Successful Blog

Chris Cree Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Chris there?

The phone call came from Savannah, Georgia, and in reality, it was Chris Cree asking for me. Let’s just say that Chris Cree has my number. . . .

What fun it is to have a conversation with Chris! From the first words, I knew it would be an adventure. Even when Chris is dead on serious talking about life and it’s ups and downs, he knows the value of laughter and sharing it with other people. Chris has a way of adding a spark of life to things.

Chris and I talked about his upcoming speaking role in Savannah’s first ever Blogging Conference. I teased him that I had to read about it on is blog. He laughed with me. He said he knew of a whole group who had signed up already just for his business blogging seminar. That’s so cool! I wish we could all get together and take road trip down to see it.

That bit of conversation led us into a discussion of his new clients. He’s choosing his clients carefully and has a great outlook. “If there’s no joy in it, I might as well stay in my day job,” is how he sees it. His newest clients are raring to go — how excited they are to be breaking into blogging. I’d say that Chris’ criteria seems to be working.

Chris is looking forward to getting these clients running before he comes to Chicago next week. When he returns, he’ll be showing them the details — ins and outs of trackbacks and coding. Yet, Chris has confidence that his handholding won’t last long. He says the fire he saw in the group was sure to ignite in one individual who would take up blogging naturally.

I suspect Chris will be introducing a new member of Tuesday night comments to all of us in a few months.

Chris and I talked about the lovely morning writing time while our significant others are still asleep. He says the irony is that he gets up early because he’s not a morning person. I think that nothing could make him a morning person more quickly than having that time alone to write. We both think of that time as a bit of a luxury. It’s cool to think that he’s writing when I am.

As I write this, I still hear myself telling Chris how my morning ritual includes a moment, when I whisper, “Honey, Sleep longer, a little longer, sleep, sleep, sleep.”

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

I meet new people I would never connect with otherwise, people from all over the world. I love it. I don’t have to be someone I’m not. I like it because I can be just be.” —Chris Cree

Stop by Chris’ Blog, SuccessCREEations, and say hi!

Thanks, Chris, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

Sandra Renshaw Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Sandy there?

If there really is a Des Moines Blogger Mafia, I guess you would have to say their head moll is Sandra Renshaw. We talked yesterday evening about her business, her partnership with Panera man, and her background in traditional organizations. Sandra Renshaw in one interesting lady.

Sandy told me that she started in the corporate world doing marketing. She said she has done most marketing tasks, but her love is graphics. We discussed our experiences with organizations in distress and how they shift people from job to job. Sandy stayed when others left because she’s good at what she does and because she calmly keeps things organized even in times of stress. Those two skills that are important in downsizing companies. Still she said it was disheartening that each time a good team was together another change would pull them apart.

Finally Sandy decided to do writing, graphics, and blogging on her own. That’s how Purple Wren Communications was born. Sandy said she has always been drawn to the color purple. Spoken like a true designer I thought. Wren, of course, comes from Renshaw and Communications comes from what she’s about — a unique brand name for a unique lady’s business.

Sandy told me of a corporate blogging experience she took on in which the business asked her to blog for them. Unfortunately the company wasn’t clear on their blogging goal. We discussed how Sandy’s role was too undefined and as a result, the writing for the blog was a chore. Sandy’s advice from the experience is that a blogger needs a clear role to feel a passion for writing. She said without that, she felt she couldn’t be effective on the company’s behalf.

We talked about blogging and bloggers. We talked about bloggers as adverntures. Sandy said that it takes people who want to try something new to begin with. We both talked about the blogger description that Jon Symons had mentioned the day before. Sandy said that she’d seen something like it too. I wondered where the heck I had been.

Sandy spoke of her first blog and the beginning of the blog she has now. We had a conversation about how many bloggers get caught in the feeling that they have a lot to say, but nothing that anyone would be interested in reading. I pointed out that every writer is half ego and half self-doubt — without the ego, nothing would get written; without the self-doubt, the writer would be too busy casting the movie to care that it did. We laughed about that together.

I wonder whether we were casting the same movie . . .

