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

WorkLifeNation
But there is swelling support to help you achieve what social media expert Chris Brogan calls “escape velocity.” “The ability to leave a situation that isn’t helpful or desired.” It’s the path less traveled where you’ve got your feet planted in the financial security of a steady job, while igniting the journey toward doing work that you’re passionate about.

Chris Brogan
Yesterday, my blog was not my job, so I didn’t write one. Today? I have two speeches over the next few days. That was my job first, and then this post.

America’s Best Business Practices
I have written many articles on this blog about the huge benefits of using social media in marketing. So please don’t mistake this article as some type of put-down for social media. It is not. I believe that social media has leveled the playing field to some degree between big business and small business. Nonetheless, as with many great things, it can sometimes go wrong.

Shamable
Web traffic for the sake of traffic is meaningless. This is why I don’t advocate always targeting a “top blogger” in any vertical. It makes zero sense to chase big numbers, just as shotgun marketing did — just ask our friend, the banner ad.

Operation Safe
I have been looking at a few blog posts that share what kind of tweets someone should make, and wondering what the right balance for a non-profit like us should be. I won’t claim any magic formula but this is what is working for us.

JR’s Internet Marketing Strategies
Overall, dofollow is obviously the best type of backlink because it passes link juice from one site to another and counts the anchor text for keyword relevance, but, do not discount the nofollow completely!

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Oatmeal.com
via @ChrisGuillebeau

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
I nearly called this article “Everything I know about blogging I learned from comic books” but I was afraid too many people would take it literally, ha. In fact, there might be an element of truth to it. My formative reading material was dominated by muscly, spandex-clad guys and gals fighting crime and shooting laser beams out of their eyes.

Ramblings from a Glass Half Full
It seemed a bit silly to me when I first got this suggestion, but in this moment of despair I figured writing something down might just be that little step that Tom Peters was urging me to take in his column.

So I picked up my pen, and started to write. I outlined my dream -to be a leader, making a real difference for a business. I also noted the kind of leader I wanted to be.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, within a year I had a new job, and not too long after that, that dream I had put on paper came true. Every bit of it.

CIO Update
The real conundrum facing business today is not which tools to use but whether to work within an existing social network or build one central to the brand. With few exceptions, success usually lies in doing both or in creating a hybrid of the two.

McCurry’s Corner
So my question is what makes an educational presentation excellent? Is it the quality of the education content? Is it in the presenter’s delivery? Or, is there some special formula that really contributes to getting audiences engaged? What do you think? Here are some of my thoughts…

Adventures in Philanthrophy
You are influencing the people who read your blog posts religiously. You are informing the decisions of the people who have you on twitter lists. You are shaping the people who interact with you on facebook. Just because that’s not your intention doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Authentic Path
The truth? Building a successful online presence takes time and work. It also takes a willingness to get real, to become authentic.

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Congratulations to WGN and Nancy Loo!
So, after nine years of competing against “WGN Morning News”, I’ll be helping the team to keep beating my former station. I admire the show and everyone on it (hello Larry, Robin, Pat, Paul, Valerie and Ana) and I am proud to become one of “Chicago’s Very Own”.

A Skilling Snuggie wrapped the deal!
Contract negotiations are always a fascinating process to me. I’ve been through a few now. Salary numbers are thrown back and forth between agents and news managers. My demand for a Tom Skilling Snuggie nearly quashed the deal.

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

Ramblings from a Glass Half Full
“It can’t be done”

“You can’t do that”

How many times have you heard these words? Plenty of times, I bet. “Can’t” is a big, fat, stop sign designed to sabotage a dream.

The Social Media Marketing Blog
It turns out that it’s pretty simple to understand what women want. All you have to do is ask them. Of course, you have to be listening and willing to put it into practice. Having been married for nearly 9 years, I’m no genius at dating; but there are some parallels here that even my feeble brain can pull out.

