This is the perfect summer no hassle hors’ devours.

Raspberry Chipotle Cream Cheese Dip

* One block of cream cheese
* Pour Raspberry Chipotle BBQ and Finishing Sauce over cream cheese
* Serve with crackers

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We saw this woman at the zoo yesterday.

She has piercings up the back of her calves. She has laced her piercings in order to look like stockings!

So far this is the oddest thing I’ve seen on my trip and I just went to San Francisco. Salt Lake City beat San Francisco as far as oddities. Go figure.

Reunited with my kids, check that out over at So Sioux Me: Reunited.

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When I met this woman, sitting next to me in a SEO training I said a silent prayer “Thank you God for Girl Geeks.” She showed me some really cool html code. She also went with me to Google and now I know for sure, It’s NOT me screwing up my Adsense account - it’s YOU Google.

See the 3rd person from the right? That’s Mona Gable and she’s a political writer and she writes for The Huffington Post. This election she’s covered Edwards, Hillary and Obama. She’s pretty much who I wanted to be when I grew up. She also wrote an article about girls and bras that I hope to link to on Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me when it comes out. She was very warm and I enjoyed her company.

These are executives from Essence, Redbook and Bravo (with our own Jenny from BlogHer - who I L-O-V-E). And yes I did run up to the front with my card and thrust it in the Redbook execs hand and yes I did stop her in the hall and say, Look I’d just love to have face time with you and then proceed to tell her all about my Empowering Girls writing!

And this is Ellen Gerstein, who writes Confessions of an It Girl and is also a real live book publisher who sat right next to me in the first Speakers Training. I H-E-A-R-T Ellen. She came to my panel - she has a daughter - and I went to hers and it was amazing and wonderful.

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This is MY view from the panel. I don’t know if there is a picture of me on the panel.

So I had my big BlogHer08 speaking panel, Mirrors: Ours, The Medias, Our Cultures and Our Kids speaking panel yesterday and it was a rush.

The panelists were Laurie Toby Edison of Body Impolitic, Tracee Sioux of Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me, Kelly Wickham of Mocha Momma, and Glennia Campbell of The Silent I (also Mom-o-crats and Kimchi Mamas).

Laurie Toby published the transcript on her blog and I’d love if you would hop over and read it. I think it went really, really well.

Audience member: My husband is judging her clothing choices. I think that shes a little girl, and I think little girls get to wear shorts. I dont think little girls should be wearing a habit in the summer time when shes hot. He has this way of messaging to her that thats not okay, and I am very defensive of her right to be a little girl, and I dont want her to be ashamed. Youre a little girl, and you get to just be a little girl. My husband and I go round and round about that.

Tracee: I have that same issue with my husband. Weve been to therapy about some girl issues. We have to realize that their job is to protect little girls, but we as mothers sort of have to teach them Theres this idea in society that if a girl covers up, nothing bad will happen to her, and thats just plain fiction. Husbands want to do something, fathers want to do something, and we have to teach them. I dont want her to wear the midriff not because Im afraid of sexual predators but because Im afraid you will judge me as a mother.

Truly, I had the best time. It was so encouraging to see how many women are thinking about the complex world our daughters live in and how best to approach the building/moulding of their selves.

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Because I love all my readers who ARE bloggers (and the ones who aren’t but might be interested) I’m posting my notes from the Taking Care of Business seminar at BlogHer08 unedited (because I don’t really have time to perfect it.)

Defamation - reasonable listener - something wrong with my meal and manageer was extremely rude and gave examples that it’s false - truth is an absolute defense against defamation - doing it with malace and to harm reputation. If your just saying but this is just my opinion that’s not enough continually show that it’s jut your experience and oponion.

Copyright Law a work is considered copyrighted and protecgted by the law as soon as it is created. Labeling is great, but whether you label it or not, it is copyrighted.

Fair use has to do with commentating and criticism and there have been cases in the news AP case and Harry Potter case. You can see both sides of it but there are 4 factors that the court looks at - what are the factors?

* Nature of the Work

* Amount taken

* Purpose of the Work

* Effect on the Market - really huge. effect on competition. Original creators right can be stiffled by someone else using pieces of their work in a non-fair mannor.

