Aaron Strout:             

So I'd like to introduce today's special guest.  I have Erin Kotecki Vest, who is – I'm going to call an uber blogger.  She blogs in more places than I can even keep track of.  She has her own personal blog called Queen of Spain, which is her pride and joy, but you can also find her in other, well-known places, like Huffington Post, BlogHer, MOMocrats, and DotMoms.  Welcome, Erin.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Thank you very much for having me.

Aaron Strout:             

So what I'd like to do is let's dive in and talk a little bit about you.  Now you have an interesting background in the sense that you were a radio broadcaster before you actually started doing blogs.  Give us a little bit of your background, and talk about how you became a blogger.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

I come from traditional journalism, which I think a lot of people that are starting to move into blogging are, believe it or not.  But I was at WDBO in Orlando as a field reporter as well as the anchor of the afternoon show, and occasionally of the morning show there. 

And then I moved to Los Angeles and was at KSWB, oh, about '99 to about 2005, when my son was born, where I was a field reporter for many, many years, and also did some anchoring there as well.  A lot of investigative journalism, very traditional, straight news stories.

And had my first child.  Decided I did not want to be in that field anymore, and wanted to stay at home and do the mom thing.  And as many reporters and journalists will tell you, they kind of can't get the writing or the news junkie out of their system.  So I began looking around for things to do, and came across a bunch of sites that my girlfriends were doing on their own called blogs.

And as it turned out, they were just talking about parenting.  And I took a look at them for a while, and I read them for a while, and kind of wasn't sure it was my thing.  And within about, oh, I don't know, three or four months, decided I couldn't take it anymore, after jumping in everyone's comments for quite a while.  And started my own blog, which became Queen of Spain.

Aaron Strout:             

Now you've got to give us the background on that one, because I love to know everyone's back stories with their names, for their blogs or for Twitter.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Well, you know, when I began blogging, it was still very how safe is the internet?  Isn't the internet just for porn?  You can't really put your real name on the internet, can you?  And I never really bought into that, so I still used my real name.  It was very easy to find within my blog.  But I didn't want to call my blog just, hey, Erin Kotecki's blog.  It seemed a little odd.

And years and years and years ago, a very good friend of mind was over at the house, and I believe we were all looking through a bridal magazine at engagement rings, way back in the day before I got married and engaged, just picking out very obnoxious rings.  And he declared, who the fuck do you think you are?  The Queen of Spain?  And it stuck, as I tend to be a bit mouthy and a bit obnoxious, and I tend to have a sense of entitlement as I wander around.

And that name stuck, and when it came time to start a blog in which I knew I would be mouthy and wander around with a sense of entitlement on the web, I decided to call it Queen of Spain.

Aaron Strout:             

I love it.  Well, so here's a cool thing that – for those just coming in, that Erin agreed to do.  So I normally have a process where I, in advance of the podcast, will send over a list of some sample questions that usually sometimes have come from me, sometimes I will ask Twitter or Facebook or just friends around the office, you know, what should I ask Guy Kawasaki, what should I ask Robert Scoble? 

So this one, I thought, you know, you're so active on Twitter, and you have a lot of followers.  I'm just going to ask the crowd to ask us questions, you know, either right before or live.  And so they've been flowing in.  And I've actually gotten probably about a dozen of them that have come up, so I'm not sure we'll get to all of them, but –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Great.

Aaron Strout:             

– there's one that's kind of funny that just came up, and it was from J. S. Pepper, and it was, with all the f-ups recently, and the f-bomb being blanked out, in social media, what is her recommendation on smart engagement?  So I'm going to just jump in and start asking some questions.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yeah.  And that's a great question from Jeremy.  For those who don't know, J. S. Pepper on Twitter is Jeremy Pepper, who is a PR guru in his own right.  What is a good recommendation for smart engagement?  Yes.  There has been a lot of dust-up lately because the mommy blogs are a very highly targeted demo. 

There are a lot of advertising agencies and a lot of companies who would love to have input, their products, or discuss their products, or anything of that nature, on their blogs, because as many people know, more and more women are no longer watching daytime television.  They are reading blogs.  They are online.  They are very web savvy.  In fact, they're some of the heaviest users of the web out there.

So yes.  We've all been targeted lately.  And it's been kind of sad, frankly.  So smart engagement to me would be to know your audience and do your homework.  If you're going to pitch a blogger, a mom blogger, understand she's a mom.  Her time is very limited.  Understand she may never write about products, period, because it doesn't really fit in with talking about parenting.  Or maybe it does.

