Thursday, September 7, 2017

Into the Scrum: On Being a Dad Influencer

New Podcast about the community of Dad Influencers.
Get the Podcast on Itunes
Two friends and colleagues in the dad blogger (excuse me, Dad Influencer) world have started a great podcast that they've titled Into The Scrum.  The podcast is about the community of Dad Influencers, and as they pithily put it on their twitter feed  "How to get gigs, support colleagues, and lift all boats."

The two colleagues are Jeff Bogle (founder and writer for Out With The Kids OWTK.COM and Doug French (Originally LaidOffDad, he's moved his blog to MrDougFrench.com and is the co-founder of Dad 2.0 Summit)

Both are smart guys with lots of experience navigating the business of being an influencer and a fair amount of success doing it.  Jeff's blog is full of sponsored posts as a brand ambassador to Kia, PBS, and lots of other top brands.  Last year Jeff won the Iris award for his photography, and his writing is really great. (And he has two daughters, one whose nickname is "The Bear" I guess I wasn't as original as I thought!  Jeff is also a Kindie music fiend, and when I showed up at KindieFest in Brooklyn a few years ago, I was amazed to find out that he was hip deep with Kindie artists.  His Kindie podcast is also worth listening to.

 Doug deals with brands everyday as the "Content guy" at Dad 2.0.  He was an early influencer/adopter/blogger and was an author/contributor on Babble, one of the top parenting blogs.

 Their podcast is pretty funny, it's heartfelt, and it makes great points as these two guys talk about the problems and pitfalls (and joys, of course) of being a male influencer in the parenting sphere, which has been typically dominated by women (the dreaded mom bloggers).

I've listened to the first five episodes, and while there is a small tendency to get far afield (one of the episodes spent about 5-7 minutes talking about Jeff repainting his living room from brown to teal) they talk about great stuff.

In the first or second episode, they talk about how it is possible to be happy for other people who succeed, even when they are doing stuff you wish you had been selected to do, or feel like you could do better.  They term this JOMO (Jealousy Of Missing Out) because it is the opposite of MOJO -- which I don't have an acronym for- care to give it a whirl in the comments?  As long as the third word isn't Jerk, we are good!)

 Their argument is that there is plenty of work out there for good influencers, and they give tips on how to get that work, and best practices, and good ideas to be the best influencer you can be (both financially and morally)  Of course, a tip like "Be easy to work with" is easy to say, but they give tips like turning in your deadline assignments early, checking in with people who have hired you in the past, be genuine with your requests and interest in them as people, etc.  All excellentt advice.

This is a great idea for a podcast, and a great time for this podcast, as things are really starting to heat up for Dad Influencers.  I've really enjoyed listening to the last 5 episodes, and I have to admit, I want to listen to more.


In other words, I hate these rat bastids!  :O)


The French Bogle Connection.  (Bogle on Left, French to the right)



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