Gotta Get Goals — Yeah!

March 26, 2007 by Liz

Sit Up Straight

Alex Shalman and I have been talking by email. He’s a most engaging blogger. He seems to have a new idea every ~~week~~ minute that involves other bloggers interacting with him.

He’s the real deal about what he’s doing. I know, he’s managed to survive a whole string of emails with me. This morning even survived a phone call. Then IM’d me that I’m hilarious. Go figure!

Now, I’m doing a meme . . . because with three blogs of my own, two more that I write for, three important clients, several writing students, SOBCon 07, a book, the 200 Outstanding Blogs Project and another start-up project . . . I’ve been feeling like, a bit of . . . . um er, . . . . a slacker.

Alex started this project, but apparently he got Aaron involved. Aaron thought I

So, Aaron, here they are:

Build something that makes a difference to humanity.
Write something that moves people to realize their potential.
Learn something that pushes my thinking deeper and truer.
Dance more. Laugh more. Inspire more people, including myself.
Finish the amazing and fun book about Larry and the dog.
Gather enough money of my own to help anyone I want to help whenever I want to.
Be extraordinary, live in extraordinary circumstances, do extraordinary things, without worrying about it.
Fly around the world once a year again to see my friends.
Give away everything that I know.
Earn a 7 figure salary by serving those I love who love what I do.

I was going to tag some other slackers like me, but I think you all know who you are. So if you gotta get goals, spread some link love while you figure out the path to your dream. Don’t blow this off . . . having goals is the first step to getting there.

One little goal is enough for now . . . gotta get goals.

It doesn’t hurt. I promise.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: Believe in a Dream

March 26, 2007 by Liz

It’s Hard to Believe

I once worked for a woman who believed that if you got great grades at university you went to an easy school.

Every choice she made included taking the hard way. Somewhere in her thinking was a fear of being accused of taking the easy way. Even when the “easy way” was the most efficient, the smartest way, the best ROI for the company, this vice president had to be convinced every way to Sunday that it wasn’t a way to get out of doing the hard work that “should be” done.

This same person didn’t suffer dreamers. Dreams were for sleeping and children playing games of imagination. Sadly, she had been trained as a teacher. She taught me discipline with the details — I’ve lost some of it since. She taught me patience.

She taught me that some people can never make a dream happen. . . . because they think dreams aren’t real and they think being a dreamer is easy.

Dreams, hopes, goals are within our reach.

Why is that so hard for us to believe?

We can believe that the other guy will win, but not us. He will be the President, the rock star, the artist. She will be the CEO, the actor, the international lawyer. But it never crosses our mind to aspire to that path.

Have the big kids taken so much and told so much that they’ve wiped the stars from our eyes?

Believing in a dream is hard. Look at me. Go ahead, tell me I don’t know.

Believing in a dream is hard, because it’s saying out loud, “Here’s what I’m going for.”

Everyone knows it’s way easier to sit right here and say nothing at all.

Unless you just can’t.

People who have dreams. They don’t let go until they make their dreams happen. They fall down, but they get up and they keep right on going. They see that dream as sure as you see these words here.

It’s a little house.

It’s learning to read.

It’s building something that no one has ever seen.

It’s seeing peace in a family.

It’s seeing peace on Earth.

Believe in a dream, please.

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

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.

Bloggy Question 41: The Junior High Sleep Over

March 25, 2007 by Liz

Save Me From Teenage Children. . .

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . .

This afternoon you pass your son’s room. He has two boys from his 8th grade class over. All three 13-year-old boys are gathered around his computer. When you pass, they go red in the face and get totally silent.

The silence is a dead giveaway that you need to check on what they’ve been doing.

You’re too fast. You make it there before they realize your intent to check the computer. You find them on a flickr page of a 13-year-old girls’ sleepover. All of the girls are nearly naked. All of the girls are posed quite provactively. All of the girls are in your son’s class at school.

Your son immediately begins accusing you of invading his privacy.

After you send the other boys home, you son begs you not to ruin his life.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SOBCon 07 News: Drew’s Cool Idea!