I think the biggest problem we've seen so far is that they are treating us as though we are nameless, faceless, entities, numbers, statistics, demographic, and that we are not multi-dimensional women.  And the pitches we get range from mothers – Jewish mothers being asked to discuss new Easter egg coloring kits, who they obviously didn't do their homework there, to sending me products for teens when I have a five and a three-year-old.  and I get, you know, video games in the mail that are war video games, rated, you know, 13 and up.

They're just clearly not doing their homework, and I think that's the most important thing they can do.  And also to be respectful, and understand we now know that we are a very highly targeted demo, and are getting paid for our advice on these things, and not just to try and use us for free services, or to think that [inaudible] that you send us the 1999 products that we didn't like, and you're angry we didn't blog about it.

So I would just say homework.  Just do your homework.  Read a blog.  Read a blog before you reach out to the blog.  That's all I ask.

Aaron Strout:             

Good advice.  So I have a – sort of a bolt-on question that comes from SavvyAunty, which I think you had seen on Twitter.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Strout:             

And I think I actually know the answer to this based on reading some of your blogs, but it's what sets your blog apart from other mom/parenting blogs, if you even put yourself in that category.  Now I'd like to take a cut and say I think it's your sharp wit and irreverence that maybe might not be for every sort of, you know, parent out there that's reading, but certainly folks that don't mind someone that, you know, doesn't mind taking a shot at the institution, and mind taking a shot at, you know, some of the traditional ways out there.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

I think that's a pretty fair assessment.  Yeah.  I – I'm mouthy.  A lot of the mom blogs out there are pretty – I don't want to call them straight-laced.  They are very witty in their own right.  But I tend to go a little bit more over the edge than the others do.  And I am incredibly uncensored about it.  I really don't think twice about even, you know, from the very tame cursing on the blog to anything else, discussing sex life to kids, things of that nature.

But I also don't just stick to the mommy blog clique.  I also branch out into politics, which you know, one can argue is – motherhood and politics go hand in hand anyway.  But I also talk about social media a lot, because I'm seeing the influence that it's having all over the place in the home community, as well as politically and otherwise.

So yeah.  I'm a bit more uncensored.  I'm very mouthy, which is funny, coming from the background I came from, which was always, you know, absolutely no opinion.  Completely straight-edged news.  Blogs have given me the opportunity to let loose, and now it's sort of the floodgates have been opened, and the flood just keeps on coming.

Aaron Strout:             

That's wonderful.  So to the political question, Frogtosser, who is I think probably one of your other followers –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Strout:             

– on Twitter sent me a question just saying, are you ready to explain your decision to change your vote from Obama to Hillary Rodham Clinton.  I think I read a few posts that you talked actually about Obama's mother, and the fact that she was a very smart woman.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Strout:             

And you know, had made a lot of good points.  But would you like to talk about your recent –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yeah.  Absolutely.  In fact, that was the – my switch came shortly before Super Tuesday, personally for myself, but publicly came just after Super Tuesday, when I asked in the Huffington Post and on my own site for Hillary to step down and to finish her run as a candidate, which ended up on the front page of Digg, and it got about, oh, I think 3,026 Diggs going on it right now, and you know, crashed my fun little mom blog servers.  And we were back up and running in a while.

But yeah.  Digg effect.  That was fun.  My decision was because, as a long-time Hillary supporter and fan, having been a child of the '80s and '90s, and being a very strong, mouthy woman myself, loved what she did while she was First Lady.  I have now found her incredibly corrupted, totally establishment, and everything I don't want in a candidate.  She has proven to be, to me, personally, the same old thing, even if she is a different gender.

And while I respected that she was in a position to be the first woman President, and really very truly wanted that to happen, I couldn't reconcile the fact that she wasn't representing what I wanted to see as far as change in this country.  And also I think that she’s a very divisive figure.  You just say Hillary Clinton to people, and you get the, "Oh, God, I hate her." Or you know, "I can't stand that family."

And I've found it's not based on gender, despite what some people might think.  I've found it's just based on her personality, and whatever they feel about the Clinton name.  I think if she were Hillary Smith, it might be a different story.

