Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 157 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

Can Someone Get Something from Being Nothing?

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Look Up, Look at Someone Else

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Yesterday I met someone who was nothing.

He wore his nothingness like a badge. It was his role, his definition of himself. He had tied himself too closely to “things” and a company he lost years ago. Now they were lost and he was nothing.

He argued for the reasons that his days held nothing, that he could do nothing, that nothing suited him.

His reasons were well-thought and often repeated. They listed his inability to compete with other people and things outside of him. They outlined every subject about which he couldn’t care and every task at which he was inept.

As time and conversation passed, it became clear that he planned on staying exactly where he was. Nothing got him something. Was that “something” attention or a reason not to try anymore? Maybe it was the opportunity to talk about the past?

Sane humans don’t stay in situations that don’t pay off. In some way we’re getting something. We always buy into the “contract” of what we’re doing and where we are.

When things truly aren’t working, we get determined. We change the situation.

Yeah we get something from being nothing, but when being nothing gets to be a problem, we become the something we could have been all along.

Ever met someone who got something from being nothing?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Moving Forward and Standing Still . . .

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I’m pleased to announce that

. . . I’m moving to a new server!
Thank you to FastServers, Inc a Division of Layered Tech for their fabulous service in the process of a complicated move from behind several walls out to a new home.

We’ll need to take a break while things propagate. Then this blog will loading faster and responding like a new car. And I’ll have my emoticons back. 🙂

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Meanwhile, In Case You Missed Them . . .

A few of my recent favorites to read while the move is taking place.

For Inspiration and Writing Fuel

Change the World: One World-Sized Idea

The Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life

Can You Be Brave and Vulnerable?

Reasons to Write at Night and When the Sun Is Rising

How to Make Everyone and Everything Nicer Without Lifting a Finger

How to Make Your Dream Come True — Thought, Strategy, Action

On Social Media and Communicating Person to Person

Social Networking: Online Tridimensional Conversation

Mind if I Ask Your Network to Help Me Beat Your Car with a Sledgehammer?

Social Networking in the World of Life

Social Networking: How to Keep True Direction Down Trails of Connections

Social Networking: Make It Imperfectly Human for Me

Looking forward to seeing you soon!
I’ll be back with a new list of SOBs on Saturday.

Can’t wait to get back to you.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Image: sxc.hu

Social Anchors that Link Us Together

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Social Media Can Be Words

I've been thinking . . .

about connections. Earlier this year I had a conversation, tossing questions and answers with a person I just met.

Cheryl asked, “What are you proud of?”

Plenty of events rose before me, and faded gracefully back again. None of them what I might take pride in. This one owing to my child’s work. That one owing to a team’s participation. The other being a serendipitious aligning of the stars.

Proud feels like approving. Even when I feel proud just know someone, word often don’t say . . . I don’t want raising folks up to seem like putting them lower.

I didn’t know . . .

I replied, “I have an unusual relationship the word proud. I don’t see things quite that way.” I explained as best I could.

She said, “I like the way you think about that.”

Funny how words like that, words that scare ya in some way can turn out to become an important– an anchor — something that holds and ties you to a person and a moment in time.

It was an ordinary day — a day without a parade or ceremony. Someone who knew me wrote the proud word in the comment box. He put it there where people could see it. It was a simple statement.

“Fiercely proud.”

We were two Internet people who’d never been in the same room. He had trouble with the proud word too. He said, “It sounds weird to say.”

Can I tell you what that meant?

It was a link that worked in both directions.

I was fiercely proud of him too.

Those words were a social anchor — a link, a connection, a relationship on the Internet — only this one was between humans not sites. They placed us and a moment in time forever together on the same thought, like the star rising in the photo below.

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Links hold us together. Some can last forever or as long as a star.

Do you have a social anchor — words that reflect a human relationship link you found on the Internet? Would you tell me the story?

If you leave your story, we’ll be linked in yet another way.

Liz's Signature

Meet Me at the Solutions Stars Video Conference!

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Mark It Down, It’s October 29

Is your business looking down the barrel of some serious questions?
Are you wondering how to build a successful web presence, participate in social media, and do what you can feel sure will keep your business alive?

Suppose you could be a fly on the wall while folks who live and work on the Internet talked about what makes them successful . . . would you? Wouldn’t you be foolish not to?

When: On October, 29, 2008 from 1 p.m. until approximately 3:30 p.m. EST.
What: Network Solutions proudly presents the “Solutions Stars Video Conference”
A Description: It’s a series of videos and live discussions featuring 32 of the world’s leading business and marketing experts. The live video conference will coach small business owners and entrepreneurs on how the Internet can benefit their business.

Nine content areas: Nine vignettes featuring the Solutions Stars will run during the conference and will cover these content areas:

  • Building a Web Presence
  • The Social Opportunity
  • Start with Listening
  • Strategy Drives Outreach
  • You Need Social Networks
  • To Blog or Not to Blog
  • Visibility Through Search
  • Rising Above the Noise
  • Time Demands

Video participants:

You’ll be able to watch individual videos based on the content areas you prefer or view the entire conference. While the videos are streaming, you’ll be able to chat online with the Network Solutions team (Social Media Swami Shashi Bellamkonda and Now Is Gone Author Geoff Livingston), or participate in a live public chat. Select video participants will also be in the chat.

Teaming with ooVoo, a popular online video chat and conference network, Network Solutions will run the “Solutions Stars Video Conference” on October 29.

Visit http://www.solutionsstarsvideo.com/ for updates, including the full programming schedule.

Find more information at the “Solutions Stars Video Conference” event pages on Facebook and Upcoming:

So are you going to meet me at the Solution Stars Video Conference or not?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!