Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Name Wire – Strategic Name Development
This year may mark a milestone in branding and naming, one that has as much resonance as Marlboro Friday.

Walmart is unceremoniously clearing brands off the shelves that do not sell well and replacing them with their own private label versions.

Logic + Emotion
It’s unlikely that people will abandon existing platforms or networks unless they become so polluted that we have no choice. Sure we may have wandered away from e-mail, but how many of us have actually abandoned it? Very few I suspect. E-mail like Twitter or Facebook will remain relevant as long as our friends and co-workers keep using it. When they stop, it might go away—but how likely is it that scenario?

Barry J Moltz
You need money to finance the start up or growth of your business. Who are you going to call?

How do you finance a business in 2010?

Altitude
You have an idea!

You’ve thought it through, and you’re excited. You’ve uncovered something that’s really going to help your company or your boss or your client achieve their goals. You want your project to get attention and action. It deserves it, right?

Life Beyond Code
You buy a burger (or almost anything) and while the person in the counter rings that he or she looks up and asks,

“Do you want some fries with it?”

The offer is compelling and it works. Most people take up that offer and McDonalds wins.

Read more: http://www.lifebeyondcode.com/2010/02/17/do-you-want-a-gift-with-it/#ixzz0fzdwf2IP
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

AdRANTS
Ooo! Ooo! Facebook Fan Pages work for marketers! A recent study conducted by Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business found companies that use Facebook fan pages can increase sales, word-of-mouth marketing and customer loyalty.

Colour Lovers
Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Medical Research Methodology describe the development of a color chart, The Manchester Color Wheel, which can be used to study people’s preferred pigment in relation to their state of mind. Those who described themselves as happy picked shades of yellow where as those feeling anxious or depressed chose shades of grey or dark blue.

Related ala carte selections include

Justin Case You Were Wondering
has several jobsearch videos and articles to HAPPO — Help a PR Pro Out

101 Cookbooks
I came across a cookie when I visited Portland a couple years back. It was a crackle-edged puddle of chocolate with a texture that made me think of a collision between soft meringue and a fudgy brownie. I kid you not, love is not too strong a word to use here.

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, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Engaging Brand Blog
I remember Dad giving me a great piece of advice when I was trying to think of a way of redesigning our customer service offering…he said “Think and be lazy!”

“What, why be lazy?”

“Because customers want simplicity, they will pay a premium to people who make their life easier, simpler”

Jonathan Fields – Awake at the Wheel
No live tweeting, Facebooking or blogging – BE HERE NOW! You can tweet, email and Facebook your ass off during the breaks! And, no recording devices, cell phones or pagers. Cow bells…absolutely. We can never have enough cow bell!

Craving Balance
So these three anti-productivity productivity practices will bring your life into sharp, direct, clear focus and give you immediate spaciousness, completion and integrity.

Chris Brogan
In the drawing above, I list your blog as part of your content ecosystem. Here’s why I recommend you start thinking this way: because your blog is only one destination and it’s only reaching one channel of a much larger opportunity and demographic. The minute you see your blog as only “a” channel, that’s when you start thinking of other outreach opportunities.

Brian Solis for Mashable
There’s a saying in theater: A big part of acting is reacting. This is especially true when we consider how many individuals, brands, and organizations engage on the web today. Instead of seeking inspiration and direction from those around us however, we simply react to activity, which may or may not benefit us in the long run.

Top Rank Online Marketing Blog
And yet, there are just as many B2B organizations successfully conquering social media. While their stories might not be as well-known, we think these 5 B2B social media winners are doing a pretty doggone good job. Tell us if you agree.

Related ala carte selections include

The Broad Brush
sharing …

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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, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Doc Searls Weblog
What you have to appreciate, even admire, is how well Apple plays the vertical game. It’s really amazing.

What you also have to appreciate is how much we also need the horizontal one. The iPad needs an open alternative, soon. There should be for the iPad what Google’s Nexus One is for the iPhone.

10e20
I help clients brainstorm different content ideas for linkbait and viral spread. Oftentimes I’m brainstorming for the same niche, meaning I have to come up with dozens of ideas for one industry. This process can get tricky, as it’s often hard to come up with fresh ideas for one topic week after week. I thought I’d share some things that I do to try and get the creative juices going.

Servant of Chaos
You know what it’s like – the brief hits your desk and you know it’s going to hurt you. The client wants impact. Results. Creativity to burn. It needs to be original, classy and out of left field – but you also need to bring this baby in on budget. And quickly.

TrendWatching
As we wanted to keep things straightforward and hands-on this month, we’re highlighting “FUNCTIONALL”. Which is all about a new breed of products that are simple, small and/or cheap (with a dash of sustainability), giving them global appeal, from India to Sweden. Now, if that doesn’t warrant a brainstorming session…

Skelliewag
I am always the first person to advocate studying blogs you admire to learn their techniques. I’ve dedicated a lot of time to spreading the word about blogs that are doing things right, and how you can emulate them.

