Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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Personalised? Potential Problems? Perhaps …

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A Guest Post on Personalised Search by Christopher Angus

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Anyone that’s been in any branch of internet marketing such as Search, SEO, Social Media Marketing and the like will fully understand what I mean when I say that Google is always changing. The animal we seek to master is impossible to tame, if merely for the fact that the algorithm behind the Google search engine is never really still. Stable, arguably so, but the fact remains that engineer upon engineer, programmer after programmer are spending their time constantly tweaking the code and structure of Google, often leading to unexpected twists in the SEO trail.

The point that I’m getting at is that as a marketing expert, Search professional, or SEO company, one must be prepared to change with the times. Resistant to change some of us may well be, but change we must, if we are to survive. Of course, some changes are easier to accommodate for than others, some are small, some are large, the difficulty to change with the times sometimes – but not always – scales with the size of the change.

However, once in a while comes a change that is just incredibly awkward to deal with. A change that is so downright frustrating that it makes you wonder why you ever got into this business. A change like that has happened in recent days and continues to still happen. That change is typically referred to as “personalised search”, the process via which a Google search can become “personalised” or “unique” for a given user, particularly when logged in to one’s own Gmail/Google account.

It works by giving alarming priority to popular branded sites (presumably ones that Google thinks has a high amount of “trust” built up) and pushes these to the top of related search results, so you end up being more likely to find these branded sites in a better position than other, smaller, “less trusted” websites. This also has a literal knock-on effect of pushing the websites that were previously ranking well for related keywords (the smaller sites) out of the way entirely, as they’re moved to one side to make room for the “big ones”. From an SEO point of view, I’m sure you can understand the frustration here.

The popular stuff is getting clicked on all the time, which then subsequently becomes personalised and then you’ll continue to keep seeing those same websites every time you search for those related keywords. Search is rapidly becoming a popularity contest instead of a relativity contest, or at least whatever you want to call it: it’s not that anymore.

Another hurdle on the path to success @ Search has arisen and so we must deal with it, or it will deal with us.

How are YOU dealing with the idea of personalised search?

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Christopher Angus is a successful internet marketer and SEO, having been rated the 26th most influential marketer in the world in 2009. His company is Warlock Media and he can be reached via email at info@warlockmedia.com

Thanks, Chris. I love learning about new tech … :)

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Social Media BookList: Let’s Talk Business, Tweets and Mojo

Filed Under Business Book, Business Life, Successful Blog, Trends | 2 Comments

A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors, writers, speakers and coaches. As part of my job I read a lot of books. I am here to offer a weekly post about one that I am working with and one I have put on my reading list. The books will cover topics such as social media (Facebook & Twitter), organization, career building, networking, writing and self development and inspiration.

#MOJOtweet

This week I would like to start with a book I’ve read and working with by Marshall Goldsmith, author of #MOJOtweet published by ThinkAha books.

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In this fast paced world we live in and the need for great information that will lead us to action, is sometimes hard to find. Well, in the ThinkAha book series, this problem is quickly resolved by the format used.

#MOJOtweet is written in the template of around only 100 pages and formulated about tweets (also known as AHA’s) in 140 characters. 

You may be asking what is Mojo? Mojo is the moment when you do something that’s purposeful, powerful and positive and the rest of the world recognizes it.

Mitchell Levy, CEO of Happy About, Inc. and publisher of ThinkAha books,  summarizes the essence of the book in the forward, ” Mojo is that missing ingredient that is between you and your life filled with meaning and happiness. #Mojotweet provides that in bite-sized packages.”

Below are just a few of the wise, helpful and inspirational aha’s I found in the this informational compact book, #MOJOtweet.

~ We run everything through two filters: short-term satisfaction (or happiness) and long-term satisfaction (meaning). –>So true! When I first read that I thought, “no I don’t do that”, but when I thought about it again, I realized I certainly do.

~ Mojo is infectious. When people pass their positive spirit onto us; we feel like passing it back. –>Again, great insight in such a short statement. Positive breeds positive. If I am around a positive person, my outlook will change for the better which I will radiate to others around me.

