Ask The Digerati Life a question! (Women of Personal Finance Spotlight)

[svb]

Originally Posted by Norbert The Librarian

There are so many personal finance blogs out there rehashing the same topics over and over again. My favorite thing about Digerati Life is that SVB is able to put very interesting spins on old financial topics.

How do you find these new angles for old topics? Do these ideas just come natural to you? or do you look at what other bloggers have written on the topic and deliberately find a new spin on it?

Thank you Norbert, for the compliment! I so appreciate it.

To answer your questions, when something surprising, entertaining or humorous catches my attention, I try to see if there's a financial angle to it. Then that's how I end up developing the concept of a post. When I write an article, I like to be inspired by a topic and usually, when I get excited about a topic, I know that it may turn out well. The downside is that it sometimes takes an incredibly long time to fashion such an article -- I spend a good amount of time just on research, for instance. I also like to add some color to my posts by introducing data, graphics, images, and the occasional video.

I normally have a notebook where I capture ideas I get while doing mundane things like driving my car or taking a shower . It's true that your best ideas can come to you while you are doing such activities!

On occasion, I may get ideas from other bloggers, but most of my ideas come from the news actually. Something in my newspaper will catch my eye, or my meanderings around the internet will catch my attention. And I also work from past experience -- given my age, I guess I have a few to draw from.

Sometimes, as I write, I start getting nervous about how to end a post. It starts to get rather lengthy, so I end up breaking up a post into several, where I do follow ups. My biggest challenge has been to provide more compact articles that remain in-depth and interesting. I am hoping that I get better at this with experience, but so far, I will admit that it does become time-consuming!

This is why I am not posting more frequently, although I would love to!

[Perchance Frugal]

I recently added you to my rss feed after reading about you here and on the Money Blog Network's forum. I wasn't disappointed.

Can I ask some non-blogging questions? What are your favorite movies, books, and TV shows of all time? Does your family know you are somewhat of a celebrity among other bloggers?

I have a somewhat high profile job but my kids are never impressed with what mommy is up to.

[svb]

Originally Posted by Perchance Frugal

Can I ask some non-blogging questions? What are your favorite movies, books, and TV shows of all time? Does your family know you are somewhat of a celebrity among other bloggers?

I have a somewhat high profile job but my kids are never impressed with what mommy is up to.

Definitely! I welcome all questions, especially those about tv shows. I am actually a huge reality tv fan and have been following many of them since the first ever Survivor episode. My favorite tv shows have been those song and dance shows like American Idol and SYTYCD (that's short for So You Think You Can Dance, whose tix are being given away via this thread...), Amazing Race, The Apprentice, that sort of thing. But I also find crime shows like CSI, Forensic Files, 48 Hours or Cold Case Files, of particular interest. I actually will put CSI Nevada as one of my favorite shows ever. In the past, I absolutely loved Twin Peaks (by David Lynch) and X-Files.

I guess I could go on and on, but I also love British comedy -- Black Adder and Fawlty Towers are favorites of mine!

On the other hand, I have a fascination for Asian thrillers -- don't know why, but am enamored by shows like The Grudge, The Eye, and The Ring (and the Korean: A Tale of Two Sisters). I guess I like to get spooked. Any movie in the suspense/thriller genre, I'll happily watch!

As for books, I used to read a lot of novels, now I don't. I've turned into an internet denizen and spend a lot of time reading stuff on the web... A lot of current events for instance. I'm not fond of politics or sports though, so I usually settle on economic/technology/science/health/general news. I also enjoy short stories and anthologies by the horror masters like Edgar Allan Poe, Clive Barker or Peter Straub. Or Science Fiction material from Ray Bradbury or Harlan Ellison.

With regards to being a blogger: I've been really grateful to be part of a blogosphere that is very supportive and structured. I don't actually consider myself as that recognizable as a blogger (I just wrote a piece on well-known bloggers), although I do look at myself as one who takes blogging seriously. I've been very happy with the growth rate of my blog and hope it continues to keep at its steady pace. And not so secretly, I'd love to be able to keep up with some other PF folks out there! There's so much yet to be done for improvement that I hope I find the time to get to it all before the next century!

To answer your question though, I started out keeping my blog under wraps when it came to my family, as I actually feel very self-conscious if I know that someone I know personally is reading my thoughts. In order to stay "honest" with my writings, I opted to stay anonymous. But over time, info on my blog eventually leaked to various family members and friends, so I've had to train myself to ignore those self-conscious feelings.