Creative commons - started the org. nonprofit, objective really allow for online digital remixing and creativity to occur even though we live with this weird copyright system. A way for online digital creative commons liscense - some rights reserved license - hand out - restricting access but always getting attribution. Urge everyone to look into that.

Respecting trademarks, likelyhood of confusion,not using it exactly but if it’s in your same market and it could confuse consumers that is a problem.

Liabilities. Starting or in business, comes with responsiblities and costs - not a single answer. What are the tax implications? Selecting management structure going to be like, what your assets are - just for yourself. What can you do from a financial standpoint and personal liabiliy. Limits your personal liabilty from the assets of the company - house and car protected from a claim from a preditor - corporate veil respected and running it as a company.

Terms of use: appropriate rights and taking care of liability.

Allocate risk in agreements everyone shoudl know they can negotiate an agreement. Read it understand it and ask question if you dont understand it and negotiate it. Not boilerplate the way it is.

Collaberative blogs, Silicone Valley Moms blog - not thinking through all issues- coblogging agreement.

Kelly Philips Erb - TaxGirl.com, b5media channel editor

4 times the length of the bible - the tax code.

Income is like everything you get, (even stuff to review) - unless it’s excluded.

1099s - paid you more than $600. If company doesn’t give 1099 you don’t have to report income - NOT TRUE.

IRS is prety smart - claiming large deductions for your work in blogging

Keep track yourself, report all income - worldwide taxation.

Includes services and products - very aggresive review on product reviews - if it’s disposable it’s not income for me. If I eat them it’s not income.

Like to see matching up - reporting deduction and income.

Ordinary and Necessary

Don’t be afraid to claim a duduction.

If you were not blogging yuou would not be at BlogHer - ergo BlogHer deductible.

Business Cards - that’s a deduction, except for your blog.

Laptop just for me and my work - deduction.

Expenses can be prorated amount of time for use on the blogg

Home office key is that it has to be soley where you work. Section is fine, dedicated works space. Caviate city occupancy tax - chome office deductions will expose you to business occupancy tax for the city. Tax your home office.

Have your income offset by your deductions - not uncommon to have a loss - if I lost $1,000 you can carry it forward for the next year. Do you have a business or a hobby? do you have a motivation to make money? Just for fun not marketing or treating it like a business.

Scan reciepts save it in shoeboxes - know your good with. Don’t buy the software if you’re eally going to shove the reciepts in shoeboxes.

Giveaways - a wash.

If you can physically control something the IRS cares.

Sabrina Parsons, CEO Palo Alto Software - We exist to help people succeed in business. Tools content and advice.

HOW DO I MAKE MONEY? How to I make my blog a money generating activity.

You should be putting a SALARY in the books as a loss. Biggest mistakes poeple make is not paying themselves a salary. Don’t actually have to pay myself $15,000 but put it in the books. Once you start making money you can take that money out of the next year . Figure out some price for the things you do.

Biggest thing you have to do is look at what you’re doing as a BUSINESS. No reason you should be working for free. Take it seriously. Make it your business and once you do that figure out your business goal and figure out what it’s going to take.

1st step to pricing your services.

Connection with freelance writing and consulting services. Seeing you as a person or expert. See what your competitors are doing. Just ask and they’ll tell you and there are salary websites. Salary calculators online.

Freelance websites where people are posting. Type in freelance writer in Google and trying to be a journalist and product reviews. There’s going to be people who want to have your attention. Maybe you’re charging them a commission.

Break it down: I want to make $10,000 then what’s my quarterly goal $3,300.

Become the spammer - contact the companies business development person and then say who you are and what they want. Go out and contact them - be in control of what you want - pick out the top 10 websites and present them with a package. they are soliciting it. Go out and soliciting it. Here’s who I am, this is how many page views I get, here’s my demographics. Use google analytics, you can do all kinds of things to prove what it’s worth.

My stuff is worth what I say it’s worth! Give it a shot - I’ll give it 8 weeks, to be in a relationship. We both bring something to the table. show them how they will be better off. Taking a few risks, maybe some free stuff to prove themselves. Make sure you set it up if you give it for free, you don’t have to give it for free forever.

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