Successful Blog

The Mic Is On: We're Talking about Things People Do When Spring Comes

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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.

Spring Changes Everything — Even US!!

grape hyacinth

Ever notice how people change when the flowers start coming up? They get nicer, spruce things up, and offer random acts of kindness, play baseball fly kites. What signs of spring have we seen in the people around us? Think of how people respond to

  • spring fever
  • spring cleaning
  • spring fashions
  • spring weather

Of course, we’ll talk about everything under the Spring sun as well. 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 signs of Spring links to share. Hey it’s better than talking about TAXES!!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?
image source: sxc.hu – standard restrictions

Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: We're Talking about Things People Do When Spring Comes

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Join Us Tonight

Spring Changes Everything — Even US!!

Ever notice how people change when the flowers start coming up? They get nicer, spruce things up, and offer random acts of kindness, play baseball fly kites. What signs of spring have we seen in the people around us? Think of how people respond to

  • spring fever
  • spring cleaning
  • spring fashions
  • spring weather

Of course, we’ll talk about everything under the spring sun as well. We always do.

Oh, and bring signs of Spring links to share. Hey it’s better than talking about TAXES!!

The rules are simple — be nice.

Do be nice. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Social Media: How to Get Off the Fast Train and Get More Value

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Worth Saying Again

The Living Web

Comment on my YouTube Vid! Be part of my wiki! Join my Ning! Are you a member of these Facebook Groups?!! Do you Stumble, Digg, Mixx, Reddit, and the others?!! Where’s your account on Flickr?! I haven’t seen you Twitter in hours!!

With all of that to do, how do we do anything else — write a blog post or send an invoice, for an example?

Social Media: How to Scale Back and Get More Value

Quickly enough, we figure out we can either be overwhelmed or make some choices. Am I sounding redundant? Probably a little. (But the horse isn’t dead.) What I said yesterday is worth underscoring with the words of a friend.

In the first of a series for Freelance Switch, m. saleem suggests that we opt out of those we can.

The first thing to keep in mind is that while it may not be impossible for you to dabble in all these different mediums, it is important that you ignore most of them.

I so agree.

Here are some simple tips for how to scale back and get more value from the time you invest. It’s easier to decide if we set up criteria and eliminate what doesn’t meet those standards.

  • What’s your purpose? What’s does the site deliver? Are you looking for community, for friendship, for business or some combination of those? Pick a site that supports your purpose. Do you really need to be on both Pownce and Twitter?
  • Who do you know there? Social networks are popping up all over. Everyone can’t participate everywhere. Some I joined were gone by the time I returned there. Be a slow adopter. Look for where your friends already are.

Then decide which networks you value most and what percent of your time you want to spend on social networking tasks. We don’t try to read every book or see every movie. It’s as fruitless to try to use every social networking site.

One of my favorite sayings goes something like this.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Use the time you gain from scaling back to

  • Interact more at the sites you stay a part of.
  • Be a stronger presence and write stronger content on your own blog.
  • Spend time in other networking pursuits: visiting blogs, meeting clients, and working with people.

It’s okay to get off the social media fast train. Sometimes less really is more.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Give to Yourself First

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I've been thinking . . .

about what we give away. Most folks I know give away what they need most.

If we need to feel we belong, we give that feeling to everyone. If we respect, we’re respectful in every way. If we need a hug, that’s what we give.

Does that make us saints? . . . people pleasers? . . . victims?

The answer is in whether we give to ourselves.

When we give away what we need — that connection, that respect, that hug — to everyone, but ourselves we still need what we give. We give from weakness. We hope that someone will see and give back. Other people control whether our needs are met. We end up trying to please them. If they don’t, we can feel used.

If we give to ourselves first, we give from strength. That connection, that respect, that hug is given without needing a return gift. It’s easier to choose who deserves such gifts, because we’re giving without need. We’re stronger and more attractive.

Appreciation. Respect. Trust. Love.

Give them to yourself first.

The world needs us to do that.

Liz's Signature

Pre-Networking – How Well Do You Know Your Social Networking Sites?

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A Model to Organize a Social Networking Life

The Living Web

I’ve been wondering and wandering around social networking for more than a year. The socialscape of the Internet keeps expanding. I keep finding connections to my friends in more places and getting more detail about their activities than I might have imagined. If I don’t figure out soon how to manage the information, I’m sure I’ll soon be buried by bits and bytes.

