Successful Blog

Speaker Highlight: Phil Gerbyshak

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At SOBCon, we’re going all out to make this event insightful, memorable, content-rich, educational, different and fun! We’ve put together a powerhouse line up of presenters with one goal in mind – Help equip you to take your blogging to the next level.

So we thought you might appreciate a peek into who all these people are. We wanted to give you a savory taste of what you can expect from your interaction with each of them when you join us for SOBCon ’07.

Phil Gerbyshak – Relationship Geek

Phil Gerbyshak is a relationship geek who makes it great. Put simply, Phil creates and grows relationships on his blog, and in his world, and he’ll be sharing his tips on “how to be a relationship geek,” with 3 simple, but not easy, methods:

Know More – Learning more about your brand, and yourself, helps you to learn more about why others are attracted to you, and what you can do more of (and what you can stop doing)

Share More – Your knowledge…Your network…Your love…Your time…Your attention. These are things to be shared. Don’t keep them to yourself. Phil will share how he does that without burning out.

Grow More – At the end of the day, we all want to get better, to improve our life, to improve our relationships, to grow our knowledge to grow our network, to make our blogs, our business, everything, better, GREATER. Phil will share his tips on how to grow your life from good…to GREAT!

Reserve Your Seat Today

You don’t want to miss this conference. Come join us, interact with all our presenters, and learn how to take your blogging to the next level.

We look forward to getting to know you a little better there!

What Did We Talk About? TIME . . .

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We Talked About TIME!

It was a busy night. The conversations included extending daylight savings time, writing group, stopped clocks,

Wow! You can read all about it in the comments section.

Here are some cool links we shared.

It was a race against the clock to see who would be here first, and Joe won – again! Char was a close second. Lisa, MomDogNut, Douglas, Minic, Tariq, Chris, Robert, Becky, Becky, Carolyn, Polli, Bobbarama, Meikah, Brooke, GP, Robyn, John, Samual, Easton, and Marti were all there, too.

Thanks to everyone for the cool links and for being part of the conversation.

See you next Tuesday? I sure hope so.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

WANT TO GUEST HOST AN OPEN COMMENT NIGHT WITH ME? PICK A THEME AND TELL ME ABOUT IT. C’MON IT’LL BE FUN!

Self Promotion: Telling Stories for the Painfully Shy

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Pleeeasse Don’t Look at Me

Business Rules Logo

I was a painfully shy child. They called me “Bashful.” Pictures of me hiding my face or crying on picture day aren’t hard to find. People looking at me make me very self-conscious. Many folks find that a surprise. I write this post for everyone who is shy.

In the conversation on the last post about self-promotion, GL Hoffman said

I find the best and most engaging way is to tell a brief story that sets up your work.

Gl also left a great link to a post on talking about what you do.

I so agree with what GL says that I’m going to tell you a story about telling stories. This is the reason that most folks don’t think I’m shy.

The Story about Telling Stories

My son was also a painfully shy child. He didn’t like people looking at him. When other young children were saying “Hi!” He was a child like I had been — hiding or being uncooperative about such things. Then one day, when he was about thirteen, I noticed a change in his behavior. He had suddenly become entertaining.

That day at work I spoke to a close friend about it. “You know my son has finally found a way to deal with the world. He gets entertaining, telling stories about what he wants to say rather than actually saying it. It’s so interesting. The shift is slight, but I can see it. By doing that he makes so that people are looking at him telling a story, they’re not actually looking at him — who he is.”

My friend Peg said, “Gee, I wonder where he got that from.”

“Guilty. I don’t mind if you look at my work. I think it’s fine if you watch me teach, or speak, or explain something I know. But I sure get self-conscious if I think you are looking at me.”

That’s why GL’s advice is particularly strong.

If you’re self-conscious about self-promoting, explain what you do by telling a story. Then people will be listening to the story and seeing the storyteller in you.

It works. I’ve been doing it since I was 13 too.

–Me “Liz” Strauss

Related
Self Promotion: A Winning Answer Every Time — Why is That?
Shameless Self-Promotion: What Makes It Shameless?
Self-Promotion: How I Learned to Stop Shooting Myself in the Foot

Roving Sheila at SXSW Finale

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South by Southwest, SXSW, is a yearly conference in Austin, TX.serving the film, music, and interactice industries. The photo shows the goodies they gave out this year.

SXSW

Guest Reporter Sheila Scarborough

Hi Successful Bloggers,

This is it, sports fans, I am Interacted out down here in Austin. The film and music festivals continue, but SXSW Interactive has wrapped.

There was a terrific panel discussion yesterday on the future of online magazines, or “branded content channels/BCC.” Blecchhh, what a stupid name — what’s wrong with “magazine” until something better comes along to explain this online hybrid (and BCC ain’t something better.)

Turn the Page for the Highlights [Read more…]

Taking Your Blogging to the Next Level

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What Does It Mean to Take Your Blogging to the Next Level?

It means engaging your potential, reaching for the vision and executing what you see. At SOBCon, we’re going all out to make this event insightful, memorable, content-rich, educational, different and fun!

Take Easton Ellsworth’s word for it.

SOBCon 07 will be different from any conference you’ve attended.

The speakers will be incredible. But they’re not the main event. You are.

You have to be there. YOU will shape and define SOBCon. And SOBCon will reshape and redefine you and your business.

You will discover how to use emerging technologies to supercharge your business and connect to people more effectively on the Web.

The virtual mini-conference was just an appetizer. The seven-course meal is coming.

The SOBCon Next Level Quest

Together we will strategize, discuss, and learn how to

  • Respect that in business and blogging all things are based in connecting relationships
  • Treat our blogs like a business, or a business-like hobby
  • Define a vision for our blogs that inspires others to be part of it
  • Identify like-minded bloggers whose blogging goals match our own
  • Evaluate our blogs through the eyes of a first-time reader
  • Use links, trackbacks, and comments to lead to increased participation, and extended reach that could develop into business ventures
  • Ensure presentation, navigation and all reader experiences are intuitive, simple and elegant
  • Know our brand values as readers define them and be able to articulate the unique and remarkable values we offer
  • Understand basic tools that are useful in adding video, podcasting, social media, and voice commenting
  • Reach out beyond the blogosphere to non-blogging readers to become a resource they rely on
  • Recognize the traits and characteristics of a successful and outstanding blog

Presenters with specialized expertise will get the conversation started, and together presenters and attendees will work interactively to get you where you need to go — to take your blogging to the next level.

Are you ready to take your blog to a new level?

— Liz Strauss and the SOBCon Team

The Mic Is On: It’s That Time of Year . . .

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

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.

We’re Talking About Time. . .

We might talk about

  • daylight savings time
  • time zones
  • clocks and watches
  • finding, making, stealing, borrowing, and wasting
  • times of our Life
  • time travel

And, whatever else comes up, including THE EVER POPULAR, Basil the code-writing donkey.

Oh, and bring a link to share, if you have one to share.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?