Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 265 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

SOB Business Cafe 11-19-10

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SB Cafe

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
There to meet us was the building’s concierge. As he helped us get our luggage into the elevator, my wife said to him “It’s a really gray day”.

He smiled, ear to ear. “Yes, it’s a GREAT day”

You could literally feel the positive energy coming out of him as he ever so cleverly “mis-heard” my wife’s comment.

At that moment, we forgot about the gray, and the rain. He was right – it was a GREAT day.

Social media today
More than ever, it makes sense – particularly for students right now – to get to work on enhancing their irresistibility factor in order to show up and stand out in this over-crowded and over-saturated environment. Of course, that’s exactly what creating a personal brand can do for you. It’s not only one powerful tool for getting ahead. It’s a total game changer.

How and Why We Blog
Give this checklist a try if you think your business blog needs a revamp; it’ll help you get started reinventing your site. I’ve broken the checklist down: look and feel and content items.

Six Pixels of Separation
People tend to shrug their shoulders, roll their eyes or simply get freaked out at the slightest thought of making something that is not like us “human” (if you don’t believe me, watch science fiction movies like A.I. or Blade Runner). Before getting into a philosophical and semantic debate over what it actually means to be “human,” first think about what a brand really stands for.

What’s next blog?
Only 11% of teens email each day, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told a Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference in June. “Email is probably going away,” she said.

Related ala carte selections include

Do you think this would work?

Experience the Message
I just love this story: Nordstrom is rumored to be opening a concept store in SoHo where all thprofits are donated to charity.

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

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Cool Practice Review: Gratitude Challenge

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools, products, and practices that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks in a business environment.

Cool Practice Review: Dialogue Exercise
A Review by Todd Hoskins

Earlier this year, Liz wrote on how gratitude is more than saying “thank you.” “Breathing” gratitude contributes to thrivability, both in oneself and extending to one’s friends, co-workers, and community.

But gratitude is very difficult in the face of pain.

Can I be grateful for my divorce? For my genetic condition? For a decline in income or revenue? For a dissatisfied client?

By finding gratitude within a challenge or hardship, it takes away my victim status, and allows me to see how suffering can contribute to my growth. My wound can become my strength, and I can grin (and weep) in the face of loss because I know a stronger foundation is being built.

Businesses have had their share of pain, not just now, for it is a part of working within a living system where systemic needs are sometimes contrary to the people working within the system. At an organizational or group level, there is enormous power in sharing the individual and collective difficulties along with the growth that may emerge from the hardship. Try this exercise as a reflection on the past year, or use it in your annual reviews:

1. Each person writes down 2-3 difficulties and why they are grateful for them. Encourage your people to speak on behalf of themselves, and/or the team.

I am grateful for _____, because it has ______.

(i.e. I am grateful for John’s resignation, because it has shown me how I do not allow people who work for me to creatively experiment and try out their own ideas).

((i.e. I am grateful for losing our largest client, because it has demonstrated how much we compromised on our vision in order to keep them happy).

2. Each person shares their gratitude sentences, with no judgment or commentary from the group.

3. Offer thanks for the participation, but don’t try to solve anything. Give the exercise some breathing room. A discussion may ensue, but a debate, planning session, or analysis would be best saved for later.

Try it, and let us know how it went!

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 5/5 – Groups should be kept below 25

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Want commitment and teamwork? This helps you get there.

Personal Value: 5/5 – For family, for friends, even your network of ambient intimacy

Happy Thanksgiving!

Do you need more data?

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by Patty Azzarello

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Are you implementing your strategy
or studying it?

I was working with a management team on their strategy when we came to an interesting point in the day about their business needing a game-changing initiative.

The group brainstormed for awhile, and discussed several potential game changers.  We narrowed the list to three really cool ideas.

Then came the big question…

Which is THE one? Where will this team focus and invest to create a dramatic shift in their market?

At this point in the meeting the team decided that the next step would be to take these three ideas and study them for two weeks then come back with a recommendation of which one to pursue.

Why not decide right now?

The team had entered this meeting wanting to get aligned on their strategy and come out with clear actions to implement it.  Now they were going off for more study.

I asked the question – Why not pick now?  What will you learn in two weeks that you don’t know today?  What additional data exists that will give you more insight?

The team realized that in three weeks, they probably would not learn anything materially different than what they already knew.  That’s the thing about a being a game changer.  Leaders never have all the data.

The leaders leave a trail of data behind them.

So they decided.  They picked one.

Start moving forward

Instead of leaving the meeting with a bunch of tasks to study the choices, right there in the meeting we worked on the action plan to get a game changer started.  We evaluated the stakeholders and adversaries, cataloged resource requirements, and created the list of the first 5 questions to be answered and subsequent decisions to be made.  We put dates in place for the first draft of the business proposal.  We talked about the timeline and approach for getting employee buy-in. They were moving forward.

Think about how much time this team saved.

Without a decision, multiple people would have left the room with a task to study for three weeks. That would take a toll on their day job, AND not move the new strategy forward.  Instead they left with productive tasks to make real forward progress.

Why is it hard to decide?

