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

Altitude
Today on Twitter’s #SMChat, DJ Waldow asked about professional uses for Twitter and what we got out of it.

In my first year as an independent consultant, I can attribute over $100K in revenue for my business directly to Twitter. How?

Small Biz Survival
Suzy and Tracie make bread in a little strip mall in Mishawaka, Indiana. They have a franchise with Great Harvest Bread Company. They give you free slices to sample. (Apple Scrapple is very good.) They are like lots of bread stores in lots of towns.

Their store/bakery is only a couple miles from our daughter’s college, but I never would have noticed it. It’s one of many stores in that mall, and there are many strip malls along Grape Road.

So how did Suzy sell me a muffin and a coffee mug?

Servant of Chaos
CMO.com released a handy chart with snapshot social media information designed as a quick heads up for chief marketing officers. It’s not a panacea and it doesn’t cover all the places, spaces and platforms – but it’s a great start.

Social Media Marketing Institute
You can bet I understand the importance of numbers. They are crucial to every business.

BUT…..(you knew this was coming)… everything you do in your life doesn’t have to have a concrete measurement. Todd Carpenter said, “if you coach a softball game”, do you measure the ROI of getting new clients?” Now, that is just silly. Of course not.

Lip Sticking
I’ve decided to step out and say what few people are willing to say: women business owners need to approach social media differently than male business owners.

Related ala carte selections include

Being Five …
If you truly believe something with all your heart …

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

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.

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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.

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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