SOB Business Cafe 09-03-10

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Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Matthew Ebel
Once upon a time in 2004 there was a new media community- back then we called them Podcasters. They were passionate, excitable, and ready to jump on any new opportunity they could create for themselves. Podcasters flew from all over the world to hang out at conventions they organized. For three years, New Media brought people together. Friendships were forged, business ventures launched, and through it all some amazing creations made their way onto the internet. The New Media community felt like a family.

Now it’s gone; the community has dissipated. And that’s okay.

Seriously, it’s okay.

WebWorkerDaily
You may have already experienced social media meltdown: a rapid derailment of your previously neat and tidy social media marketing efforts. Because social media cannot be “controlled,” the very thought of putting marketing messages out into the social web strikes fear in the hearts of many. Without control, how do you avert or manage a crisis that bubbles over and could explode on Twitter, Facebook and the like?

Jim Kukral
I tell a story in my book about how I used post-it notes to get offered a job. I wanted the job. I knew they were interviewing a ton of people. I wasn’t any better then any of them in graphic design. In fact, I was an average designer at best. But I wanted the job.

I tell another story in the book how I wanted to get into the Internet video business. I had a friend who owned a big SEO firm and I pitched him via video on YouTube. I could have sent a resume… c’mon, that wasn’t going to work.

You want the job? Show me.

BIGG Success
On our show today, we were thrilled to chat with Terry Starbucker about leadership. Terry has been a leader for over 27 years, including a gig with a pro football team!

WordPress Community Podcast
Liz Strauss gave a masterclass tonight; at least, that’s how it felt to both Frederick and myself. We talked about communicating with your audience, and Liz shared some experiences about open comment nights. We discussed positioning yourself and your blog, and how important personal branding can be.

Gigaom
The Elance report, which will be released in full next week, found that 70 percent of freelancers surveyed are happier working independently than when they were full-time employees, and more than 60 percent said they would prefer to remain a freelancer rather than take a full-time job.

Related ala carte selections include

Simon Mainwaring

I wanted to share with you this video of a speech by Nicolas Christakis from the Harvard Dept. of Sociology, on the shaping powers of social networks. He does a wonderful job of explaining stastically the forces and dynamics that drive social networks. . . . how our behavior affects others, whether it be family member, friends or strangers.

Windows Experience Blog

This week Windows announced the return of the very popular the Family Pack this Fall. General Availability for the United States is Oct. 3 and it goes on sale in Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia and many other markets on or after Oct. 22 (Windows 7’s 1 year anniversary!)

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

SOB Business Cafe 08-27-10

Filed Under Great Finds, Successful Blog | 2 Comments

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Social Media Explorer
Social CRM is being hawked by monitoring services, market research firms, traditional sales software and — if you can believe it — Twitter applications. Brand managers, marketing managers and agencies everywhere are anxious to get them some of that social CRM, by golly. Sadly, most of them don’t even know what CRM stands for.

Smart Blog on Social Media
When the song does come on my iPhone via shuffle, I quickly skip it and move to the next. So why do I get so excited when a song I can listen to anytime comes on the radio? The answer is that someone else, with a far greater reach, has chosen to share one of “my songs” with their audience.

OPENForum
We multitask at work – flitting between 12 browser tabs, chatting on IM, taking phone calls, processing our inboxes. We multi-task in the car – driving, texting, listening to the radio. We multi-task in the kitchen – talking to our partners, chopping vegetables, checking our Blackberries or iPads. Yet, multi-tasking has been proven time and again to be a miserable failure.

So how do we fight back?

Mack Collier
Let me clear up front: If you are going to use social media, you absetively should have a strategy driving your efforts. Totally.

But simply creating a social media strategy and executing it doesn’t mean you are using social media correctly. I can create a blogging strategy for your company and tell you exactly what to do, but that still doesn’t mean you’ll have a successful blog.

Blog for Profit
Should your blog’s domain name be a brand or your own name? Or should it contain search keywords? Grant and I get this question all time from our clients. The answer may surprise you.

EConsultancy
You can measure a thousand different metrics and still fail at social media, because you’re ignoring the hundreds of different methods involved. If you want to create true engagement, then you’ll need to drop any preconceptions you might have about market behaviour and take time to speak personally to each customer.

Related ala carte selections include

Chris Pirillo
I spend probably 80% of my working time writing things. I communicate with people across social networks. I compose missives to be sent to various people. I occasionally author books and articles. I draft items to send to potential sponsors. I dash off the quick email
or hundred. The one thing I do not do is write a letter. Who needs to do such a thing in this day and age of 140 characters or less?

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

SOB Business Cafe 08-20-10

Filed Under Great Finds, Successful Blog | 2 Comments

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

PR Squared
Andrea had been with us for 3 years, and in that brief amount of time — since she was a rockstar — she climbed the ranks from quiet, mousy intern to Senior Account Executive.

Web Worker Daily
Is there an area of your life or business where you just can’t seem to get a grip? You try and try, but can never seem to fix it.

Riding on Dragons
For years I believed something I was told by experts that now appears to be wrong. Which brings up lots of questions.

