Successful Blog

The Mic Is On: We're Talking about Internet Heroes

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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.

With Guest Host Joe Hauckes
and his Alien Friend

Which Internet People Have Changed Your Life?

The best part of being part of the social web is the people. Let’s celebrate them with a few words of how great they are. Bring a link a story or just a comment to tell us who on the Internet has made a difference to you.

Who’s your hero?

  • Is it someone famous?
  • Is it someone who helped when no one was looking?
  • Is it someone on Twitter?
  • Is it more than one?

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.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Tips for Web Workers

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Meryl Evans at Web Worker Daily has assembled a collection of tips on the Minimum Specs for a Successful Web Worker Machine. I am honored to have one of my own tips included!

Web working is not for everybody. Those who do it tend to have traits and personalities that fit the web working life. For others, it means making sacrifices they don’t want to make. “I don’t really understand why people would like to work at home. It’s like reducing to the minimum (almost nothing) the barrier between professional and private life,” comments Chris on Georgina’s recent post, “How To Ask the Boss If You Can Work Remotely.”

In interviewing people in web working careers, one fact is clear: Many of us share similar specs beyond motivation and organization. I asked some web working colleagues what it takes to make a successful web worker. Do you have the right components to become a fine-tuned web worker machine?

Read the article “Minimum Specs for a Successful Web Worker Machine” for the rest of the suggestions.

Blog Potomac & 140Conf: If You Had 10 Min to Talk What Point Would You Make?

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Just as my blog decided I could work again, I left town for a road show. I had the pleasure of speaking at Blog Potomac in DC. Then I drove north with my son to the 140 Characters Conference in NYC. The week was filled with opportunities to talk at length with dynamic and interesting folks.

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Words and phrases that kept coming up — beyond the names of applications — culture, cultural, news, tools, relationships, crowdsourcing, barriers and boundaries, branding, the importance of story, unplugging and taking time off …

Blog Potomac

The first conference was Blog Potomac in Falls Church, VA.
Liveblogging BlogPotomac in Falls Church, VA, and this photo were provided by Mahdi Gharavi.

And here are The Ten Best Ideas from BlogPotomac

140 Characters Conference

A few days later I was in NYC for the 140 Characters Conference.
Becky McCray (@BeckyMccray) did a great recap called Overheard at the 140 Character Conference

As Jeff Pulver says, the panel on News Gathering Stands Out. What follows is my own ten minutes.

Short Format Conferences

Truly remarkable conversations and questions happened at two conferences that held to a short-speaking format … Blog Potomac rules were speaker had 10 minutes to present and 30 minutes for Q&A. 140 Characters offered speaking times of 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes. Most Q&A was in the hallways. The between-session questions at both events fell seemed to fall into two categories:

  • How are you using social media tools to gather information, implement ideas, and build relationships?
  • What’s next after Twitter?

The most tweeted phrases from my talks included …

  • If you want to use social media well, Don’t lead with the tools, lead with relationships.
  • Good companies have always been doing this.
  • Was there ever a conference as this about the telephone – are we getting to precious about our tools?
  • Twitter is the world’s lagest networking room. Get a friend to introduce you
  • Was there ever a conference as this about the telephone – are we getting to precious about our tools?
  • Blogs let me go deep – Twitter lets me go wide

If you had 10 minutes to talk on social media, what point would YOU make?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: Internet Heroes

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Join Us Tonight

JOIN US TONIGHT AT 7PM

With Guest Host Joe Hauckes
and his Alien Friend

Which Internet People Have Changed Your Life?

The best part of being part of the social web is the people. Let’s celebrate them with a few words of how great they are. Bring a link a story or just a comment to tell us who on the Internet has made a difference to you.

Online life can be the best. Let’s talk about it.

Oh, and bring example links.

The rules are simple — be nice.

Do be nice. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Read-Only Web 1.0 Blog: What I Learned Outside the Signal and the Noise

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The Story

liz-at-blogpotomac3by-eastcoastblogging

It started with server downtime, a WP upgrade that rewrote the database, and something that went wonky. It was almost fixed; then it wasn’t. No one could find the problem that caused my home page to want to download a file or why the database decided to allow only one-way communication with my blog.