And I'm tired of that.  I've had enough of it.  And in Barack Obama, Senator Obama, I have not found that, and I have found that even despite the fact that he is of mixed race and of color, people don't seem to be having that same divisive reaction with him.  And he seems to bringing all parties to the table.  And that does give me, and I'm going to say the H word, hope, and a bit of pride in a country that I have been very disappointed in for a very long time.

And that was really the core of what I did, and why I switched, although I wouldn’t necessarily say switched, because I never was really decided.  But yes.  That's what happens.

Aaron Strout:             

Well, I am happy to hear, because the way Frogtosser phrased it, it sounded like you had switched from Obama to Hillary, and in fact, you've done the opposite, and –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yes.

Aaron Strout:             

– as a Obama follower myself, and friends – I don't know if you know Jake McGee, but Jake is a big Obama supporter as well.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yes.  I do know Jake.

Aaron Strout:             

I'm glad to see –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Community guy.  Yes.

Aaron Strout:             

– you on the right side of the fence.  Not that we should get politics involved here.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Absolutely.  No.  Let's get politics involved.  That's the fun part.

Aaron Strout:             

Absolutely.  All right.  So my next question comes from a guy I've come to sort of know and love recently.  His name is Dmitri Gunn.  And he asked a really good question, and I hate to sort of make it about gender, but I think one of the complaints I hear a lot – I've seen it from Scoble, I've seen it from Jeremiah Owyang, and noticed myself that there don’t seem to be as many women involved in social media.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Strout:             

And you know, particularly, I think technology in general.  So how do we get – encourage more people to become involved, and blog, and participate, so that we get a more well-balanced voice out there?

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Stop hiring the women that pose for Maxim.

Aaron Strout:             

That's a good start.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

You know, it's very intimidating.  It is a very male-dominated space, and it's a male-dominated space with opinionated men who really do continue to push the idea that a requirement is looks.  I was recently discussing this with one Mr. Jason Calacanis, who's looking for a replacement for Veronica Belmont on Mahalo Daily.  And I thought about throwing my name in the hat, and went on over to his uStream chat, and was frankly completely disgusted with what was going on, and the ratings of photos of the potential candidates that was coming in, and the assertion that she couldn't be a schlub because they had Lon Harris already, who I'm sure is a very handsome man in his own right, but definitely no Brad Pitt.

And it was all about who was going to make the hot co-host.  That's the kind of space that women are looking into entering, and it can be very intimidating for the smart science, web developer-type gal.  Not just intimidating, but kind of disgusting, and they tend to not want to come play with the boys.

That being said, I've also met a lot of these men now who are leaders in this space, and they have been fantastic and very supportive, such as, you know, Robert Scoble and many others.  Guy Kawasaki, even given sometimes his non-PC verbiage here and there, has been very supportive in getting our names on lists and things of that.  But I think until the double standard right now in tech gets a bit of an overhaul by many of the men leading in this space, women don't care to come and play.

And I am encouraging a lot of women.  I am working with several firms, actually, and not getting paid, but on my own time and of my own free will, to get a lot more women to come and speak at some functions, to get a lot more women on these lists, to get them to be a little bit more prominent, and to know that a lot of these guys really are good guys, and not to worry about it.  But you know, and then you get something like, oh, the new – the recent Google speakers list that had two women on it, the Velocity conference that had two out of thirty-three speakers.

And you have to wonder, is it the women that aren't entering the space, or are they just not looking for them as well?  So I think there's – you know, there's a lot of things going on, but it mostly boils down to, you know, something like what happened in the Calacanis chat room the other day, where you're talking about bringing a woman in to do video on tech, and things like that, and all you hear about is, well, she's got to be hot.  Let's look at that photo.  You know, that makes us not want to come have fun at all. 

Aaron Strout:             

I hear you. 

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Strout:             

I have another question that speaks to your success.  So less about politics, less about gender, but Chris Perkett, Perkett PR, she's Ms. P on Twitter, how do you build your blog success – how did you build your blog success, following, and how do you balance that all with motherhood, because obviously you spend a lot of time blogging and on Twitter to sort of keep your community active.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Mm-hmm.  Balance?  What balance.

Aaron Strout:             

Yeah.  Exactly. 

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

I have – I've got a wireless laptop.  It either sits on the ottoman in front of the couch or it sits on the kitchen counter, or it's outside in the patio while the kids run around.  And luckily, it's mobile, so it's kind of moved with me.  If I'm in the kitchen making dinner, the laptop's on the counter.  And I can look at the Twitters and send one, and then walk over and chop up some more carrots, you know. 

