When you say ‘style icon’ to someone they generally know what you mean.   A person who represents…well style.  Whether you like or dislike the ‘style’ the person wears isn’t really the issue. What is the issue is that the person wears the style in such a way that they seem to glow from inside. In short it’s not about what they actually wear its the WAY they wear it that makes them a ‘style icon’.

Image: Grace Kelly

But what about ‘professional icons’. In fact is there such a thing as a ‘professional icon’?

Who – alive or living – holds themselves, conducts themselves and carries themselves in such a way that you would regard them as a ‘professional icon’?Someone who you want to emanulate professionally? Someone who is living the professional life you would love to replicate or at the very least feel inspired by?

For me I have a few.

The ones who pop foremost to my mind are J.K Rowling. I love the way she had absolutely little money or time, only children to care for (single handley) and yet she still managed to put the time aside to do what she love. To write. To create this rip roaring yarn which also earned her billions.

Then there is Jamie Oliver. I love the way he has managed to bring together his values and ideologies (on healthy diets and “real” food) and professional training and somehow create a new and refreshing take to the whole concept of celebrity chef.

And of course I have to mention the plastic surgeon, Fiona Wood, director of the Royal Perth Hospital Burns Unit,  inventor of Spray on skin, Order of Australia Member , Australian of the Year and most importantly a mum of four children.  Her seemingly excellence in personal/professional  juggling ability alone is something I can only aspire to.

And finally there is elements of the Australian artist Grace Cossington Smith  (22 April 1892 – 10 December 1984) as she is portrayed by author Drusilla Modjeskaho in her novel, Stravinsky’s Lunch.

I love the way she is said by Modjeskaho  to:

“…left little trace of herself. Her private personal self. There are few interviews, few letters, few photos, no diaries.” All there is to work on is her art, which, in its directness and modernism is tantalizingly at odds with the description of Grace given at her memorial service as “a sweet Christian lady.”

In these times of blogging, Twitter, photo blogging and hyper online connections leaving no/ little trace of yourself except your work becomes nigh possible but maybe in some small way something we can all aspire to.

Who’s your professional icons? Who inspires you?

Deborah Hutton on cover of Jan 2012 issue of Australian Women's Weekly (reprinted from www.mamamia.com.au)

Founder of BubHub Australia and consultant at Edelman’s @trevoryoung wrote an article a few months ago after his trip to BlogWorld  LA 2011 which at the time I read and then mulled over.  It struck a chord but I wasn’t sure why until this week.

In the article he talks about the growth of the blogger and the turning of some bloggers into effective ‘new media mini empires’. The first blogger that came to my mind that epitomises this at the moment is Mia Freedman and her blog MammaMia. She’s got a team of writers. Tick. She gets access and maybe even sounded out / consulted by politicans. She is sought out by traditional media as an expert (in her case on parenting and women’s issues for example). Tick.

But this week I read an article on Mamma Mia which made me think that perhaps if you are a mini media empire blogger like Mia Freedman then perhaps – just perhaps – you need to reassess who actually OWNS the blog.

Mia Freedman. Image reprinted from www.campaignbrief.com)

The article was in response to the nude posing of Deborah Hutton on the cover of Australian Women’s Weekly.  You’ve probably read the article or heard about it as apparently it got broader media covereage due to the response the post created on the blog (I was on leave when this happened with blissfully no access to online). In short on the first post Freedman wrote that she loved the pic of Deborah Hutton who at 50years old had posed nude on AWW and though some ‘minimal’ airbrushing had obviously been done to touch up, it still didn’t take from the fact the whole pic etc was great.

But apparently a majority of Freedmans readers (all 120 of them from what I could see) weren’t happy.  The accused her of being a hypocrite for saying in the past that she was against photo manipulation and now apparently saying it was okay. They  weren’t happy with the fact that she appeared to be giving a free plug to a ‘mate’ and also that she thought it was okay for a woman to pose nude on a magazine and that she seemed to be playing to the fact women are sexual objects. Freedman issued an update then followed up with another posting where she clarified her first blog posting.

