Successful Blog

Thanks to Week 201 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: 300 Outstanding Logos, Portfolios, and Design Sites

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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.

This Week Featuring Design and Presentation

imjustcreative
This is Part 10 of the Logo Design RoundUp series. A special edition, with a whopping 27 logos shown below. This series showcases a collection of logos and brand marks, self submitted by a bunch of freelance designers and creative folk in many creative areas. These designers use the logos to sell, promote, brand and market their various skills.

design sponge
sometimes i fall in love with product photos as much as the product itself. these photos from the new collection of toldbod 120 pendant lamps from louis poulsen lighting are just too lovely to ignore.

Blog. Spoon Graphics
Retro Futurism is the term used to describe artwork depicting a view of the future, from the eyes of the past. The artwork itself also has the appearance of something old and vintage, basically blending both past and future into one style of artwork that blows your mind!

graphic design blog
To succeed in the world of Graphic Design, always exhibit you creativity skills in a tempting and presentable manner. If you are a fresh graduate and looking for a job as a graphic designer, the first tip to success is to create a “smashing portfolio” …

2EXPERTDESIGN
Below you’ll find a collection of 40 beautiful and creative typography designs to inspire you that will allow you to expand your knowledge base of what typography really is …

Web Design Booth
In the previous post, we showcase 50 creative portfolios and soon there are readers who request us to share beautiful blog designs. A great portfolio will attract more clients to a designer while great blog design will bring you more visitors too.

Hongkiat
When we talk about design, the key word is ‘impression‘. A visually attractive blog leaves behind a deep impression among people such that the person remembers it enough to actually revisit the site another time. This list of absolutely gorgeous-looking blogs below was compiled to provide you with some ideas on what you can do to come up with an attractive and well-designed blog.

freelance folder
In this list we’ve compiled 30 of the most gorgeous navigation menu designs — all of which are big, bold, and beautiful. Take a look and see what you think:

Studio-XL
In this post, we’d like to show you 50 great examples of how hand drawing and web design can fit beautifully together. Full list after jump.

Functioning Form
Today at their headquarters in Palo Alto, Facebook’s design team walked through their philosophy and approach to designing for a quarter billion users. In particular, they emphasized the importance of writing code, sharing designs early and often, being involved with a project from start to finish, and not falling in love with your work.

Related ala carte selections include

Dawud Miracle is celebrating with something for everyone!
But only until Sunday … a $350 website with so much stuff!! (I’m an affiliate.)

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

Skills for Journalists (and Others too)

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Katie Renn prepares for her class, History of Photography, in Ernie Pyle 210.
Katie Renn prepares for her class, "History of Photography," in Ernie Pyle 210.

Last week, Shel Holtz delivered a keynote talk to the faculty of a university Journalism department. He went out onto Twitter for some ideas and put together a really impressive list. I believe that these skills have a much broader application than simply for Journalists…

What should journalism schools be teaching their students?

Whatever those jobs are, journalism students will be better equipped to qualify for them if they have learned the following as part of their education:

* SEO—Most of what I remember about writing a basic news article is consistent with the principles of on-page optimization, but the importance of writing so people can find your articles shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s particularly important since students in journalism classes today don’t have a clue whether they’ll be working for a centralized news organization or some kind of distributed network. This synchs nicely with my next point:

* How to think like a freelancer—With nobody certain what economic model or (more likely) combination of models will pan out for professional news, journalism departments need to instill a mindset in students that will allow them to tap into whatever opportunities arise. That’s quite a shift from the view of professors when I was in journalism school: If it’s not a daily newspaper, major newsmagazine or network TV news channel, it’s not journalism.

* Flexibility—Print, broadcast, radio, online…journalists had better be prepared to report anywhere. When I worked in journalism, I was a print reporter with no interest in electronic journalism, which was a whole different ballgame. Those lines are gone and today’s students need to be prepared to do it all.

* A continuum of reporting—When I was a reporter, I filed a single story following on-site reporting of news or research for an investigative piece. Today, a single report is inadequate. Read more >>

What other applications could these skills have? Discuss in the comments.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Indiana University.)

Is It Time to Reassess What You Think?

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STOP

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In most companies, employees are asked to participate in a yearly performance appraisal. In the good situation, the employees actually take part in evaluating their own as well as hearing what their managers think. It’s a tiring, but important process. It gets us to STOP and look at where we were and where we are now — something we often forget to do unless we make it a priority.

If we don’t stop now and then, we get stuck in thinking things that aren’t necessarily true … about ourselves and about the folks we know.

Resorting and Re-evaluating

Meet Carol. Everyone at the company thought she was a pain. Seriously. If you asked her for a phone number she’d tell you to get a pencil and paper, then spend 7 minutes reciting out 7 digits. Any sane person could have walked 7 miles to talk to the person that the phone number led to. Carol loved details. No else like details of her specific brand.

Then one day I went to work, thinking that everyone had put Carol in a box. No one liked her. People often made her a topic of conversation.

It dawned on me that I’d been going along with the wisdom of the crowd on that….

One day I decide to wipe the slate clean. I pretended I’d never met Carol that I’d never heard a word about her before. What I found was both unsettling and amazing.

I actually liked her a lot and found her affinity for detail valuable to me because I don’t like details at all.

I’d let other folks put Carol in a box and I’d kept her there.

My loss.

One reassessment and now she was a friend and a resource to me. Challenging assumptions is a great strategy.

Is it time to reassess what you think?

I make connections.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to do some strategic thinking?

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

How Do You Decide Who Is Trustworthy?

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I've been thinking . . .

about trust.

I look at the drops on this flower and trust they’re water.

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Truth changes. Water evaporates. Other clear liquids last longer in camera lights.

With the water, I would see it, feel it — I’d recognize water without thinking.
If it wasn’t water, it would feel and react wrong, suspect, inauthentic.

It’s the same with people.
Trustworthy people, I recognize without thinking.
The ones I don’t trust feel and react wrong, suspect, inauthentic.

Trust can be bravery, instinct, learned experience, or blind stupidity.

How do you decide who is trustworthy?

Liz's Signature

The Mic Is On: Microblogs, Macroblogs, Which? What? Who?

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

Has Twitter Ruined Blog Conversation?

Just a few years back, it was so simple. We met on each other’s blogs like meeting for coffee or wine at the back fence. Now we meet on so many public platforms that we’re talking more, faster, and in shorter bursts.

Are we losing the long coversations we used to have?

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And, whatever else comes up, including THE EVER POPULAR, Basil the code-writing donkey . . . and flamenco dancing (because we always get off topic, anyway.)

Oh, and bring example links to share —

–ME “Liz” Strauss
image: sxc.hu
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