Make-It-Great Archives - Successful Blog

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

We don’t have to be launching a blog to take value from what Copyblogger offers here.

Blueprint for a Brilliant Blog Launch

Make It Great! has something to make next Monday a whole lot easier and more fun!

The Optimist’s Creed: Monday Morning Greatness

Shards of Consciousness organizes a detailed toolkit you don’t want to miss!! I added it to the New Blogger Page.

The Shards Blogging Toolkit

Dave Olson is asking great questions about questions again.

Your potential is only as powerful as your questions

Trevor Hampel makes something I wrote more applicable.

7 Ways to Become a Writer

No carnival can compete with the one at Working at Home on the Internet. Categoires include advice, business, and tips.

Working at Home Blog Carnival-Thirty-eighth Edition

Related ala carte selections include

Life Beyond Code asks about our marketing plans.

Do you have a chocolate fountain?

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

Mini-Session 12: Relationship Blogging

March 12, 2007 by Guest Author

Guest Speaker: Phil Gerbyshak

Want more people to comment on your blog?
Tired of blogging in a vacuum?
Want to make friends with your readers?
Wondering how to score some great interviews for your blog?

The Relationship Geek will answer these questions and more from 7 – 8 PM.

Thank you,
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Visit Phil’s blog, Make It Great!, where he offers a daily dose of relationship blogging — one of the many things Phil that has earned him the title of Relationship Geek. –ME “Liz” Strauss
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Let’s open the Q&A . . .

I’ll go first. Phil, what do you do when something’s gone wrong, and you’re not feeling very much like the Relationship Geek we all know you are?

During the Virtual Conference today, you can take $100 off registration to SOBCon 07.

Change the World: The Power of WE

March 5, 2007 by Liz

The Power of Offering

In a chain of events last week, an idea and a new relationship were born. That idea will continue to form new relationships as it grows. Throughout the story is what Phil Gerbyshak calls “The Power of WE.” Here is what happened.

Chris Owen from Pink Apple Connections wrote about how, if Australia were closer she could be part of SOBcon 07. Leah MacLean wrote about Chris’ post with a suggestion and a questionn about how SOBcon started. Leah’s post generated a pile of comments and a possible Australian conference in the making. It also led to a message from me.

Leah and I met Skype — a brand new relationship. I told her how the relationships at Succeesful-Blog were the seed for the SOBcon event. By the time that call was over, Leah and I were planning a new, virtual event across the dateline.

Working Solo and Successful Blog present the Virtual SOBcon preconference event on March 12.

Chris’ post and her wish to be at a conference with her “mate Phil” put so many things into motion. It started my relationship with Leah and an entirely new event. All of that happened because some folks wanted to have a conference in Chicago. It’s incredible what happens when we engage the Power of WE.

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.

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.

Change the World: Don’t Hesitate to Ask or Offer

February 27, 2007 by Liz

The Power of Offering

We are all aggregators of what we bring into the world and what we experience once we get here. Some context:

I’m the only girl and the baby of the family. I have an older, older brother and a younger, older brother. They were 8 and 9 years old when I was a baby. . . . Yeah, I’m fiercely independent.

Besides that I’m second-generation American. My grandparents were all born in another country. . . . All around me, as I grew up, were messages that said, “Hard work never hurt anybody.”

I was shy and perceptive. . . . My social skills were a cross between a monkey and a Weimaraner puppy — intrusive, cute, and clumsy.

When I went to college, I was the only one who had carried my suitcase. That was the way the world worked. That world had worked pretty well for me.

That explains a lot; doesn’t it?

This morning a man I just met, Fred Zelders, reminded me of all of that with one sentence in his comment..

P.S. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.

Wow! Hit my head. What the heck had I been thinking? I love to help people. Why shouldn’t they get a turn too?

What Fred sent me when we talked minutes later was simpler and more elegant than what I had been planning.

That simple offer — one sentence — changed my world. It saved me hours and gave me something so much better. AND Fred is no longer a stranger.

One sentence.

Thank you, Fred Zelders, for offering. Thank you for your generosity.

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.

Meet the Relationship Geek — Phil Gerbyshak

February 8, 2007 by Liz

Everyone Knows Phil

We had met at the first email and by the last, we had decided that we would be attending Phil’s speaking event in Chicago together — two weeks later. Somewhere around emails three and four he said “I’m not a stalker.” and I laughed, thinking I’m the one who usually writes that. Not bad for an email conversation that only lasted only 42 minutes.

ThatÃ¢â¬â¢s how my relationship with Phil began. I suspect itÃ¢â¬â¢s that way for everyone.

Read the whole feature in today’s Blog Herald by clicking the logo.

It’s about blogging and real life.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

SOB Business Cafe 02-02-07

February 2, 2007 by Liz

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.