THE JOY OF FLEX — How Digital Mums rebooted the skills and confidence of a 40-something Mum

Lucy
Lucy
Aug 9, 2017 · 6 min read

WHO? In my 20s, I boarded a plane to Africa, single, a graduate, a great sense of adventure but no clue what to do with my life. In my 40s, I returned to England, married, a mother of three, mildly adventurous but still no clue as to what to do with my life. During my almost two decades in Africa, I had lived on the edge of the Nile in a tin hut, regularly chased baboons and warthogs out of my garden, run 21 kms through a wildlife conservancy in searing temperatures and hurtled 55 kms down a mountain on my bike, dodging elephants. I had endured two caesareans, bilharzia, giardia, spider bites and a score of minor tropical bugs but nothing seemed quite so scary as the prospect of reassessing my job prospects now that my children were all at school and after so many years being a SAHM (stay at home Mum). My CV is sketchy to say the least — from temp work in London to waitressing in Cape Town, marketing in Oxfordshire to a lapsed teaching qualification and a small sewing business in Nairobi — nothing pointed towards the obvious. Added to this, we had settled back to my hometown of Ludlow, utterly gorgeous countryside but far, far away from pretty much everywhere and not so great on job prospects (or WIFI for that matter).

WHY? So here I was, replanted in the depths of Shropshire and with a husband who travelled back to Africa for 3 weeks of the month. My first stop: a MUMSNET Workfest conference in London specifically targeted at women looking to get back into the workplace. A short interview at the career clinic drew a blank look when I explained that a) the children were still my priority b) I lived in sticks c) I would need to spend 6 weeks of the year back in East Africa where we still had a home. The conference did however, introduce me to the appeal and power of social media following a brilliant lecture on social media for freelancers and small businesses. At another conference, I listened to a totally inspiring talk by Hollie Brooks of Miafleur on marketing through social media. I was hooked. A chance meeting with another Mum, a New Yorker who had been a journalist in her former life and had somehow ended up in Shropshire, led to us starting our own blog on they whys and wherefores of moving (back) to Ludlow. Our commitment to the blog was half-hearted at its very best — our ‘meetings’ were just excuses to try out all the wonderful foodie places in Ludlow and to whinge about our children — it was soon clear that we needed to learn a lot more about the ‘science’ of social media if we were going to take the blog any further.

WHAT? Step forward Nikki Cochrane and Kathryn Tyler, cofos of Digital Mums. I chanced upon them in an article in RED magazine and it was immediately clear that here were two women who were approachable, ambitious, focused, fun (happy to wear moose antlers in course tutorials) and passionate about their cause to bring flexible work to mums everywhere. They were on the cusp of something big and from the wilds of the Welsh Marches, I wanted in. The Digital Mum course ticked all the boxes for my current situation — flexible hours, working from home, on-line chats, holidays included and most importantly a real Campaign, reinforcing theoretical learning with practical experience. This wasn’t about staring at line upon line of on-line print, getting bored and being distracted by massive pile of ironing in the corner. Digital Mums wanted you to get out there and test your new skills straight away. The flexibility of the course not only allowed me to carry on with our blog but more pertinently, the Campaign I chose — community — set me up with fantastic contacts in my local area.

HOW? The course runs over 24 weeks and each week entails lessons, challenges, videos, occasional assessments and most importantly, a weekly peer-group hangout. This late nite chat and subsequent Whataspp group became my saving grace throughout the course. Six fellow mums from all over the country, with children of varying ages, these women, now my good friends, became my confidants, my conscience, my motivation and in some weeks, my only late-night dates. One of the greatest kickbacks from the course is becoming part of this amazing collective of exhausted, stretched, challenged, multi-tasking, bum-wiping, hard-working, back-slapping, fist-pumping, inspirational, go-getting Digital Mums.

Flicking back through my course notes, it’s incredible to see how much we’ve learnt in the past six months. There were times when twitter numbers wouldn’t budge, facebook posts flopped, instagram posts fell flat and you felt you had learnt nothing. But a quick glance at your screens (mobile and desktop) at the six new apps, four favourite website addresses and 2 new scheduling tools and you were reminded of the huge library of information Digital Mums had provided you with and introduced you to. After one year using Instagram prior to the course, I had only managed to get around 250 followers. After two months on the Digital Mums course, my followers are currently at 440 and rising. It works.

WHEN?

NOW!

Digital Mums claims that “four out of five Digital Mums go(ing) on to find paid work after graduating” and once you complete the course, they provide you with freelancer kits and allow access to all their on-line resources. The course may be over but my campaign, LET’S GO! LUDLOW is still going strong. With my new local contacts, the work enquiries are already coming in and I now have the skills and confidence to address them. Above all else, I have learnt that you should never underestimate the skills of a mum — we are masters of time management, hard work, patience, flexibility, empathy, damage limitation, rationality and sociability. Most employers do not recognise this, but in social media, they are key — this really is #workthatworks.

EPILOGUE

As for my 6 weeks away in Africa, I am writing this blog from my desk in Nairobi, overlooking Acacia trees and the occasional grumpy warthog. This morning, I scheduled my local content tweets, posted an image of Ludlow on Instagram and promoted my blog about Ludlow Life on Facebook before taking my kids to the elephant orphanage — let the good flex continue!

https://www.facebook.com/letsgoludlow/

Lucy

Written by

Lucy

Commentary on events in and around Ludlow. Read about our passion for this gem of a town and join our social community of Ludlowphiles💙#lovelyLudlow

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