennessee. I felt I was there in his audience, sharing the chance encounters and crazy coincidences which are part of the texture of an active speaking career. Wonderful. If you don’t read any other blog this month, read Glen’s.

Over in the UK, Internet Psychologist Graham Jones posted on everything from ‘web rage’ to teenage bloggers. For those of you who want to find out what is top of mind for those in Blighty, he briefs you on The Guardian, The London Paper and Tesco’s.

As impressed as I was by Glen’s travels to Orlando and Marietta, there are those of us in the NSA who travel and then there’s Jake Norton. In September Jake posted from the roof of the world - high atop a 22,500′ peak in Nepal. Next time you are tempted to complain about the hassles of a road trip when your flight is delayed and the airport coffee bar is out of mocha lattes, remember Jake:

The snow had deepened significantly, its windblown mass now waist-deep in places. Panuru, who had been in front breaking trail for most of the day, relinquished the deep-snow lead for the young bucks - Karma Rita and Mingma. But, trail breaking did not make it simple for everyone behind. The wind, carrying all the snow it could up, down, and across the glacier, would maliciously fill in each step once a foot was removed.

Adolescent psychologist Dr. James Sutton quotes Moshe Dayan, Albert Einstein, Lao-Tse, Pablo Picasso, God and his son. Not necessarily in that order.

Cartoonist Jason Kotecki mourned the Crocodile Hunter, gave detailed instructions on how to have a nervous breakdown, and celebrated the importance of tiny grapes, hotel hand soap and porcelain candy dishes.

Triathlete and corporate trainer Jason Womack published this exquisite photograph of the summer night sky in his home town of Ojai:

He also published his travel schedule for the month:

6-8 : Phoenix, AZ
9-12 : New York City, NY
13-17 : London, UK
18-21 : Colorado Springs, CO
22-23 : Berkeley, CA
24-25 : Ojai, CA
26-28 : Miami, FL
29-30 : Marin County, CA

Jim Canterucci’s Personal Brilliance saw fit to mention edible golf tees.

Katherine Albrecht’s campaign against RFID ’spychips’ highlighted the risks to dogs, babies and company secrets of pervasive RFID chip technology.

Uber-blogger Kim Snider commented on personal financial matters such as option calls; the housing market; retirement savings and other issues of interest to ‘the family CFO’.

Marilynn Mobley’s blog moved from Blogger to a new home on Typepad. She comments on YouTube, Facebook and teens aversion to hard copy mail.

Financial advisor Max Jaffee discusses financial literacy for children.

Michael Benidt mentions the value of Sarah Michael’s NSA Convention advice on social networking: connect people with the intention of helping them first. He extends this in a discussion of how to network using the internet. There’s a complete report on the American Business Women’s Association September 16 convention in Denver.

Rebecca Morgan reviews Sam Horn’s new book POP!: Stand Out in Any Crowd.

And moving right along, Sam Horn blogs on a favorable review of the very same book that appeared in the Boston Globe.

Executive speech coach Sandra Schrift gives some great speaking tips (make eye contact, tell stories, interact). She quotes the well-known statistic, which executives who deliver PowerPoint and nothing else always forget:

People remember:
11% of what they hear
30% of what they see
50% of what they see and hear
70% of what they do
90% of what they say and do

Classic eight-ball Shep Hyken shares tips on how to escape voice-mail-jail in customer support land.

Stephen Hopson’s Adversity University blog is the second of the blogs I saw this month that should be required reading. Stephen shares wonderful, conversational insights about life changing moments where mysterious forces conspired to save him from certain death:

Everything happens for a reason. We have no way of knowing God’s plans for us but regardless of what happens to us, we are being prepared for the future in some capacity.

He details his adventures as a deaf pilot in the enthralling five-part story of his first maiden flight.

Finally, this posting is a treasure of suggestions for anyone (especially bloggers) who want to overcome writers block:

The practice of creative writing is like unclogging a blocked artery, making way for a torrent of blood (ideas) to flow.