Read more: http://www.scottmonty.com/2010/05/online-ad-targeting-is-pretty-much-like.html#ixzz0oXCwqvf5

ReveNews
The service is called CinemaNow, partnering Best Buy with Sonic Solutions Inc. The service will start as a la carte, and hopes to progress to a Netflix like subscription service. Movie rentals will start at 2.99, videos for purchase will run from 9.99 – 19.99.

C-Level Strategies and Awakenings
To be honest, I used to avoid networking events if I was not absolutely sure that someone I knew would be there – someone for me to “hang out with.” This was a real detriment to my career as it drastically limited my exposure to executives outside of my little “bubble,” and prevented me from making wonderful new business connections.

One Mann’s Opinion
It’s scary and exciting and big monsters are there to eat you and you don’t know where to start. The best place is with your personal or business strategy. You don’t need to embrace it all, you don’t need to be everywhere and frankly no one can.

Des Walsh
Conversations about social media in business often start with questions about tools. “Should we have a Facebook page?” “Should we be on Twitter?” “Should we have a blog and if so how do we go about that?”

These are perfectly reasonable questions. But they jump the gun.

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Connie Reece
As they say about a picture …

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

Sticky Figure
Now, there are lots of ways to find suppliers. You can Google, make phone calls, field incoming sales calls, sit through capabilities presentations, go through an RFP process, vet vendors, pick one and hope it works….you know the drill. Inefficient, time-intensive, risky.

Life as a Literary Agent
Too often, people sit down and nervously launch into some kind of story and I find myself dizzy with confusion. I sit there like a deer in the headlights and then I say something like, “Let’s back up. What’s your name? And is this fiction or nonfiction?”

Steve Farber
So, imagine my surprise (really, really great surprise) when I started to hear from educators–teachers, principals, administrators–about how they’d been applying the principles of Extreme Leadership in their buildings, in their schools, their classrooms. I’ve written about several of these amazing educators on this blog.

OPEN Small Business
While social media cheat-sheets and short cuts are available almost everywhere you look, the truth is that we have some work ahead of us. To help, I’ve assembled a list of five best practices to help you build, cultivate, and measure success in the new web right now.

Blue Sky Factory
If I could give you one piece of advice to make your email marketing efforts optimized, it would be to make sure you are fulfilling these 3 integral factors for email deliverability:

Media Post: Research Brief
Traditionally, PR has focused on reputation, earned media, third-party validation, and awareness-building – while marketing has been generally focused on advertising, sponsorships and lead-generation. The conversation has centered on how these two disciplines should be orchestrated to increase the overall effectiveness of outreach.

Social media contains elements that both disciplines find appealing and complementary to their existing efforts, so the debate has shifted towards who should “own” social media and, more importantly, how best to integrate social media with broader marketing or communications channels.

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Digital Dads
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am the farthest thing from an uptight prude. But, as I sat there in the audience and watched the 6 & 7 year old teams shake things they didn’t have and perform moves that were more appropriate for a stripper pole then a school stage I had to stop and wonder. Why are we letting our kids do this?

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

ConflictZen
A conflict’s greatest opportunity for collaborative resolution is usually near the time it first occurred (if such a time can be known) or at least nearer the time it first entered your awareness.

Sometimes, the triggering event is clear and memorable. Sometimes it’s elusive, building under the radar over time, brick by brick, small frustration by small frustration.

Small Business United
In the many discussions I’ve had with aspiring entrepreneurs over the past 15 years, one of the top ten reasons that they give for wanting to start a business is that they dream of pursuing their hobby full time.

Linzstar
It just makes me wonder what gives someone the right to say such things. For anyone who thinks they’re holier than thou when it comes to social media and how it should be done, I really think it’s time to consider whether or not you’re on a high horse.

Reiki Help Blog
In its most general sense, spirituality is a way of contemplating and understanding the invisible aspects of life and to transcend the personal, tangible and finite details of this world.

Make It Happen
Are you surrounded with people who accept you just the way you are?

Related ala carte selections include

Johnny Goldstein
Graphic record of 140conf talk

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