Thanks to Week 21 SOBs

March 18, 2006 by Liz

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.

muddy teal strip A

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 badge’s validity, send him or her directly to me. This award comes with a full “Liz said so” guarantee. It is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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. Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: Blog Promotions Using Stats

March 17, 2006 by Liz

Your stats and mine have been on my mind lately. It could be because I’ve been spending a little extra time there to see who’s been stopping by from what media source. I was planning to write a post about ways to use stats for blog promotion, but just as I was about to I came across this one.

Great Find: Blog Promotion: What Do Your Stats Tell You? at Random Bytes
Type of article: Blogging basics–a look a stats
Permalink:http://weblensblogs.blogspot.com/2006/03/blog-promotion-what-do-your-stats-tell.html
Target Audience: Anyone who’s interested in the reader response to a new blog started from an existing web site.

Content: Pam Blackstone, professional journalist and speaker, started Random Bytes to expand the interest in her Internet search site Weblens. In this well-written, quick read, she compares the audience of the blog to that of the search site and wonders at the differences, some that new bloggers might not pay attention to–browsers, screen resolution, and operating systems. Pam uses the data to extrapolate profile information about her readers. If you want to see what conclusions she reaches, click the screenshot below.

Random Bytes What Do Your Stats Tell You?

Thanks, Pam, for a reminder of the wealth of information in those stats.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: How to Create an RSS Feed

March 17, 2006 by Liz

I didn’t find this Mark Wade at the R Web Designs blog did, and he has a fine write up on it. Click Mark’s logo to read his analysis and to see his fabulous blog.

Great Find: The Robin Good’s How to Create a RSS Feed from Any Web Page
Type of article: Blogging basics how-to article
Permalink:http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/03/09/how_to_create_a_rss.htm

Target Audience:All web users who want to know more about RSS feeds
Content: Robin Good points out that at some moment in the future you might want to follow the updating of a web page that doesn’t have an RSS feed.He answers the question, Can you create one? with a resounding YES!. Click Robin’s logo to access the article.

Thank you, Mark for finding this page. Thank you, Robin for writing it.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Start in the Middle 1: Write a Three-Course Meal

March 14, 2006 by Liz

Tape Recordings in Our Heads

Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.
When you read you begin with ABC, When you sing you begin with do-re-me.

–the character, Maria, sung by Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein

Put a sock in it, Julie.

Turn off all of the tape recordings in your head that tell you what you’re supposed to do. They just get in the way. Unique problems require unique solutions.

Beginnings Are Often Irrelevant

Starting at the beginning is a fine thing–if you’re telling a story, teaching a lesson, or giving a presentation. In those cases, feel free to sing right along with Julie Andrews. If that’s not what you’re doing, turn off the tape recorder in your head that says, “Start from the beginning.”

Some things don’t have a beginning or if they do, the beginning is irrelevant. Who cares about how the fire began if you need to get out of the building NOW? You can worry about how it started later. When you’re strategizing a business plan for the future, how your grandfather built the first widget is probably irrelevant, even if it is how the company began.

When you’re creating something new, problem solving, or envisioning what could be, information is nebulous and coming from many directions. The challenge is to order it and give form–not to find the beginning.

Write a Three-Course Meal

If you think of an article as a fine meal, the middle is the main course. That’s where the fine dining is. It’s the centerpiece. The entrée takes the longest time and the most care. The executive chef is the one who plans it and prepares it. Put your best effort there–where it counts.

Use the FIOTB–Content Development Tool to gather thoughts that will make the middle outstanding and delicious to read. Once you’ve got the entrée underway, you can decide on the appetizer and the dessert. Maybe the beginning will be a question that you’ll answer at the end or maybe it will be a story that you’ll reflect on, the middle–the entrée–of your three-course article will help you decide what form the beginning and the end should take.

Great Writing Strategy–Great Brand Promotion

There’s added value in presenting your information as a three-course article. Starting in the middle establishes an important foundation and allows you to concentrate on presenting the information that’s key to your story, your brand, and your business.

Course 1: Give readers a taste of your topic. This gives you a chance to capture their attention and focus their minds on your ideas. You can draw them in and prepare them for what you are about to say. By starting in the middle you already know what that is. So writing this part is much easier.
Course 2: Serve up your ideas with facts and details to support them. By starting in the middle, you can spend your time polishing the finer points and placing your brand in the best light for readers to discover its value on their own.
Course 3: Leave your audience satisfied with tidbits of why your ideas are important to them or give them reason to reflect back on what you said. Show that you fulfilled your promise. Let your audience savor the fact that your article was a service to them, and they’ll understand why coming back to see you is a good idea.

You’ve promoted your brand, your business, and your blog by writing an article from the inside out. Not bad for an hour’s work.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I started in the middle with Writing 🙂
More Start in the Middle Ideas:
Branding and Problem Solving and a Start in the Middle Idea Bank are on their way.

If you have a situation, roadblock, or a problem you’d like to tackle with an Outside of the Box solution, please leave a note in the comments, or E-mail me at lizsun2@gmail.com. I’ll keep your confidence and reply as best I can. With your permission, I might tackle your problem in an upcoming article–other folks might be looking for a new approach to the same kind of difficulty.

Finding Ideas Outside the Box

March 13, 2006 by Liz

There Is No Box

There is no box. There never was one. We just got taught to think inside one. You see, it was a management issue. With so many kids to teach at once, it’s more productive to teach one way of thinking than to manage a room full of creativity. . . . So when we weren’t looking, many of us learned the fundamentals of problem-solving, how to color inside the lines, and a way of thinking about things that isn’t all that different from a mime inside a box.

Just like the box that the mime pushes and touches even though you can’t see it. The box that we think inside isn’t real. The way to get out is easy enough–just stop believing in the box.

Life Without the Box

Life without the box is so much easier. It’s as if you now can use all modes of transportation available rather than always having to walk. The resources of your brain are freed up. Even better, it’s a lot more fun, once you get used to it, because thinking outside of the proverbial box involves playing with ideas not just thinking.

DaVinci knew it. So did Einstein. Most inventors couldn’t find the inside of the box if they tried. All great thinkers–folks we call geniuses–know that there’s nothing new to be gathered by staying where everyone else is doing their thinking. So let’s get on with getting out of it.

What You’ll Find Outside the Box

Every day, I’ll offer a strategy and some ideas for approaching your business from a new direction. Each strategy will be flexible and realistic. I’ll show you how to apply it to writing, problem solving, or refining your brand.

To be useful, even thinking outside of the box needs structure, so I’ll be using a problem-solution format. Then within each solution I’ll offer three content subsets: Information, Presentation/Form, and YOU/Function. Those three subheads come directly from What Is Content that Keeps Readers?

So, if you’re ready, I am. Enough with this introduction, let’s let the games begin. Everyone can think like a genius. It only takes a little practice, and a firm commitment to throw away the darn box.

–ME “Liz” Strauss