Community Archives - Page 11 of 13

SOBCon 08 – The Update

July 17, 2008 by SOBCon Authors

Greetings all!

@Stephen’s mug Stephen Smith here, or @Stephen as some of you may know me. Liz and Terry have invited me to do a little guest-posting here at the SOBCon blog and I am thrilled to be here.

I trust that you are all still as excited as I am about what you learned and the people that you met at SOBCon 08. I am working diligently on applying this crash course in Biz School for Bloggers and can hardly wait to show you all what I have been up to (it would go faster if I was better at code!). I’d also love to see and share what all of you have been up to as well.

To that end I have volunteered my services to Liz, Terry, and Co. to get in touch with all of you and help you get the word out. These are some of the things that the SOBCon community is interested in:
taking notes at SOBCon

Do you have a new blog, inspired by something that you learned?
Do you have a new product or service?
What are you doing to make your blog into a business and what would you like to tell the SOBCon community?

How would you like some help in getting the word out to the thousands and thousands of subscribers that we collectively communicate with? Of course you would, and here is how you can do it.

Please send me an email [stephen at hdbizblog dot com] or

DM me at Twitter [hdbb_stephen],

I will be happy to write/collaborate with you on an article for the newsletter and/or the SOBCon blog. We all have our own communities and could definitely benefit by sharing our efforts in new circles, to new eyeballs.

Who knows? One or more of us may be able to help you over an obstacle, see a new perspective, or make a suggestion about something that you haven’t anticipated.

Two heads are better than one, even if one is a cabbage. Think about how much 200 heads can achieve!

I am looking forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
@Stephen

Don’t forget to subscribe to the feed, you wouldn’t want to miss out on any updates would you? Click here to subscribe.

How Do You Build an Incredible Experience?

May 5, 2008 by Liz

Communities Don’t Get Built, They Grow

I’ve walked around for about an hour, trying to put words to the change that happened at SOBCon this weekend. I spent another hour trying to explain how it could happen twice.

Every sentence I made seemed inadequate and unworthy.

How do you explain an incredible experience of community, learning, and outright fun? I’m at a loss.

Here is a way to find out for yourself.

Invest all you are — commend, commit, confide, consign, give, hand over, trust.

Hold up every person who wants to be part — bank on, believe in, count on, depend on, reckon on, rely on, have confidence, trust.

Make it easy to trust and talk — caretaking, watching, overseeing, be trustworthy.

Listen with an open mind, heart for the meaning they take, give, and find on their own.

In other words, trust. Trust in people who trust.

An incredible experience is built on trust. Trust yourself. Trust the people around you. Trust that when things don’t go perfectly other folks will understand. People do the most amazing things in a community filled with trust. They change, grow, learn, connect, feel, and communicate. They smile at the drop of a hat.

It’s that easy.

I was changed as a person by being a part. . . .

Thank you to everyone who came to SOBCon08.

How do you do recognize an incredible experience?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Thank you, Thesaurus.com for help filling in the words.

Getting Comments: Seven Secrets of a Superstar Conversationalist

September 13, 2007 by Liz

A Superstar Conversationalist? Who Me?

Chris Brogan, no shrinking violet, called his blog post 39,000 comments. He said it was the first thing I said. It wasn’t really. I talked about Becky McCray and Darren Rowse, and all of the people who come here. The comments were just what caught his attention.

Then in the comments to that post, Phil Gerbyshak — the all-time relationship geek, not a quiet job — named me a superstar conversationalist.

I hear my older brothers translating . . . kid, they’re saying you can’t shut up.

Seven Secrets of a Superstar Conversationalist

Writing or talking about what we know isn’t a problem for most folks. People don’t ask me how to do that. What they ask is How do you get folks to talk back?

Here are seven of my secrets.

Secret 1. Be an enthusiastic learner.
The words of folks who stand at the podium and talk down to me never sound like conversation. They sound more like a lecture. Who wants to be lectured by an expert? It’s more fun to talk to a friend who knows.

Learners, on the other hand, are magnetically attractive. They’re not intimidating. They offer a subtle invitation to participate. I know if I stick around I might find something I never knew before. Learners ask me questions they really want to know the answer to. When they get an answer, they ask more.

Secret 2 Be imperfectly human.
Don’t finish up every blog post so perfectly that I have no room to answer. Make that list with what you know, but don’t research it to death so that I can’t add to it. I want to talk to you too. Conversation always means you say something. Then I add what I know to it. We do it together.

A conversation is always started, constantly revised, and never finished. We don’t tie our conversations up with a bow and hand them in to our 8th grade teacher. Let’s not do that with our blog posts either.

