Successful Blog

SOB Business Cafe 03-09-07

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Blogoprenuer offers a lesson taken out of context.

Kent Blumberg has a series for us on the elements of greatness.

Life Coaches offers a manifesto for every parent, teacher, manager, friend, mentor, brother, sister, person who knows another person.

Talking Story tells about customers and work ethic.

Creative Think celebrates 100 posts with an interview.

You Already Know This Stuff asks if we’re ready to take grown-up steps.

Related ala carte selections include

Ask Dr. Kirk has a remedy for that bad feeling.

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

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Time to Spend and to Save

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I've been thinking . . .

“Beginning in 2007, most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March . . ” This year that is March 11.

The clocks are about to change. I heard a bird yesteday. Soon it will be spring. I hope I get to see it. The tulips are my favorite.

My life has started speeding up. Gee, like it hasn’t been fast all along. Projects are reaching their launch. Big events are happening. SOBcon is one week. My son graduates from college the next. How can time go by faster than it already has?

Spring forward one hour — one hour less. I don’t need less. More might be useful.

Daylight Savings Time. Who is saving mine? I only know who is spending it. That would be me.

Sometimes, without thinking, I spend and save time simultaneously.

We’re on the porch in Massachusetts. My husband is fixing my glasses. My son smiled, “So, you finally found a use for him.”

We’re in the living room in Illinois. I wrote a poem for a kindergarten lesson. “You think you’re five, but you’re only four-thirty,” joked my husband.

I hear my father saying, “If you sleep on the floor, you’ll never have to worry about falling out of bed.”

My my older, older brother called on our 23rd wedding anniversary. “Tell your husband I said he chose wisely.”

When I was small, time was huge, unending, constantly thrusting me forward. But that’s not time, no, not really. Time’s not a moving, unbending force upon me.

Time is a paradox of meaningful or meaningless moments. We can lose track of it We can waste it or wait for our time to be over.

If we’re lucky we find that time is the one thing we can spend by living and save in memories..

Spring back and breathe.

I don’t need to save time, or find time or make more time in my life.

I need to spend more time that I can save as memories.

Liz's Signature

SOBCon ’07 Speaker Highlight: Mike Sansone

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Like so many in the blogging world Mike Sansone is one of those folks who doesn’t sleep much.

But a guy maintains a powerhouse blog like ConverStations with over 2,000 folks subscribed to his feed, consults and coaches with business leaders to help them start and improve their business blogging sites, hosts the ConverStations Workshop Podcast, and has a family doesn’t have much time left over for sleep.

Mike is the unofficial leader and champion of a steadily growing group of Iowa business bloggers which some of us have been known to jokingly refer to as the Iowa blogging mafia.

Here’s some of what Mike says about himself in his bio:

My passion is to build community – offline and online. I’ve done this through property management, online community programming, volunteerism, and – for a short time – as an assistant pastor at a Baptist church in Maryland.

I earn my keep as a Blog Coach, helping companies and professionals launch and improve their business blog sites.

  • I believe that we’re all contagious (whether we admit it or not) and we each choose which contagion to spread.
  • I believe that at the core of ourselves, we are each still very much like the 5-year olds we once were, just wanting to be liked, have fun, and be curious.
  • I believe that I’ve used the word “that” too much in this biography. I believe I can see you smiling as you read that. I believe if you’re not smiling right now, you will be after you say this out loud: supercalifragilisticexpealidocius (good thing that’s not a website).

What do you believe?

Mike will be bringing many of his Iowa associates to SOBCon ’07. And we’ve got him lined up as part of a powerhouse panel that will be covering marketing, branding, business blogging and more.

You aren’t going to want to miss it. Register to reserve your seat today.

Self Promotion: A Winning Answer Every Time — Why is That?

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Why You?

Business Rules Logo

In the comment box last month, for a post called 5 Reasons People Don’t Get Hired and the Only 3 Questions that Count Martin and I discussed questions we use when interviewing candidates for jobs. But let’s put this in context.

This is my favorite interview question. It requires a form of self-promotion.

If I had a candidate with a resume just like yours, what 3 things would you bring to the job that no one else would bring? No need to worry there’s no right answer.

In 15 years of asking that question, no candidate ever stammered. All of them took their time, gave it thought, and came back with a winning answer. No two answers were even remotely close.

No one got tied up in the confusion that usually hangs around self-promotion.

Why do you think that’s so?

How would you answer the question? What three things are you bringing that no one else would? What three things are uniquely you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
(I’ll be gone late morning to the dentist. Don’t worry if I’m not hanging in the comments.)

Related
Shameless Self-Promotion: What Makes It Shameless?

Change the World: Doing What’s Humanly Possible

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The Power of Offering

Change the World!

In publishing the schedules were killer, at certain times of year — at some places all year — folks would work 16 hour days and through the weekend. I would find myself telling new editors to go home without work. The conversation would often be the same.

“Go on home. You’re tired. You’ll come back tomorrrow and in the first hour you’ll accomplish three times what you would do in the next hour now.”

“But I want to get this one thing done.”

“Okay, we have to do what we need to. But will you do one thing for me?”

The answer was always an anticipatory look, tinged with a fear of possible more work.

“Remember that you can only do what’s humanly possible. . . . and to think you can do more makes you a kind of snob [big grin here], because the rest of us humans can’t.”

The reply would shoulders relaxing and a move to start packing up.

When I start to get ‘whelmed and rushed, I know it’s time to slow my step. I
So often I try to do more, be more, help more than the next guy. I might try to out achieve the overachiever, but I cannot do more than is humanly possible. For me to think that is sort of arrogant. What human can do more than a human can?

I can only do what’s humanly posisible.

It’s such a nice thought. I immediately relax when I think that humans need to eat, sleep, relax, reflect, reach for balance to be effective.

I can only do what’s humanly posisible. It’s like a mantra for overachievers.

I accept it, and people start smiling. Being human is attractive. It makes other humans feel good to have me around

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.

What Did We Talk About? Elvis, of course!

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We Talked About Elvis and Other Stuff

It was a busy night. The conversations included Elvis, Blue Suede Shoes, Jail House Rock, Las Vegas, … Elvis impersonators, Heartbreak Hotel, bingo, Elvis wall clocks, the Askimet monster, American Idol and House, … crayons and superheroes, Girl Scout cookies, Ricky Nelson, Cadillacs, Graceland, and … a marriage proposal while singing an Elvis song. Wow! You can read all about it in the comments section.

Here are the links we shared.

Joe was there (first again!). So were Char, Delaney, Marti, Robert, Monique, Douglas, Rick, cat, Tariq, Brooke, Renée, Francie, Terry, HART, Darren, Rodney, Glenda, GP, David, Sean, Sheila, Tony, Trevor, and of course Chris brought the Klondike Bars.

Thanks to everyone for the cool links and for being part of the conversation.

See you next Tuesday? I sure hope so.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

WANT TO GUEST HOST AN OPEN COMMENT NIGHT WITH ME? PICK A THEME AND TELL ME ABOUT IT. C’MON IT’LL BE FUN!