Successful Blog

Choose Your Winners Wisely and Invest Unconditionally

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Relational Reciprocity

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I don’t play with every new social media tool. In fact, I ignore most of them. I’ve decided my view is that tools are vehicles for problem solving or uniquely rare opportunities for new learning. The former I go looking for when I need them. The latter show up without warning, but are few and far between.

Once the decision is made to participate, I’m in with “both feet.” I’m a saturation learner, always have been. It shows in my 14+ years of dance training, my 8 years of theater, my 35 years of education and educational publishing … even in the way I took on blogging.

Reciprocity is Relational, Not Transactional

I’ve been exploring EmpireAvenue for one year now. The game and the sociology caught my attention and offered me something new worth exploring.

The premise of Empire Avenue is that a player buys shares in other players’ participation on social media platforms across the Internet. So at first what fascinated me was the idea of getting a more rounded picture of the people who were playing the game and what was driving them — and also what would drive me.

Soon enough the game pushed the question of reciprocity.

The way the game is engineered, the currency I spend to purchase shares in your activity doesn’t flows through to you at much less. Basically, if I buy 100 shares in you, you’ll get a deposit worth about 10 of your shares. So complete reciprocity — for you to buy 100 shares back — is nearly impossible, even if my share price is WAY less than yours.

Yet some folks hold an unrealistic expectation of reciprocity — one that hurts their own success.
Their expectations seem to me out of balance with their best interests.

The reason I invest in your activity is because your shares earn value and deliver daily dividends. If I buy you I grow and pass on that growth to my shareholders. It’s a perk if you buy my shares too.

If I wait for every winner in the game to come back to buy equal shares in me — some never will. Their share price will get higher as they grow. I’ll lose the dividends I could have been earned while I waited for some transactional reciprocity.

Who loses in that scenario?
Me … not the winners I believe are ignoring me.

It works that way in everything. If I invest in you as a person, it’s because you’re growing, you add value by who you are and what you’re doing. By investing in you, I grow too!

Reciprocity is relational. Not transactional.

Plant a seed.
Watch it grow.
Enjoy the flower.

Reciprocity is the flower — color, beauty, fragrance.
It’s not “I cared for the seed. Now the seed cares for me.”
The act of helping the seed grow provided a far more powerful payoff.

It’s the same with people.

Choose Your Winners Wisely and Invest Unconditionally

An unforgiving belief in transactional reciprocity is a skewed form of not seeing the whole picture. When we close our eyes to seeing all point of view, we defeat ourselves — or as my mom would say “Cut off own nose to spite our face.”

And you can’t smell the flowers without a nose.

So if you’ve been hoarding your attention because someone’s not paying attention to you … could be you’re at the losing end of that idea. Look for the flower in the attention you’re giving. Not the seed of attention that you think you’re owed.

Build relational reciprocity by investing in what you’re willing to grow.

Choose your winners wisely and invest in them unconditionally.

Value the resources you’re investing dearly. Then offer them without fear.
For the most important, don’t hold back the blood, sweat, and tears.

See the flowers in the seeds even before you start helping them grow.
And keep your nose.

Be irresistible.
— ME “Liz” Strauss

Getting Organized Without Wasting Your Time

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Ann Smarty

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A System to Save Time

When you run a blog, there are some things you can’t help but spend a ton of time and energy on. Coming up with new posts, fiddling with the template, talking to readers, publishing videos of funny cats you found on YouTube and just had to share…these are the important elements in the life of the average blogger.

Certainly, the last thing you want to waste time on is organization. Yet every time most of us set out to organize things, we tend to spend all day on the process. Getting sorted turns out to be more of a hassle and hour eater than remaining in a frazzles state of chaos!

This is one of the biggest traps that bloggers tend to fall into. What you need a system in place for organizing things in a timely matter. Here are some tips to help you do just that.