Everyone who worked on it — WordPress gurus and geniuses, Server sages and savants — said they had never seen anything like it. My husband kept repeating his mantra, “When someone says ‘one in a million’ they are talking about YOU!”

In this case they were talking about MY BLOG.

Perhaps the database had decided it was done with social media. It would talk, but it wouldn’t listen. My blog could fetch information from the database, but it could not send any to it.

I was the proud owner of the singular READ-ONLY WEB 1.0 blog.

Fired by My Blog

I’d been busy preparing for the Blog Potomac and 140conf trip. So much to do before I left … suddenly I couldn’t do anything about any of it.
What future posts I had done were scheduled to run. I wouldn’t be adding any more.

It was as if a snow day, an unexpected vacation was forced on me –except it was the snow day that wouldn’t end. My blog refused to recognize me for more than a week.

What that meant to you was that it looked like I took time off. What that meant to me was that my dashboard didn’t work. I could log in, but every attempt to change, post, edit, or write was returned with a white screen message that said “action unknown.”

I’d been fired by my blog.

A friend asked if I used the time to get on Twitter to push out content.
Is that what I should have done?

I’m an introvert. I actually went to Twitter less. I didn’t feel much like talking about what was going on. An endless stream of support tickets got written to explain the problem. Friends were helping. Hours were invested by so many. Nothing was working. I did client work — I could put that in order before I left town.

DAY FIVE the feeling of being fired by blog started to sink in.

Every morning I logged in and clicked “Edit Post” to see the same no response. I started thinking of the investment my blog represents, what it take be to recreate it — yeah we had a backup, but who trusts that? — I had started to relate to my blog the way I used to relate to my job.

The same friend said, “But did you post on your other blog?”

I didn’t want to start posting over there. It would have been like admitting that this blog wasn’t coming back.

Weird. Huh?

Outside the Signal and the Noise

I decided to ride it out. I wanted to see what would happen if I lived outside of the signal and the noise. It wasn’t a clean experiment because I had uploaded four future scheduled posts. Still I didn’t add any new content for two weeks … I lived that.

Eight thoughts about what I learned …

  • A community history lives in the comments of this blog.
  • I can live without the content, but I’d miss the opportunity to visit the words of the people who have visited it.
  • Being helpless to fix the tech is an abject lesson in patience, humility, and gratitude.
  • People continued to read deeply into the pages even when I wasn’t adding new content for ten days.
  • People continued to read deeply into the pages even when I wasn’t adding new content for ten days.
  • I had some fine conversations without ever touching a keyboard.
  • No one died. No one cried. Twitter and the blogosphere did fine without me.
  • I am not my blog.

Though I was traveling and couldn’t comment, the future scheduled posts helped my blog keep moving. I soon snapped back to where it was tracking before it shut me out. Now I just have to show up again when folks stop by to comment.

It’s sort of like starting a new job … I’ve gotten used to like the habit of having time away, still I’m ready, so ready, to be back.

Weird huh?

What would happen if you had ten days locked out from your blog?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Beach Notes: Nostalgia Trip

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

This long weekend is the focus of a big event held in and around our “twin towns” of Tweed Heads and Coolangatta, here on Australia’s Pacific coast

Wintersun (yes, it’s officially winter here right now) is a nostalgia festival focused on Rock ‘n Roll & cars of the period.

One site declares Wintersun to be Australia’s and "possibly the world’s" biggest Rockabilly and RocknRoll Festival.

nostalgia1

Some streets are lined with bands and some often very skilled dancers, and others with hundreds of lovingly maintained or restored cars on display, mainly from the 50s and 60s. For a couple of nights there is a parade of cars, driven by mature age rockers.

Not everyone goes to the extent of dressing for the era as the women in our photo have done, but many members of the various rock ‘n roll groups who come here en masse are obvious patrons of the stalls along the beach front dedicated to selling the shoes, the special petticoats and skirts, the leather jackets…

We took a day off from the computers, Twitter, Facebook and all that yesterday and spent some very enjoyable hours wandering among the thousands of visitors who descend on this relatively sleepy beachside joint for these few music filled days each year.

Seeing so many people so happy in their deliberate nostalgia was very heart-warming, even if a lot of them would know more about what the door handles on a ’59 Eldorado look like than what a Twitter handle is.

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh