Kelly Slater, ASP 10X World Champion surfer is being chaired up the beach at Snapper Rocks, Queensland, Australia, just after winning Quiksilver Pro, March 2011.
What’s the bond between a champion and his fans?
Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,
I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.
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.
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
Whether you’re a blogger or an entrepreneur, you’re probably using the net to get in touch with lots of people out there. You also know what to do, how to do that. But you feel there is always something missing to get to that so called “next step” everyone of us is longing for.
As bloggers, we can absolutely tell that wonderful feeling… that feeling of having our digital life going great, that side of our digital existence handled for good; I will be serious about that. The best advice I have been able to find on the net goes like this:
“write the greatest, deepest content you can produce and let the machines do the rest, without worrying about visitors, comments and similar stuff”.
That is to say: all the effort you really have to make is about content. Creating, is the only thing we, as bloggers, editors and writers, are allowed to worry about.
What is not so clear for the vast majority of bloggers is that the interface between the user and the internet can become a great obstacle because of the vast choice of applications, addons, plugins and widgets that are available for us to use on our pages. These features are totally irrelevant on the quality of the material we can find on a blog page.
By simplifying the blog interface, I guess I have made one of the most important and wise decisions ever in my (digital) life. What did I do, exactly to simplify my blog interface?
1. I removed the comments section under every post
2. I removed plugins and reduced my blog interface to the essential
No need for comments and features that bloat my page. I need content that is valuable for what it is. Looks doesn’t really matter to me, and all I want to look at is the content I am interested in. That is why I also removed comments.
The Results:
I uniquely use 2 communication channels that are completely free: my email account and my Twitter. This way, I don’t create clutter in my life and all I do in the virtual world remains there.
Plus, my blog remains clean and usable; no visual clutter is present on my screen and whenever I feel like I can read what I write with no need to close and click ads, useless windows and pop-up stuff.
Moreover, in absence of plugins and different elements I can have a blog which is usable and viewable by almost every kind of device out there, and doesn’t make the user wait for the content to appear and load.
No time to waste, no clutter. Just you and the deep content you’re going to enrich your existence with.
What might you gain or lose by sleeing doen your down your (digital life) to these two communication channels?
David Berti is the creator of the Ubuntulook project. His webisite is(unbuntulook You’ll find him on twitter as @ubuntulook
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Thanks, David! Always love a distinctively new point of view!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!
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Organizations waste a lot of time communicating badly.
They fall into the trap of talking about things that have already been decided, or not talking when input is genuinely needed.
Executives donât know all the answers (even if they act like they do).
They rely on healthy debate from their team to get all the important information, opinions and concerns out on the table.
Without that, they canât make a good business decision.
But the other side of the story is that people often feel punished for speaking up.
When they try to give feedback to the executives they get shot down. It feels like their inputs are unwelcome.
If this happens often enough they stop even trying. Why bother if my ideas are never acted on, and I only get grief for speaking up?
I have seen management teams waste huge amounts of time by revisiting decisions over and over again, questioning the direction and circling back for more data.
When this happens, the organization is slow to engage because they perceive the continued discussion to mean that the direction is still in question. So they wait for the answer instead of moving forward. Or they continue to add to the conversation, raising even more issues or data to help inform the decision.
SInce the executives think the decision has already been made, they get really frustrated that people are slow to act, not engaged, and stalling forward progress with more questions, inputs and arguments.
One of the best tools I have used to fix this is a simple model of Debate Phase vs. Go Phase. I make it clear that for every initiative or decision, there is DEBATE time and there is GO time.
Debate Time: Talking, Questions, Input, Arguments are welcome.
During debate time, I make it clear that I want to hear peopleâs opinions. I want to hear the arguments. I want everyone to fight for their point of view.
Thatâs how I get the best and most complete information.
Make a Clear Decision
After debate time is over, I make it clear who owns the decision, and make sure the decision gets made.
GO Time
Then I make it clear that we are in GO time. The decision is communicated and the action is officially kicked off. This is the time to engage in the work, not in the debate. The debate phase is over.
This simple frame and set of labels builds an atmosphere of higher trust because people can understand the rules of the game. They know when and how to participate without getting their head handed back to them.
You give them a chance to feel safe raising their opinions or arguing the point (which you need them to do) because by definition you are in debate phase.
By setting this structure, you can make it clear that during debate time, the expected and valued behavior is to speak up.
Then once you announce the decision has been made and make it clear that itâs GO time, people trust that you will stick to the decision, and that the expected and valued behavior is action, not more talking.
Leave your ideas in the comment box below!
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Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advior. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello. Also, check out her new book Rise…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life
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By Terez Howard
When I visited dictionary.com to see what it had to say about a stereotype, I read, “The cowboy and Indian are American stereotypes.” They are “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.”
In classic Western shows, cowboys are white men. But cowboys were also of African American, Mexican and Native American decent. And we all know that the Indians that go with cowboys are not from India.
