LDS Mother Wins Blogging Contest for Winter Olympics

Claire Thornock Brazelton

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For many, blogging is a way for people to stay connected with family and friends, to promote products or ideas, or to keep up their writing skills. Blogging for Amber Borowski Johnson has all those same qualities, but it’s also her ticket to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

Microsoft Corporation sponsored an Office Winter Games contest for two lucky bloggers to take an all-expense-paid trip to the 2010 Winter Olympics and work alongside Team USA to blog about the team and their experience. Bloggers would use Microsoft Office 2010 Professional and an Acer Aspire 4810 laptop. Amber entered this contest, won, and now will be enjoying the Winter Games and spreading her experiences through blogging.

A native of Canada herself, Amber has always loved the Winter Games, which drew her to the contest, and even had the opportunity to be involved with the Winter Games when they were in Calgary, Canada, in 1988.

“I love, love, love the Winter Olympics,” Johnson said. “I got to enjoy the great atmosphere of the Olympics when they were in Calgary in 1988 and my community and school got involved--I even took luge lessons in gym class.”

When the Winter Olympics were in Salt Lake City Utah in 2002, Johnson found herself again living in an Olympic community and was working for a radio station. Hoping to be able to cover the Winter Games and sporting events, Johnson instead was assigned to cover traffic for the Olympics. For these 2010 Winter Games, Johnson is glad to be able to cover actual events through her blogging.

Johnson has been an avid blogger for the past five years. She earned her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Brigham Young University and started a career involving journalism and public relations. After moving to Colorado, getting married, and having her first baby, Johnson wanted to continue pursuing her writing career, so she became a freelance writer for The Denver Post and also turned to blogging.

“For me I started blogging because it was a way for me to start writing again,” Johnson said. “Blogging allows me to use a personal narrative voice and to have fun and inject myself into my writing.”

While on Twitter in October, Johnson came across a tweet about the Microsoft Office competition and decided to enter. There were only two categories of bloggers Microsoft was looking for: students and women. Johnson had to submit two writing samples and an essay about why she felt she was qualified to be the Microsoft blogger for the Olympics. “I made my essay about the adventures me and my family have together,” Johnson said. “I felt it would be different than everybody else’s.”

After waiting a couple of weeks and actually forgetting she submitted the application, Johnson received a phone call from Microsoft saying she was one of the five semi-finalists for the competition. Then for two weeks, the finalists’ blogs were posted online, and the public got to vote for whom they thought was the best. “It was a very stressful month,” Johnson said. “I felt like I was campaigning for my blog to have all my friends, family and those in the public vote for me.”

Following those two weeks, Microsoft took the top three finalists that the public had voted for and made the final decision.

“I didn’t hear anything about winning until a few days before Christmas,” Johnson said. “It was really hard because I had to sign notarized documents and I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone for the next month, until Microsoft announced it publicly.”

Johnson was supposed to fly to New York with the other contest winner and be on the Today Show to be announced as one of the winners, but the earthquake in Haiti shifted news coverage and the Microsoft story was bumped. So on January 26, 2010, Microsoft made the announcement online, at their event center and in major newspapers and media outlets.

Johnson is excited to share her experiences she has at the Olympics with the rest of the world. “My hope for my blog is to be able provide a different prospective of the Olympics,” Amber said. “All you see in the news is the actual event and then footage of the medal ceremony, and I have access to behind the scenes and that is what I want to share.”

Johnson also wants to be able to connect with the LDS athletes who will be at the games and give their stories.

Johnson will be flying to Canada on February 11 and will be staying until the 20. She’s looking forward to all of the events and has a special interest in the drama behind figure skating. Amber also enjoys men’s hockey and skiing.

To follow Johnson’s adventures at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, visit her blog: www.crazybloggincanuck.com.

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