So it's – it is a balance to a degree, like anything is.  And anybody that works from home knows and understands. And as far as building my blog's success, you know, I am not in the top tier of bloggers.  I am more spread out over the web.  So I have different communities in different places and different followers in different places.

And what I've learned, and what I think is extremely important, and what I'm sure you hear from everyone else that's in social media, is that you're part of the conversation.  I am not simply posting an article for you just to read.  This is about everybody talking about it.  This is about having 1,700 plus followers on Twitter, but being able, when someone sends [inaudible] to do my best to talk back, and to write back, and to discuss with them whatever topic it is I’m talking about at that given moment.

It's engaging.  It's engagement.  It's discussions.  And it's, you know, [inaudible] the people who comment on my blog most of the time.  And I know people I'm talking to on Twitter because I'm reading what they're writing as well.  You know, it's just not one way.  And I think that's the most important thing about building – building your blog, building whatever it is you're doing, your followers on Twitter, is you're part of that conversation.  You're learning from – you're reading with them.  You're talking with them.

Social media is social for a reason.  It doesn't just go one way. 

Aaron Strout:             

Okay.  So I have one more question from Twitter land, and then I have a couple more of my own, and then we can wrap it up.       So the next one is from a woman named MyJezzie, who is a – she actually works right up the street from me.  She's now Mrs. Incredible on – or Ms. Incredible on –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yes, yes, yes.  She has a great avatar going on today. 

Aaron Strout:             

Yes.  Exactly.  So she wants to know about the fine line between public and private, and how you protect your family.  And my guess is she's asking this more with you being a woman and a mom, but I think it does apply to all of us.  And I know people have asked me about it, and have given me a little bit of a hard time, because I certainly blur the lines big time between my  family and, you know, friends, and work, and all that good stuff.  So where do you see that line? 

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

I don't have a line.

Aaron Strout:             

Yeah.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

I don't have a line.

Aaron Strout:             

I guess that's the easiest way to do it, right?

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

And a lot of people do not agree with me on that, and that's fine.  I am who I am.  I write about my family.  I write about myself.  And I have to be honest about it.  And if I'm not honest about it, I don't find it very genuine.  And yes, there's a lot of discussion about what should you discuss and what shouldn't you discuss.  And my husband and I have gone over it a million times as well, and it comes down to if I censor myself, I’m not being real with you. 

And the reason I have the readers I do, and the reason I have the followers I do, is because I am real with you guys.  And I – anyone who has met me, and many of you have met me, know that I am exactly the same person when you meet me in person that I am on my blog.  And there really is absolutely no difference.

Now, can that get me in trouble?  Absolutely.  Do I not put pictures of my kids or anything like that?  No.  I do put pictures of my kids up, because that was part of the community that I was in before everything kind of exploded, and all of this attention came to us.  We were sharing photos with family.  We were discussing, my son wearing my $400 dress as a cape.  Of course I wanted to show everybody my son wearing my $400 dress as a cape, because that was my life.

And at the time I had, you know, 80 readers a day, maybe.  And half of them were my family on the other side of the country.  And that is how our community grew, and that was the grassroots of our community.  And I feel obligated to keep that as pure as possible, even with now having much more exposure.

And have I paid the price for that?  Yes, to a certain degree, I have.  There's been – I’m going through a cease and desist right now with a photo of my daughter that's up on a site in a very unsavory fashion, because some people believe that mommy bloggers are exploiting their children for money.  Now trust me, my ad check will tell you that unless you think just paying my cable bill is exploitation, then okay. 

But you know, that's not why any of us got into this, and it's not why any of us are doing it.  But I do think more good has come out of it, like readers who helped diagnose my son's allergy-induced asthma, and got us to the right pediatrician.  Helped when I was going through anxiety attacks with postpartum, and didn't know what was happening, and thought it was totally normal.  Helped mothers going through cancer who, you know, needed supplies, or needed whatever.

The good things that have come from what we do in our community far outweigh the one or two jerks that want to ruin it.  And I'm of the mindset that I’m not changing that for those jerks.  So yes, it can be difficult.

Aaron Strout:             

In some ways, it's accepting defeat if you let them, you know, tell you what you're going to do.  Right?

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Absolutely.  Absolutely.  And I know a lot of women have taken photos down of their children, won't show them anymore, and now they won't talk about exactly where they work.  And I understand that.  I do understand it, and I feel that tug as well.  But I also know that before all of this happened, we were all very open about things, and a little less guarded, and we created the community we created because of that.

