Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 167 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I Get to Grant a Wish! Congratulations, Jennifer! You Won!

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This is about the contest sponsored on behalf of SEARS via Izea.
The opinions, memories, and words are mine.

You might remember the story I told about when I was a kid … how my mom would sit us down with the Wishbook from Sears to make a Christmas wish list …. My list kept me busy for hours — busy dreaming, and wishing, and learning the life skill of filling out order forms.

Every year my mom would grant one wish.

This year, Sears let me be the one who got to grant a wish in the the $500 Grant a Wish Giveaway!

The assignment was simple. I got to test drive a $500 gift at a SEARS store and then I had to put together three packages so that one lucky winner could use a wish from the three.

The randomly chosen winner is Jennifer Hedden. Her entry was comment #402 on my blog and she chose

Cool Tools Wish

Thank you everyone for making this experiment in blogging (and time travel) such a positive and fun experience for me.

Congratulations, Jennifer! An email has already been sent to you. I feel pretty lucky to be able to be part of all of this. Hope you and every one have the best 2009!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

The contest was sponsored. For more information about the sponsor SEARS or the contest see Izea.
It’s the spirit of the season!! Thank you.

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Chris Brogan!

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Be the Original

My younger older brother was bigger than life He wa the coolest kid in the neighborhood. I was 8 and half years younger. I watched him all my life and I learned.

He was instant community. He was kind of like Tom Sawyer. He could smile around a corner.

  • He had 5 girlfriends before he was 10.
  • If he said “baseball,” the team formed before he finished the word.
  • If he said, “hockey,” the ice was cleared and smooth.
  • Kids called him “Bugs” and I never knew whether it was because of the famous bunny or the Las Vegas gambler. They were always too busy laughing to tell me.
  • He’s the one who had me trained to come when he whistled.
  • He still has a magnetic personality.

Grownups, teachers, kids, … everyone enjoyed his company.

Problem was some kids tried to be him.
Maybe we all did.

It never worked. Our voices were different. He was taller or his smile had a different tilt. We just became bad copies of my younger, older brother, instead of the really cool kids that we were.

So Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up trying to be Chris Brogan. He’s as magic as my younger, older brother … but only Chris Brogan can be Chris Brogan. Tell your babies to be an original.

Everyone has our own magic.

I know. I’ve been watching all my life.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Meet Chris Brogan close up at SOBCon09

The Mic Is On for TWO DAYS: Leave a Wish for 2009

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

What Is Your Wish, Your Will for the Year to Come?

Leave a wish, a word, a thought.
Leave a hope, a goal, a want.
Leave a message for a friend or the world.
Set it here for us all to remember.
Leave one or one hundred.

Happy New Year!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
image: sxc.hu
Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Social Media for Beginners — All You Need to Know

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Enter and sign in please …

The message said:
thanks! didn’t know there was
so much to blogging …

And I thought another one.

I wrote back:
yeah, writing is
just the vehicle.

All The Words You Need

It’s not

what you see is what you get; it’s what you get is what you see.

All the words you need won’t be found in all the words I’ve written about it.

They come from an ordinary conversation with a friend two years ago …

The whole thing changes when the world becomes your community.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!