Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

Will I See You at WordCamp Chicago?

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Sweet WordCamp Chicago



Whenever, I get a chance to speak in my hometown you can bet it’s a big deal to me. WordCamp Chicago organized by Lisa Sabin-Wilson and Brian Gardner two folks I admire, raises the bar even higher. Look at the roster of speakers they’re bringing to the microphone.

You can bet I’ve planning my WordCamp Chicago presentation for quite a while. It’s called, “How WordPress Took Me Out of the Gutter and Made Me What I Am Today” It’s going to be an audience interactive conversation about what we build during the life cycle of a blog.

WordCamp Chicago is June 06 and 07, 2009 in the Michigan Ballroom of the UBS Tower Conference Center, One North Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL. You’ll find the complete schedule here.

I hear it’s sold out! Will I see you there?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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A Sacrifice Deserving More Attention

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We have holidays to celebrate and marks days of celebration or days of meaning. Stores close. Families and friends do things with the time away from their usual work day routines.

We stand or sit along the curb to watch parades of the floats and bands. Sometimes the people in the parade don’t even know the event behind the long line in which they’re participating.

The holiday today in our United States is to remember the soldiers who fought under our flag. They gave their lives for us — even those of us who are still living. Every soldier gives the time of his or her life to do what he or she is doing. Some never recover from that sacrifice – their service.

Last night, Mark Goulston wrote, I don’t think honoring those who gave so much so we can be free — the soldiers, veterans, police, firefighters and their families — is enough; we need to repay them for their sacrifice.

One way to do that is to share VETERANS’ AID AND ATTENDANCE SPECIAL PENSION — which allows for for Veterans and surviving spouses who require the regular attendance of another person to assist in eating, bathing, dressing, undressing or taking care of the needs of nature to receive additional monetary benefits. It also includes individuals who are blind or a patient in a nursing home because of mental or physical incapacity. Assisted care in an assisted living facility also qualifies. … VeteranAid.org

Another way is to thank the veterans you meet for their service.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Australian Coffee and Australian Wine … What Dream Have You Left Waiting?

Filed Under Community, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 10 Comments

Every week Suzie and Des send the most amazing thoughts and photographs from the beaches of OZ. The small missives they send may be just slightly more meaningful because of a dream I carry to return to the beaches I walked there 8 years ago.

Time for a 7-year-old Dream Now?

I started writing this in 2005. This dream was four years old then. I still think about it more often than I might. It waits until more important things hit zero balance. That could take a few more minutes … Usually I don’t talk about it.

I don’t need vacations. At least I don’t lack for places to visit. I don’t spend lots of time thinking about things that aren’t on the schedule to be happening yet. But maybe it’s time that I start doing so.

If I did, I’d be planning to go to Australia. I’d see friends that I miss. We’d reminisce of times passed. We’d plan new times to come. We’d drink Australian coffee and have Australian wine.

I’d choose the coffee shop across the street from Bondi Beach — a table by the window where I could watch the people. I’d have my laptop on the table and fine Australian coffee with those narrow packs of sugar. What a writer I would feel like. What a writer I would be.

My friends would visit me there.

We would drink Australian coffee. I do like Australian coffee.

We’d road trip up the cliff with Australian wine and cheese, to watch the boats in the harbor and talk of Captain Cook — new memories to hold me over until the next time.

And we would drink Australian wine. I do like Australian wine.

A night walk by the Sydney Harbor bridge. I can’t resist the lights on the water. I’d be thinking wishes that could hug a moment into stillness.

Mostly, though I’d be with my Australian friends. The ones I knew before I came online and the ones that I’ve met since. It’s not right always hoping folks will come to me.

Five tiny diamond chips like tiny stars are mine. Two yellow, two pink, one white. They hold a promise I’ll return to see mu Australian friends. Five stars inside a tiny boomerang. I wear it on a chain since before my last visit in 2001.

I don’t need vacations. I need safe harbor with my friends.

Maybe it’s time I dust off that dream and find good reason to be tasting some Australian coffee and Australia wine.

What dream have you to left waiting? How will you know when it’s time?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Gardening, Blogging, Life, Comments and How Relationships Stay Made

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The Authenticity of Gardening … and Blogging

When I was a luxury farmer, I brought in bark mulch by the truck load. I had conversations with dirt that was so dry that you had to wet it to call it dust. It made be feel like a cowboy. It made me feel like a king. I could put my hand in the dirt, work for hours. Then through some miracle of nature color would happen. Things would grow. Not right way. Oh no. It took longer than blog years, but suddenly in the sun things started to show.


Every year we the weather gets warm and my hands want to be playing in the dirt I’m reminded that all things I’ve ever done have happened because I was willing to spend the time they took.

A blog. A garden. A life.

No one does them for the comments really.

But the comments sure do feel good.

Would you leave one for me now and then go leave one for those you know who’ve been working hard?

I’d so appreciate it and so would they. It’s how relationships start and how they stay made.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Ever Been in a Community on the Same Frequency?

Filed Under Community, SOB Business, Successful Blog | 2 Comments

My SOBCon09 ROI

relationships button

Long before there was a SOBCon, I fell in love with a character in a book Radical Edge by Steve Farber.The character was so humanly written, the first question I asked Steve when I met him was whether Agnes is a real person. He said, “No,” and looked off at a vision. To this day, I’m thinking he got off on a technicality. Not important. What matters is her message. Here’s a dialogue between the character Agnes and Steve (also a character in the story.)

“I don’t know how much of that I could have accomplished if I hadn’t found my frequency.”

Steve questioned the idea, “Human beings are more complicated than than that.”

He got this answer.

“Yes they are, But it’s not about finding your frequency by ruling out everything else; on the contrary, it’s about finding the frequency that includes all those other important values and ideals. The very act of trying to wrap it all up is what’s really important, because in order to do so, you have . . . define them, think them through, understand them to their core, and evaluate your life against each one.”

A bit of challenge to say the least. Every year SOBCon brings that conversation back to me.

A Community on the Same Frequency?

Putting on an event that is not the usual has its downside. How do you explain to sponsors, speakers, attendees what they’ve never experienced? Ever tried to explain Cirq du Soleil to someone who doesn’t know it? I have such respect for the street team who first launched it.

Words alone aren’t adequate. Images are ambiguous. Even the passionate vision of an evangelist drawing details and answering questions is only a promise of a future reality. I can talk about what happens. I can talk about the value propositions and the offers. But until people experience it, I have to believe that a big part of their investment is trust.

In business you can contract schedule and budget. You can write specs and standards, but you can’t define human experience. The quality of experience is a function of how people invest their time, energy, and trust. I saw trust in every step of SOBCon

SOBCon runs on trust and produces actionable ideas.

It was 130 people all set on learning this new world of ours, all set on helping each other out. That kind of energy is electric, spontaenous, and self-generating. In a high trust environment, we talk and think faster and laugh more. The ideas come at the speed of the Internet with humanity and just don’t stop.

Trust doesn’t rule out everything else. It wraps up the other values … competence, integrity, generosity, comaradeship, and so many others. But trust is the fuel and the frequency of SOBCon.

Ever been part of a community on the same frequency?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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