Stephen Shapiro’s Goal-Free Living blog also suggested ways to become more creative. He offers ten ‘lateral thinking brain teasers’ to surface and challenge assumptions. Example:

10. A dog is tied to a 15 foot leash. How can the dog reach a bone 20 feet away?

Yes, there is an answer. How many can you solve?

Stephen also reports on the NSA/New England Chapter meeting where guest speaker Erik Hansen who is Tom Peters’ “Brand Manager” shared some great ideas on personal branding. Here’s a challenge we can all rise to:

10. You Can’t Write Too Much – Tom Peters is known for writing volumes of content on his blog. To date, he has roughly 400,000 words. Given that the average book is 50,000 words, his blog contains as much content as 8 books.

Steve Mertz’s Sales Presentation Training blog has a great series of articles on presenting to international audiences, using PowerPoint, the techniques that Patricia Fripp uses and a report on the NSA/Colorado Chapter meeting. There’s more. So if you are a speaker from the podium or in 1:1 conversations, check out Steve’s September posts.

Sue Dyer’s Strategic Trends blog reviewed the business strategy of co-opetition. Cute.

Terry Paulson spent part of September in the South of France and found an alternative to overpriced $200 French swimming trunks.

Last, but not least, Tim Kidson’s UK blog on organizational (sorry organisational) transformation commented on his family’s experience at the NSA Orlando Convention — his first ever trip to the USA. Tim has unique insights on the British CEO’s he consults with - many share the stress of time management and challenges familiar to CEO’s and Board’s on either side of the Atlantic.

Finally, I must note that Tim references my August post on CEO’s egos, which is nice. But there’s no link to my blog. Hint to Tim: Add this link:

http://www.exec-comms.com/blog/?p=106

It’s free Google-juice!

Sales Tips stays with the same general topic as my last review of Steve Mertz’s Sales Presentation Training.

Laurie offers Sales, Skills and Presentation Skills training information from her main website which contains a wide range of two and three page Automotive and Real Estate sales and service articles and encourages people to “visit my blog for more great info”. So here’s a nice example of blogging as a natural way for an information broker to engage in multiple ways of communicating. OK, let’s take her up on the invitation and see what we find….

Blogging since: February 27, 2005
Posting Frequency: once a month, with gaps
Post Length: 500 words average
Aesthetic Appeal: Bare bones Blogger template: none of the branding found on her main website
Graphics: Hardly any
Categories: None
Tagline: Sales tips to help people no matter who they sell to or what they sell
Blogroll: 6 assorted links, including one to fellow NSA financial wizard, Kim Snider
Target Audience: Anyone - we are all in sales
Comments allowed: Yes
Trackbacks: No
Alexa.com traffic ranking: N/A
Sites that link to this blog: N/A
Yahoo Links: 17
Google Page Rank: 3/10

Review:

It’s a pity Laurie does not post more frequently. She’s been silent since June 26 and there are often month-long gaps between posts. There have been times she posted weekly. So all this leads me to think she leads a busy life and her blogging must happen when there’s time. This is quite understandable. And what a delight to read the quality of the posts when she does find time.

She blogs on the sales lessons found in a wide variety of situations: from bed bugs to book returns; from Personality inventories to Prada; Restaurants to Banks. Laurie shows us how sales can be won and sales can be lost by simple customer service interactions. She has taught sales skills for over 20 years and her advice rings true.

Her main web site highlights Laurie’s skills in face-to-face sales training:

Clients and participants agree: Laurie Brown is a dynamic, warm, funny speaker who energizes and motivates her audiences to discover the best in themselves and show it to the world. With more than twenty years experience in working with international and culturally-diverse groups, she connects easily with everyone. She offers highly customized, practical and relevant content that make the difference. She provides a fun, engaging presentation and she is dedicated to YOUR success!

