I am always excited to meet with inspiring and successful bloggers. I have had the pleasure of interviewing Nikki Parkinson from Styling You. An Australian blog helping busy women to get out of the door each day looking the best they can. On her website, you will find many tips and articles about fashion and beauty. There are articles about where to shop and helpful travel advice.
Please tell us about your career background to date
I was a journalist for 20 years before leaving in 2008 to start a personal styling business. My roles as a journalist leading up to ‘retiring’ included editing a weekly glossy magazine and writing about fashion and beauty. I saw my last personal styling client about several years ago as my blog had grown to become my business.
How did Styling You came to be
A web developer and graphic designer who worked with my husband suggested a WordPress platform for my personal styling website. It was the best accidental business decision, as I was blogging even though I didn’t know what a blog was. What it did or that there was a community of bloggers out there.
What makes you aim Styling You at women
My aim has always been to help women of all ages and stages find confidence to dress to show their personality. Men are less likely to log on and discuss sparkly accessories and hot shoes!
Have you met some major tech problems when creating your business
Not in creating my business, more as the blog grew. I’ve had issues with servers not keeping up with traffic growth, outdated site themes conflicting with WordPress and crashing my site … all things I was completely clueless about. But thankfully now I have better tech support systems in place to reduce those potential headaches.
Would you call yourself a tech-savvy woman and why?
Yes, I would. I grew up in a family which embraced every new technology that came along. It was never something that was feared, more celebrated. That’s continued on into my adult life. I’ll jump on any new device, app or web program to try it out and see if it fits in my life.
Name 3 apps you can’t live without?
- Instagram – I was an early adopter. I’m a visual person and I love how it challenges me to use my phone creatively for taking and sharing images.
- iCal – I live by my synced calendars. I have separate ones for personal and work but it’s our shared home calendar that helps us all to keep up with where everyone’s at. Everyone except my child has access to that.
- Dropbox – Having cloud storage on all my devices makes it very easy to work on location or while I’m travelling.
How do you think technology is going to change a woman’s life?
It will continue to change our lives as we get smarter in the way we work and run our personal life. It can get overwhelming but the key is to try new things and see how they sit with you. If it’s stressing you out then move on to another app or device. It should be easy for you.
Thank you Nikki for your precious time and I wish you all the best with your amazing blog and new book.
Visit the Styling You website
Image courtesy: Styling You.