So [inaudible] and I'm not giving it up.  And they're – you know, we've got the technology.  And I'm working with companies, working on that technology to make things safer for us to do those things.  Because you know, if we can create this wonderful community, we can also create the technology to go with it to help us be a bit safer.

Aaron Strout:             

Cool.  Well, I’m right there with you, and I applaud you for taking that approach.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Thank you.

Aaron Strout:             

Again, it's not for everybody, but –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

No, it's not.

Aaron Strout:             

I'm of the mindset that people are good by nature, and yes, there are a few bad apples, but I'm not going to let them spoil it for me, either, so –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Absolutely.

Aaron Strout:             

I do have one more question from Twitter.  I said that I would be done, but a good friend, D. M. Cordell, and Kolson29, who's Kate Olsen.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aaron Strout:             

She asks, is Twitter a private spot for adult conversation or a professional development tool that should be appropriate for sort of demo?  And Kate clarified this, because I didn't completely understand it at first.  She said that D. M. Cordell meant professional development, many educators like to demo Twitter to colleagues.

So I guess, you know, is it sort of private for private conversations, or is it okay to open it up to, you know, the rest of the world, and show people what your life looks like?  I think I know how you're going to answer this question already, but –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yeah.  Well, not only that, but it's not for me to define what Twitter is.

Aaron Strout:             

Yeah.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

That's not my – you know, I think everyone uses it for different reasons, and I think anybody who puts anything out there publicly who isn't protecting their updates or deciding who can or can't see who's following them knows that it's just like putting anything else on the web, and can be used in any way, shape, or form, you know.

Aaron Strout:             

That's a good point. 

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yeah.  And so I don't see that as, you know, even a question.  If it's public, it can be used for business.  It can be used for demonstration.  It can be used for anything.  And I think all of those applications are valid, and I've seen some fantastic results, even, you know, when someone like Beth Kant, who does some amazing nonprofit works, walks in and does her demo Twitter with a board of people and she gets a million responses and walks away with some new business contacts.

You know, so I think it can be used for whatever people deem it necessary for, and it's not for me to say.

Aaron Strout:             

That sounds like a good response.  So I think you've given us a lot of these nuggets already, but one of the things, as I mentioned in our sort of pre-conversation that we'd like to try to do is provide a few best practices for companies in particular that are thinking about getting started with social media or a community.

So you know, I've heard things like honesty.  I've heard things like really sort of being genuine, and being who you are, being, you know, the brand that you want to be, and being natural. But give us a few other tips in terms of, you know, how a company can succeed using social media out there today, or how they could get started.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Oh, I think there's so many different ways.  I think first and foremost they have to not be afraid.  You hear a lot that they're so afraid.  Oh, I'm so afraid to talk to bloggers, because they're just going to slam me.  And yeah, okay, so we do like to rag on a lot of people and a lot of companies.  But you know what?  We also like to applaud them when they do something good.  We love being able to take something fantastic and put it out there, right along with taking the wow, what a bunch of idiots, and put it out there.

And you need to give them credit for that.  And if you approach them properly, and you know, are transparent – gosh, love that word now – and really give them a decent conversation.  You know, don't just send me a press release.  Really impersonal, and I am not – you know, I am not KSWB anymore.  I don't want your press release.  I'm a mom blogger who talks about emotional cues and things of that nature.  Don't send me a press release.  Send me a personal email.  My phone number's in my About page.  Give me a call.  Chat with me.  Get to know me. And then yeah, I’m going to be much more likely to take a look at your product, and I’m going to be much more likely to ask you a question about it, if there's something I don't like, instead of just blogging and slamming you.  You'd be surprised how nice many of us are, if you just give us a chance.

But when you treat us like, you know, the Fortune 500 company, and you just send out the press release, and are very cold and curt, you know, that's where it's no fun for us.  Social media is about you coming into our space, where we tell very personal stories, where we talk about our children, where we share our lives.  So if you come at me with something very impersonal and cold, I'm not going to react well to it.  And I think that's probably the biggest piece of advice I can give.

Aaron Strout:             

And I think that to build on that, it sounds like in general, companies could do well to, you know, treat everybody like they're humans.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yes.

Aaron Strout:             

And whether they're a customer, whether they're someone, obviously, that they should be paying, you know, closer attention to, like bloggers.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Yes.