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

Maybe one day down the road blogging will be different, but right now it feels like family. Everyone is so caring, so giving, and so fun to meet in person. —Sandra Renshaw

Stop by Sandy’s blog, Purple Wren Communications, and say hi!

Thanks, Sandy, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

Jon Symons Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Jon there?

Jon Symons isn’t the typical blogger. He didn’t start out on a on Blogger or free WordPress. He coded his own blog from scratch.
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When Jon and I talked, yesterday via Skype, his mellow voice told me he used to be a Systems Analyst — a job most in his profession would die for. He said that fact made it hard to walk away from it. On other hand, Jon knew his heart wasn’t in it. He felt he was only an average coder. “I was interested in business, not in the perfect subroutine.”

He walked away to follow a dream.

Jon and I talked the blogging business he’s starting. He told me how the night before, Sean Wise, the guy behind the b5 funding deal, was in Edmonton giving a talk to entrepreneurs. Jon had braved the cold to see him. Then in an uncharacteristic turn of events, Jon braved the crowd when he described his business plan to a roomful of folks who hardly understood the Internet. It’s not Jon’s usual nature to stand up in crowds.

Soon we were discussing how how blogging changes people. Jon said he couldn’t imagine announcing his business plan publicly that way just a few years ago, but how natural it seemed, and how it helped things become more real in his mind.

I mentioned my nonblogging friend who calls blogging the “ultimate self-therapy.” Jon spoke of a study of bloggers he read that described us as intelligent, curious people — “Fits my experience of the blogger I know,” is what I replied.

We waxed philosophical on following your bliss. The practical side of having support from people, such as significant others, came up and was underlined. We even worked on what the next steps might be in filling out the people needs he has for his blog network. I passed a few names along to him. We promised to talk more as things progress.

It’s the excitement of watching something being born. It’s the fun of hearing a guy, named Jon, talk about his dream.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

When you leverage your passion it grows so much faster, and it grows so much more real. —Jon Symons

Stop by Jon’s Blog, Art of Money, and say hi!

Thanks, Jon, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

Tony Hung Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Tony there?

When you meet Tony Hung you might not realize how soon, or how often, you’re going to be seeing him. He would need time to tell you about all of the places you might find him. Beyond his own blog, a few of his regular stops include the Blog Herald, Bloggertalks, Tuesday Night Comments, and events and conversations about the MESH conference. Soon there will be even more.

When Tony and I met via headphones and our computers, he shared his background — years of websites and playing with web design. We talked about how he came into blogging. Tony goes deep on any subject he’s interested in. It shows in the fact that his first blog was on WordPress with a theme of his own design.

I asked how Tony connected with the Blog Herald — he said he suggested some topics and shortly thereafter, Matt read Tony’s blog and invited Tony to write for them. The Blog Herald connection prompted Thord, another Herald writer, to invite Tony to be part of Bloggertalks, the hot new interview blog.

When I asked Tony what he did when he wasn’t blogging or talking to bloggers, I found out that he had another name, Dr. Tony Hung. He said he’s a final-year resident doctor in Internal Medicine. So we talked about doctors. I mentioned that I finally found a neurologist without a gargantuan ego. He replied that more than one specialty fell victim to that condition.

I think Tony’d be glad I didn’t share my favorite doctor joke.

Tony explained how he chose Internal Medicine. He said he had started in Family Medicine, but found that he wanted to help really sick people. We discussed how some folks don’t get better, but instead have to move on to other care. Tony mentioned the thought that goes into talking to family members who are also involved. You have to admire someone who does that work.

Dr. Tony Hung added one more name 9 weeks ago — Daddy. Tony Hung is the father of a baby boy.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

I got into it so that I could learn about what people are doing. I wasn’t prepared for how much fun it is. —Tony Hung

Stop by Tony’s Blog, deep jive interests, and say hi!

Thanks, Tony, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

Michael Vizdos Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Mike there?

If you go on Amazon, you’ll find that Mike Vizdos wrote a book with Scott Ambler and John Nalbone. The Amazon bio also will tell you that he’s a certified Scrum Master.

