The next morning I was tagged on Facebook by my online buddy, Emily.  It transpired that Paul was also an old school friend of her’s (though she had no connection to my friend Stuart!) and she was thrilled that her two FB friends had connected via a third party!  I was quite amazed at the connection, and Paul and I started up another discussion under Emily’s status.  It turned out that Paul had since discovered yet another common link, my old school friend, Mark.  We found all this very amusing and decided to become Facebook friends ourselves!  It’s definitely a small world!

Here’s how we link together:

• Stuart is the brother of my friend, Christine.  Paul and Stuart worked together.
• Mark is an old school friend of mine.  Paul met Mark through a different job.
• Emily and I connected via Twitter a few years ago, but we have yet to meet up in real life.  Paul and Emily are old school friends.

On regaling this story to my colleagues, we got talking about Six Degrees of Separation and The Kevin Bacon Rule.  It transpired that I can indeed connect to Kevin Bacon via six steps.  Here they are:

1. I used to work with (and I’m still FB friends with)…
2. Karen McGarrity, who has an award-winning actress sister called…
3. Kathleen McDermott, who made her acting debut in Morvern Callar, starring with…
4. Samantha Morton, who starred in Minority Report with….
5. Tom Cruise, who starred in A Few Good Men with…
6. Kevin Bacon

Can any of my readers connect to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less?  (It helps if you have a celebrity friend!)

This reminded me of a blogging meme I noticed a while back, that I’ve always wanted to participate in, but have just never got round to doing…… until now that is! 


It’s called Six Degrees of Blogging, and it’s the brainchild of Julia from Work Wife Mom Life.  Here’s how it works:

• Start on your own blog
• Click on a link to another blog. On that blog, click a link to another blog,  that leads to another and another til you get to 6 clicks.
• Once you arrive on your “six degrees” blog, leave a comment saying “Hey! Found you through six degrees of blogging.  Your are featured on my blog! (Leave your blog URL so they can find you.)
• THEN, on your own blog, write a super quick post that includes the Six Degrees Button and a quick blurb saying who you found and something nice about them and/or their blog.
• Encourage your readers to stop by their blog as well and leave some comment love!

Here’s how I did it:

1. I clicked on a recent commenter – See Foxes?
2. On this blog I clicked on a button link to Airing My Dirty Laundry by The Whispering Writer
3. On this blog I clicked on a button link to blog network The Secret Is In The Sauce
4. I clicked the link for their featured blogger of the day – The Articulate Ramblings of the Attorney-At-Mom
5. From this blog (which certainly deserved to be featured on SITS!) I clicked on a blog feed link to Mommy Words.
6. From this blog I clicked on my final destination……. the last person to comment on Mommy Words before me….. The Kitchen Witch.

 The Kitchen Witch is written by former teacher, writer and chef, Dana, who provides an ecclectic mix of delicious recipes, vivid memories, parenting info and beautiful photographs. 

This was my first visit to the Kitchen Witch, but I was certainly impressed and will most definitely be back.  I particularly want to try out some of her mouth-watering recipes, especially her Chicken Parmesan Burgers.  (Yummers!)

Why don’t you give this fun meme a try?   It’s a great way of finding new and interesting sites! 

I like to participate in the Follow Friday meme on Twitter and, when setting up MammaKerr, I envisaged using a Follow Friday meme on my blog. Initially, I anticipated using site reviews of the blogs and sites I like to follow. Indeed, I did do a couple of blog posts on this last year. However, I’ve not yet been able to get into my “blogging groove” and so, sadly, this has not become a regular fixture on my blog.

I was delighted to come across a Friday Follow Blog Hop on A Mom’s Rantings. I came across this great blog via Entrecard.

Check out the MckLinky below and, if you decide to participate, add your link. Then start following the other blogs. You only have to add your link to one and it will appear everywhere the MckLinky is added.

Here’s the official rules:

–Link up your blog name and URL using the MckLinky below. Only need to add on one blog to be seen on all the blog hops.
–Follow the Friday Follow hostesses listed in the first 3 slots.
–Follow as many blogs as you’d like.
–Take a moment to comment on the blogs telling them you’re from Friday Follow.
–Follow back when you get a new follower through Friday Follow.

