Friday, July 24, 2009

My Change Nation Interview

Dear Readers,

I met Ariane de Bonvoisin a year ago, and we quickly become fast friends. She is the Founder and CEO of First30Days.com, a site and brand that enables you to change your life so you are living the best life you can.

I was honored that Ariane interviewed me for her Change Nation series - about launching my business, for free.

Here's a link to the article, which I hope you find helpful. It includes a link to the video interview.

XOXO,
Auntie Melanie

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Savvy Auntie Gift Ideas on NBC's The 10! Show

Dear Readers,

I'm feeling MUCH more comfortable on TV. Starting to get the hang of it. Here's my latest NBC 10! Show appearance - with gift ideas for the Savvy Auntie!




By the way - I appear weekly on Fox News Strategy Room, Thursdays at 3PM ET! Catch me there live online!

XOXO,
Auntie Melanie

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

First Savvy Auntie Video!

Dear Readers,

Thanks to Savvy Interns Liat Tsarfati and Becky Steinberg, and the incredibly talented Tim Kress-Spatz of Ambush.TV, we produced our very first Savvy Auntie tv video!

This first episode is dedicated to Savvy Auntie's Day July 26th!!

Watch it here!





I hope you enjoyed it!

What will you be doing on Savvy Auntie's Day?

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Happy Birthday, SavvyAuntie.com!

Dear Readers,

Wow... I can't believe it's a year to the day since I launched SavvyAuntie.com. It's been the most fabulous and most rewarding year of my life. I am humbled by the response and proud of the success. And I am so very happy that aunts and godmothers are getting the recognition they deserve. What an amazing tribute to them!

One of the most valuable things I have learned this past year is how good-natured and generous people are. From you, Dear Readers, to the media, bloggers, other sites and online communities, SavvyAuntie.com members, my advisers, my interns, my developer, my designers, my talent manager, my interim CFO, sales reps, photographers and videographers, my literary agents, the Savvy Auntie Experts, the Twitter Followers, the Facebook Fans, the PR people, and the sponsors who are all so wonderful to work with....

In fact, I'm writing this blog post on my new DELL Latitude E4300 Laptop and reading it on my 22" DELL monitor. Last year, @Kara_atDell was following me on Twitter and was very supportive of the launch of SavvyAuntie.com. She even interviewed me for the DELL Small Business Blog. Twice. Kara has been watching the launch and journey of SavvyAuntie.com because DELL is interested in women in small business and how DELL can help them.

DELL sent me this laptop and monitor (as well as some necessary
accessories) to help me run my business more effectively. I won't be reviewing the products - I'm not a reviewer - but I am acknowledging that DELL is supportive of women in small business and we both hope to take this relationship further as my business grows. I'll also be giving feedback to Kara on how well this system works for me so that they can continue to improve their products for women in small business.

Kara and the team at DELL have done so much to help make this process easy and have been very generous with me. For example, they understood that one of my main concerns with a laptop is portability. I'm petite and every ounce more I schlepp around New York City is felt. So they offered me a 3.3lb laptop. They heard me. And I appreciate that.

When I asked Kara why she chose me for this project, here's what she had to say:

"As we’ve chatted about before, Dell continues to look for more ways to connect with customers online. Over the past several years Dell has become active in social media through customer outreach, blogging, Twitter, Facebook and participation with other communities – but are always looking for new ways to build meaningful relationships with customers and get their feedback about Dell products and services.

"There has been a lot of chatter in the blogosphere about ‘blogger relation’ programs…but there didn’t seem to be the perfect format for us. So, we decided to start small and reach out to bloggers we already knew to help us build a program.

"The first aspect of the program we are piloting is getting some of our latest systems into the hands of bloggers to provide us feedback on how they use it, what’s good about it and what doesn’t seem to work for them. This ‘review’ is not for just a week, because who really uses a system for just one week? We asked you to participate not just because you have a credible voice in the world of social media, but more importantly, a wonderful entrepreneurial spirit, much like many of our small and medium business customers. What better way to get feedback about the PCs we develop for SMBs than from a business owner who will use it every day to run their company and already shares business challenges and successes with peers?"


So thanks DELL. And thanks to all the sponsors who have supported SavvyAuntie.com this year in one way or another:

Hasbro/Playskool
Warner Brothers
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Yoplait Kids
Turner/TNT
1-800-FLOWERS
Vivre
pingg
Sephora
and many more to come...

At 1PM ET on July 9, 2008, we went live. And one year later, at 1PM ET July 9, 2009, I say thank you for coming on this journey with me. It means more to me than you can ever imagine.