She certainly communicates this warmth in her blog. It’s chock-full of stories about her own experiences with friends and family as she comes across everyday situations that illustrate sales lessons:

These conversational phrases make her blog come alive.

Then she lists the sales lessons: the dangers of upselling; the secrets of exceptional customer service; the importance of multiple thank-you’s. Here’s an example of the sales advice she offers:

Many salespeople think it is best to leave the objection buried. Perhaps if they ignore it it will go away. But, when you do that, it eventually will come back to haunt you. Like any infection left untreated, it will only grow and grow. Your job is to surface it, clean it and move on in the sales process. Unanswered objections lead to lost sales or the need to lower the price to keep the sale.

Putting resources into a re-design of the blog to match the branding of her web site would be a worthwhile investment.

My hope is that Laurie finds the time to post more frequently. One suggestion would be to capture discussion from her frequent training classes (a digital tape recorder and transcription service would do the trick) and post some of the classroom Q&A.

She’s been published in a dozen magazines and has a great list of articles and is rumored to be working on a book. Her writing skills are not in question. Writing Down the Bones would be a good book to read to find the inspiration for frequent posts.

After all, don’t they say success in sales is a numbers game?

Steve Mertz is one busy blogger! Sales Presentation Training is just one of his three blogs. The others are In Cash Flow We Trust which was his first blog, started in March 2005, and, since August of this year, Search Engine Optimization for Start Ups. The total blog postings for all three blogs in August approached 30.

What’s a poor reviewer to do? I don’t have the time or expertise to comment on Cash Flow or Start-ups per se. A quick glance tells me they are actually more attractively designed than the Sales Presentation Training blog. I’d say the cash flow blog is clearly where Steve’s main area of professional expertise lies. He makes great comments in all of his blogs. He’s doing the right thing in cloning his activity this way - building his reputation with different audiences.

So like a movie reviewer, I’ll focus this review on his main NSA-related blog, Sales Presentations Training. Other works by the same director have their own flavor.

Blogging since: March 11, 2006
Posting Frequency: 4 - 5 times a week
Post Length: 50 - 500, average 200
Aesthetic Appeal: Bare bones standard template
Graphics: Scattering of photos and other images
Categories: Career Training, Executive Speech Coaching, Humor, Mystery Shopping, PowerPoint, Presentation Coaching, Presentation Skills, Presentation Tip, Presentation Tips, Presentations, Presentations Strategies, Presentations Training, Public Seminars, Public Speaking, Public Speaking Fears, Sales Presentations, Sales Presentations Training, Sales Resources, Speech Coaching, Telephone Coaching Program
Blogroll: 22, including 17 NSA “buddies” - thanks Steve!
Target Audience: Salespeople & financial advisors in the financial services community
Comments allowed: Yes
Trackbacks: No
Alexa.com traffic ranking: 3,984,515
Sites that link to this blog: N/A
Yahoo Links: 730

Review:

This blog gives an occasional nod to Steve’s Financial community roots:

I was recently speaking with a mutual fund wholesaler who asked for advice. First, a definition, a mutual fund wholesaler is responsible for convincing brokers, financial planners, etc…to sell their mutual funds to clients. Typically, the wholesalers offer to buy lunch to advisors and make the case for their funds-wholesalers have a ton of competition, just like in your businesses!

However, the focus of this blog is on Presentation skills. He comments on a broad range of typical NSA topics including:

Steve knows how to talk to salespeople. He offers a series of tips for the sales professional:

and much more.

Steve offers personalized coaching via the phone for $300/hr and group coaching calls for salespeople for $97/month.

Steve is an active member of the NSA/Colorado chapter and has written up useful reports of their meetings. The September 9th meeting featured Ford Saeks, Tim Gard, CSP, CPAE and Debra Fine.

Suggestion: If other NSA members blogged their meetings, with links to the speakers websites, we’d grow a national data-bank of reports that anyone could check out to see what NSA is up to. How cool is that!