So why bother with this blog hopping Friday Follow malarky?

• You can discover lots of new, interesting blogs to follow, as well as people to follow on Twitter and Facebook.
• Lots of people will visit your site, leave comments and follow you.
• It’s simply an easy, fun way of increasing traffic to your site and, in turn, your search engine rankings.

Have a go!  Start hopping!  You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to a fantastic website, set up by my good friend, James Spence – The Cat Comic.

Tell us about your site.

The Cat Comic (http://www.thecatcomic.com) delivers quirky cat cartoons every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  It celebrates the idea that cats have unique personalities and each update introduces readers to a new kitty with their own outlook on life.  The comic is quite silly but then so are a lot of cats!   Especially if there’s tuna at stake!

What inspired you to create The Cat Comic?

I had previously drawn an online comic called Dr Sheep and the Aardvark.  This was a black and white comic strip which told the story of an amnesiac aardvark and the doctor who looked after him.  With it being a strip rather than a single panel, I found myself drawing the same characters, often in the same positions, over and over again.  So, for my next project, I wanted something where each panel was very different to the previous one, I wanted to make it colourful and I didn’t want the readers to have any idea about what would be coming up next (other than that it would feature a cat).

The style of humour is different to my old comic and it’s all thanks to Twitter!  I started using Twitter (after some encouragement from a certain Annette Kerr) and wrote silly, comical ‘tweets’.  I loved the challenge of writing something amusing within their 140 character restriction.  With only one panel to get the joke across, The Cat Comic is written in that same economical style.

How long have you been a cartoonist?

Dr Sheep and the Aardvark began in 1999, in a very sketchy, raw, unpolished format.  In other words, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing!  It originally ran until 2002, by which time I had learned the basics of how to fake it.  Around that time, however, I began writing my book (Silly Beggar) and the comic was left to gather dust.  I didn’t return to comics until 2007 when I relaunched Dr Sheep and the Aardvark in a slightly more polished style.  It is now only the strips from 2007 which appear online – I shudder whenever I look back at the early scribbles.

How long does it take you to create your cartoons?

I draw the cats in pencil (quite roughly), then ink over them as tidily as I can using nice thick lines, then I scan them into the computer and finally work some Photoshop magic to colour and shade them.  The amount of time it takes depends on how much Photoshop is required.  For a very basic unpatterned cat with a blank background, it takes around 2 hours and for a complex image it can take as much as 4 or 5.  It often depends on how many mistakes I have to correct!

Where do you get the ideas for your cats?

Sometimes I take an old phrase or saying and add a twist of absurdity.  Other times I will draw a cat in a silly pose and then treat it like a caption contest, coming up with ideas until I get one I like.  Sometimes though, an idea will literally pop into my head and it is impossible to say where it came from.  Once I have an idea drawn up, the very last thing I do is name the cat.  I try to find a name that feels right for that particular cat, and once named it gives me closure so I can move on to the next fuzzy feline!

Tell us about Angel.

Angel is my real life cat.  She’s a seven-year old tortoiseshell with quite a large belly.  When the house starts rattling you know she is coming.  Angel features from time to time in the comic and I try to give her lines that seem appropriate for her unique personality.  She has very unusual markings on her face, as if her face is split symmetrically into a light side and a dark side, like the Phantom of the Opera!  Yes, I guess she could be described as the Phantom of the O-purr-a!

How do you promote your site?

I advertise through an ad site called Project Wonderful.  It tends to be mostly webcomic creators that use it, so when I advertise, it targets comic readers specifically.  I also promote it via Twitter and I’m hoping to start going to some cat shows in the near future to spread the word amongst the cat community.

Have you any plans to develop the site further?

I am planning on opening an online store soon, where I’ll sell prints, book collections of the comics and other goodies, but so far I’ve not had time to get it up and running.

What blogs do you like reading?

There is no blog finer than the Mammakerr blog!  However, when I am forced to read other blogs I tend to visit other online comics.  Sheldon and Dr McNinja are amongst my favourites.

