hola, isabel

I was asked to give a five minute presentation tonight for a church activity for the ladies in my congregation. (We call evenings like this Enrichment Night. You know, so we can go and get enriched on a Tuesday night.) My topic is “How to start your own blog”.

That’s right.

I’m giving a presentation. To a room full of Mormon ladies. On blogging.

That will only take FIVE MINUTES!

Okay, to be honest I was initially told I would only have five minutes but then they told me yesterday that I could take “ten, maybe fifteen minutes”.

TEN MINUTES to talk about blogging to people that have no idea what a blog is. Basically they want me to show step by step instruction on how to start your own blog. I figure I’ll tell them about blogger. No need to talk about domain names and servers and self-hosting. It will just be easier to tell them to start with Blogger.com. Don’t you think?

Since I knew I had a very short amount of time to share blogging with the ladies from my congregation, I figured the easiest thing would be to come up with a PowerPoint presentation. Not only will this be easier, it’s just more fun for me. This way I can use screen shots and add pretty colors and embellishments. (Too bad I can’t use glitter. As you all know, glitter just makes things so much more awesome.) (Oh my gosh, I should use glitter on the print outs I give them.) I’m hoping that the use of my laptop and my work’s projector will help the ladies better grasp the concept of blogging.

Below is a list of blogging items I plan on sharing with the ladies in an attempt to enrich them:

• Blogging is a great way to journal.
• Blogging is a great way to keep in touch with family and friends.
• Be smart about blogging. ( Be careful using real names, addresses, etc on the interweb.) ( Watch out for google stalking!)  (Oh my goodness, how I love google stalking.)
• Google Reader is your friend.
• Google alerts are pretty awesome.
• SiteMeter is also your friend.
• Technorati is also pretty friendly.
• Blogging is way better then Facebook. (Rumor has it that some ladies from church are always fighting over which is better. I’m here to tell them…blogging rules!)
• Be prepared for blogging to take over your life. In a good way.

Below is a list of blogging items I DO NOT plan on sharing with the ladies.

• www.holaisabel.com
• www.seattlemomblogs.com
• www.newtous.blogspot.com
• www.weheartlogan.blogspot.com

Yep, that’s the kind of information I’ll be keeping to myself.

I think I also want to tell the church ladies that they’ll be surprised at how much they’re going to enjoy the blogging community. I want to share with them stories about meeting bloggers in real life and the love and generosity I continually feel from those inside my computer.

Yes, all of this in ten (maybe fifteen) minutes.

So tell me, what else should I tell them about? Any secret awesome “how-to make your blog awesome” websites out there?