Now reading through all of this when the story had died down was interesting.

I read through the comments on the second post (you can read here) and what struck me was the sense that the 271 comments on the second post were from readers who felt some ownership over the blog. Who seemed to feel that they had a right to express their opinion and that their opinion mattered and was valid. Also that they felt that they wanted Freedman to understand their point of view.

But then I read a sentence from Freedman on this second posting:

“In all this discussion over the past week about AWW, I’ve been disappointed and upset that a very small minority of people think it’s ok to attack Deborah Hutton personally. Not on. Not here. No way. I believe we can debate things without being rude or abusive. If you don’t believe that, bugger off. Deborah is a real person who is online reading what is being written. Remember that before you leave a comment – here or anywhere else.”

Now I will admit that I am not sure what these attack comments said maybe they were over the top but  just imagine if you read an opinion piece in The Age and in this article the journalist wrote about Deborah Hutton and then wrote the above paragraphs in her follow up posting. There would be an uproar I think. People would think what the heck is happening to The Age and free speech? They might even think who gives this writer / journalist the authority to write an article and then when it gets disagreed with to say ” do not attack DH, shes’ my mate and I don’t like it. If you do want to attack her you won’t do it here so bugger off”.

Now I know that a blog is different from a news site (though not always as some blogs grew to be key players in this space – think the Huff Post) and that a blogger is different from a journalist (then again not always as some bloggers see themselves as independent journalists depending on what they write about) but with the massive growth and maturing of blogging and the blogsphere can a ‘new media mini empire’blogger really say to their readers (many loyal fans) if you attack the people in my article (friends) then you can bugger off?

Now I’m not critising Freedman here or commenting on the whole DH postings. This is just an example which came to mind which seemed to respond to my initial thoughts about Trevor Young’s article back in December . But to me to seems that if a blogger’s blog matures such as  Freedman has with her blog MammaMia, then that blogger just might want to do some reassessing.

Can they continue to ”act” like a sole blogger writing what they want when they want and more importantly telling readers who don’t agree with them to go elsewhere but at the same time grow their ‘empire’ with a staff of writers and in short most of the paraphenalia of an online news / magazine / lifestyle site?

I’m not sure they can. I think if you are a mini media empire blog like MammaMia then you need to do some reassessing at some point.  You may need to stop seeing the blog as solely (and this word is key) as your ‘personal’ space for expressing your thoughts, obseverations and opinions with you dictating the houserules and instead cede some control and power to your readers. For without them you will never grow and you certainly would not have got where you are today.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Christmas is a time of holiday and cheer and no more so than in Australia.

In countries in the northern hemisphere Christmas lasts only a few days, schools only close for two weeks at the most and generally there is less the feel of a ‘mass holiday’ that exists in Australia.

As you can imagine my first Christmas in Oz caught me by surprise. Offices shut down, trains near empty, roads quiet. There was a distinct whiff in the air of beaches and lazy long hot summer days on the beach.

So as I walked my children home from school today with six weeks of holidays stretching in front of them…I thought about a decision I made a few weeks ago to take four weeks offline – no Facebook, no Twitter, no blogging.

Ive reached the conclusion that the Christmas holidays are great for ( Australian) bloggers for three simple reasons:

1. REASSESS: Christmas is a perfect time to stand back and assess how your blog is developing. Is your blog developing the way you intended when you first launched it? If not what would you like to change? Do you feel you are in control of your blog or it is in control of you?

2. REFLECT: Its a great time to reassess your motivations for blogging. Perhaps you started your blog off as a type of online journal to record your experiences as a stay at home parent and now you are back at work and are finding you aren’t updating the blog as much. How will you adjust your blog to this? Is it better to wind it up or maybe to stand back and just blog less? Christmas can be a time to think about what you want for 2012.

3. REST: It gives you time to just be. This is my favorite. I think the Christmas holidays give a unique time to stand back from the online world, blogging and online friends and spend time with the most important people in our lives – our family and friends and do…well nothing much really. I often find the best ideas and inspirations in all areas of my life happen to me when I’m on holidays!

