We might talk about great features, what each does best, which laptop for school or business, who’ll own the market in 2018, or whatever else comes up, even flamenco dancing.
Do be nice. 🙂
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?
You might wonder why there was no call for speakers at SOBCon08. It was because we wanted to present some highly structured valuable content.
So many bloggers are looking to build a blog that attracts a solid community of readers, we wanted to make sure that they got the models and the interactive time to see how to apply those models to their own situations.
So SOBCon08 was built in an unusual fashion. We structured the content to meet 10 key points of a Successful Blog Action Plan. Then we invited hand-picked experts — experienced pros who could provide tested models in short targeted sessions. Their fluency and ability to offer clear models brought focus and freed up time. That time allows participants to apply each model to their own situation while the experts are still in the room.
The experts became speaker/presenters and the participants became six-person mastermind teams. Biz School for Bloggers was born.
Whether it’s is a hobby or it’s a place to make money, every blog is a business of sorts. The content is a product. The writing is a service that we perform. Our readers are the customers. Successful bloggers market and promote our blogs in the same ways that any business markets online.
Yet, we often don’t think much about the goals of our blogs in a structured fashion. It’s easy for hidden assumptions to creep in. Sometimes we forget to ask whether what we’re doing is the right thing to get us where we want to go.
Biz School for Blogging is built around a 10-Point Action Plan Checklist for a successful blog — 10 Structural Assumptions that every blogger should consider and question about his or her blog.
At SOBCon08, we’re going to go through that Action Plan Checklist one by one. Eight expert speaker/presenters will provide eight models or model choices. Participants in six-person “mastermind” teams will use the models to discuss and define that key point in terms of their own goals. By the end of the day, each participant will have an actionable plan for a more efficient, more reader-focused blog.
But don’t miss the more subtle “take away” that will also occur.
By the end of the day, every participant will have five new working relationships. For each person on their mastermind team, participants will be beyond the “Oh yeah I met that person at SOBCon,” and instead be able to say “We worked together in 2008.”
It’s very cool.
Isn’t it time that you register now?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! SOBCon is a business strategy workshop held every year in Chicago the first weekend in May. Register now!
I keep thinking about a conversation I had with my son. We were talking about people he worked with. He’s had jobs since he was 16 years old. So we had quite a gallery to review and dissect.
In the way of discussions about past coworkers, the topic really became how to deal with difficult people. We got to the idea that difficult people are regular folks who just happen to think differently than we do. He saw plenty of examples in his own life in which people thought he was “difficult” when he merely had another idea.
“But, what do you do,” he said, “when someone sees you in the wrong light? It doesn’t matter if you think they’re being difficult or they think you are.”
“Well, one thing I’ve found out is that you can’t be mad and supportive of another person at the same time. Mad gets you looking at yourself. Supportive gets you looking at the other guy.”
If you want to be the dealer, not the difficult one, you gotta join the other guys’ team and then figure out what to do from there.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Which computer you use is not a religion. Some folks really want information on how to make a choice. So this week on Tuesday Open Comment Night, we’re discussing the question of the ages . . .
You’ve probably seen this.
But have you seen this?
Equal time . . . and of course, we’ll be nice.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,
I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.
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.
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
Two of my favorite places on the web just got better. TalkShoe and Ning have announced an even closer partnership. If you don’t know both of these services, you’re missing two great finds.
TalkShoe is a community interactive site that allows people to gather via phone or computer for conversations, discussion, talk shows, and podcasts. Visitors can listen or chat. Recorded Community Calls can be joined live, downloaded, or followed by RSS.
This image from the TalkShoe site explains how it works. Click the image to visit TalkShoe and learn more about it.
Ning calls itself, “Your own social network for anything.” On the front page it says, “Ning is the only online service where you can create, customize and share your own Social Network for free in seconds.” That’s a promise that Ning keeps. Even better, what you end up with is something that is easy on the eyes that doesn’t feel like too much like it came from a cookie cutter. Click the image to visit Ning and learn more about it.
January 23rd TalkShoe and Ning announced a deeper integration partnership. Now you can embed the voice power of TalkShoe directly into a Ning Community — It’s the next best thing to being there!
Seriously. This is something special.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!