I’d love to see Steve’s Sales Presentation Training blog brought up to the standard of the Cash-Flow blog, which has quirky posts on Jimmy Hendrix and Nick Nolte to make financial points, as well as extra functionality such as Blogger talkbacks, and posting to Digg and de.licio.us.

There’s also room for expanding the ’salesperson advice’ category beyond presentations to an audience into the 1:1 communication skills that that financial advisors need to cultivate along with their stock picking and risk management skills. The challenge, however, is to focus on a niche, as NSA member Michael Lee does for the real estate salesperson selling to ethnic minority customers.

At the end of the day, Steve has to sell the financial advisors who are his market on his value. He needs to answer the unspoken question Why should they listen to him? This blog is a tremendous boost to his credibility.

Jason Kotecki’s Escape Adulthood is a blog by a National Speakers Association member who is also a professional cartoonist.

Blogging since: April 22, 2002
Posting Frequency: 3-4 times a week
Post Length: 50 - 500 words
Aesthetic Appeal: Outstanding, unique
Graphics: Photos, book covers, banknotes, newspaper covers and lots and lots of cartoons grace every posting
Categories: Adultitis, Be Honest, Business Wisdom, Delight in the Little Things, Dream Big, Get Curious, Have Faith, Kim & Jason News, Live Passionately, Maintain Perspective, Play, Podcasts, Random Musings
Blogroll: 19 quirky, independent, playful blogs
Target Audience: The child in all of us…
Comments allowed: Yes
Trackbacks: No
Bonus: Podcast audio
Alexa.com traffic ranking: 999,829 (way high!)
Sites that link to this blog: 197
Yahoo Links: 2,599 (off the charts!)

Review:

The first thing to note is that Jason is a great cartoonist:

The second thing to note is that as well as Jason’s own blog, there’s a link to his wife Kim’s blog. I’ll limit this review to Jason’s, but couples who blog might be the wave of the future. He said, she said.

I don’t know how many cartoonists blog but Jason is as adept at blogging as he is at drawing. Both are forms of communication that require a regular commitment and become interesting when they demonstrate new ways of seeing the world.

Jason’s Bio offers wonderful insights into what makes him tick:

My dream is to use the talents God has given me to entertain others, while inspiring and encouraging them to renew their childlike faith and to believe in their dreams. In a world crippled by the desire for job security at the expense of their dreams, I am inspired by the saying that you should do what you love, and the rest will come.

Jason blogs on everything from the Pope to the Crocodile Hunter; Fidel Castro to Bolivian currency; Scrapbooking to Seattle. But the core of this blog are his rants about the importance of children and childhood, of seeing the world with a child’s eyes and combating what he terms ‘Adultitis’. If you have a moment (and if you think you don’t you are probably an Adultitis sufferer and need to take a moment) click on the Adultitis Category in his blog. You’ll find a treasure trove of whimsical advice. Example:

My goal is to live my life in such a way that when I come to the end of it, that same wonder will have weaved it’s way through my entire life story. I don’t want Adultitis to gloss over the wonderful things that life has to offer. These wonderful things are missed when we are moving so fast that we miss the smile from a stranger. They’re missed when we stop dreaming big, stop asking “why?” and stop taking time to just “be.” Slow down. Make the most of the time you have with your friends and family.

If reading Jason’s blog is too much of a grind then simply enjoy his cartoons and the wonders to be found in the rest of his web site, such as the reader photos, the Time Capsule or the 40 day Adultitis Escape Plan.

Jason’s blog, and the web site to which it so seamlessly linked, manages to include all the NSA “tricks” such as selling product and testimonials without seeming to be overly commercialized. The spirit of childhood and delight is apparent throughout. Unlike many NSA bloggers, Jason actually blogs about his speaking engagements, the audience feedback, the places he visits, and even information about how he can be booked (Hire a retired superhero to speak at your next shindig).

