One Smart Cookie

When I posted my satirical (and maybe sanctimonious) daddy blog commentary about Pizzazz, in the back of my mind I had already planned a follow up post to help clarify a few points that may have been misconstrued. Do I think product reviews are bad? No. Do I think running ads or making money from parent blogging is bad? Not necessarily. In fact, over the past month, I’ve been gathering advice from a host of respected mom and dad bloggers as the first step in starting to treat my own site as a professional endeavor. The concern for me in doing this, however, is that I’ve also expressed some finite rules, chief of which being to always provide quality content that doesn’t alienate readers, and I don’t want to come off as a hypocrite.

Near as I can tell, people return to Clark Kent’s Lunchbox for …well, I don’t know why they do, but I’m sure it’s not for an extensive rundown on titanium, bulletproof infant seats produced by the strategic minds at Combat Kids International, makers of fine, military-grade baby products and distributors of state-of-the-art weaponry around the globe. Yet, if I’m talking about being in the business of blogging, that means working with profit-minded companies. This then begs the question of how. How do I as a “professional” blogger/writer form relationships with brands without sacrificing my own "product" or becoming a Pizzazz sellout?

This past week, after Blog Nosh Magazine approached me about a commissioned (yes, paid) opportunity to participate in their The Heart and Art of Parenthood blog carnival which involved a major brand, I found my answer. The thing is, this answer can’t simply be laid out in the form of a few bullet points—it has to be told, which is why I’m inviting you to Blog Nosh Magazine for a remarkable story about a woman who was one smart cookie. And in today’s economy, I think many of us will be able to relate.

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