When I work with groups that have plenty of data, I find two surprising reasons why they have trouble deciding.
It’s not so much that they are afraid they are making a bad choice, or afraid of the risk that comes with choice.  It’s one of two things:

1. The leader does not want to force it through
So the study is seen as an opportunity to get participation and buy in, so the leader is not seen as railroading the decision through the organization.

2. The team thinks the leader requires more information

So the study is seen as an opportunity for the team to satisfy the leader that their recommendation is valid because the choices have been fully studied and justified.

You are allowed to pick!

What is so interesting is that in many cases, the team actually doesn’t mind if the leader states his choice, and the leader does not actually require more data!  They just get locked in this default behavior to collect more data to satisfy a need that doesn’t exist.

Talk about it.  Make a decision. You are allowed.

There is time for market analysis and study, and there are times when either you know the answer, or there is no more useful data to be had.

When you think you have reached this point ask yourself these questions:

  • Why am I not deciding now?
  • What additional data is available that going to help me?
  • What will be materially different after more study?

By all means, if there is knowable data, go find it.  But if you’ve exhaused the knowable data, stop studying!  Start moving something forward and learn as you go.

Fail Quickly

If you fail, fail quickly. Then don’t try to save a bad idea by throwing more money at it.  Learn, then try something else if necessary.

The most successful companies are not the ones that do everything right, they are the ones that can fund their mistakes, and eventually come up with the winning play.

What blocks your team from making decisions and forward progress?  How have you broken through?
Leave your thoughts in the comment box!

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Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She 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

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Social Media & Blogging-Panel of Questions (Part 3)

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A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors to help manage their social media marketing & promotion. As part of my job I read a lot of books (and I love to read anyway!). I am here to offer a weekly post about one book author I am working with and one book I have put on my reading list.

I am mixing things up (again! – you can read part 1 and part 2) for my weekly blog post . I thought I would ask a few of the authors I have highlighted to offer their strategies and tips regarding blogging and social media.

Panel Discussion about Blogging and Social Media

Here are the authors offering their own insights and strategies regarding blogging and social media:
Kimberly Wiefling – Executive Editor of the Scrappy About Series, is a proven expert in enabling people to achieve what seems impossible, but is merely difficult. She is the author of one of the top project management books in the US,”Scrappy Project Management: The 12 Predictable and Avoidable Pitfalls Every Project Faces, a book growing in popularity around the world, and recently published in Japanese by Nikkei Business Press. And the newest in the Scrappy About series, Scrappy Women in Business.

She founded Wiefling Consulting, LLC, a global leadership and business management consulting firm, in 2001. She currently spends about half of her time working with high-potential leaders in Japanese companies as the Executive Director for ALC Education’s Global Management Consulting Group, an organization based in Tokyo, Japan. Her work includes facilitating leadership, communication, teamwork, innovation and execution excellence workshops to enable Japanese companies to solve global problems profitably.

Miranda Marquit is a blogger and freelance writer working from home. She has five years experience in the blogging and social media space, mainly providing content and support for corporate blogs. Miranda understands the importance of blogging and social media in online marketing and community building, and enjoys interacting and networking via the Internet.

In addition to professional blogging, Miranda is a freelance writer with a Journalism degree. Her work has appeared in national magazines and on news Web sites. She is also a columnist for her local newspaper. Miranda enjoys reading, music, travel, and the outdoors. Her favorite activities involve using her hobbies as a way to spend time with her husband and their six-year-old son. Miranda lives with her family in Logan, Utah. She is the co-author of Community 101: How to Grow an Online Community.

Karen Pierce Gonzalez
Since 2000, Karen Pierce Gonzalez Public Relations has provided public relations services for businesses, non-profits, art and culture organizations and individual professionals locally, regionally and nationally. Founder and president Karen Pierce Gonzalez has twenty-five years experience in the media having worked as a journalist for such media as the San Francisco Chronicle, Marin Independent Journal, and Point Reyes Light, newspapers as well a numerous local and national magazines, including North Bay Biz and Australian Trade Community Journal. She knows what makes the news and what does not.

Karen specializes in identifying newsworthy angles about her clients’ events and activities and obtaining news coverage from appropriate media outlets. She also helps clients maximize their advertising budgets by developing media sponsorships. She works with clients to utilize these sponsorships to generate the community support of businesses and other groups.

She earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in anthropology linguistics and in creative writing from Sonoma State University. A published fiction and non-fiction writer with numerous awards to her credit including a 2006 Pushcart Prize nomination, 2006 Editors’ Choice Farmhouse Magazine, 2005 National League of American Pen Women award for fiction, 2004 National League of American Pen Woman award for creative nonfiction, and 2002 California Writers award for nonfiction, she is also the author of “Family Folktales: Write Your Own Family Stories” and is CEO/Publisher of FolkHeart Press.

Here is what they have to say about blogging and social media:

How long have you been blogging?

KW: I started blogging in Sept. 2006 when I helped co-found the first university-affiliated blog on project management: http://svprojectmanagement.com/author/kwiefling And I started my own blog in January 2008 when I had a new year’s resolution to expand my business using the internet. I now also write for several other blogs once every 2 – 3 months: Career Shorts, Whole Life Well Being and Project Connections

MM: 5 years

KPG: Five years.

