Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 206 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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futurenow
happinessisbettercom
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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

SOB Business Cafe: 10 Posts that Inspired My IZEAFest Talk

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

IZEAFest Edition

This weekend I get the pleasure of speaking at IZEAFest at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida. What an awesome experience that was and how cool to be among so many Internet friends. You can out more about the experience and how to be part of it at IZEAFest.com

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My conversation, Navigating and Networking in the Seamless Concrete-Virtual Universe, is about the question How can you leverage relationships to become successful in business? Naturally personal identity, an irresistible offer, conversation, and community online and offline will be important and featured throughout.

The Specials this Week are

Ten posts that inspired my IZEAFest talk.

Internet famous isn’t “Oprah famous” . . . not even close . . . and the Internet forgets quickly.

When I asked Internet Rockstar, Guy Kawasaki, about what bloggers should know about blogging as business, he said. …

I call him up. He answers.
I say, “Hi, Eddie, how am I?”
He replies, “Oh, you’re fine. What do you think of me?”

I heard them talk and laugh. They were talking “cool talk” about how cool they were and how cool I was not.

Barn Raisers avoid the risk by building the community as they build the site. They believe that people will help build a powerful idea. Barn Raisers invite collaboration from the people they’ll be serving and so what they build is often a gathering place for people even before it’s fully finished.

I was in the game, but I wasn’t playing with all that was in me.

I looked around and saw I wasn’t the only one that was holding back.

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

Strategy isn’t a plan, a decision, a goal, a destination.
It’s a tool for leveraging who you are, what you know, where you are, the environment, and how people think and respond to each other. Strategy is a system for improving your position.

The Traffic Game, Auditioning Ants, and How Communities Grow

… by the time I came along, the neighborhood wasn’t much more than a huge space that people came to eat and sleep.

The beauty of enlisting a social media community from the start is that communities only have time for ideas that will work.

Because deeply knowing where you’re going is irresistibly attractive.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Have You Tried Letting the Other Guy See Why You're Invested?

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What If You Let Them See?

Change the World!

His name was Michael. He was all of six years old, and he had a crush on me. That was only right I was his first grade teacher and I had a crush on him and every other kid that sat in the classroom with him.

Michael was a beautiful, logical, and thoughtful young student who liked to help make things go the way they should. I was young enough to think I could control things.

Every time we’d go as a class to anywhere, Michael would somehow end up at the front of the line. At some moment he’d get about four feet ahead of me … I’d make a point of NOT telling him where we were going, but he’d still take the lead.

Some days that bothered me. I thought about what that meant about me, about what that meant about him. Why should I care about a six year old wandering ahead of me? But I did. I wanted to lead the line. It was as simple as that.

One day, I stopped the line. I got down on my knees and looked Michael in the eyes with as much gentleness as I could muster.

“Michael,” I said, “How old are you?”
He proudly replied. “I’m six years and 12 days old.”
I said, “Four years is a long, long time, isn’t it?”
He thought and replied, “Yes.” (Four years measured 2/3 of his life. I had him there.)
I quietly put forth this request. “Michael, you see, I went to college for four whole years so that I could lead the line. Would you let me lead the line?”
“Oh yes,” he answered.

He was generous in letting me lead the line from that moment forward. Sometimes solving a problem is as easy as letting the other guy why we’re invested in the outcome.

Have you tried letting the other guy see your investment?

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Blog Your Experience …

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Information Is Everywhere

I know you. You’re like me.

Maybe you’ve even stared at your computer as much as I’ve stared at mine thinking.

Am I good enough, strong enough, smart enough, or ready to stay the course enough to follow through brilliantly? It doesn’t take much to look around the Internet and see so many things sparkling, awesome, and appealing. I can’t do most of them. I’m not like the one I call “stealth brilliance.” I’m not even close to the “Wonder Woman” who keeps everyone talking on Twitter.

I’m just me.

I might have one thing on you. I know that’s the secret.

I’m just me and no one else can be that.

When you’re staring at your computer and
you don’t know what to write, blog your experience.

When you’re not sure whether the thing that happened
is solid gold or smoke and mirrors, blog your experience.

When your heart thinks a beautiful thing has occurred
and your head says that you’re being sappy, blog your experience.

When you’re dying to get the information just right,
but you can’t find the words, blog your experience.

When you’ve met the best person, read the best book,
learned the best trick for saving time, blog it, share it, give it to us.

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You see information is everywhere on the Internet. We’re bombarded with it.
We don’t need more unframed facts.
We need more humanity.
Tell reality in the words of someone who lived it.

Be bold in your thinking. Be brave in your living.
Be authentic in what you share.

No one can argue with the truth of you.

You’re not backstage. It’s life happening.
Blog your experience.
It’s you I came to read.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your web presence.

7 Things I Learned about a Shining Offer … from the Stars

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The Stars Never Interrupt Me

I’m an introvert. Always have been. Painfully shy when stretched too far.

I love people. Interacting, talking, learning. No holds barred conversations exhilarate me like a thrill ride edging out of control. I leave conferences and speaking gigs ready to be alone and … um … kind of cranky.

It’s then that I need permission to think my own thoughts, find my own feet, realign with the universe, on my own.

After a day of conference talks and highly engaging meetings, I went to dinner with two of the best folks in the world. They were fun and lovely. The food was marvelous. The conversation got better for me when it started to slow. It was a nice transition. We stayed up late talking about companies and events and ways to use the web in this new conversational world.

One by one, the others went their ways to crash. I went for a walk with the night sky, delighted to see Orion waiting like an old friend. I got thinking about people and stars. Then I thought about stars as the original shiny objects — how, unlike the shiny things on the Internet, stars don’t demand our attention. Stars are experts at permission marketing. Here are seven things I learned about permission marketing from looking at the stars.

  1. The Opt In. Stars shine with understated elegance and beauty waiting for me to opt in.
  2. The Respect. Stars don’t interrupt, steal, or borrow my time. They anticipate and await my attention with a distance that allows me to move, breathe and live my life without them, if I choose.
  3. The Signal without Noise. Stars don’t draw overdue attention to themselves. Falling starts don’t fall in my face to get me to notice them.
  4. The Relevance. When I look at the stars the message is always fresh, inspiring, and meaningful in my life.
  5. The Emotional Attraction. I always feel better for having participated in a star show.
  6. The Viral Response. I always want to tell folks about what I saw and how it moved me.
  7. The Delivery on the Promise. I’ve never been disappointed by looking at the stars.

Stars are available, relevant, and personal. Even when we look at them from afar, they put on a show.

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If we take a cue from the stars, we can offer value that will lift folks up and make them feel good to pass it on. And like the stars we won’t have to worry about having an audience who values us.

People and stars have a lot more in common than just what we’re made of.

Have you seen any shining offers lately?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your web presence.