Miss Apps just received a nice e-mail from Gloria Feldt. Gloria is one of my “SHE-RO’s”. She is someone we can all learn a great deal from as we work to improve our Social Media Skills and build our own niche markets. Gloria is a writer, activist, and public speaker with a long history of involvement in the Women’s Movement. Vanity Fair magazine dubbed her one of America’s “top 200 women legends, leaders, and trailblazers” and Glamour named her Woman of the Year.
Her bio includes gigs with The New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, Alternet, Salon, The Today show, Good Morning America, and the 92nd Street Y, (Where Miss Apps will be attending a conference next week.)
Clearly this woman has built a resume that could make any public speaker or web writer swoon. Gloria is a professional who understands the power of Social Media Networks and how to use them. She has defined a niche market of expertise, worked hard to cultivate a cross linking web of networks and relationships, and if you Google her name, you will see a very long list of her accomplishments.
Miss Apps was so touched when Gloria sent an autographed review copy of her book The War on Choice for an upcoming Huffington Post article I am working on.
After putting the bones of the piece together, I sent her a draft to fact check.
The first paragraph of her reply included the line:
You have created a beautiful framework to remind Americans what is at stake on this Roe anniversary.
Wow. What a perfect thing to say to a writer: “You have created a beautiful framework.
That is after all, what we prose-oholics dream of doing when we write; Create beautiful frameworks.
I don’t know about you, but I often find that a difficult thing to do. I have so many ideas floating around in my head, and they ALL have connections. More often than not, I tend to connect too many different dots in my essays, which basically turns the framework into a pile of mangled steel.
Beautiful frameworks require structure, and simplicity. It is a melding of art and form. It can be linear, or circular, or spiral, in style and point, as long as the framework is sound.
But simplicity is complicated.
I admire Gloria, her achievements, and the well designed architecture of her website, which I highly recommend you take a good look at. She is a great example of how to define your expertise to one area, and build a career through writing about it. I also admire her work because she has chosen a niche with a public service element. Her work is not about hawking a product or self promotion. It’s about improving womens lives.
That’s powerful stuff.
As for Miss Applesassy, I will hold Gloria’s kind words of encouragment most dear.
–And hopefully, build better frameworks as a result.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Make money but most of all effect positive change.
Bless you all efforts.
Thank you Gabriele, for that very sweet sentiment.
Elegant exchange. Off to Gloria’s website