  1. Create a List – When you have a list to follow, you will be less tempted to veer off into unnecessary or unimportant areas in the name of organization. This will keep you from wasting time you don’t have where it isn’t needed. Try to keep your list of goals sorted from most to least important, and never move from one item to the next until you have completed that goal.
  2. Set A Timer – Calculate how much time you can dedicated to fulfilling that list, and stick to that time. If there is too much to do, break it up over the course of several days or even weeks, and follow by that schedule. You don’t have to get everything done at once, after all.
  3. Don’t Allow Distractions – I am a huge procrastinator. I can’t help it, as I tend to have the attention span of a fruit fly. Sometimes I start doing something else without even realizing I have taken my eyes off my work. A simple way to avoid this while organizing is by using a program like LeechBlock or StayFocused. This will keep you from surfing the web and getting distracted while you work.
  4. Have Background Noise – This might sound a little silly, but I have always found it much easier to remain focused if I have the right kind of background music playing while I do my task. Whether it is better for most to have something classical in the background for its gentle tones and lack of lyrics, anything that motivates you and lets you think can work. Try a playlist site, like 8Tracks or Last.fm.


  5. Keep Things Organized – The easiest way to keep from wasting time on organization is by keeping things organized. Spending a few minutes here and there making sure everything is as it should be has the same effect as spending fifteen minutes cleaning an area a day. It keeps it from getting overwhelming.

Three Tools For Organization


  • Evernote – Keep track of clippings from anywhere on the web, and view it in your browser, on your desktop or on your phone. Easy to use, and it can save small bits of text, pictures, links or full pages.
  • HootSuite – Monitor all of your social media accounts, stats and followers in one place. This is a social media dashboard that can save a lot of time and effort.
  • Pocket – Originally called Read It Later, this is a plugin that works by saving pages you wanted to read for when you aren’t busy. You can access it through your browser, on your phone or any media device connected to the web.

You don’t have to spend a whole lot of time organizing your blog. It just takes a bit of planning and thought, and you will be done quicker than you thought possible.

Author’s Bio: Ann Smarty is a blogger and guest blogger with 6 years experience. She is a control freak and she loves when she is busy, so her hands are always full. One of her largest projects is My Blog Guest, the free community of guest authors and blog owners who preach the “high-quality” approach to guest blogging. Follow Ann on Twitter at @seosmarty and Google Plus


Thank you, Ann, for this Monday motivation!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Getting to Point B: Catherine Morgan to Guest Host May 17 #SOBCon Chat on Successful Career Transitions & Business Pivots

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With the economy still in a state of flux, there are surely a lot of folks that are thinking about career transition, and some are making that leap from employment to entrepreneurship. Those who already have their own businesses may be trying to execute a graceful business pivot. Seems like everyone is in transition! You won’t want to miss our May 17 SOBCon chat, guest hosted by career transition and entrepreneur coach Catherine Morgan of Point A to Point B Transitions Inc.

Catherine works with individuals out of professional services, financial services or technology who are in career transition or are looking to establish and grow their own successful consulting or coaching practices. She has been helping people get to their Point B for more than 15 years.

We’ll be asking Catherine to answer these questions to launch our discussion on making successful career transitions:

  • How do you know if you should make a career move or just re-energize your current job/business?
  • Are there techniques for figuring out what the right next step might be?
  • What are some ideal first steps to making a major change in your job/business?
  • What are some common mistakes people make in transition?
  • Any advice to those who haven’t made a career change in many years, but want to?

Make 2012 the year you start working toward Point B in your career. Mark your calendar for the SOBCon Twitter chat on May 17 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. CDT.

3 Things I Learned, Lost, and Earned Being Off Social Media for 10 Days

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People or Screens

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Every morning for almost a year, I’ve been publishing photos of the sunrise over Lake Michigan. Sometimes when the afternoon is worth a photo graph I also publish a photo of the sunset too. On Twitter I greet my friends with a “Good morning, Twitterville” and a kind word. I try to check in with them via Facebook and Linkedin too.