You can follow James on Twitter at www.twitter.com/sillybeggar

I just found this site that shows you a way of getting 1000′s of new followers on twitter, I just started using it myself and its starting to work already.

http://tweetergetter.com/annttkerr

I thought it might interest you.

I’d like to remind you, though, that Twitter should be all about interaction.  It is not a popularity contest, where you collect followers like trophies.  It’s great to get lots of followers, but you should be prepared to follow many of them back, to allow for proper interaction.

If you haven’t signed up to Twitter yet, you can do so here.  Please then follow me @annttkerr.

Thanks for visiting!

Next week, 180 cities across the world will unite in raising funds for the non-profit charity : water at a series of Twestival events, attended by the Twittering community.

I am delighted to be taking part in The Edinburgh Twestival, which will be held on Thursday 12 February 2009 at 7pm at Hawke and Hunter, 12 Picardy Place, Edinburgh EH1 3JT.

There will be live music, WiFi action, live video streaming across the world and lots of networking.  I am looking forward to meeting the ‘McTwitterati*’.  It will be great to meet people that I consider friends, although we’ll be meeting for the first time at this event.

There will be a raffle and an auction, with lots of fantastic prizes, donated by sponsors and participants alike.  All proceeds will go to charity : water.  I have donated three small prizes to the raffle:

1.      £10 Virgin Vie At Home Voucher   - skincare, cosmetics, jewellery and homeware.

2.      £10 Barefoot Books Voucher – beautiful children’s books.

3.      $25 (£15 approx) Send Out Cards Gift Account – personalised greetings cards for business or pleasure.

Auction prizes include:

·         Twitter profile ‘makeover‘ from Digital Biographer

·         A whole year of Ad space on Third Sector Forums

·         Space on a Second Life island from Virtual-E

·        Personality profiling from People Maps

Please leave a comment here if you are attending one of the Twestivals next week, and leave your Twitter username so that we can tweet about it later!..

Thanks for visiting!

*McTwitterati (coined by @jimwolffman?) – collective term for top Scottish Twitterers

If you find yourself in a position that you need to understand your target customer as well as keep up with various ways of marketing to those potential customers, Twitter is one of the most powerful and popular tools out there right now!  This new type of network communication has been taken up by companies and individuals alike in recent months and for good reason.

To get a better understanding of Twitter, let’s first take a look at the format.  Essentially, Twitter is a program that allows you to make very small, public posts.  Because these posts are so limited (they max out at 140 characters) they can easily be sent to a number of different locations all at once.  When you have written a Twitter, it can appear on the twitter website, on short message services, instant messaging sites or even on third-party applications like Facebook or Twitterific.  Folks can even add a script to their blog or website to show their most recent posts and the posts of others!  Your Twitter messages, also known tweets, will appear to anyone who has chosen to follow your updates.

There are several advantages to this type of communication.  The first thing that you will discover is that it allows for a much more immediate relay of information.  The shortness of the message forces you to be very brief, and this alone can create interest in those reading.  Because tweets are so short, they often lead to frequent posting, which is excellent when you are looking to communicate with people and to get to know them.  While Twitter is, by default, public, you can restrict the people who see your material with the ease of checking a box in your profile.

You will find that not only can you post tweets, you can also receive them.  Once again, the immediate nature of this service lends greatly to its appeal.  Want to follow someone’s updates and see what they are up to with their business or life in general? Simply sign into your Twitter account, type in their Twitter address or username and click the “Follow” button.  That’s all there is to it.

The amount of time that spent reading the messages is very short, and you can be in contact with people a great deal more than you otherwise might be. In essence, you can get to know each other much more quickly than if you were just reading each others blogs or profiles.  The look and feel of an instant messaging service helps add to this ability.  Think about it for a minute, do you feel more connected to those on your messenger list than the blogs you read? Twitter is the same way. 

For many, whether they are looking for friends, clients, or someone to help them out with a problem or workload, getting in touch with others is important.  With Twitter it has never been easier!

Follow me on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/annttkerr

Thanks for visiting!