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View Full Version : Teddy Tour. Case study of a new blog development




Megan
17-12-2007, 11:42 AM
Leigh decided to help me with an idea that has been running around my head for ages (thank you my darling Leigh): A blog for the stories of people who have been sexually assaulted. Similar in concept to, "The Secret", Teddy Tour will ask survivors to mail me a little tag containing anonymous information about their sexual assault. I upload the info for the world to see what is really happening to our children, our women, our men. There are no names on the tags - just some stories about what happened. NO IDENTIFYING information will be published.

I have been involved in the physical Teddy Tour for a number of years. Teddies wore little tags filled in by real survivors - rather than identify the survivor, the teddy represented them. While it has worked wonderfully at a local level, I wanted to give everyone the chance to participate in a blogosphere Teddy Tour. Because I am just so NOT tech minded, I needed the encouragement and kick that Leigh afforded me.

This case study will not only share the process of developing and marketing a new blog but will give you all the practical steps to replicate to get your own new blogs happening.

Step 1: Share my idea with Leigh.

Step 2: Leigh kicks me into action by offering to register the domain name and to host on her server for 12 months (what could I say? There's no getting out of it now!). WE agree to form a sistership (shh, I'll be announcing that soon enough) and to make the teddytour.com.au a shared initiative between All for Women and Imaginif.

Step 3: Thinking, thinking about domain names. I wanted something that still captured the essence of what the new blog is about but also a term that is highly searchable so that I could capatalise on some accidental hits - teddytour.com.au. Leigh registered it as her contribution to getting this happening for women.

Step 4: I am now familiar with wordpress so I have opted to have a wordpress free theme. I searched the free themes available, knowing that I wanted a 3 column blog (one column for Imaginif, 1 column for All for Women and middle column for the important story tags that survivors will send in.

Step 5: THE SCARY BIT FOR ME - Leigh this is where you take over now. I am going to use the Stitched - 10 theme but I have no idea how to ftp it from my unzipped and saved folder on my PC to wp upload file. Talk me through the process please. Use simple language and remember that I was only 2 years younger than you are now when I even turned a computer on.




katef
17-12-2007, 09:17 PM
wow that sounds like an amazing idea!

If there is anything I can do (with my very limited blogging skills.. tho I do have some graphic design skills if that might help?) please let me know

Kate

tianakaesha
18-12-2007, 06:31 AM
Will def be involved with this.. good luck.

Megan
18-12-2007, 09:57 AM
Thanks Kate and Tiana
it is meant to be a community type blog so it is great that you are both prepared to help.

Leigh has suggested that the theme I had picked may be absent of any recent updates. In fear that it won't be compatible with Wordpress updates, I'm going back to pick another theme. So...let's see what I can find.

How hard can it be to get the right theme??????????

tianakaesha
18-12-2007, 10:51 AM
Megan - why not create a new theme altogether that is specific to just you?

Don't know much about Wordpress themes myself, but the blogger stuff I use is a header image and edits in the CSS files.... Is Wordpress like that? If it is, would be happy to help work on an image for the header today... you can grab me on MSN if you like. tianakaesha at hotmail.com for msn ... happy to chat.. (though you probably have other resources at your disposal at the moment too!)

katef
18-12-2007, 11:00 AM
I have had a small play with wordpress and yeah Krisite it is much like blogger only I think easier to play with the CSS. I am sure someone else here will have more expertise but I can do basic colour changes if that helps :)

Kate

Leigh
18-12-2007, 11:19 AM
Editing the theme isn't a problem. Just need something with the basic idea that Megan likes (and I don't think it too gross ;) ) to start off with

Megan
18-12-2007, 12:56 PM
Okay, Leigh and I have settled on a basic theme and now Leigh is going to wave her magic tweaking wand and make it unique to the Teddy Tour.

We have to come up with a header pic. Something that has a teddy or teddies in it. I have sent a pic I rather like to Leigh for her consideration and stretching into a banner type scenario.

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb28/imaginif/teddy%20tour/herbertbear3byRizzlyatstockxchng.jpg

I got the pic from stock.xchng (http://www.sxc.hu/), a free photo shareware source. I use a lot of their pics (because my photography is wanting!!!!) and credit the photographer at the end of my blogs.

What do you think of the above pic? I like the half a teddy, with no mouth because of the symbolism for survivors of sexual assault - they are almost unseen and few people listen and believe what they have to say.

Our new site is about busting that open - to give survivors an anonymous voice and to take away some of the stigma and hiding. We want to put child sexual abuse right out there in the blogosphere so that survivors get the voice they need and awareness remains uppermost in everybody's mind.

Tiana. if you want to have a go at making a header we would love to see it. I am HOPELESS at all this technical stuff but I am good with the content, marketing and specialised knowledge, so that's where I can really help this project.

Riayn
18-12-2007, 01:08 PM
I love the teddy bear picture and I think it is perfect for the site.

tianakaesha
18-12-2007, 02:15 PM
I like the image (and love stock exchange! use it lots myself!)

Megan
18-12-2007, 03:14 PM
Thanks women. Leigh is hard at work like one of Santa's elfs and is getting her hands all dirty with the back end (errh...that sounds wrong but you know what I mean). We''ll share more with you as it happens.

katef
18-12-2007, 05:19 PM
oh that teddy is going to make a great banner

Leigh
18-12-2007, 05:39 PM
:blink: hands...in the backend... ewwww

Megan
18-12-2007, 08:55 PM
I know...yuck, yuck, yuck. I hope you at least had rubber gloves on Leigh!

I have put up the initial blog and pages. I need another 3 pages Leigh but it won't save them for me.

Leigh has the blog parked in maintenance mode so that anybody who may come across it gets a "coming soon" message. You can all tesst this by going to teddytour.com.au

As soon as I make up a teddy tag for survivors of sexual violence to send in, I'll be right to go live Leigh (does someone creative want to make me up a postcard sized tag perhaps?????). I think I'll then talk everyone through the process of adding the blog to technorati, feedburner, blog catalogue, etc, bumpzee, etc, once we are live. What do you think Leigh????

I am aiming for maximum traffic so that we can cover as many survivors of sexual abuse as possible and get the word out that our group of bloggers just will not tolerate abuse at all. I am a real shit and hate the word "no" so watch us fly women.

But now...I have to go eat the steak and salad that my darling has prepared all by himself (about time too, I tell you!!!) so that I could have more computer play time. Ohhh, I love him big time.

Stormy
23-12-2007, 04:53 PM
Sounds like a great idea Megan and once it is up and running I will spread the word at work. I was thinking maybe a flyer that I can email to the girls down at sexual health who have more networks and contacts than I do in this kind of field. I'll be keeping an eye on that URL :)

ModernGoddess
28-12-2007, 08:32 PM
WOW! What a fantastic idea! All the best with the implementation Megan and Leigh.