March 25, 2007 by Liz

What We’ve Done So Far

It’s been only a month since we announced SOBCon 07 and so much has happened!

We held a virtual conference.
We announced the next level quest.
The speakers are detailing their bios and their presentations.

We’re letting folks know that this is a carefully-crafted, attendee centered, content-rich event. Folks are finding out that it’s going to be a quality experience in which the audience will have an active role as a partipicant.

That’s why when Drew McLellan suggested this idea, so in keeping with the conference, we just HAD to do it!

I’ll let Drew tell you about it.

Give Little Get A Little LOT

Guest Writer: Drew McLellan

Hey all,

Relationships are about give and take

You give a little. You get a little. ThatÃ¢â¬â¢s the balance of a good relationship.

It shouldnÃ¢â¬â¢t surprise you at all that this same balance would be adopted by a conference focused on taking your blog to the next level by building stronger and more valuable relationships.

Unlike a typical conference where the speakers are the only ones who get to share, at SOBCon weÃ¢â¬â¢re turning that notion upside down.

Each and every participant is invited to bring something theyÃ¢â¬â¢ve created Ã¢â¬â a book, a white paper, a podcast series, a visual tool Ã¢â¬â you name it for every single attendee and speaker.
Imagine leaving the conference with a bag filled with knowledge, insights, laughter and inspiration.

And even better; imagine every SOBCon attendee learning more about your blog and passion, and being touched by your work.

There are only a few rules:

It has to be your original content.
You must bring enough for everyone.
You must be willing to give it away for free.
Do we need to say the material has to be appropriate?

PS –Please pass this along. I have no pride of authorship on this. So feel free to completely re-write it, edit it or ask me to do either. Or just fall in love with it as it is and use it silly.

Thanks, Drew!
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Don’t forget to Persuade Me

Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: typoGenerator

March 25, 2007 by Liz

Create typoPoster with typoGenerator

Great Find: typoGenerator

Permalink: http://www.typogenerator.net/

Target Audience: Anyone – just for fun!

Content: Here’s a generator that creates random graphics just for fun. It searches images.google for backgrounds and images according to the text you enter. And you can manipulate the results and change up the text, images or colors.

This generator was a student project. I’m curious what Katharina is doing now.

Here’s a sample that I made.

Let me know what you create and how you use it.

See you next time!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

Change the World: The Power of Conversation

March 25, 2007 by Liz

Hey Lisa and Doc, How Can We Change the World?

In the last two days, two people I respect, Doc Searls and Lisa Gates, have written about a subject we all care about — People talking to people. — conversations and relationships.

Can you have a meaningful conversation when only one person is talking?

Isn’t every conversation a relationship?

Conversations and Relationships

Words by Doc Searls and Lisa Gates

These were the kinds of conversations people have been having since they started to talk. Social. Based on intersecting interests. Open to many resolutions. Essentially unpredictable. Spoken from the center of the self. “Markets were conversations” doesnÃÂ¹t mean “markets were noisy.” It means markets were places where people met to see and talk about each otherÃÂ¹s work.

Conversation is a profound act of humanity. So once were markets.

For businesses that require no live communication with customers in the course of everyday work, markets are conversations means simply that the company still shouldn’t isolate itself either from talk within their marketplace or from talk with customers when the need arises. In other words, it should still be ready to Get Real when the time comes for real conversation. —Doc Searls

Doc Searls and Robert Scoble and Shel Israel told us that markets are conversations. So we all started blogging. Then, Seth Godin told us to be remarkable. So we all started showing up with a unique, inspired footprint. Along came Liz Strauss who told us that it’s all about relationships and relationship blogging. So we all started talking, showing up for each other, and supporting each other’s remarkable, outstanding work.

Remarkable, outstanding, conversations happen inside [TADAAA] RELATIONSHIPS! . . . . What you get from going, participating is–like life–entirely up to you and what you put into it. —Lisa Gates

Conversation IS profoundly human. Boy, Doc, do I agree.

It’s that profoundly human conversation that starts a relationship.

A conversation is potential energy — if I talk to you, you might listen and talk back to me.

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.