Why the stereotypes?
I don’t really know. I believe that someone or group of people somewhere decide that this is going to be the norm. Cowboys will be white, and Indians will be Native Americans. They will never get along, and it will be a fun game for kids to play. Then, that norm transforms into a stereotype. Before long, the actual truth of a matter is lost. A stereotype becomes truth.
This is why when most people speak of a stereotype, it engenders thoughts of something bad.
I have been thinking about this for a while.I suppose the stereotypical blogger knows everything there is to know in her niche, at least everything thinks she does. She posts frequently, well, regularly.She is witty, conversational and informative, all wrapped up in a delicious but very real blog.Readers hang on her every word. She posts pictures and video, too, because she wants her blog to have it all.She knows everyone, and everyone knows her.
The stereotypical blogger doesn’t sound bad at all. In fact, it sounds like the type of person that every serious blogger wants to become. But, why? Because those characteristics equate success? Is it because that is what all of the top, authority bloggers are doing? Just because they’re doing it, you have to do it too. They’re successful, and there’s no other way for you to be a successful blogger. Is that so?
Yep. I’m not that kind of blogger. I’m not saying that I don’t want to be. I wish that I could post every single day and that I understood the ins and outs of html. I don’t, and I can’t. I am not ashamed.
I have made another observation about the stereotypical blogger. She has very limited time for the rest of her life. She’s always answering e-mails. She’s constantly tweeting her stuff and everyone else’s. She always seems to be on every blog related to her niche, commenting and guest blogging. She is everywhere, and everyone loves it.
If you’re not going to be the stereotypical blogger, then you know by now that you are letting some things go. Your blog might not have everything, every tool and form of media, right away. I believe that if you want to have a life outside of your blog and you’re patient, you can eventually have everything on your blog.
Also, your name will not get to be all over the Internet immediately when you aren’t the stereotypical blogger. You will not have the time. Slowly, you can make connections that will boost your image. You may never be No. 1 in your niche. Is that OK?
It’s OK with me. No. 1 has too much responsibility. I’m content doing what I can do, having fun writing, collecting my money and then having a life.
I’m not ashamed to say that I don’t have the time to be the stereotypical blogger. I will never be that girl. I do what I do. I enjoy what I do. And blogging is only a small part of “what I do.”
What do you think? Are you or do you want to be the stereotypical blogger?
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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients authority status and net visibility. She has written informative pieces for newspapers, online magazines and blogs, both big and small. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas. You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger.
Thanks, Terez!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!
10-Point Plan in Action
Going back down to SxSW reminds me of a conversation I had with @copyblogger, Brian Clark at SxSW 2008. It was in the early hours. We were at a club and found a place where we could talk for a minute or two. We were talking about SOBCon and how it had grown. We were talking about how people were coming because of the people who were in the room who were coming because of the people who were in the room.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Brian doesn’t remember what he said that night, but I do.
He said: “You and Terry are doing something important.
I said: “i know.”
Then he said: “But you gotta OWN it! Because without it where would I be?”
I replied something flippant like: “Still running the stealth intelligence network of the universe?”
He ignored my attempt at humor and continued with: “You gotta OWN it seriously.”
That advice stayed with me. I told Terry about it.
“Gotta OWN it! We own it, don’t we?”
But for the next year that idea became a mantra, “I’m OWNING it.”
Now I know what that simple sentence means.
A few months later, I was at SOBCon 2008 with Brian’s words ringing in my ears. The thought kept running through my mind, “What am I not owning here?”
And as I opened my eyes, I realized that, in an effort to be “easy to work with,” I’d been holding back my best. My job is the content design an execution and we’ve always delivered more, different, and better than the rest, but not as well as I was capable of delivering. I’d let speakers slide just a little, then felt they could’ve shined more for themselves and for the audience. I’d been nice to sponsors and let them be less engaging than they might.
I realized then and there that companies make that mistake all of the time. We lower our price, change our offer, compromise for a vendor. We don’t own what we’re doing, instead we give away what we own.
What we should be doing instead is building trust and proving we’re the best at doing what we do to attract the people who recognize excellence and want to work be in a space that we own.
Every teacher, saloonkeeper, consultant, great business of one or corporation has a responsibility to own our role as a leader, to set the standards of our business so that the people who are in it with us know why and how to reach their greatest potential and so that the business can thrive and grow.
Here’s what I learned about how to do that:
Owning our role, our values, our standards and our value proposition makes it easier for everyone else to own their role with the same values, standards, and value proposition. Like a great bartender or a community manager, we keep the space safe for people to be extraordinary without fear that they will lose by winning.
Own it. Don’t telephone it in.
Make a space, a place where people can show you what their best is and feel that you’ll notice, celebrate it, and protect it.
Do that and they’ll think of your business as owning the space you’re in, because to them it will be better than home.
That’s irresistible.
How do what you do, hold it up to the highest standards, so that the people who work with and for you can know they are working with the best in the business?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!
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