You Don't Know Me, But ... I Love You

There's an urban legend that we only use about 10 percent of our brain power. I don't know if I ascribe to that, but if I were to use that same analogy to describe my knowledge of technology in general, I'd be willing to bet that it's significantly less than that.

Oh, how I wish I was kidding.

So it came as a complete and unexpected surprise to me to see on my blogger.com account that I can view statistics about my Fabulous Shoe Night blog. All kinds of statistics. Statistics I had never dreamed about were now suddenly at my fingertips. And these stats are far different than the dry, impossible statistics course I struggled with in college to get my psychology degree, and later, my entry into nursing school. Those kind of statistics made me cry. Literally and copiously. I nicknamed the course "Sadistics," and still refer to it as such. (Some nightmares are impossible to forget, even all these years later.)

But these statistics, I came across quite by accident. I was tooling around on the site, clicked a link I had never noticed before, and … viola! … saw an array of tabs with all kinds of nifty info.

For instance, I can see, in real time, just how many people have read my blog. Before my discovery of this miraculous tool, I relied on comments on the blog itself, or comments or "likes" on Facebook, where I would post links to my latest blog entry. If there were no comments, no "likes," I automatically went to the dark side, and assumed no one read my blog. Or if there were three "likes," I thought only three people read my blog. But my lovely new statistics prove that this assumption is simply not so!

There are pie charts and trend lines and bar graphs … oh, my! I can see how many people read my blog overall, since it's very beginning, monthly, weekly, daily, even hourly … it's amazing. It gives insight into operating systems and browsers, referring URLs, referring sites and keyword searches. I can even see the number of times each particular post was read.

But, this was the one that really blew me away. I clicked on a tab labeled "Audience," … and this … this is where I was truly astonished. I can see, geographically on a map, as well as by a listing, each country where my blog has been read. Now this is where things really get interesting. Naturally, the overwhelming majority of my audience comes from the United States, but I was flabbergasted to see where else it is read. As of this writing, my blog has been viewed 26 times in Russia.

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!

Really! Shut it!

I feel like a cheesy infomercial here … but that's not all! It's also read in (descending order) Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Dominican Republic, Bulgaria, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Mexico and Hong Kong.

Granted, some of these readings were in the single digits, but at this point in the game, it doesn't matter. Fabulous Shoe Night as an idea isn't quite a year old yet. We didn't have our first FSN Girl's Night Out until April 2011, and only four women attended. My blog has only been in existence since July 2011. Right now, we're more or less small potatoes, but we show growth each and every month and our footprint (pardon the pun—couldn't resist) increases almost daily. Between the formation of contacts, associations and relationships, social media, a top-notch publicist, a new website in the works, Twitter, the overwhelming reach of the Internet, etc., well…world domination can't be far behind.

(Okay, okay, I was only kidding about the world domination part. Really.)

But this is my most heart-felt and fervent wish: To my readers outside of the United States, please, give a shout-out. I stumbled upon you, quite by accident. Say hello, leave a comment, tell us what you think and what you'd like to see, "like" our Fabulous Shoe Night Facebook page, follow us on Twitter (@fabshoenight), let us know you're out there, make yourself seen and heard. I know there are fashionable, shoe-loving women with charitable hearts world-wide. Can you just imagine the power we'll have, joined together, to help charities across the globe? It's almost unimaginable.

So, international readers … you don't know me (yet), but … I love you. And should we ever meet, looking down, I'm sure I'll love your shoes, too. This fabulous journey I'm on has taught me so, so many things, but one in particular stands out right now …

You really can judge a woman by her shoes.