Successful Blog

SOB Business Cafe 09-14-07

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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

Essential Keystrokes offers us what we need to be a pro.

David Airey offers us advice on what we need to remember about doing work for free.

The Instigator Blog offers us 10 Steps to ruling our world.

Creative Think offers us a new way of doing things.

Monk at Work offers us a confident response.

Related ala carte selections include

Codswallop offers a visual bonanza that will keep us interested for life.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Making Up the Answers

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Genius-ry

I've been thinking . . .

about the answers.

When I was a first grade teacher, I thought I’m not going to pretend. Kids have to know that grown-ups don’t have all of the answers.

So, lots of times I said, “I don’t know.”

Then sometimes I said, “But I bet we can figure it out.”

But you know, sometimes the answer didn’t matter, nearly as much as the figuring out did. When that was the case, we would just carefully, thoughtfully, most intelligently make up the answers.

Yep. That’s what we did, and it just worked out.

How many stars does it take to make a sky?

We imagined an answer. Then we tested it to see whether it worked. If it did, we kept it. If it didn’t, we took a new try.

We made up words . . . genius-ry, left-hand leg, beautificent!
Then we drew pictures of them.

We made up a song about sauaage, mashed potatoes, and love.

We sat in a circle on the floor and made up the answers to our problems.

Now I wonder if there are any life answers that are always right for sure.

Maybe all of life is about making it up as I go along.

Liz's Signature

Getting Comments: Seven Secrets of a Superstar Conversationalist

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A Superstar Conversationalist? Who Me?

<relationships button

Chris Brogan, no shrinking violet, called his blog post 39,000 comments. He said it was the first thing I said. It wasn’t really. I talked about Becky McCray and Darren Rowse, and all of the people who come here. The comments were just what caught his attention.

Then in the comments to that post, Phil Gerbyshak — the all-time relationship geek, not a quiet job — named me a superstar conversationalist.

I hear my older brothers translating . . . kid, they’re saying you can’t shut up.

Seven Secrets of a Superstar Conversationalist

Writing or talking about what we know isn’t a problem for most folks. People don’t ask me how to do that. What they ask is How do you get folks to talk back?

Here are seven of my secrets.

    Secret 1. Be an enthusiastic learner.
    The words of folks who stand at the podium and talk down to me never sound like conversation. They sound more like a lecture. Who wants to be lectured by an expert? It’s more fun to talk to a friend who knows.

    Learners, on the other hand, are magnetically attractive. They’re not intimidating. They offer a subtle invitation to participate. I know if I stick around I might find something I never knew before. Learners ask me questions they really want to know the answer to. When they get an answer, they ask more.

    Secret 2 Be imperfectly human.
    Don’t finish up every blog post so perfectly that I have no room to answer. Make that list with what you know, but don’t research it to death so that I can’t add to it. I want to talk to you too. Conversation always means you say something. Then I add what I know to it. We do it together.

    A conversation is always started, constantly revised, and never finished. We don’t tie our conversations up with a bow and hand them in to our 8th grade teacher. Let’s not do that with our blog posts either.

    Secret 3. Be an active listener.
    What is a conversation if I’m talking to myself? . . . hearing voices and talking to them? Isn’t that a sign of something?

    People are the most important part of any conversation. I listen with every cell. I try to crawl inside the experience they’re relating. I’ve discovered so much about the world and myself, and most of all, the folks who come to visit, by taking the time to listen and answering back. I answer and ask questions to make sure that I understood what I heard. Comments are just like real-life conversation.

    Secret 4 Be an easy laugher.
    Laughter makes the world turn easier. It gets the chemsitry in our brains going. We type faster and smile when we do. We connect and feel safer when we laugh together. My husband often says to me, “You’re smiling at your computer again.”

    Secret 5 Be you.
    I make a bad version of you. You make a bad version of me. Somehow we make a perfectly incredible versions of the unique individuals who we are.

    Blog your experience. Put your head and heart in what you write. If I tell my authentic truth and myunique view, no one can argue with that. Folks can’t help but respect it — the folks I want to interact with anway.. They want to know they they can tell theirs too. It sounds counterintuitive, but the more a writer tells his or her individual experience, the more people can identify with it.

