Now, from the professional side of the experience:
So, my time filling in for Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim has come to an end. I’ll still be a contributor and he and I will have to talk about my getting more involved, but for now I’m ready for a little break. (Just a little one, though.)
Overall, it was pretty much a great experience. I got some compliments from some other prominent bloggers. See?
- Lisa Barone of Bruce Clay said: “If you’re looking for some more blogging resources, Jordan McCollum (who has been doing a stellar job filling Andy Beal’s shoes lately) posted some invaluable Resources for Corporate Bloggers, which are worth checking out.”
- Kim Krause Berg said: “Thanks Jordan. . . . Kudos on the amazing job you’re doing at MP while Andy is off, btw
“ - To which Lisa responded again: “And Jordan, if you’re checking in, Susan and I second Kim’s comment about what a stellar job you’re doing while Andy’s been away. You’re a breath of fresh of air over there at MP! We love it!”
Lisa really meant it, too. On Friday she posted about how many of the prominent blogs in Internet and search marketing brought on young female bloggers:
And then it hit them! They needed a hip female to ‘man up’ their blog. That will bring the masses. That will bring the links!So they did it. Rand hired Rebecca, and Bruce took me on a month later. And you saps fell in love with us. Ha!
Next thing you know, Jordan has us laughing at Marketing Pilgrim, Tamar has Chris Winfield under her spell, and Rhea is blinding the boys with her charm and stories about the disgusting things she’s done to tortoises. Forget Danny and Barry. Combined we are the IT girls of SEO blogging. The inner circle of female bloggers has brought a fun, fresh look to this often-too-techy industry. And we’re pretty too! Huzzah!
Every time I read it, I get a buzz. I’m an IT girl of SEO blogging? In the inner circle? How in the world did I end up here? (And she said I was pretty! Wow!)
Perhaps best of all, while Lisa was writing this and working away in the SEO trenches, I was probably changing Hayden’s diaper or vacuuming the living room.
Some people have all the luck. (id est, ME!)
Oh, and perhaps most importantly, Andy was pleased, too. (It is his blog, after all.) Something along the lines of “excellent,” and “fantastic.”
Okay, enough with the name dropping and “praise party” (the opposite of a pity party).
On the minus side, as I mentioned yesterday, I sometimes let my family slide. I justified it by saying that I had a commitment to MP and I needed to fulfil it, and it was only for a couple weeks. (The truth might be that I’m a crazy overachiever.) This includes time with Ryan, time with Hayden (to a lesser extent), and cooking dinner (which I regard as my job, but I also enjoy providing food for my family and cooking in general. My domestic goddess.).
Also a minus, I felt the need to conform to the Eastern time zone work day. Being in the Mountain time zone meant that I either had to get up between 6 or 7 to get blogging (and while getting up early is a beautiful thing, there are reasonable limits to everything!) or write posts in advance and schedule them (which meant my first posts of the day were usually not time-sensitive or news-related. I did a series on corporate blogging, among a few other things.).
On the whole, it was pretty awesome. I laughed, I cried, I made snide remarks and used plenty of sarcasm and suddenly broke into the inner circle. Yeah, pretty awesome.