Many of my online social interactions help me keep my day moving … as I transition from one task to another, it helps me to stop by Twitter to give my friends a shout out or to take time for a short read and a retweet. Being social online is a natural part of how my day goes by when it’s just me and the keys.

But when I’m with people, I like to be with people.
I find it hard to be where I am, if I’m looking at at screen.

What I Learned, Lost, and Earned Being Off Social Media for 10 Days

The theme of #SOBCon this year was Creating and Leveraging Opportunity. I challenged myself to do what I believed.

  • Be balanced. In this case, have my head and heart in the same place as my mind and my feet.
  • Go deep. Be a saturation learner. Meet people where they “live and think.”
  • Build a business not a birthday cake. Allow for the fact that a business is not a closed system — that flexibility is a key component to strategy.
  • People ARE the opportunity. Buildings, companies, products, technology do not have the stability or the reach of human-to-human relationships.

Last Wed., May 2, I left home with a suitcase to head downtown in preparation for our annual #SOBCon event in Chicago from there I would be speaking at CMSExpo in Evanston to arrive back home on May 10th. But things being what they are it ended up that I was hardly around on social sites until the 12th.

Before I left, I loaded up my blog with the blog posts that I had planned for the week. I also loaded up my Twitter account with some great posts I’d been reading on other blogs — articles on small business, strategy, weird science, and cool brain stuff — my favorite information to share via tweets.

When I got down to the hotel, I did some last minute planning. I went over to the event center to check a few things and pick an HP Folio Ultrabook that the Small Biz Folks at Hewlett Packard had sent for me, thinking maybe if I set it up, I’d be able to Tweet some, or post some, or connect some like a good social media do-bee. I got the computer up and rolling in no time. It’s light, intuitive, and has a huge battery life — can’t say how long it lasts yet, because, well, once I got it going, I kept turning it on and then getting involved in other things.

And in the course of 10 days, here’s what I about social media, the Internet, and me.

  • The social is more important than the media. When the choice comes to talking to the people live and in person, take it! Be where you are. Look them in the eyes. Listen actively. What I saw and experienced in the richness of a hug, a tone of voice, smiles shared, and glasses clinked is something I carry back to the Internet. I hear the voices of those same people when I see them again this week on Twitter.
  • Being in the story is faster, easier, and more meaningful than reporting it. I can only speak for my experience, but seconds I spend trying to share something with people online turn me into a reporter. When I shed the reporter’s role, I see, hear, and feel so much more. I am mindful and present. I am also calmer, more flexible, and more fluent because I can attend to and respond to the world I’m in rather than trying to translate to the world I can’t see.
  • The Internet got along fine without me. As far as I know, no one suffered greatly by my absence. The world didn’t stop turning. I had no more than 3 “must respond to” emails daily – I’m just not THAT important.

What I lost is easy to measure …

Yes, my blog traffic went down a bit. I didn’t attract as many Twitter followers as I had in the previous 10 days. My stock price on Empire Avenue dropped. My stats on Facebook now need some attention. My email inbox took about two hours to get back in order.

Laura Fitton and Liz Strauss, SOBCon 2012 by @adrants

What I earned was more lasting …

Deep real connections.
Deep real memories.
A whole lot of learning and fun.

The actual business directly attributable to these particular 10 days outpace ANY 10 days ever.

Working or playing, showing up is most important.
How can they see you, if you don’t stop long enough to be you?

#justsayin’

Be irresistible.
—

Buy the ebook. Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Beach Notes: Do You See What I See?

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

Sand Bubbler Crab Art

I was walking on the beach and saw what to me looked like a butterfly. When I put the photo onto the computer I saw it could be a bow-tie. Nature is amazing. This pattern was made by a small sand bubbler crab who live in burrows in the sand. At low tide they scour the sand for food and these bubble patterns are the result of their foraging.

What do you leave in your path for others to find?

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Thanks to Week 343 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss