As I’m very new to this blogging malarky I was surprised to be asked a few weeks ago to give a short talk at Manchester Girl Geeks on my blogging experience by the lovely Zoe Breen of http://cheeruplove.com/ As I’m still very much learning the craft myself I was uncertain of what advice I could give to others but I was persuaded that Zoe wanted bloggers of varying levels to share their experiences.
First up was Natalie Clare. Eager to encourage women into STEM industries she blogs about her experiences of being a woman working in engineering and her STEM heroines in her blog http://engineerwithstyle.blogspot.co.uk/
I was next up and despite my nerves I tried to pass on some encouragement to any of the attendees toying with the idea of setting up their own blog. Basically just go for it, try a free hosting site and if you find you don’t like it then you’ve lost nothing and at least you gave it a go.
Sophie’s interest in the real science behind those beauty product claims inspired her blog http://www.thescientificbeauty.com/ Her work has lead to her being interviewed on a local TV channel.
More inspiration was provided by Claire Gowler whose blog about non binary gender identity on her http://www.kitation.co.uk/ site has led to her being invited to give talks on the subject at several conferences and events.
Rosie Campbell works in the Research and Development department of the BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/people/rosie-campbell?Type=Posts&Decade=All , and her work has also led to her guest speaking at conferences and events as well as contributing to a magazine article.
The final speaker of the day was Clare Sudbury, who as well as having had two novels published also blogs as https://medium.com/a-woman-in-technology/links-eb4e2a0a7a43#.3auiwxtt5 . Clare was brave enough to talk about a bad online experience she’d had some years back but it was fantastic to see that she hadn’t let this put her off creating this new blog.
The event was rounded off with a Q&A session. It was a shame to hear that the main reason people had for not starting up a blog they’d like to do was the fear of trolling. All I could say to that was stuff them and go for it.
I’m so glad that I attended. All the other speakers were brilliant and I learned so much from them. Best of all was that the event help to give Chrissy the final push to publish her http://makingitmindful.com/2016/01/24/meet-the-bloggers-my-first-manchester-girl-geeks-event/ page. Good luck Chrissy.
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