~ When measuring your Mojo, do so in the immediate present, not in the recent past or vague future.–>this is something I struggle with sometimes. I worry about things from the past or worry how to correct things before they even get here…not to concentrate on what is in the now.

You can order your copy or download the ebook of #MOJOtweet.

Marshall Goldsmith, is America’s preeminent executive coach. He is among a select few consultants who have been asked to work with more than sixty CEOs. His clients have included many of the world’s leading corporations. Goldsmith has helped to implement leadership development processes that have impacted more than one million people around the world.

He has a Ph.D. from UCLA and is on the faculty of the executive education programs for Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan. The American Management Association recently named him as one of fifty great thinkers and business leaders of the past eighty years. Read more in his new book, MOJO: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It.

Crowdsourcing

The book on this week’s on my reading list is
Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of a Crowd is driving the future of business by Jeff Howe.

The book focuses on describing how to crowds are creating new sources of value than the specific ways to tap into that value. Chapters 1 through 5, the first half of the book, concentrates on providing examples of the crowd sourcing phenomenon. The second half focuses down on the impact of crowds to economic and business organization.

My thoughts: I believe there has always been an influence of the crowd.I remember when my mother would call her friends for advice or ideas for a new recipe, how to decorate, or who her friend used as a dentist. Society has drawn about the advice and influence of others (the crowd) for many years, however, I believe with the invasion of social media such as Twitter and Facebook, the importance of the crowd (crowdsourcing) is stronger than ever.

Jeff Howe is a contributing editor at Wired Magazine, where he covers the media and entertainment industry, among other subjects. In June of 2006 he published “The Rise of Crowdsourcing” in Wired. He has continued to cover the phenomenon in his blog, crowdsourcing.com, and published a book on the subject for Crown Books in September 2008. Before coming to Wired he was a senior editor at Inside.com and a writer at the Village Voice. In his fifteen years as a journalist he has traveled around the world working on stories ranging from the impending water crisis in Central Asia to the implications of gene patenting. He has written for Time Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, Mother Jones and numerous other publications. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Alysia Abbott, their daughter Annabel Rose and son Phineas and a miniature black lab named Clementine.

You can pick up your copy of Crowdsourcing on Amazon.

I hope you have enjoyed this new weekly blog post. Feel free to share your thoughts with me as I would be open to read them.

It’s True! Unlimited Paid Leave for Employees! Will It Work??

Filed Under Comments, Community, Great Finds, Marketing, Successful Blog, Trends | 4 Comments

Change the Question

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In an article in Business Week this weekend, Roger L. Martin and Jennifer Riel explored how approaching new ideas with an eye toward precedent and previous proof could be a killer. They told the story of a bank so risk averse it missed a huge opportunity and then held up the “abductive thinking” of Research In Motion who moved from a pager company to a smartphone contender.

In the mid-1990s, RIM was a modestly successful pager company. But Lazaridis saw potential in the idea of a portable e-mail device. He began to consider what it might look like, what it could do. He imagined something much smaller than a laptop but easier to type on than a phone. Laptops were already shrinking and bumping up against limitations on how small a QWERTY keyboard could reasonably get. Lazaridis stepped back to consider how a much tinier keyboard could be feasible—and he achieved a leap of logic: What if we typed using only our thumbs? He soon had a prototype and concrete feedback from it.

Asking what could be true—and jumping into the unknown—is critical to innovation. Nurturing the ideas that result, rather than killing them, can be the tricky part. But once a company clears this hurdle, it can leverage its efforts to produce the proof that leaders depend on to make commitments—and turn the future into fact.

Social Strata also saw potential and achieved a leap to a what if? of another fashion.

Unlimited Paid Leave for Employees?

Social media brings passionate people together in business relationships. And we look to them to show us how business might be if we work with trust and transparency. At Social Strata in Seattle, President Rose O’Neill, takes that idea seriously. Social Strata has recently surprised employees by announcing a revolutionary plan to offer its employees unlimited paid vacation benefits. At first the employees thought it was a joke.

There’s no maximum, but there is a minimum of two weeks.

