Successful Blog

Ideas in Your Refrigerator

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You Know You’re Procrastinating When . . .

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

. . . cleaning the refrigerator takes on a new and miraculous sense of urgency with a heavenly glow.

Go ahead give in and do it, but don’t lose to procrastination. Turn that refrigerator chore into an exploration for ideas. Here are three things you might think about.

  • What is your customer experience of the products that you are tossing out? Can you use those experiences to seed an article for your blog?
  • Refrigerators are filled with products. How do the companies who make those products promote them? Can you twist any of their ideas into ways to promote your business or your blog?
  • Is there a brand in there you are attached to? What do you value about that brand? Can you put your feelings into words? How can you use that brand value you feel to strengthen your personal brand and the brand experience people have when they meet you?

Procrastination just became an idea session, and on top of that you’ve cleaned your refrigerator! That’s productivity where you could have been doing what I’ve done — standing in front of an open refrigerator door thinking about how the light goes on and off.

Bet you can think of more ideas to find inside of that Big Box. How about sharing some with us?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Exploring for Ideas at Technorati
Eye-Deas 1: Have You Started Seeing Things?
More ideas in the Idea Bank category and in Writing Power, Thinking Outside the Box, Customer Think, and Brand You Series on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES PAGE

Critical Skill4: Part 3-A Virtual Process

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Picking Up the Gauntlet

Future Skills

If you’re following the soap opera that is Successful Blog, I’m halfway through writing Critical Skill 5 on Originality, as you might know, but along the way I was interrupted with a challenge. Ariane Benefit from NeatLiving.Net wrote an in-depth comment about process and how it works for her, which ended with these statements.

So basically I see the rules you presented that work so well in a corporate setting actually have their counterpart in the virtual, ultimately highly democratic world of blogging.

. . . if my post inspires you to write the virtual version . . . it was worth it. — from a comment exchange on Critical Skill 4: Part2-Designing a Complex Process

I really wanted to leave them on the page and continue on with the piece on originality. It was hard enough writing about process in the brick and mortar world. Still the comment stayed with me. It followed me around the house . . . and popped into my mind every time I went to write about anything else. After all, it had two things going for it. Ariane Benefit is a reader and I have a really hard time walking away from a delicious challenge like that — even when I know it will involve close contact between my head and a few brick walls I don’t need. [Read more…]

How Was Your Day as a Customer?

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Whatever You Did Today

Customer Think Logo

Whatever you did today — enjoy a cup of coffee reading the paper, watch TV, work on your computer, clean the house, go to the mall, drive a car, eat lunch, read blogs, take a shower — you used a product. You were a customer.

How was your customer experience? Did anything about it leave you wishing that some business knew you better?

What percent of your experiences leaves you feeling more than satisfied, makes you want to tell people what a great experience you had?

It’s hard to miss when you’ve bumped into a business that values a customer. It’s hard to forget the name of their brand.

Brand you and me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Feeling a Customer’s First Response
Customers and Credibility
The Customer Think Series on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES Page

Stop. Listen. Hear that Idea?

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It Happens Constantly

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

I can almost count on it happening. When I’m stuck on how to write something, when I really need some direction on how to frame a concept, I just start listening for one. Sure enough in a day or two, someone will say something.

I was working on the post for Critical Skill 5: Originality — no small task I might add. How do you talk about being original? I did my usual walking and thinking, but most of my way to original thinking is intuitive, hard to explain in words.

I like challenges, but sometimes they make my head hurt. So I put my question to the universe and left myself open to any answer it might bring me. Sure enough, it did within a couple of hours.
[Read more…]

Boosting Blog Traffic

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When I went looking to see what was new on blog traffic and blog promotion, I didn’t expect to find anything nearly as thorough as this.

Great Find: HOW TO: Boost Your Blog Traffic by Paul Staminou
Type of Article: How-to on every step
Permalink: http://www.paulstamatiou.com/2005/11/03/how-to-boost-your-blog-traffic/
Target Audience: Everyone who blogs

Content:Paul Staminou has put together the complete document. It’s amazing and beautiful. This is not a mere blog post. It’s an e-book with visuals. It covers content, usuability, Technorati, blog networks and blog rings, feeds, stats, and how to talk to lurking readers. I think the value of the post is shown in the 193 comments. The trackback from this post will make it 194. To get there, as always, click on the screenshot of the title below.

Paul Staminou How to Boost Your Blog Traffic

Thanks Paul for the obvious time and work that went into this post.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
I’ll be adding this post to the others on the NEW BLOGGER PAGE.

Feeling a Customer’s First Response

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An Opportunity

Customer Think Logo

A customer’s first response runs deep and lasts long. One way I keep myself close to customers is to monitor my first response to new information whenever I can — you know, that initial response that occurs without thinking. I’ve made habit of looking for such responses as I move through my life.

Information has no positive or negative value until I respond to it.

This morning I encountered information that you might use in the same way. Ready? [Read more…]