Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

AdBusters
Psychologists have long known that North Americans overestimate their own distinctiveness, especially in comparison with East Asians. When asked to describe themselves, Americans and Canadians tend to talk about their individual personality and personal outlook more than Japanese do. North Americans tend to settle arguments in terms of right and wrong, whereas East Asians tend to seek compromises. Dirty Harry is an extreme and violent example, but he is emblematic of Western culture and he sums up our single-minded, goal-oriented behavior with aplomb. “When I see an adult male chasing a female with the intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard. That’s my policy.”

Pure Natural Diva
The session echoed many of the thoughts that have been running through my mind & dancing through my notes during the past few months. It challenged us to; OWN our irresistibility, really define our goals for our businesses, and it reminded us not to underestimate our worth.

Gwen Bell
In 2005, during yoga teacher training, a teacher explained the importance of off-the-mat time. She recommended we go on retreat four times a year – once a quarter. I recall internal resistance. As the discussion unfolded, it turned out I wasn’t alone. How could we take time away from yoga?

Purple Wren
It should be all set up now to post to my facebook, linkedin, typepad, twitter, flickr accounts at the same time. That’s cool. It’s been a hit or miss lately as I pick whatever is the most handy. I’ll see how this goes. Depends on the content. Let’s upload a photo just for fun.

Copyblogger
The good news is that writing makes you a better writer. Just like practicing the piano makes you a better pianist, or riding a trail bike makes you a better biker.

hugoguzman.com
Back in the Spring of 2009, I created a short video that summarized my thoughts on how some marketing executives were getting social media all wrong. I called it “Social Media Idiot”:

Related ala carte selections include

The Old Spice Guy Responds
via @IttyBiz Old Spice guy is responding to comments w/ indiv videos. I am DYING. Start here

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Brass Tack Thinking
But I really think they missed the mark with The Influence Project, in a big way, and confused the idea of “influence” with ego.

Comminquépr
With small- and medium-sized business playing such a critical role in the health of our nation’s economy, it is no surprise that there are thousands of blogs aimed at helping people grow or manage their companies. However, with so many blogs written for the entrepreneur or business owner, we felt it important to highlight the ones we believe offer fresh insight or the most value.

One Mann’s Opinion
Many in the room thought we should stop leaning on certain phrases and terms.

The challenge is to know when a saying becomes a cliché and when a cliché becomes a crutch.

Extraordinary Mommy
I raised my hand, I gripped the microphone. And, in front of 75 odd people – some I know and some I don’t, I said, “This has always been my dream. I would love to have a television show focused on telling people’s stories – average, everyday people. We all have a story.

C-Level Strategies & Awakenings
Successful people are, generally speaking, open to and aware of opportunities and they approach their visions and dreams with intent.

And yet we often hide from our success in important ways that dim our ability to inspire and energize others and thus impact the world. What do I mean by that?

Online Media Daily
Meanwhile, displaying a degree of comfort bordering on foolishness, 42% of respondents think photos of themselves visibly intoxicated make appropriate Facebook fare, while 32% say photos of themselves or others making obscene gestures are okay. That’s despite the fact that two-thirds — 63% — claim to use Facebook as a career networking tool.

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Smashing Magazine
Yes, logo design is only one facet of the powerful force that we call brand identity. Yes, a branded design environment can communicate sophisticated brand meaning without much (any?) usage of logos. But some ‘brand gurus’ or ‘brand evangelists’ (translation: ‘bastions of corporate pretension’) seem to enjoy making hyperbolic pronouncements just to sound shocking or cutting-edge. Logo design is not dead.

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Underway
Holidays, they are the high points of the year, where everyone celebrates. The Fourth of July is the largest national holiday of the year in the US. Many people plan for months for the perfect evening out.

Carol Roth
Anyone who says otherwise is lying

There’s a big white elephant in the room (or sometimes a tiny white elephant in the room) and that is size. You keep hearing people say that size doesn’t matter- in business, in social media, sometime in boxer briefs- but let’s call it like it is- it’s not really true. When you get to the debate of quantity vs. quality, the real answer is that both matter.

McCurry’s Corner
The problem is sometimes people working in service businesses get so wrapped up in following instructions, or completing the task at hand, that they forget about the most important part, the customer experience. It happens all the time, especially in a society where speed seems to take precedence over everything else.