There’s very little to suggest for improvement. I would like to see the link to the blog more prominently displayed than under Tools off the home page. Other than that, I’m looking forward to taking some time to catch up with some of his gems from the last four years worth of blogging, starting with that 40-day Adultitis Escape Plan!

I recently reviewed NSA member Marilynn Mobley’s Remain Relevant blog. Marilynn’s colleague Steve Rubel reports top PR agency Edelman has launched a special landing page to aggregate blog content from their employees around the world. Currently the Edelman Landing Blog includes links to 16 different bloggers as well as two podcasts. Marilynn is listed in 9th place on the Edelman page.

Remain Relevant in Changing Times is a PR professional’s blog from a Senior VP at Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm.

Blogging since: July 15, 2005
Posting Frequency: 2-5 times a month
Post Length: 500-800 words
Aesthetic Appeal: Clean look and feel of a standard Blogger template, corporate, dark blues and light greens
Graphics: none
Categories: none
Blogroll: none
Target Audience: Corporate communications types, PR professionals
Comments allowed: Yes, but only after you sign in via Blogger
Trackbacks: No (except for the Blogger facility to ‘Create a Link’ to your own blog)
RSS Feeds: No (only available on Blogger Pro)
Alexa.com traffic ranking: 5,735,835
Sites that link to this blog: 9
Yahoo Links: 437

Review:

I well remember Marilynn’s excellent break-out session on speechwriting at my first NSA Convention in Atlanta last year. I was delighted to find at least one other speechwriter at the Convention. She totally impressed me with her two decades of experience in a field I’d only been in for four years. She presented herself as an independent speechwriter who had worked for major CEO’s such as IBM’s Lou Gerstner. Since then she’s moved on. Nowadays she is very much the corporate employee, a Snr. VP who rides the elevator to the 29th floor while, literally, quizzing people on their elevator pitch.

But she hasn’t lost her independence. She’s into Country Music, George Carlin and movies such as When Harry Met Sally and Frieda. She might be a suit with a 2006 Lexus, but she’s not an empty suit. Her blog clearly shows that.

She’s passionate about the importance of blogging. She claims “The blogosphere has become one of the most relevant forms of communication on the planet.” And states: “That’s the beauty of blogs… they’re immediate, real, uncensored and equalizing.” Marilynn ignores concerns about “How can I make money from blogging” (as perhaps only those of us with corporate jobs can afford to?). Not that she’s shy about ways to monetize content. Her blog is filled with innovative ideas. Example: pre-loading video iPods with the DVD content professional speakers sell at the back of the room. Example: tips on creating and selling a ‘blook’ (a book written from blog content).

Marilynn promises readers that they will “Find out what it takes to remain relevant in the face of change. Learn from good - and bad - examples how relevancy drives longevity.” Her strategic counsel centers on what it takes to be a SPUD (Strategic, Proactive, Universal, and Dynamic). She shares insight and opinions on the relevancy of everything from movie theatres to the Olympics and greeting cards. She heavily skews her examples of relevancy to ‘the good’. I found one scathing critique of Oprah and some mild disapproval of adulterous women, but no other examples of ‘the bad’. Perhaps a few more barbs would spice things up?

She engages in meaningful discussion with her readers who leave comments, going so far as to give her office number and asking one person to call.

I think Marilynn could benefit from sexing her blog up. Take a leaf out of fellow Edelman staffer and A-list blogger Steve Rubel or her boss Richard Edelman who both have much more customized, fully featured and attractive blogs. More functionality would be nice, such as adding RSS feeds.

Oh, and lose the spam comment to this post. I don’ t think the screed on Nano Superlattice Technology is that, ummm, relevant.

OK, I’ve decided to drop the predictable sequence for these blog reviews. Rather than proceeding down the Blogroll, I’ll choose candidates to review randomly and keep everyone guessing who I’ll choose next. Adding additional spice to the current review is the fact that I’m taking a look at one of the few anonymous blogs posted by a member of the National Speakers Association.

