Outside the Box Archives - Page 23 of 31

Critical Skill 6B: 5+1 Ways to a Best-Fit Niche for YOU & the Market

July 17, 2006 by Liz

Finding that Ellusive Niche

Everyone talks about finding their niche, but I haven’t heard much about how to do it. How do you do a niche that fits? Finding a niche is Critical Skill 6 in what I call The 10 Skills Most Critical to Your Future. Once you can find hidden assumptions, you’re on your way to finding hidden niches.

Finding a niche that fits you and the market takes involvement, patience, and self-awareness — you need to know all points of view to get the perfect fit, and nothing less will do.

That best-fit niche is a tiny space where you’ll live, work, and relate to people. You’re going to have to like it there, but so are folks who don’t even know you. How do you find the niche that works for you and attracts an audience? [Read more…]

Critical Skill 6A: Five Tools for Finding Faulty Assumptions

July 15, 2006 by Liz

What Is the Premise Behind your Thinking?

At the time I was an Executive Editor. The project was simple. Build a binder of about 300 pages. I’d probably built four times that many books already. For a rush job, this one should be a piece of cake.

We made the bookmap. We went through the usual steps. We got the pages. Got the binders. Got everything ready for assembly. That’s when we faced our hidden assumption.

We’d assumed that Binders go together exactly like books do.

They do except in one important way. Books don’t have those tab dividers. Our tiny assumption caused a major, stressful, and immediate problem. The first divider belonged between pages 23 and 24. So? [Read more…]

Bad Boys: You’re a Fraud, a Fake, a Phony

July 14, 2006 by Liz

New Job, New Career, Finally On Your Own

We land a new position, change careers, or finally take the plunge and start that business of our own that we’ve always thought about and for the first few weeks, few months we’re sailing. Enthusiastic beginner they call it. Even though we’re not beginners. It’s the newness. Everything’s shiny. Then, it’s not.

A Bad Boy roars into our thnking. Bad Boys are negative messages, bad tape recordings, in our heads. They’re things we tell ourselves that undercut our success and productivity.

The bad boy here is “You’re a Fraud, a Fake, a Phony.”

Sound outrageous? I’ve seen it happen. I’ve predicted it. I’ve even done it myself. [Read more…]

NEW POWER WRITING FEATURE: An Editorial Makeover

July 13, 2006 by Liz

Why Powerful Writing Is Important

One of the ways I work with clients is to help them improve their writing. It might not be fair or accurate, but people judge our ability to reason by how we express ourselves in writing.

Thinking . . . writing . . . business . . . thinking . . . we can’t separate them.

Together they determine our place in society. Whether you blog, write for business, or only email, writing is critical to your future.

New Feature: An Editorial Makeover

I’m introducing a new feature — An Editorial Makeover. It’s a Content Edit — a Before and After — where you can look over my shoulder. Every editor edits differently. You won’t agree with all of my choices. That could make for great conversation.

I’m starting with a paragraph from my own work Bad Boys of Business: ThatÃ¢â¬â¢s Not Ã¢â¬ÅRealÃ¢â¬Â Work.

Turn the page to see the first Editorial Makeover. [Read more…]

I’m on 25 Peeps! Will You Click My Picture?

July 6, 2006 by Liz

Fun Promotion for Personal Blogs

There are 25 pictures of individual people.
Each is hot linked to a personal website.
Click the picture you like and visit the blog.
The blogs most visited get into the Peeps Hall of Fame.

hendrik mans

Be sure when you check it out that you click the link in the bottom nav bar to visit the blog of hendrik mans the man who developed 25 Peeps. His personal blog is most interesting in its own right. He’s a web developer who has just shown he knows a bit about outside of the box blog promotion.

Could You Be a Hall of Famer?

You can upload your own picture and knock someone off the page. They’ll check your blog to make sure it’s a personal site–no business please. Then you can see whether you can make the Hall of Fame.

Click, Click, Enter

Click Me Here. Click Me There. Put Yourself in as a Candidate. We’ll track everyone who get up on the 25 Peeps every week.

Click the shot below to go there and get the detials. While you’re there will you click my picture to keep me up at 25peeps?

Send in your picture to get traffic to your personal weblog too. (It takes a few weeks to get up there.)

I heard about this from Sumeet Jain at Sumeet’s Treasures.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

A Silly Left Right Brain Test

June 9, 2006 by Liz

Here’s a Fun Test

Here’s a fun test on right and left brain thinking with only a few questions. If you know this stuff you can easily skew it. I tried not to, but I did anyway. We know that I am very right brain. But I also have left brain qualities. I won’t give you my results before you take the test.

Have some fun with it, but don’t plan your life on the results. Click on the title below to try it out.

We all use both sides of our brain and we can develop the side that we don’t use.

–Me “Liz” Strauss