I’m one of Hiscox’s Small Business Stars! Check me!

The other week, I featured on Hiscox’s Small Business Stars blog for my work as agency founder and entrepreneur of my digital media agency, Miramus.

I was chosen to appear on the blog to talk about my experience of the industry and the importance of having contacts in the blogging world.

Here’s the part where my natural modesty leads me to conclude that I magically stay abreast of the industry via some form of osmosis as yet unknown to science:

“Sometimes I think I’ve fallen behind with stuff, but then I go out and talk to normal humans and get my perspective back. I read the C_ncentrate newsletter every week and then I’ll do a quick scan through of Smartbrief every few weeks to see what’s going on. I also just absorb information from friends in the industry and Twitter, as well as reading other industry sites.”

Read my full interview here on the Hiscox blog.

The question that’s keeping you all awake at night: What am I up to at the moment?

Since www.miramus.com is going through a personality crisis at the moment (it will be back with a spangly new responsive theme at some point), here’s a quick work-based update:

1. We’re still working with the wonderful people over at Unilever. We’ve been fortunate enough to work with the Personal Care and Foods team. I’ve also been doing a project with Dove which I probably won’t ever get to talk about, but I’ve enjoyed immensely.

2. We set up www.thestresshacker.com for Sue Smith. I’ve really enjoyed working with her on getting her mailing list up and running. In fact, the work I’ve done for Unilever has also been about mailing lists. Mailing Lists are clearly the new blogs (in my world anyway).

3. We published a magazine this year! For a client who shall (for the time being) remain nameless. We are the souls of discretion at Miramus, you know.

4. I wrote a book this year! Only a short one, but it was great. Another one I can’t actually talk about (it’s like being a spy only with digital content and eye strain).

5. I edited a book this year! Coming soon the Stresshacker store – watch this space!

6. Alex Milway’s latest book came out: Pigsticks & Harold and the Tuptown Thief. It’s a whodunnit for 5-year-olds. www.alexmilway.com

7. Dork Adore is still growing strong! We have an amazing new mailout (see, Mailing Lists again) and loads of great competitions in the pipeline. Come visit!

8. I’m writing another book! This one’s for me.

9. And I’m concocting new plans for a project. Sign up for my mailing list if you are interested (I admit it, I am obsessed with mailing lists) It’s over on the right. You probably won’t be interested if you haven’t given birth in the past 5 years. But you’re still welcome to sign up!

10. I joined the PTA. Against all advice, reason and common sense and with new contracts in the pipeline, I agreed to spend my evening editing a constitution and reading about quorums (quora?)

That sort of became about me rather than my company towards the end there…

Anyway, if you want to get hold of me, I’m here, on Twitter, on Dork Adore and on email.

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The five things every new parent should know and other hilarious columns

I’ve written some columns recently that are dear to my heart – after all, who doesn’t enjoy trying to mention vaginas as much as possible in one article?

The first one – Five Thing Every Parent With a New Baby Should Know – goes into unnecessarily graphic detail about the birthing process before sharing my five essential parenting tools for anyone with a newborn. This includes Dunstan’s Baby Language, which is so amazing that I’m still perplexed as to why it’s not more widely known. It’s also got Dr Harvey Karp’s Happiest Baby on the Block technique.

Incidentally, for anyone with a toddler, Dr Karp’s toddler technique is equally awesome – although my friend reports that her toddler has now learned the magic formula and is starting to game the system. Another reminder that we’re basically dealing with tiny sociopaths here.

I also did one about My Favourite Time Saving Tips for New Mothers, which will really blow your mind with quite how far I’ve fallen since bringing humans into this world. Just reading it makes me want to take a shower. Luckily I had one last night.

Parentdish archive classics

Back in the dawn of man 2.0 when I was helping AOL to set up its blogging division, I spent some time as launch editor of Parentdish UK . As luck would have it, I was actually pregnant at the time, so *almost* knew what I was talking about. One thing I did know about was being pregnant. Here are a couple of pieces I wrote back then

10 Weird Pregnancy Symptoms They Don’t Warn You About

Even More Weird Pregnancy Symptoms

I had a LOT of these symptoms – some of which I’d actually forgotten about and am re-living all over again as I read this articles. Brr.

The newest addition… is already quite old

I was pregnant with my second baby when I wrote that last post, travelling up to Birmingham to spend a very fun day teaching business owners while also sporting an extremely neat bump.

Inevitably the neat bump eventually becomes a totally unwieldy stomach porch, and before you know this arrives:

Arrietty Ellen Milway

But, that all happened quite a while ago. After a while she looked like this:

And now?

Well, now she’s this little bundle of trouble.

Cecily is cold, hence the face.

Hello Birmingham!

I’m off to run a social media masterclass (fancy!) in Birmingham tomorrow. You can still get tickets for this first event, and there will be another one in August. More info over on the Social Media Studio “About the Day” page.

If you’re looking for social and digital media training for brands up in the West Midlands, this could very well be the answer to your prayers! (Although you might want to look into getting some more exciting prayers).

I’ll be running the classes on Identifying and Engaging your Audience and Engaging with journalists and bloggers online.

Social Media Training, Birmingham

• The importance of social media strategy
  Creative and expert planning, identifying objectives, setting goals, time saving tools, building strategy
• How to raise your profile
  Higher engagement levels, improved interaction, more influence
• How to identify your audience
  Selecting media and tools
• How to engage with online journalists and bloggers
  The social media press release, targeting the right audience, distribution, maximising coverage
• How to produce great web content
  How to write for the web, building loyalty, visual and interactive content
• How to manage your online reputation
  Online monitoring, dealing with negative PR, crisis management
• How to measure social media success
  Insights, analytics, evaluation, ROI

Come and say hello!

Social Media Studio – Social Media Training in the Midlands