But in this post, I want to talk about how we can learn what no to do from the evolution of popular blogs. Because they’ve learned from their mistakes, we have the opportunity to learn without ever having to make the same mistake they did.

Web Worker Daily
About a week ago, I noticed that my task list had this distribution for prioritization: 95 percent “highest,” 4 percent “high,” 1 percent “normal,” and no tasks at all at the “low” and “lowest” priorities. Is this because I am so important that everything I do is of the utmost importance?

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Brand New
Based in Philadelphia, the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is a collective of seven grant-making initiatives dedicated to supporting local artists and heritage organizations. Originally, each initiative had its own logo, lacking any consistency with the others. Because of that, there was no indication that it was part of a greater entity. Another problem was the absence of an umbrella logo for the Pew Center. The challenge for London-based johnson banks was to solve a rather specific client brief.

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Colleges and Universities
Here is a list of 100 blogs that will help you improve your writing by providing inspiration, motivation, creativity and new techniques from experts, freelancers, and editors from every genre.

Misadventures with Andi
I did find a few blogs to read, but this activity also left me with the overwhelming need to share a piece of basic web usability advice.

Thomas Clifford
Pink definitely motivated me to rethink how organizations might use multimedia in ways beyond traditional corporate communication methods. Let’s look at one idea from the book and adapt it for our purposes.

Stephen Smith
How can you not generate big ideas every day? Some of them will not be good ideas, but that is okay. Get them out of your head.

Good ideas come from doing something differently, an unusual experience, an unexpected inspiration. Seek these experiences intentionally. Listen to a radio program that you disagree with, or music that you do not like.

45 Things
Mute.

In today’s workplace, I think a lot of people long for a “mute” button. Unfortunately, not only do we not have the option of tuning everything out, but the increasing stress levels have made it just a bit too loud — in all kinds of ways.

Cube Rules
Meetings have many purposes. One of the purposes is to get a decision made about something so people can move forward in their work.

Yet, few would say that meetings produce decisions. Many, if not most, people will tell you the vast majority of meetings are a complete waste of time.

John Haydon
What if you could cut down on the number of social media sites that you’re posting content on? Posterous allows you to do just that – entirely by email.

Related ala carte selections include

Social Media Examiner
In this video I interview Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer for the 358,000 member organization MarketingProfs.

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Chrisg
Steven Aitchison has a strong blog. Most people would regard his site as a success (in fact he claims it as the “biggest personal development blog in the UK) … So why would he ask for a blog critique when he is doing so many things right? With stats like these, Steven could be giving advice rather than asking for it.

Steve Woodrufff
It’s a none-too-fancy restaurant that has been serving mouth-watering chicken, biscuits, and jam since, oh, the days of the Pony Express. Loveless Cafe.

Starbucker
Sometimes a leader needs to think like a plumber.

Yep, a plumber.

How so? Think about pressure for a minute. A plumber deals with pressure all the time – in their case, water pressure.

Seth’s blog
Find a calling. Then deliver

Barry J Moltz
Now that jet lag has subsided, I can now reflect on what I learned on my three week vacation with my family to China, Hong Kong and Thailand.

1. You can stop and the world will go on…and that’s okay…

Deaf Mom’s World
Have you ever been caught in a conversation where you weren’t sure what was going on yet you nodded along, laughed along or excused yourself to head to the bathroom?

Related ala carte selections include

A New Player?
This is fun.

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Remarkable Communicaton
The problem with putting so much you into your business is that there’s a finite amount of you.

in over your head
I don’t know about you, but I was pretty stupid when I was younger. I really believed that I should only do what I feel like at the moment, not what I really cared about in general. I wasted several years of my life as a result of it– sucks right?

Altitude Branding
When you think of social media roles, chances are you think of a community manager or the oh-so-generic “social media manager”, which is usually some function of the marketing department managing strictly social media programs. But there are loads of other potential roles that can integrate or represent social media alongside other business areas.

Diva Marketing
Candy button As I began building the deck (I often like to mix slides with conversation. People learn differently and PowerPoint offers a visual media.) candy dots ran through my mind. I thought it would be fun to include an image of candy dots to help illustrate the strategy trail.

Jonathan Fields, Awake at the Wheel
The questions lobbed across the table…

What impact do you want to have? And, on whom?

I sat, for a moment, like a dear in headlights.

Seth’s Blog
The first stand is run by two kids. They use Countrytime lemonade, paper cups and a bridge table. It’s a decent lemonade stand, one in the long tradition of standard lemonade stands.

Related ala carte selections include

Ian M Rountree
Stabbed myself with a screwdriver at work the other day. Hurt like hell. It’s better now – well, getting better anyway, that’s what a week of antibiotic cream is for. …

Yes. It stung. Yes. My hand is totally useless for now. Why do I say this taught me a few lessons?

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

I’m a proud affiliate of