It’s been tremendously exciting for us to watch TotSpot Groups blossom into a genuine community. While we try to keep making improvements to the product, the real work is being done by our incredibly passionate users.

We want to celebrate and shine our spotlight on those who’ve really taken it upon themselves to cultivate a community on TotSpot by featuring a Group of the Month along with a Q&A with the Group’s creator.

We’re excited to announce our first Group of the Month (June): Working Moms, created by Michelle Gillen. Working Moms was created on the day we launched TotSpot Groups and since then has become one of our most vibrant Groups thanks in no small part to the passion and energy of Michelle.

Michelle, mother of 5-month-old Maggie and 7-year-old Hailey, is a, self-described, fellow “computer geek.” By day, she’s responsible for keeping the Pennsylvania’s 140 state park offices connected to the internet as the network security administrator for Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for the State of Pennsylvania. She’s a quintessential, working mom. Our interview, is below:

TotSpot: The name of the group, “Working Moms,” is pretty self-explanatory. Beyond that, can you explain to a perspective group member why they should join?

Michelle: Being  a mom in general is a wonderful, amazing, scary, confusing experience!  Toss in working AND being a mom and that really makes a challenging task! Sometimes I feel like I’m running a non-stop marathon!  Many days I deal with a full range of emotions while being away from my kids.  With a new baby, I had other things to contemplate such as how to continue to breast feed and how to find someone I trusted to watch my newborn! I felt so alone at times and overwhelmed.
So that said, this group could be a place that we could discuss all of that and more!  Make new friendships.  Find others who have been where we are and have some sound, hard learned advice on how to get through it.  Or as I’ve just recently experienced, when the task gets daunting, share it and someone will give you the boost you’re needing to help you get going again!

TotSpot: How many kids do you have? How old? Are they on TotSpot?

Michelle: I have two daughters.  Maggie is 5 months old and my step-daughter Hailey is 7 years old.  I have both of them on totspot.  Working on getting Hailey’s page going!

Michelle: maternity leave, juggling responsibilities, dealing with separation anxiety/guilt/other feelings, breast feeding and pumping/expressing milk, day care options and how to find the right fit for your child.

Michelle: I’m a pretty open person.  I can’t think of any topics we would be avoiding at this point.

Michelle: Personally I don’t feel any.  But I can see how subconsciously a working mom would be jealous of moms who stay at home.  I think they are so lucky! We are in two different worlds.

Michelle: Finding time to get all of the “everyday chores” done.  I want to spend all of my time with my baby when I get home and on the weekends.  But, all of the other things still need done too! That juggling act is such a challenge.

Michelle: I’d definitely have to say that so far I’ve just really enjoyed talking to all of the women!  It has been so nice finding out what everyone else is experiencing and learning that I’m not alone!

Now, activity throughout TotSpot Groups is aggregated into a single stream - a refresh button is included to update the stream and at the bottom of page a “More” button introduces more posts “Twitter-style.”  In addition, discovering new content within your groups is easier - the number of new updates since last page load is displayed next to the group name.

To date, we’ve been blown away at the number and quality of both new groups formed and the content created. If you haven’t already, check out some our favorites: Working Moms, Dad’s Place, SAHMs, Mommies United, Parents of Preemies, and more. There is a great community blossoming and we’re just happy to do our best to assist in that effort.

A community is only as good as its members, so we need your help in making sure TotSpot Groups is as a great a place as we think it can be. Have something you’re passionate about? Whether it’s parenting issues, an existing group you’re involved in, an activity you enjoy, or anything else, we also hope you’ll bring your interests to the TotSpot community by creating a group or finding an existing group to join.

Here are some Screenshots:

In addition, our friends at StartupMeme and SociableBlog covered the launch of TotSpot Plus:

From StartupMeme:

Today, TotSpot has announced the launch of TotSpot Plus.  With this parents get boost to their storage, which has been pushed to 2GB and enabling multiple profiles so both mom and dad can separately participate in creating their child’s memories. They can also add more accounts as contributors, just in case a grand parent or an aunt has the child’s photos or videos. This make the site ever more useful, especially letting parents add contributors to complete the entire story of their kids childhood memories.

From SociableBlog: TotSpot Launches TotSpot Plus : Build a Betty Baby Website

Take it for a spin, it should make your TotSpot life a little easier.

This is a live page that we hope to be addressing very soon. See a page on TotSpot you think can be made better? Skitch it (or use whatever drawing / screen grab tool you like) and let us know in the comments!

• Is it as simple as posting (with TinyURLs) your TotSpot updates to Twitter?
• Is it input from Twitter?
• Should we develop some sort of hashtag around your profile?

All thoughts are welcome and appreciated.

Cross-posted at Get Satisfaction.