Successful Blog

Beach Notes: Letting Go

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by Guest Writer Suzie Cheel

To move forward I know I need to let go of both physical and emotional stuff.

Tomorrow we have a council collection, so today we have spent a couple of hours cleaning out the garage and clearing out accumulated things I might use one day.

Des just commented how amazingly tidy the garage looked.

I located a few journals tucked away in boxes from a few years ago and found a poem I had written about letting go.

Mirrors of the Soul

Are you just being a mirror

for me and my soul?

There is a big leap

to make from the

known and familiar

There is the letting go

of ” who I think I am” to

“the who I know I will become”

But the freedom it will bring

will drive me on

I must let go

I must listen to my soul

– Suzie Cheel 21/11/99

I know as I continue to let go I will create more space for the new to flow in.

Are there times when you find it easier to let go?

Suzie writes on Law of Attraction at Abundance Highway and you can see her wonderful Art scarves and Art Quilts at Suzie Cheel

What Is Social Media?

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The LANGUAGE of SOCIAL MEDIA

Words have a deep effect on
how we interpret and interact with the world.
The words we use and how we define them
reveal our interests, concerns, and values.
This series explores the words of social media.

social media

Most literally, social media would be any object or tool, that connects people in dialogue or interaction — in person, in print, or online. In common usage, social media has come to mean a category of practices, technology, tools, and online sites that are based in social relationships, participation, and user-generated content. Social media adds a more personal context to the traditional business relationship.

For more information see:
Social media
The Social Media Conversation Prism
Social Media Time Investment = You put in is what you get out? The Time Scale

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Thanks to Week 162 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

Are You Social Media Addicted?

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Do You Hear Your DMs in the Shower?

Search and Social has made a fun litle quiz about social media addiction. Apparently I’m 46% addicted to Social Media. I might have guessed higher. Perhaps, I’ve been slacking …

46%

It’s a simple quiz of multiple choice questions. Takes about five minutes.
It made me think about what I do.

Click the box with the big red heart to give it a go

Enjoy!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

What Sheila Scarborough Said … About Getting Paid

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A community isn’t built or befriended,
it’s connected by offering and accepting.
Community is affinity, identity, and kinship
that make room for ideas, thoughts, and solutions.
Wherever a community gathers, we aspire and inspire each other intentionally . . . And our words shine with authenticity.

Asking for What We’re Worth

When we take on the role and reins of a professional, not all of the skills come at the same time. Often we’re great the work, but not so good at asking to be paid what the work is worth. How do folks figure that out? It comes from experience and trust in our own value.

Here’s what Sheila said . . .

For one thing, people are rather itchy about giving specific amounts when discussing payment and salary, so we go around not knowing that there are some people out there getting paid pretty good money to do what we’re doing.

Once I finally figured out that .50-$1/word was more than reasonable and even low-end for most print pubs, I started doing the math for my online work, which is just writing, after all.

Holy cow, was I giving away the farm! That led me to turn down a few blogging jobs that sounded nice but just were not paying enough for my considerable efforts.

So, let’s be more frank about money so we know what is “standard” and reasonable to ask for.

Then, let’s realize how increasingly valuable our online savvy is to businesses that want to move online. Knowledge that we think “everyone knows” is in fact gold bullion to companies who have just found Web 2.0. I’m not saying overcharge “because they can afford it,” but we should really appreciate our unique skillsets.

The teacher/consultant role and the need to pay such folks seems to be understood, so I plan to lean more in that direction, and try to make a decent living teaching what I know.

Sheila Scarborough from a comment on December 29, 2007

A successful and outstanding blogger said that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

SOB Business Cafe 11-28-08

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Chris Brogan points out the power of Batman available to all of us.
Batman, no matter how amazing, is only one man. Crime is a large and amorphous thing, and it requires lots of people to fight. It requires a better Gotham Police Department, a more capable Commissioner Gordon, a Robin, a Batgirl, and more and more help from others. Oh, and let’s not forget Alfred.

Geek Mommy points out the silent gift that reaches out.
Sometimes, because I’m so chatty (or noisy as some would say) people make the mistake of thinking I’m not listening. Then I end up repeating something back to them they said a few hours or weeks earlier and they seem stunned. You see, as much as I love to talk, share and inform, well… I love learning even more. You learn from listening, observing, and paying attention.

Levite Chronicles points out that we can ask for a gift.
I love the idea, but I started to laugh. I thought, “if everyone is listening, who is going to talk?” And then I realized that this is a day addressed to those of us who always talk. It probably should be a doubly-named day, called both, “national day of shut up and let someone else talk already why don’t you.” and “national day of please, you, in the back, arranging the chairs, would you tell us a story? Please?”

Beth’s Blog points out that giving starts early.
When I was a kid, Lucy the Elephant, was in a state of disrepair. A community group worked hard to get her placed on the historic register and raise money to restore her to her mid-century glory. How? Bake sales organized by my third grade teacher, Josephine Harron, nicknamed “Cupcake.” Sitting by next to my mom in the kitchen, I mixed up a lot of cupcake batter and icing with my mom for those bake sales.

Related ala carte selections include

The Jeff Pulver Blog highlights giving that happened in near record time.
Tweetsgiving is a Twitter celebration of gratitude and giving created by Epic Change, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The project aims to demonstrate the power of the social web by raising $10,000 in 48 hours to build a classroom in Tanzania.

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