Pick the Brain
Have you ever wondered why some people are able to weather financial upheaval without breaking a sweat and have confidence to spare when it comes to taking risks such as starting their own business or taking a year off to travel without an enormous safety net?

Servant of Chaos
So, it is with some joy I came across Heather LeFevre’s Planner Survey for 2010. It covers the industry from top to tail – sharing details of salaries, roles, locations and so on. It captures what planners think of their jobs, why they stay, why they go – and who they think is doing the best work. It also lists a bunch of people who the community rate – not because they are famous, but because they get on with the challenge of producing good work.

Related ala carte selections include

Barry Moltz
Congratulations Barry!

over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

SOB Business Cafe 08-13-10: The SOBCon SxSW Panel List

Filed Under Great Finds, Successful Blog | 1 Comment

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week is

the list of panels by the friends of SOBCon. If you know these folks, you’ll know that it’s smart and lucky to vote for them.

SOBCon influence invades SxSW Panel picker. Get out and vote for these amazing folks so

1. @lizstrauss @starbucker @caroljsroth@caroljsroth will present:
   
   Build, Buy, Partner: Time is Money
2. @lizstrauss @starbucker @caroljsroth@caroljsroth will present:
   
   From Jobbies to Businesses: Strategies for Irresistible Success
3. @ericlukazewski will present:
   
   Confessions From Social Media Event Organizers

4. @JasonFalls will present:
   
   Social Media: The Pink Collar Ghetto of Tech?
5. @renewabelle @renewabelle will present:
   
   Making Sustainable Attainable: Energy Efficient Computing
6. @DaveMurr will present:
   
   Have Fun to Increase Customer Engagement
7. @jeanniecwwill present:
   
   X Marks the Spot: Mapping The Customer Experience
8. @LisaPetrilli @judymartin8 will present:
   
   Conquer Your Kryptonite: Superpowers Fueling Kick-Ass Business Deals
9. @conniereece will present:
   
   Resources Roulette: Winning Social Strategies for Shrinking Budgets
10. @ScottMonty @Schwen @ShannonPaul will present:
    
    Socially Regulated: Social Media in Regulated Industries
11. @jonathanfields will present:
    
    Fear and the Art of Creation
12. @LucretiaPruitt will present:
    
    Killing Clark Kent; When You Outgrow Your AlterEgo
13. @GlendaWH will present:
    
    The untapped iPad Market: Is Your Site POUR?
14. @hardlynormal Mark Horvath will present:
    
    A Conversation on Social Change through Social Media
15. @armano will present:
    
    Why PR’s Future May Not Look Like PR

Remember, voting ends on August 27th, so do it now. BTW, these are also great people to follow on Twitter.

If you’re a member of the SOBCon community or want to be one and you have a panel you’d like to be on this list, Tweet or DM us at @sobcon, or add a comment to this post.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

I’m a proud affiliate of

SOB Business Cafe 08-06-10

Filed Under Great Finds, Successful Blog | 1 Comment

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Steve Farber
In a recent article in Investor’s Business Daily, Sonja Carberry interviewed Jim McCormick, Razi Imam, and myself to identify the “X Factor” qualities in entrepreneurs and executives who tend to rise above the rest.

7 Qualities of the MegaPerformer

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Copyblogger
In fact, online content in general and blogging in particular are very non-bookish indeed, thanks to the real-time interactivity the medium allows. Instead of a static monologue, blogs are a two-way multimedia interactive environment.

Let’s take a look at four ways you can spark interaction with your audience that increases engagement and makes you a more innovative content producer.

Four Easy Ways to Create Innovative Content With Interactivity

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Ramblings from a Glass Half Full
It had to be just the right adjective. The one that would launch a thousand retweets.

The one that would make the headline bark out “READ ME”!!!

My Diagnosis (and Cure) Of Obsessive-Compulsive Blog Headline Writing Disorder

Problogger
Voice can give a blogger a serious edge. Your unique voice can set you apart from the competition, form a foundation for your brand, engender audience loyalty, and more. If you find it difficult to retain readers, and you’re confident of the quality and accuracy of the content you provide, you may need to work on your voice.

Five Ways to Build Your Blog’s Voice

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Spin Sucks
This is a big conversation we have internally all the time – how do we decide what is me being overly nice and what is a request that is going to move us closer to the vision? We don’t have all of the answers yet, but we do have a ton of places where you can get free advice from me every day.

The Age-Old Question: Can I Pick Your Brain?

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Deaf Mom at Home
Whenever I would share my family’s story about how we all became deaf and hard of hearing, people would be incredulous at the events that lead to hearing loss. “Y’all need to stop banging your heads,” one person remarked.

The Deaf Gene in my Family

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Related ala carte selections include

Tech Crunch
Many a post has come before this one on the special adventure that is pitching TechCrunch. And while most of our writers have their own preferences (Please don’t call my cell before 7 a.m. PDT unless you’re Google, and you’re buying Twitter. And you’ve made breakfast in bed.) there’s definitely a right and wrong way to ping tips@techcrunch if you’re a startup hungry for coverage.

How To Get Our Attention, A Case Study

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Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

I’m a proud affiliate of

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