Secret 3. Be an active listener.
What is a conversation if I’m talking to myself? . . . hearing voices and talking to them? Isn’t that a sign of something?

People are the most important part of any conversation. I listen with every cell. I try to crawl inside the experience they’re relating. I’ve discovered so much about the world and myself, and most of all, the folks who come to visit, by taking the time to listen and answering back. I answer and ask questions to make sure that I understood what I heard. Comments are just like real-life conversation.

Secret 4 Be an easy laugher.
Laughter makes the world turn easier. It gets the chemsitry in our brains going. We type faster and smile when we do. We connect and feel safer when we laugh together. My husband often says to me, “You’re smiling at your computer again.”

Secret 5 Be you.
I make a bad version of you. You make a bad version of me. Somehow we make a perfectly incredible versions of the unique individuals who we are.

Blog your experience. Put your head and heart in what you write. If I tell my authentic truth and myunique view, no one can argue with that. Folks can’t help but respect it — the folks I want to interact with anway.. They want to know they they can tell theirs too. It sounds counterintuitive, but the more a writer tells his or her individual experience, the more people can identify with it.

Secret 6 Be a cheerleader, a bartender, a friend, a host.
Make a place where folks can be who they are. Make it about THEM. Be glad to see them. Be proud of their accomplishments. Have faith in their endeavors. If you care about their lives, they will care too. They’ll also care about yours and each others’. That’s how communities form.

Secret 7 Be nice.
I couldn’t leave that out — could I?

It hardly takes much to be gracious. Communities and conversations really build themselves. We don’t build them. If we stop trying to control them and let people know we’re not afraid to hear what they have to say in respect and honest communication. Amazing thing can truly happen.

I know. 39,000 comments was a long time ago.

I don’t really count comments. I count friends, and who could ever have enough of them?

C’mon let’s talk!

What did you right before you read this post? It had to be more interesting than reading about me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

10 Essential Needs of a Thriving Community

April 29, 2007 by Liz

Where We Could Be Who We Are

When I was kid I used to hide out in my room or in the basement to play music and dance, or paint all afternoon. If my friend, Craig, was around we’d do the same, find a place where we could be who we are without the world telling us what to do.

We were just two, but were a community of like-minded thinkers. When the other kids came over, we were more.

How to Make Room for a Community

I don’t think anyone can build a community. Community is an idea, a feeling, an agreement. It’s sweet and tenuous and only lasts as lightly and long as it is respected. It’s an investment, that it takes time and patience. When I came here I knew a little bit about how to do it, but learned most of what I know from the folks who come to visit.

10 Things about Making Room for a Community

A community needs a high-trust environment. A high-trust environment means being there when folks need a friend or a teacher. It means having a vision and set of principles that they can count on being the same tomorrow.

A community has plenty of room for folks to be who we are. When we’re with friends we don’t have to self-conscious or guarded. In a community, I like the way you see me. No one puts people in boxes or steps on their feelings.

To grow a community, be a guide alongside — not the sage on the stage. Set aside the instruction manual writing. Stop teaching your friends and start learning iwth with them.

Have conversations that are about them. Ask how they’re doing, what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and then listen. When you’re done. Listen again.

Reach out to everyone, every chance that you get. When someone says “hello,” answer “how can I help?”

Look for reasons to start conversations. Invite people in. When someone visits make that person a friend.

When you hear a story about another person, put your own name in the story before you choose to believe it.

Know that folks make mistakes and that some do so on purpose. Know which mistakes are the ones that won’t work in your community and make sure that you never allow them. Dislike the act, not the person.

Talk about things that are fun, engaging, and refreshing to talk about. Give people a chance to play once in a while.

Keep your head and heart together and always about the people who visit.

Those are the basics of making room for a community. It’s a lot like opening your mind and inviting people to be who they are.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

“What’s Your Most Successful Post, Liz?”

October 29, 2006 by Liz

Did You Really Think I’d Pick Just One?

The answer to the What’s yours? question that you’ve asked me is that I have two most successful posts here and one at my writing blog.

Love at First Write: 5 +1 Steps to Your Authentic Writing Voice because it holds the keys to writing.

An Open Thought: Please Take the Keys because the conversation in the comments is a naked education in blogging and the beauty of community.

If it has to be one, my choice is a favorite child that think of as the most outstanding piece — it’s human, heartfelt, and hopeful. It still moves me when I read it.

Walking on Water

It’s the essay I offered as a prize. And, Starbucker, there is a car in it.

Welcome, Come On In

The Gates Are Offically Open

Watch for a POST SUNDAY at NOON for how to give special notice to Great New Blogs You Discover! Click here to go to the Aggregate Post. It’s up already!!