    Secret 6 Be a cheerleader, a bartender, a friend, a host.
    Make a place where folks can be who they are. Make it about THEM. Be glad to see them. Be proud of their accomplishments. Have faith in their endeavors. If you care about their lives, they will care too. They’ll also care about yours and each others’. That’s how communities form.

    Secret 7 Be nice.
    I couldn’t leave that out — could I?

It hardly takes much to be gracious. Communities and conversations really build themselves. We don’t build them. If we stop trying to control them and let people know we’re not afraid to hear what they have to say in respect and honest communication. Amazing thing can truly happen.

I know. 39,000 comments was a long time ago.

I don’t really count comments. I count friends, and who could ever have enough of them?

C’mon let’s talk!

What did you right before you read this post? It had to be more interesting than reading about me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Related
10 Essential Needs of a Thriving Community

Positively Jazzed about Oranges and Sunshine, Lemons and Rain

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Positive Thinking Day logo

About Lemons and Rain

I’m on my way to Southern California — oranges and sunshine — hard not be positively jazzed about that. It could be lemons and rain. Then I’d be . . . positively jazzed about that too.

They say, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Huh? There’s a whole lot to like about lemons just the way they are.

Lemons are bright as sunlight. They’re supporting actors of the food line. They add that fine touch that makes the menu come alive. Like a positive person, a lemon makes things better. No need to wish we didn’t have them. Lemons could well be the most positive fruit on the planet.

Let’s talk about silver linings . . . Who needs find a silver lining when it’s raining pennies from heaven? Rain makes a colorful sky and a garden palette that could get any artist drooling. Rain isn’t sadness. It’s the way we think about it that gets us all in a funk.

I’m positively jazzed about positive thinking day. Thank you Kirsten for positively thinking of it. Every positive thought I have makes me positive that we can make things happen in a positive way. Why not?

Can you see things positively and build on that?

Are you positive?

Are you positively, positive?

Are you positively, positive like a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and a cherry with a naked lady sitting on top?

C’mon, you don’t need a plane. We can all make sunshine.

Liz's Signature

Blog Libs Stories — Aren't You Brilliant?!!

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You Make Me Look Like a Piker

You might remember the A Puzzler for a Fun Post and a Little Labor Day Link Love. I offered you a fill-in-the-blank story and a directory of links with which to complete it. I even wrote one of my own for the fun!

Then I set up some silly rules and invited you to do the same thing.

  1. Copy the unfinished story below into your post box.

  2. Fill in the blanks to finish the story. For most of the blanks use a blogger’s name, a trait, a post title, a blog title — get creative. Finish each sentence in an unexpected way. You can find plenty of links to spark your imagination at the A-Z directory.

  3. Link the text you added back to the blog or blogger you’re referencing.

  4. Be creative. Change the words or storyline as you wish in order to fit in the links you like.

  5. When you’re done, leave a link with the title to your version of the story in the comment box below.

Then, oh, then I said these fateful words, “I’ll do something creative with the links you leave.”

The Links You Left

I thought that rather than make you wait for the link love. Since I’ve got a doctor’s thing and a trip to the west coast this week, I’m compiling the list here. I’m starting with my own title and going down the line of those you left.

If yours or another you know about is missing, please tell me so that I can add it.

If you’ve not read them, do it now. They are brilliant and fabulous. Really.

Now about that doing something creative part . . . what was I thinking?

I’ll be back with something creative. After all, I promised.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Related
Liz’s Thematic Links Story: Lorelle’s Blogging Birthday Quest
A List Becomes 301 Links in Story — Chapter 1

A Challenge, An Answer, and Everyone Gets Nicer

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What I First Said . . .

That brilliant idea guy, Kirk M, over at Just Thinkin’ has a brilliant idea. Go on over and read about it. Click this title to find the information.

I know I spent hours thinking about what my first post might say and cropping the photo.

Without further conversation, here are my first words to the blogosphere.

Gosh, they still seem appropriate.

What did you first say when you got here?

–ME “Liz” Strauss