We Blog Better
You sit down at your desk, turn on the computer with your to-do list in hand – all set to knock out a few blog posts and then maybe work on an ongoing project or two. You start your post, and then decide to do some quick research to validate a point you want to make.

One minute you’re finding interesting information that you’ve definitely got to integrate into your post but then you notice a few mentions on Twitter you’d like to respond to…

Todd Weiss, C.F.A.
In all seriousness, how does one write a good blog article? How can you quickly draw in readers and keep them reading? Or better yet, make a comment? A Re-Tweet? Or Subscribe to your RSS feed?

Harvard Business Review
Susan Harrison, my mother in law, died several months ago after a long and courageous battle with cancer. Like most of us, she was not famous. If you didn’t know her you probably didn’t know of her. She lived in the relatively small community of Savannah, Georgia.

Smart Blog on Social Media
LEGO is a classic example of how a focus on your fans can change everything for a brand. In the late ’90s, sales were down, product innovation was low, and the big retailers they relied on were telling them they didn’t know enough about their customers.

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Congratulations to Eric Lukazewski
on his new photo blog!

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Copyblogger
Are you evil enough to join us?

Or more customers. Whatever.

Conversation Agent
Geolocation services are not about giving us something to do, as Joe Chernov writes, although I think that’s a pretty good insight. They’re also about giving us something to talk about. That something is status, it comes with the territory.

Need a Little Advice?
If you’ve got a small business – be it brick and mortar or a home business – there’s a very real need to present yourself to the community. There’s many ways to accomplish that task – and it’s a task you will do over and over.

Jonathan Fields
I’ve invested a lot in understanding the psychology of persuasion and learning how to present facts and interactions in a manner that will be more likely to persuade somebody to my point of view.

I’m actually far more effective at this in print than I am in face-to-face conversations, which is probably why, for years, I’ve resorted to print as my prime tool for both expression and persuasion. It also is one of the things that has led me to be reasonably successful writing copy.

The Intersection of People and Process
I thought about the passion that was inspired by several groups imageseeking our Crowd Sourced advice on how they might want to move their efforts forward. We focused on Vitamin Angels.

We didn’t have much time to come up with ideas so I used a model that I have been using for a few years for capturing customer evidence. In this case I was thinking of Stephen Covey’s “Begin with the End in Mind” mantra.

Halogen Software Blog
When Sterling Cooper’s new management, personified by Lane Pryce, criticizes the ad agency’s creative department for being a bunch of lazy alcoholics, Draper defends his team with a statement I’ll never forget:

“You came here because we do this better than you, and part of that is letting our creatives be unproductive until they are.”

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Jason Falls
But there was one subtlety that I noticed watching the U.S. vs. Algeria on Wednesday that made me almost as ill as watching my country’s team’s defense allow counter chance after counter chance from their opponent. It wasn’t probably noticed by many others, though I’m certain the director of the broadcast was likely fuming over it as well.

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

I’m a proud affiliate of

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Freelance Writing Jobs
None of these strategies are any great secret. They’ve been recommended by top bloggers and social media strategists for years. In fact, the last strategy is something I used to do on a regular basis but stopped for a while. Once I began implementing it again, the effort paid off.

the BrandBuilder
We had to put our golden retriever to sleep this weekend, our friend of fifteen years, our family’s faithful guardian and companion, and one of the kindest, most loyal and giving souls I have ever met. True to her breed, Sasha was a courageous, tender and selfless until the end.

John Haydon
Setting a Facebook Page can be one of the most confusing tasks – for most people.

The starting point is hard to find, selecting your Page category can be tricky, and even finding your Page once it’s created can be a chore.

Un-Marketing
Recently I surpassed the 50,000 tweet mark.

And it’s been worth every one of them.

Seth’s Blog
There may be no bigger opportunity online for bootstrappers than finding people who would benefit from being connected and then connecting them.

Not so they can waste time sending digital love notes back and forth, but so they (and you) can create value for others.

Marie Forleo
I’ll be the first to admit I feel like a failure. Often.

You’d be shocked and likely want to shake me silly if you knew how much money and time I’ve wasted on “information products” and “business systems” that didn’t work.

Related ala carte selections include

Social Times
Ridiculous? Or Genuis??? via Jim Kukral

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

I’m a proud affiliate of