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

davidbullock has been thinking about where our content turns up without us.
Let’s face it. You can’t control the creation and distribution of user generated content. The tools are available and the web is too big to police it all. So what is a business owner to do?

Embrace it. Yes, embrace it. And work to really understand the mechanics of the web and social media.

Small Biz Survival has been thinking about how keep our businesses going and growing.
Ready for some help with your business? You can research online all day, read every book, even talk with friends and family, but sometimes you just need another experienced business person to sit down with you, face to face, and work on improving your business. No matter where you are, odds are that you are in the territory of some free business consulting sources.

Amrit Hallan has been thinking about manners and manners of doing business.
Being polite is good in general. One should always be polite. Politeness can be an invaluable asset to you if you work as a freelancer. But where do you draw the line? There is a big difference between being polite and being obsequious.

Catskill Cottage Seed has been thinking about who we are.
What does it all add up to? All this social media activity with our interactions and our presence across multiple platforms (or stages as I like to think of them), to what end

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Shtikl

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

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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

MZinga’s Jim Storer and Colin Browning talk with Liz.
In this podcast, Liz does what she does best, discussing strategies on how to become a better blogger and attract fiercely loyal fans.

The Buzz Bin talks about elegant communication.
It occurs to me that whether it’s in person, using traditional tools, or here in the echo chamber (a.k.a. social media) that great communications remain difficult. Why? Because it’s not the toolset; it’s not the ability to be friendly; and it’s definitely not a personal brand. On the contrary, simplicity matters more …

The Harte of Marketing talks what’s important as we grow.
But how about when the conversation is no longer touched by the person/company that created it? It could be because they just don’t have the time to engage in the conversation or that they just chose not to.

Biz Coach Deb talks about customer service as the “new marketing.”
Ordinarily when a business drops the ball, we’re not really surprised any more, and it appears to be the general sentiment with American consumers, especially in certain industries.

Train for Humanity talks marathons … again!
After approximately twelve weeks of Train for Humanity and with two events down (read about Dan’s race and Mark’s race), we have one more endurance event to go before closing out phase one.

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Crowdspring hopes you’ll lend some support with a vote!

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

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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

Chris Brogan points out the power of Batman available to all of us.
Batman, no matter how amazing, is only one man. Crime is a large and amorphous thing, and it requires lots of people to fight. It requires a better Gotham Police Department, a more capable Commissioner Gordon, a Robin, a Batgirl, and more and more help from others. Oh, and let’s not forget Alfred.

Geek Mommy points out the silent gift that reaches out.
Sometimes, because I’m so chatty (or noisy as some would say) people make the mistake of thinking I’m not listening. Then I end up repeating something back to them they said a few hours or weeks earlier and they seem stunned. You see, as much as I love to talk, share and inform, well… I love learning even more. You learn from listening, observing, and paying attention.

Levite Chronicles points out that we can ask for a gift.
I love the idea, but I started to laugh. I thought, “if everyone is listening, who is going to talk?” And then I realized that this is a day addressed to those of us who always talk. It probably should be a doubly-named day, called both, “national day of shut up and let someone else talk already why don’t you.” and “national day of please, you, in the back, arranging the chairs, would you tell us a story? Please?”

Beth’s Blog points out that giving starts early.
When I was a kid, Lucy the Elephant, was in a state of disrepair. A community group worked hard to get her placed on the historic register and raise money to restore her to her mid-century glory. How? Bake sales organized by my third grade teacher, Josephine Harron, nicknamed “Cupcake.” Sitting by next to my mom in the kitchen, I mixed up a lot of cupcake batter and icing with my mom for those bake sales.

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The Jeff Pulver Blog highlights giving that happened in near record time.
Tweetsgiving is a Twitter celebration of gratitude and giving created by Epic Change, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The project aims to demonstrate the power of the social web by raising $10,000 in 48 hours to build a classroom in Tanzania.

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

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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

Career Renegade introduces the once-in-a-lifetime manifesto.
The economy has just served you up a big, fat opportunity! In fact, you may never get an opening like this again. A chance to make a bold change, take a shot at doing what you love, and not be judged for trying. You’ve got a once-in-a-lifetime window here created by a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Just Creative introduces secrets to the cutting edge of blogging.
Although these tips may sound common sense to some, for others it isn’t (hence the secret)… If blog owners implemented these 7 tips, their blog would certainly have an edge over the competition – The funny thing is, so many blogs don’t!

Presentations Zen introduces us to Tim Brown’s ideas about playing.
I often associate at least one aspect of play and playfulness with the old Buddhist idea of the beginner’s mind (or child’s mind). That is, in the child’s mind there are infinite possibilities, but in our adult mind (one filled with habits and routines) there often seems to be few.

Barbara Ling introduces us to our inner eagle and our inner turkey.
In other words, we might be eagles at heart, but if our circumstances plops us down among a flock of turkeys, we had better know how to happily peck for seeds with the crowd too.

Technosailor
The saga of cheatsheets and reference sheets continues with this outline of the hot new WordPress 2.7 which will be released soon. . . .

Termed “Crazyhorse” at the beginning of the cycle, the WordPress admin is the result of complete thinking outside the box, research and user testing. The concept began as “Let’s throw everything away that we assume to be proper and correct and see what we can come up with when we have no preset conditions”.

The result is a semantically, aesthetically and structurally different WordPress than you’ve ever known before. This is not your grandma’s WordPress!

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Random Good Stuff introduces . . .

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

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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

Remarkable Communication is offering an intelligence hack.
In fact, he tended to think of his customers as an annoying necessity. They kept calling with their stupid support questions, keeping him from spending his time adding features no one had asked for.

Brain Based Biz and Brain Based Business are offering an urgency adjustment.
Ever experience tension as you wait and wish the world would move faster?

conflict zen is offering a resolution hack.
Recent research out of the University of Colorado at Boulder suggests that the degree of physical warmth you feel influences the degree of psychological warmth you experience.

Win Extra is offering a hacking story of hacking the definition of hacker.
If California prosecutors have their way, Digg founder Kevin Rose could easily be found guilty of felony computer hacking for widely-reported actions he took yesterday.

Kevin Rose set up a Twitter account Tuesday pretending to be his cold, which amazingly accrued during the previous 24 hours over 787 followers …

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write from home hacks packs …
How about those clones? (You know, those guys who run in packs.)
Or how about the morons on twitter who keep direct-messaging me their free ebooks about How to Lose Weight While Flipping Real Estate?

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

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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

Copyblogger describes how to move people to action.
The right message at the right time can start a movement that changes the world, in both big and small ways. And social media has the ability to spread that message and organize that movement in ways not possible in the recent past.

davidbullock describes the key factors that made success. Be sure to follow the link inside the post to Using Social Media As A Promotional Strategy.
To learn any new skill, I find it is best to follow those who are actors in the marketplace. These are the ones who have uncommon practical experience that will never be found in a book and most times will never be documented and you have to engage them in the moment because it is easy to forget the details and thinking that surrounds a successful project.

Seth’s blog describes how to turnaround your life.
And for everyone else, effort is directly related to success. Not all the time, but as much as you would expect. Smarter, harder working, better informed and better liked people do better than other people, most of the time.

Confident Writing describes our resposibilities.
When thinking about writing and responsibility, let’s not forget this part. Your responsibility to shine. To lift the lid off. To write your most brilliant, sparkling stuff. To move mountains, and soften hearts. To write the words that’ll make the difference.

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And BeingFive introduces

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

–ME “Liz” Strauss