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Bloggy Question 54: This Conversation Is NOT Bloggable

Filed Under Bloggy Questions, Successful Blog | 27 Comments

Can’t I Talk to Bloggers Anymore?

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .


You travel a lot and occasionally meet up with a blogger in the city where you are. The conversation and the company are always worth what little it might take to get across town to get together.

Last night was an event. This time you met not one, but three bloggers you read. Dinner was at a beautiful restaurant. Everyone sure hit it off. The conversation went from mutual blogging friends to ideas about what folks might do to improve their blogging style.

As always, pictures were taken and blogger hugs given. It seemed a perfect evening complete with the champagne toast at the end. You wrote up your experience and uploaded two photographs. Then you did some work and went to sleep before an early client meeting.

You didn’t get a chance to read the blogs of the folks you dined with until after 5pm the next day. The first was a great reminder of the fun, as was the second. The third, however, was a critique of the entire dinner. That blogger trashed the restaurant, the service, the food, you and your other new-found blogger friends. Exact quotes, taken out of context, had been and used in the blog post. The quotes were word-for-word accurate, but as they stood they sounded mean and petty, not they way they were said or intended.

The blogger who wrote the critique says that the event was fun and funny. But the remarks he makes are snarky — fully at your expense and that of the other two at dinner. You’ve never seen this sort of behavior before . . . from him or from anyone.

The post has been up for 8 hours and there are no comments.

You check your own post. Some cold “thank yous” are there — from folks not mentioned in your post, but mentioned in the quotes taken out of context in the other blogger’s recap.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Bloggy Question 53: What Kind of Home Is One Blog You Read?
Bloggy Question 52: They Read My Diary!
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Bloggy Question 50: The Safety of the Human Race Is Up to YOU!
Bloggy Question 49: Chase the Sun!

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Bloggy Question 53: What Kind of Home Is One Blog You Read?

Filed Under Bloggy Questions, Successful Blog | 11 Comments

Blog, Sweet, Blog

Choose a blog you read. Imagine it as a home. What kind of home would it be?

picture collage of homes

I’ll go first.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Bloggy Question 49: Chase the Sun!
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Questions to Get Closer to You: Question 3

Filed Under Branding, Perfect Virtual Manager, Successful Blog | 54 Comments

Get Closer to You

This is a series of questions, I don’t know how many. They are the ones I ask when I help folks get closer to their personal identity.

What do you do well that other people come to you for help with?

I’ll answer first to get things started.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

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Questions to Get Closer to You: Question 2
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Bloggy Question 52: They Read My Diary!

Filed Under Bloggy Questions, Successful Blog | 34 Comments

The Family Business on the News

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .


Someone you know has blogged for about two years. She uses her blog as an online diary. Most days what she writes is fairly harmless. She’s gotten savvy about writing her thoughts in ways that don’t reflect unkindly on people that she loves, but it’s too late for what she wrote in the early days.

Last night your blogger friend emailed you. Her family is hurt and angry. It seems her older sister did an ego search. Your friend’s blog came up. The sister landed on an archive post in which your blogger friend said hurtful things about her entire family.

The older sister read a while. Then she called their brother.

The entire family now has read the entire blog. Some neighbors have also been dragged into the story. Every person mentioned on her blog has heard about it and read as much as they wanted. The town is openly debating the situation. The blog has never had this kind of traffic.

Your blogger friend feels violated.

Her family feels the same way.

Her friends have disappeared.

She called you for advice.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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loggy Question 51: I Gave Him that Idea
Bloggy Question 50: The Safety of the Human Race Is Up to YOU!
Bloggy Question 49: Chase the Sun!
Bloggy Question 48: Where Was I When that Happened?
Bloggy Question 47: Take It to the Edge

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Bloggy Question 51: I Gave Him that Idea

Filed Under Bloggy Questions, Successful Blog | 25 Comments

His Success Really Belongs to Me

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .


Marty and Steve were best friends since childhood. They started their first business at age 8 — it was a lemonade stand. By the time they graduated from college, they owned two bicycle shops — a thriving business in the city.

Marty is out front, the cheerful guy that everyone loves . . . he handles sales, marketing, and vendor relations. Steve takes care of the back office, the guy who handles repairs, fulfillment, and the paperwork.

Steve, a certified CPA, has a side business as an accountant. His latest outstanding effort for that business was a marketing program. An image of an accountant on a bicycle made unnanounced appearances on blogs. He gave free tax advice to that blog’s readers for an entire day. The campaign was a hit and an immediate traffic bonus for the blogs that were visited by “Steve’s SuperCyberCycling Tax Man.”

With that win, you thought that everything was booming and wonderful for Marty and Steve.

Today you found out that Marty and Steve have ended their business relationship. Marty is running the bicycle shops. Steve is staying with his accounting practice.

Yesterday in a conversation with you, Marty called Steve a jerk and made sure you understood that the “SuperCyberCycling Tax Man” campaign was Marty’s idea, not Steve’s. It was obvious that Marty was unhappy that he given Steve the benefit of his thoughts and that he wished Steve had not had success in his accounting business.

This was a side of Marty you had never seen. Marty said he was going to blog about his part in making Steve a “cycling success.”

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Bloggy Question 50: The Safety of the Human Race Is Up to YOU!
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Bloggy Question 47: Take It to the Edge
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