From the Social Strata Founders blog post. Unlimited Paid Leave? Oh yes. :

… we decided that, if we have the “right people on the bus,” i.e., people who are passionate about what they’re doing, we don’t need to set artificial limits on the amount of time they can take off, or why they can take time off. Disciplined people will ensure that their responsibilities are handled, and still be able to recharge their batteries with time off. Undisciplined people who take advantage of the system will reveal themselves and be naturally sorted out.

Bruce Watson of Daily Finance points out that the plan relies on

With those in place, Watson says could make for an energized workforce that feels appreciated and is inspired to loyalty and higher productivity. He also points out that in a workforce larger than Social Stratas 14-person, close-knit team, it might be hard to accomplish.

Here’s an interview Ms. O’Neill had with King5 News Seattle,

The environments we build often shape our behavior. Will this radical move bring the response that Social Strata is after?

What do you think needs to be there for this benefit to work? Do you think the plan is destined to falter at some future point?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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CES: When Business Networks Rely on Business Broadband

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A Guest Post by Jake Green

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I just got back from a trip to the enormous and spectacular International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. As the world’s largest trade show for anything tech, CES brings together businesses of all kinds – from software engineers and industrial designers to auto industry executives and media personalities. I actually saw Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, standing in the same room with the flamboyant pop icon Lady Gaga.

Las Vegas T1: At CES, The Internet Is King

In this kind of setting, networking is vital; you never know where you’ll make an important connection. The theme of connectivity was present even in the technology itself, as new and unusual products and technologies emerged, all aiming to promote a connected lifestyle. Throughout the show, the biggest technology trend I saw was the move toward 3D TV, which I have to say I find a bit creepy. But the second biggest trend was that of Internet connectivity in more and more unexpected places. This year, both your new Panasonic TV and your new Ford sedan will be connected to the Internet.

In the business world, as in the entertainment world, the Internet is everywhere. To me, the need for fast and reliable Internet connectivity has never been more apparent or more pronounced than it was at CES 2010. Even the lightening fast T1 connection at the Las Vegas Convention Center, over which information flowed effortlessly before the show began, struggled to keep up with the demand as more than a hundred thousand attendees tested the next generation of connected gadgets. One small software company tried to demo a new security application for business broadband users, but had to postpone because of problems with their satellite Internet service. How important it is for a business to establish fast, dependable Internet services from the right provider.

Leaving the show, I reflected on the diverse uses of the Internet, as I had seen them in action at CES. One company demonstrated an affordable way for small businesses to use MPLS VPN connections for faster and safer credit card transactions; another used the Internet to beam 3-dimensional images of a shark to a television set across the room. But when it comes down to it, the Internet, like any network, is about making connections.

I suppose the world of consumer electronics is no different from the world of business in general: the more connections you make, the better off you’ll be.

How much does your business network work rely on a reliable Internet network?

Jake Green is a freelance writer for Wpromote, Inc. , the #1 search marketing firm in the US as ranked by Inc. 500. He writes about PPC Management and how to grow online small business. Wpromote is also at http://www.twitter.com/Wpromote.

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Thanks Jake!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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What If the Social Web Froze Over and No One Came?

Filed Under Business Life, Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, Trends, Writing | 8 Comments

cooltext443860173_ive-been-thinking about communities and harbors online and off.

I like watching the harbor out our window change. A recent snowfall covered it. The foggy diffused sunlight softens it, and tricks my eyes into thinking the whole world has gone black and white. A faint shimmer on the icy snow calls back to last spring when sailors filled it with life.

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I suppose few sailors who keep their boats in the harbor ever have a chance to see the harbor this quiet way. I wonder how it might change their experience next spring if they were looking at the lonely, frozen-over beauty I see out my window today.

The harbor is a community. I watch it as the boats come to take their places each season. I see the people with so much and so little in common take their places and have conversations. I see other people sail and watch without saying much of anything.

Can’t help but wonder what a sailor or two might do if when they returned next spring to find the harbor somehow was forever frozen over and empty.

Then this morning I read this morning that Yahoo! Will Kill MyBlogLog Next Month.

What if the social web froze over and no one came? Would you read and blog anyway? Would you just visit your harbors offline?

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