Do you use the Christmas holidays as a time to rest, reflect and refresh?

(And with that I wish you a beautiful Christmas and New Year. I will be taking a complete break from online until late January. Enjoy your break…. no matter how short or long it is )

Image: Marion Kochbuch

Have you noticed how lately everyone seems to be on a gluten free or at the very least a grain free / reduced diet?? Suddenly it’s become in vogue. Ive spoken to one mum this month who said her family were on a gluten reduced diet. When I asked her why she said it made them feel less bloated plus it was healthier. It now seems to be tres hip to eat nothing but a chunk of meat and some vegetables with not a grain or slice of bread in sight for each meal.

This morning, courtesy of Sarah Wilson, in the The Good Weekend I discovered a name for it. The Paelo Diet. Apparently it can make you lose weight and is all very…caveman. (Unfortunately I can’t give you a link folks as its not online so you’ll have to go to your newspapers to read the article).

Now I think the main culprit for the surgence of this diet is the growth of bread machines. It sounds hair brained but let me explain.

For the last month our family has been on a massively reduced grain diet. It is directly correlated to the time we purchase a bread machine.

You see we bought a bread machine with the idea it would save us buckets of money in bread purchasing (seeing as how we were chowing through about 4 loaves a week) plus we’d know exactly what we were eating(no preservatives etc etc). Of course fact is Mr Significant is unable to make the bread (his loaves keep turning out either too soggy or else covered in unmixed flour…I’m suspicious this is a deliberate tactic…) so the task has been relegated to me. But problem is I keep forgetting to put bread on at night so we wake up to no bread and surprise surprise our bread consumption has dramatically dropped. The last time the kids saw a loaf never mind ate one was around three weeks ago. Their lunch boxes are now chickpeas, grated carrot and tuna or soup or just some chicken with cucumber and tomatoes. As I said no bread.

The other reason for the reduced grain diet is my youngest is allergic to wheat so her diet has necessitated gradual changes to the family diet (else we end up with the nightmare task of cooking two meals -simultaneously- accompanied by the howling of hungry kids whining “I’m hungry”).

I’d love to see a graph comparing sales of bread machines as its relates to the number of people adopting grain free / reduced diets. I’m thinking there has to be a correlation. I’m sure Sarah Wilson would agree!  What do you think?!

In late October (or maybe it was early November…) this year I launched a website – BlogForSocialGood.com.au (BFSG) that I feel quite passionate about.

The idea behind BFSG is that it will become a venue for bloggers and NFP’s to connect.

So where did the idea come from?

Well my background was initially in Psychology and Community Development and I worked in this area for several years before making the move to online about  10 years ago.  However even when working in online I still kept my oar in with NFP’s and for the last three years have been helping NFP’s with leveraging social media to better help them spread their message.

But one piece of the jigsaw always seemed to be missing.

There had to be a better way to connect bloggers with NFP’s.

There were so many fantastic and passionate bloggers I came across who cared deeply about a cause but often expressed frustration as they did not know how to connect with the cause and charity of their choice. Likewise for NFP’s I spoke to there was a feeling that it might be good to connect with bloggers but not knowing where to start. How to identify the bloggers interested in their specific cause?

And so in late October 2011 I went to Darren Rowse ProBlogger Training Day and specifically to a talk by World Vision Social Media Manager, Richenda G Ibrahim and came away with the germ of an idea.

BlogForSocialGood.com.au.

It works like this:

Bloggers who would like to be contacted by a NFP for blogging for social good opportunities register with their first name; blog URL; cause(s) they feel passionate about and Twitter profile details.

NFP can view and then directly connect with bloggers in a simple, no fuss way.

In time I want the site to provide information about current NFP campaigns running; details about NFP’s who would like to work with bloggers and useful resources and information relevant to NFP and bloggers interested in blogging for social good.

Of course I know I won’t be able to do this alone. So If you are a blogger and would like to be involved in this community initiative please let me know I am sure there is a way you can help!

And if you are a NFP and want to get involved then email me also.

Until then check out www.blogforsocialgood.com.au. I’d love to hear your thoughts about it.