Finally, I'd love to know what your high profile job is -- I am sure I'll be *very* impressed!

[Will]

Hi Digerati Life. I remember reading on your profile that you were a techbubble survivor. Do you have any crazy stories about the decadence of those times? Gold-plated pin ball machines or something?

Can you also tell us a bit about the new business ventures you're involved in right now besides blogging. Is it another tech startup?

P.S. Yes you're eligible to win the tickets.

[Found in Boston2]

hich is a way to get to know our ladies of the PF blogosphere more intimately

You sure know how to write a good hook. I'm a die hard lurker on your blog and wisebread. But now I can't resist.

For some reason in my mind's eye I always picture you as Cecilia from PhD Comics. Probably because you are a female engineer and Cecilia is the only female engineering PhD student in the comic.

I guess that's my long way of asking how you handle being in the minority all the time, first as an engineer than as a personal finance blogger. Have you experienced any overt or subtle sexism? Have you ever been treated better because you are a woman?

I adore your latest post about big time bloggers. I never knew blogging can pay so well!!!?!

[Found in Boston2]

I hope you don't take the Cecilia comparison as an insult. She is my favorite character of all time. She's smart, dedicated, curious, beautiful, honest, friendly, and a geek like me! I actually have a bit of a crush on her.

[Dawniepoo]

Just a regular Digerati reader dropping by to say hi. SV you are part of my daily reading frenzy. Keep up the great work.

[Ginger]

Hey SVB,

I remember this post well, along with not even knowing what Adsense was at the time lol....

How did you increase your Adsense earnings to what it is today? I am in sort of a rut with Adsense and not really sure how to increase my monthly revenue.

Thanks in advance!

[svb]

Originally Posted by Will

Hi Digerati Life. I remember reading on your profile that you were a techbubble survivor. Do you have any crazy stories about the decadence of those times? Gold-plated pin ball machines or something?

Hi Will! thanks for these questions, it gives me a chance to reminisce over some crazy times...

About being a techbubble survivor: It was, as the cliche states, a roller coaster experience. I recall the days when people sat around their desks obsessively checking their stock accounts every few minutes. While programming, they'd have their stock ticker window on the side. There were strange ways to spend money: a company I had worked for spent a million dollars on an odd ad campaign, wherein our young, buffed CEO decided to wear a Superman suit and cavort around in the promotional movie as a "super hero".

Lots of sushi in the cafeteria, and free massages, that sort of thing. I write a bit about my own experiences here. I've also taken a snarky approach to Silicon Valley here. And if you're curious about where I *actually* worked, here's my job history .

I also worked at a lot of larger tech companies, so the insanity there wasn't as prevalent, but I did witness how some of my friends' fortunes transformed since many of them joined various successful startups. I don't know anyone who went broke outright (as most people are able to bounce back quickly around here), but I do know some people whose fortunes hit the stratosphere after one or more dot com successes. I may have mentioned it before, but they now move in different social circles from the ones they used to circulate in.... Amazing how that period in time completely rearranged some people's lives.

What was also great about the 1990's was how it was easy to feel that "money grew on trees". Anyone who had a job here benefited from the bubble and saw large and regular increases in compensation over short periods of time.

PS. I will be answering everyone's questions... just taking a break now and again multi-tasking!

[svb]

Originally Posted by Will

Can you also tell us a bit about the new business ventures you're involved in right now besides blogging. Is it another tech startup?

P.S. Yes you're eligible to win the tickets.

Yay (on the tix)!

Here's my story: when I quit my job, I actually was in a position to do it as I found some freelancing work with Mint.com as their interim blog editor/master. That plus The Digerati Life were keeping me quite busy. But my stint at Mint has come to a close, so I'll be working on other projects going forward. I'm contemplating on launching a new site and will see how that works, or I may do individual technical projects with some friends and family members on a contractual basis.

My husband is also self-employed and is working on a startup which may incorporate a blog in the future. I will probably be tapped for advice at some point when they begin to set it up. I am actually quite excited by their site, as it has some potential as a viable company in the Web 2.0 consumer/retail space. Am I allowed to link to them here? But the ramp up time has been quite long -- two years now and development is still ongoing.