Mike told me that Scrum is a way of teaching development teams to manage chaos when every team member has conflicting needs. What does Scrum stand for? Scrum stands for Scrum — the letters have no meaning. I heard it from the master.

Mike and I had fun discussing the kinds of issues he faces teaching folks in all kinds of business to work together in teams. He said that often teams sabotage each other. We discussed the problem of middle managers, who learned to lead by giving orders rather than asking folks to solve problems together.

Mike says he has a better chance at making headway with the idea of teamwork because he’s from outside the culture. I said that I could see that. My thought was that ideas give people power — he’d be leaving and that would take away the threat. We talked about how the company culture often undoes what he worked to get started.

The heart of this part of the conversation was that as much as they talk about teamwork, organizations often reward heroes. So there’s no payoff to working with and for each other when one role has a paycheck or gets credit. Mike teaches the value of giving up that world view. He tells folks if they love working 100-hour weeks, they shouldn’t expect their teammates to do the same thing. I could almost hear him saying that life is about living.

Our discussion wandered into family, kids, neighborhoods, travel, and homeschooling. Mike has the advantage of being able to take his two sons and his wife with him when he works in other countries. We talked about the educational units they prepare for their kids so that they’re always learning.

I have a feeling Mike’s the same way. . . . always learning and always curious. When we talked about the things his teams do to form relationships, he told me in detail about the IT department that formed a knitting group. Now they all have long scarves they don’t know how to finish off.

Maybe Mike and I can get some folks to start a HELP DESK for IT Knitters.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

It’s amazing to see when people start going home to their families and things just happen. —Mike Vizdos

Stop by Mike’s Blog, Implementing Scrum, and say hi!

Thanks, Mike, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

Katiebird Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

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Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Katie there?

Katiebird has been incredibly busy at work for at least two months. She’s oveseeing the content revision and revamp of a nearly 3000-page WEBSITE that was built in the late 1990s. It’s getting a design, new navigation, and rebuilt with cascading stylesheets. Whoa! Exciting! Whew! Some work!

Oh did I forget to tell you where she works and what her role is? Katie is Librarian and Database Programmer for an urban library in the midwest of the USA. Yep, that’s right a library, and there’s 25 librarians working on the project. If you haven’t been to a library lately . . . keep reading libraries are really cool.

Half of our conversation was Katie bringing me up to speed on what’s going in libraries. Her library website is filled with pages of crafts, and games, and recipes, and booklists, and book reviews. One particular craft she mentioned, a paper flower designed by a library staff member, gets 10,000 hits a month from all over the world. That’s as many hits as the card catalogue, which is doing well, thank you.

Katie and I discussed how libraries often aren’t thought of being on the edge of technology and how that perception conflicts with reality — that libraries and banks have actually pushed programming forward in some ways. She pointed out that if you go to a library you’ll see a sea of people on computers. Katie also told me about the Database at Home service that allows folks to use the library offsite, and how that’s going to grow in new ways as they integrate electronic books into their services. I was thinking, if people only knew . . . There’s so much to be explored and used.

“It’s an exciting time to be in a library. . . . It’s an exciting time to be blogging.” Katiebird said. “Oh yeah,” was the only appropriate response to that!

When topic turned to blogging, Katie wondered with enthusiasm at this medium that combines the advantages of so many others, bringing people together, making brilliant new kinds of connections. We talked about the people who self-select to become bloggers. She said she was surprised to find how meaningful blogging quickly became. We discussed the communities that form, that links are more than they appear, and how we come to make our blogs our own. Yes, we did say the word addictive, but we meant it in the most positive way. . . . I’m guessing that urban library is going to have a blog when that web site is finally done.

When we finished the call I couldn’t help but think This isn’t your father’s library. This isn’t even the one from college.

Then I wondered how Meredith Wilson would have rewritten Marion, the librarian, if he were commissioned to update his 1957 musical play, The Music Man.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

I didn’t realize when I started a blog, that I was joining such a strong community of people . . . You’re talking to people who are there every day. You get to know them, their thoughts, and they become dearest friends, yet you’ve never really met in person.–Katiebird

Stop by Katiebird’s blog, Eat4Today, and say hi!

Thanks, Katiebird, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.