What subjects do you cover with your blog?
KW: Business leadership
Global business leadership
Project management
Program management
Well being
Breakthrough thinking
Personal and professional development

MM: Mostly personal finance

KPG: Folkheart Press covers folklore-related topics (folk art, food lore, folktales, folk festivals, etc.)

Why do you blog?
KW: I love to write, and I learn when I write. And I believe it makes me more well known, which increases my value to my clients and my agents.

MM: I enjoy writing. Plus, it’s my job — I’m a professional blogger!

KPG: It is a way to introduce others to the world of folklore and to Folkheart Press. In today’s cyberspace world, it is important to have a presence.

What is the one blogging tip you have to share with others?
KW: Write about topics about which you have personal knowledge and experience, and keep the tone conversational and authentic. Don’t write a newspaper article style blog!

MM: Write about something you enjoy.

KPG: Make the blogs fun and brief. No one expects to read a novel when they visit a blog.

How long have you been using social media (twitter, facebook, linkedin) for your business?

KW: About 3 years

MM: 4 years

KPG Five years.

When it comes to social media— do you prefer one platform over the others?( facebook, twitter or linked in)
KW: I use Twitter to update my personal and professional connections about my status. This pushes automatically to Facebook, Plaxo and LinkedIn.
I use Facebook Fan page for Scrappy Women in Business book, and updates push to a Twitter account that I have linked to that.

MM: I actually really like fwisp, a social media niche site devoted to finance. I do like using Facebook and Twitter, though.

KPG: Facebook

Why do you like one of the others?
KW: Twitter is quick and easy, and seems to be the micro-blogging platform of choice. I can also monitor mentions of my key words on Twitter using Social Oomph.
Facebook is “cool”. Linked In is more business serious, but that’s not my style. And Plaxo is not a player really.

MM: I like fwisp because it has good spam controls, and it offers a range of stories in the personal finance blogosphere. Finding good social media communities in your niche is, I think, important.

KPG: Facebook allows for website link images which adds value to the posting.

What is one social media tip you have to share with others?

KW: Keep in mind that your life isn’t nearly as interesting to other people as you might think. Choose what you share with that in mind lest you be one of the people we make fun of for tweeting “My cat rolled over.” or other trivia.

MM: Choose a few social media communities and focus on those. Don’t try to build a good account at every site or group ; you’ll never be able keep up with it all.

KPG: Be informative and don’t sell, sell, sell. It’s annoying.

Thanks ladies for these great, helpful tips and for sharing your strategies about blogging and social media.
And if you have tips and resources that help you, please add to the discussion.

Blogging As Literature? Why Not?

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By Jael Strong

At the end of March of this year, blogger Gregory Cowles wrote for The New York Times blog Paper Cuts questioning whether or not blogs could ever rise to level of literature.  Ultimately, he came to the conclusion that it  could not.  Is that true?  Is the blogger doomed to a life of genre writing that could never be called literature?

King Solomon said, “To the making of books there is no end and much devotion to them is wearisome to the flesh.”  How true! In our modern world, certainly blogs fall under this lexical umbrella.  There are so many blogs out there, more being added each day, is it fair to assume that none could ever rise to the level of literature? 

Some argue that blogging is journalism and as such is hindered from being fine, creative, literature.  In order to discover whether we bloggers could ever find ourselves listed among the pantheon of great literary writers, we first need to establish what is literature.

What is literature?

This is the stuff of which books are made, and they have been made.  Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay titled “What is literature?” is certainly a definitive and recognized source on the subject.  I won’t pretend to offer the final word on the topic.  Instead here is a short list to help us define literature.  Literature:

  • is recognized for its value and is shared for that reason.
  • represents society, culture, history, or some element as a whole.
  • endures over time, being called upon years or centuries past its creation.
  • is artistic or creative by nature.
  • displays outstanding style and quality.

This list is not comprehensive of course.  It gives us some benchmarks by which to measure our writing, though.  Analyzing this criteria, it appears impossible to say whether any blogs written today could be labeled literature.  Equally true is that we can’t make the blanket statement that a blog could never be literature.  Time will tell whether any bloggers will make a permanent mark in the world of writing.

How should this affect us?

 When I read the post written by Mr. Cowles, I was taken aback, not because I feel that I have written something outstanding that could be called literature, but because I felt the opportunity for great writing was being snatched away from bloggers. 

If something is worth writing about, it is worth writing about it well.  True, there are a lot of lack-luster posts out there, just as there are many lack-luster books.  It isn’t the form that written work takes that defines it, but it is the quality of that work.  Therefore, as bloggers, we need to write about things that matter to us and hopefully to others.  We need to write well.  We need to write creatively.  As writers, we should never feel stunted by our venue!

What do you think?  Could a blog ever rise to level of literature?

Jael Strong writes for TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility.  She has written both fiction and non-fiction pieces for print and online publications.  She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas .

Thanks, Jael–ME “Liz” StraussWork with Liz on your business!!

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