The Dating Goddess’s Adventures in Dating After 40

Blogging since: May 8, 2006
Posting Frequency: Daily
Post Length: 500 words average
Aesthetic Appeal: Clean, uncluttered Wordpress template. Abbreviating posts adds to readability.
Graphics: None
Categories: Attitude, BBW dating, Dating after 40, Dating chemistry, Dating Internet, Dating online, Greeting your date, Meeting your date, Releasing your date, Senior dating.
Blogroll: 13 NSA friends, including mine - thanks DG!
Target Audience: Single women over 40.
Comments allowed: Yes
Trackbacks: Yes
Alexa.com traffic ranking: N/A
Sites that link to this blog: N/A
Yahoo Links: 127

Review:

This is a hugely successful blog! It’s doubly intriguing to review. First, the anonymous “Dating Goddess” bills herself as “a 51-year-old white, professional woman. My husband of nearly 20 years left me 3 years ago and I started dating 18 months ago.” She claims to have been on over 60 dates in that time (phew!). Second, she bills the blog as for women only. So (as a happily married 54-year-old male) I feel like I am eavesdropping at the door of the women’s room when reading the posts of the DG.

I am in fact privy to her actual identity, but honor-bound not to reveal it, except to confirm she’s a bona-fide NSA member in good standing, and hence qualifies for this review.

Despite not finding any stats on alexa.com her blog has been listed by Wordpress.com as one of the fastest growing on the internet - moving to 37th position on their list.

The DG is able to keep up a furious level of activity (seven dates with six guys in five days) because she is very much a DG of the 21st Century: on-line internet enabled introductions are the wellspring of her love-life. She uses her blog as a water-cooler where the girls can share stories of their hunt for the elusive Mr. Right. The DG is unabashed:

My idea of dating has been like going to Baskin-Robbins. I had vanilla for 20 years (maybe it was Rocky Road at the end!). While I enjoyed vanilla, I want to try new flavors. I didn’t want to jump from vanilla and make a commitment to butter pecan without having at least had a little taste of pistachio, chocolate, mint chip, etc.

So I made the list of men I would like to try. I like smart men, so wanted to try a lawyer, doctor, CEO, and venture capitalist. I like larger men, so wanted to try an ex-pro football player and ex-pro basketball player. I love men with accents, so wanted to try some from other countries. You get the picture. I had dates with all of the above, and more.

Her readers are a vocal lot. She often gets 7-10 comments on a post.

She is aware of the risks of today’s single lifestyle:

So beware. The dating dance can be habit forming. Watch out if you find yourself constantly searching the dealers (online dating sites), and be careful of doing things you know are not in your best interest (dating a guy you know isn’t a good match) just to get your high.

She faces the hard facts of STD’s (Sexually transmitted diseases) as well as dealing with the lighter side of dating:

In terms of suggestions for how the DG could improve her blog I have none, absolutely zilch. Perhaps a few single women would care the leave comments below (I’ll be sure to pass them on the DG).

I do wonder what kind of Goddess she is? Venus on the half-shell? Isis, kneeling before the coffin? The thousand-eyed, thousand-armed bodhisattva Kwan Yin, consoling all beings, or the Mother Shakti, the primal energy of the universe, ready to chop your head off?

I also wonder what a blog written by a man who’d had sixty dates in a few months would read like? Less an honest appraisal of the pitfalls and advantages of internet dating and more a listing of the techniques to get laid found in The Game?

I wish the DG god speed and hope her blog has a short life-span. Hopefully, she finds Mr. Right and is able to move on to the Bride-to-Be blog, the Honeymooner’s blog and the Newlywed’s blog. Meanwhile , if you are a single woman looking for love in all the wrong places check out the Dating Goddess, she’ll set you on the right track.