Aaron Strout:             

But it really is about having conversations, the original sort of clue train, you know, manifesto 101 is stop talking at us, start talking with us.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Absolutely.  And that's one of the things I brought up in one of my recent blog posts, after a lot of this PR storm flack about the business of mommy blogging, which was remember back in the day of the old shopkeeper, who knew your name, and knew your husband's name, and knew your kids' names, and kept something special behind the counter for you, because boy, he knows you love pink tech gadgets?  Remember that?  When you used to go in and they would know you, and they would talk to you?

You were so much more apt to go and buy there than you were from anywhere else in town, because you felt loyal to that person.  Just like the people who have engaged properly in social media, like Dell and Graco, for example.  I bought myself a new Dell recently.  Why is that?  Guess. 

Aaron Strout:             

Yeah.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Because you know, hey, Richard at Dell and everybody over there has been wonderful, and they don't just talk to me about Dell.  We talk politics.  We talk parenting.  They've been around.  They know me.  They know my family.  We chat.  It's the same concept. 

Be that shopkeeper.  Be the old-school hardware store owner.  Be that guy when you come into our space.  Don’t be a corporate muckety-muck, or it ain't going to fly.

Aaron Strout:             

Well, that's interesting, because two of my favorite posts over the last several months have been Chris Brogan alikening sort of social media, and I think maybe it was specifically Twitter, but basically community as, you know, the village tavern, and then Pistachio, Laura Fitton, wrote the post about, you know, Twitter really being her community and her village. And I think you're right.  There are a lot of very close ties to getting back to that original sense of community, and knowing people, saying hi to them, and acknowledging them.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Strout:             

And I think it's tough, because it's harder work.  It's a lot harder work to try to have a lot of conversations with people than just sort of broadcasting a message out.  But to your point, it results in a much deeper sense of loyalty, and ultimately a much better, you know, longer-lasting relationship.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

And not to mention, mommy bloggers are not tech bloggers.  Mommy bloggers did not get into this to be able to review products.  They did not get into this to be able to make a living.  They got into this to talk with other moms about their kids.  They do it as a hobby.  They do it on the side.  So it's a completely different ballgame with them, as well.  None of us got into this space, that I know of, to make a living.  We might be now –

Aaron Strout:             

Right.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

– because of the way things have gone, but that is not what we do and where we came from.  So it's very different for us, as well, because they're looking at content on my page that's about me, that's about my kids, that's about my life.  It's very personal.  Yet it is being run, to a certain degree, as a business.

So it's even more important for these companies to understand who they're approaching when they approach them.

Aaron Strout:             

So one final question.  I ask everybody this, and as someone that writes for several blogs, it might be difficult for you.  But I like to ask, who do you – if you could read one blog and one blog only, whose would it be and why?

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Oh, jeez.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

That's not fair. 

Aaron Strout:             

No, it's not.  That's the beauty of it.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

I'm going to read BlogHer, because it highlights and goes through every topic, and links to every woman blogger that I need to read, and what I need to know about them.  And it gives them a roundup of all of them daily.

Aaron Strout:             

That's fine.  And you know what?  I'm sure the people at BlogHer won't mind that you give them a little plug.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

No.  And you know, and it's –

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

– full disclosure is I do – I am a contributor at BlogHer, and I do run the election coverage, as well as BlogHers Act and the Second Life conference there.  So – but that being said, if I weren't doing all of that, and even when I wasn’t doing all of that, and not getting paid for any of it, that is where I would go, because that is my community, and that's where all of my community comes together.

Aaron Strout:             

Well, and that's totally fair, and that's better than – I was telling Lionel Menchaca at Dell the other day that he couldn't give me sort of a non-answer like Scoble, who said Techmeme to me, and Tim O'Reilly, who said SlashDot.  I'm like, guys, those aren't really blogs.  Those are roll-ups of everybody else's blog.  But I think in some ways, it's telling, you know, as to who they are.  And I think to you, you know, obviously, that's your slice that best informs you.  And like you said, it's your community.  So I think that's a great answer.

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Absolutely.  That is my community, right? 

Aaron Strout:             

Well, Erin, it's been a pleasure speaking with you.  Thank you for fielding questions on the fly, and sort of being there without a net today.  We're speaking on the phone with Erin Kotecki Vest, who is a mommy blogger, among many other things, a Twitter proficianado.  Thanks for joining us. 

Erin Kotecki Vest:     

Thank you so much for having me.  It was great.