David Armano

David has over 14 years experience in the creative field with the majority of his time spent in interactive marketing and digital experience design. An active thought leader in the industry, David blogs at Logic + Emotion which has taken the marketing, design, and advertising communities by storm. David’s blog has been covered by Forrester, The Boston Globe and landed in BusinessWeek’s “Best of 2006”. More importantly Logic + Emotion remains one of the blogging worlds most compelling success stories—combining healthy Technorati and Alexa statistics with an even healthier community of smart and passionate people who join the daily conversation on “L+E”.

Prior to his current role at Digitas, David was a Senior Creative Director with Agency.com where he led multiple initiatives for clients such as HP, Grainger, Con Agra foods, Bally Total Fitness and Abbott Laboratories. Previously, David earned his interactive stripes working with The Chicago Tribune on their site initiatives. David helped launch and upgrade site features, functionality and content for the Tribune’s flagship site. David also accumulated broadcast and direct marketing knowledge while working for companies such as Fox and Columbia House. David graduated magna cum laude with a degree in design (computer graphics) from the reputable Pratt Institute.

The Presentation

Designing Conversations: How “Conversation Architecture” can result in an effective, differentiated blog experience.

David, will combine his strengths in visual communications and experience design to show you how you can tap these techniques to help differentiate your blog and build a better experience for your community.

• The myth and reality of design and what it means to blogging
• How “conversation architecture” can strengthen your community
• How design effects our “personal brands” and can help you find your “voice”
• How visuals can enhance our conversations and spark meaningful dialogue
• How to upgrade your blog experience without alienating your community
• How you can get noticed by mainstream media and other influencers

About Liz Strauss and Successful-Blog

Liz Strauss is known as a relationship blogger, a person who answers every comment, and someone who never sleeps. If you ask her about it, she’ll tell you she lives inside your computer. Some folks have started to believe that. She believes blogging is about the people and, as part of her B.A.D. Blogger program, Liz calls a blogger a day to find out more about the folks who blog.

ME “Liz” Strauss has worked in print, software, and online publishing with small companies and corporate giants such as Pearson, Reed Elsevier, and Wolters Kluwer. She conceived and drove the reader-centered strategy that turned around a sharply declining company, taking it from $9M to sell for $35M in 3 years. Her presentations are known for being fun, insightful, and packed with quality content.

Successful-Blog Thinking, writing, business ideas. You’re only a stranger once.
[Read more…]

About a week ago I posed a question over on my own blog Quantity vs Quality – Which is Better?

I was curious. Given a choice, which one would bloggers prefer?

In order to be able to attach a number value to the answer I put up a little poll. Now it certainly isn’t a scientific survey. But it does give us a little insight into how bloggers think (at least the ones who read my blog, anyway).

The discussion in the comments section of the post was lively. Some folks wanted more than two choices. “Both” seemed to be a popular demand as several folks really like to see “more and better”.

But I purposely forced a choice to be made to see which way folks would go if they had to decide between one or the other.

The results were overwhelming. Unanimous, in fact. [Read more…]

At SOBCon, we’re going all out to make this event insightful, memorable, content-rich, educational, different and fun! We’ve put together a powerhouse line up of presenters with one goal in mind – Help equip you to take your blogging to the next level.

So we thought you might appreciate a peek into who all these people are. We wanted to give you a savory taste of what you can expect from your interaction with each of them when you join us for SOBCon ’07.

Phil Gerbyshak – Relationship Geek

Phil Gerbyshak is a relationship geek who makes it great. Put simply, Phil creates and grows relationships on his blog, and in his world, and he’ll be sharing his tips on “how to be a relationship geek,” with 3 simple, but not easy, methods:

Know More – Learning more about your brand, and yourself, helps you to learn more about why others are attracted to you, and what you can do more of (and what you can stop doing)

Share More – Your knowledge…Your network…Your love…Your time…Your attention. These are things to be shared. Don’t keep them to yourself. Phil will share how he does that without burning out.

Grow More – At the end of the day, we all want to get better, to improve our life, to improve our relationships, to grow our knowledge to grow our network, to make our blogs, our business, everything, better, GREATER. Phil will share his tips on how to grow your life from good…to GREAT!

Reserve Your Seat Today

You don’t want to miss this conference. Come join us, interact with all our presenters, and learn how to take your blogging to the next level.

We look forward to getting to know you a little better there!

What Does It Mean to Take Your Blogging to the Next Level?

It means engaging your potential, reaching for the vision and executing what you see. At SOBCon, we’re going all out to make this event insightful, memorable, content-rich, educational, different and fun!

Take Easton Ellsworth’s word for it.

SOBCon 07 will be different from any conference you’ve attended.

The speakers will be incredible. But they’re not the main event. You are.

You have to be there. YOU will shape and define SOBCon. And SOBCon will reshape and redefine you and your business.

You will discover how to use emerging technologies to supercharge your business and connect to people more effectively on the Web.

The virtual mini-conference was just an appetizer. The seven-course meal is coming.

The SOBCon Next Level Quest

Together we will strategize, discuss, and learn how to

• Respect that in business and blogging all things are based in connecting relationships
• Treat our blogs like a business, or a business-like hobby
• Define a vision for our blogs that inspires others to be part of it
• Identify like-minded bloggers whose blogging goals match our own
• Evaluate our blogs through the eyes of a first-time reader
• Use links, trackbacks, and comments to lead to increased participation, and extended reach that could develop into business ventures
• Ensure presentation, navigation and all reader experiences are intuitive, simple and elegant
• Know our brand values as readers define them and be able to articulate the unique and remarkable values we offer
• Understand basic tools that are useful in adding video, podcasting, social media, and voice commenting
• Reach out beyond the blogosphere to non-blogging readers to become a resource they rely on
• Recognize the traits and characteristics of a successful and outstanding blog

Presenters with specialized expertise will get the conversation started, and together presenters and attendees will work interactively to get you where you need to go — to take your blogging to the next level.

Are you ready to take your blog to a new level?

— Liz Strauss and the SOBCon Team