I’m on a quest to find a model to organize my social networking life. I don’t want a fancy dashboard to track things. I want personal competence and right choices made from experience. Right now, I’m looking at the writing process.

The Writing Process as a Model for Social Networking

When we write, we start a conversation. We put ourselves and our thoughts out there for readers we might or might not know. Public writing is a reaching out to connect with other people. The writing process balances structure and expression so that what we offer is clear, concise, and compelling to the people we’re trying to reach.

Social networking and writing both strive for authentic and successful relationships through communication. It seems that the writing process might serve for carving my way through the overwhelming world of social networks.

The writing process I work with looks like this.

Writing Process via Voyages in English (with permission)

The blue ovals show the steps in the process that focus on expression. The green ovals show the steps that focus on structure. Social networking is not as much about expression and structure as it is about ourselves and our connections. I’m going to modify the model to reflect that using the blue steps for ourselves and the green steps for our connections.

Pre-Networking – How Well Do You Know Your Social Networking Sites?

If you’re like me, you probably belong to many social networks already. For the sake of this exercise, choose only one. We can’t write a book, a poem, a magazine article, and a dissertation at the same time. They each have a different form, format, audience, and message. Choosing only one social network will let us focus on how to get the most from our time.

The first step in the writing process is Prewriting. So I’m calling this Pre-Networking.

  1. Pick a topic: Choose one social networking site.

    Choose a site you know something about and where you already have friends and connections. Facebook, LinkedIn, or StumbleUpon might be good choices because each has a breadth of features. If we do this deeply for one site, that site will be a benchmark for all sites we use.

  2. Research the site. See how it’s structured. Go wide and deep.
    • Notice which friends participate and which seem just to be there.
    • See how and how often people act and interact publicly and privately.
    • Look for how they share information and the kind of information most shared.
    • See how the site handles groups, events, and links to other networks.
    • Read reviews and notice who writes them.

    Record what you learn some way or post about it.

  3. Narrow your focus: Choose one audience / purpose for that site.

    Every social networking site has its strengths. Some are social. Some are about content. Some are strictly business. Decide how the site you’ve chosen best works for you. By choosing your purpose for using that site, you’ll know in an instant which features support you and which sort of communities you want to be part of there.

  4. Note what information you might want to share.
    Over the next few days, read profiles of the people in your chosen communities.

    • Freewrite or outline the ideas about yourself and your work that you want to share.
    • Make a few notes about the kind of connections that you’ll have in this venue. Will you be an open networker? Keep this to friends? Concentrate on business contacts or potential clients? What sort of information will you share and not share?

    Sound like a lot? If you think about it, it’s an investment in saving time. Having a strategy and knowing a site inside out from the start, can save hours of time spent on things that don’t serve us, . . . or even worse, save us the loss of finding out months later that the feature we wished for has been there all along.

    How well do you know the social networking sites that you’re on?

    –ME “Liz” Strauss
    Next: Drafting that Profile
    Work with Liz!!
    SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

Are You Listening to Loud Voices or Your Own?

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I've been thinking . . .

about loud voices.

Ever notice that in some conversations, the loudest voices, not the wisest voices, seem to win? The Internet can be that way sometimes. Sometimes we pass on broken ideas as if they are the only way something should, could or would be done. Loud-voice logic is not always the most compelling, though it may be the most passed on.

When too much information is coming my way, I fall victim to this “loud-voice listening.” When I’m unsure and looking for answers, I find myself following loud voices, because they seem so certain themselves.

When I’m tied for time, I take the first answer that works. That first answer is usually the loudest voice nearby. Unfortunately the first answer is rarely the best answer for me. Best answers happen when I follow my own voice — not that I get it right every time.

Loud voices are wrong just as often as I’ve ever been.

It’s work sorting through voices, especially the loud ones, to figure out my own thoughts. It takes time to decide what’s worth action and what’s not. It’s an effort to see behind the words to the possible missing or broken thoughts. Time and energy aren’t resources that come in unlimited supply.

So I find the voices I trust and listen to them.

Then I wonder . . .
When I sound certain without even knowing I do, am I just a loud voice to someone else?

Liz's Signature

Work with Liz!! SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!