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Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: Stacy Brice Will Be Busting Myths about Virtual Assistants

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Join Us Tonight

JOIN US TONIGHT AT 7PM
With Guest Host Stacy Brice

What Myths Do You Believe about Virtual Assistants?

Delegation. We can’t get work done without help, but no one can do our work as well as we can … right? Actually, maybe we ought to reconsider.

What myths about VAs do you believe?

Join us tonight and bring example links and questions about delegation to add to the discussion.

The rules are simple — be nice.

Do be nice. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Imitation

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“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
Coined by Charles Caleb Colton in 1820 in his ‘Lacon.’

“Imitation” happens all the time on the web and is the source of much frustration for newspaper and other print media. The concept of “fair use” and “scraping the web” are terms mostly used when talking about copyright infringements for print media producers. The idea that citizen journalists can now report on news and other happenings with information taken from news sites it a disturbing phenomenon for many journalists to deal with, not to mention print media in general.

But is this type of imitation really flattering? Is this plagiarism? You’ve worked hard on your post. You’ve taken the time to think about it and possibly, do some research. You’ve carefully written and posted it on your blog. It’s your content based on your idea. Later , you discover through Twitter, or a friend that the very same content has been taken, copied and posted on someone else’s site! Sound incredible? It happens.

I’ve even seen it happen even on Twitter! We all know, or learn quickly (there is a LOT of twitter advice out there) the idea of the RT. You see something of value from someone else and you share. The RT is the attribution, the link back. Twitter has been called micro blogging – when you see something you’ve found and shared go by two seconds later from one of your followers with no RT, do you feel flattered by the “imitation”? I don’t.

I think it’s important to protect you work, your ideas, your content. The very idea of taking the time to think about, write and post your ideas deserves respect. That respect should allow you the right to not have your work copied without permission. Creative Commons is an excellent resource to help you with this. There are different licenses you can apply to your work that will protect it. A great resource for questions regarding this issue is Jonanthan Bailey, @plagiarismtoday on Twitter. He would be happy to discuss anything related to “imitation” with you.

Have you had experience with this and your writing? Do you see this as a problem?

from Kathryn Jennex aka @northernchick

photo credit: The Green Album

Who's Worth Listening to?

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Listening

Listening is the critical start of an effective social media plan.

Whether you’re a big brand or a solo blogger gathering up the conversation about your work helps develop perspective, adjust perceptions, and make plans to serve the people who love what you do. Listening has been called the new marketing. We’re learning to sort through the chatter for:

  • people who are talking
  • volume and location of conversations
  • tone and sentiment — content and context
  • advice, complaints, ideas
  • direction, timing, and growth

We’re learning to sort to the relevant:

Congratulations. People are talking about you and your industry so much that you need a more robust tool for making sense of it all. Several good monitoring services can help, including Radian6 and Nielson’s BuzzMetrics. –NTEN, Got Your Ears On? How to Listen to Your Audience Using Social Media

We’re even beginning sort the signal from the noise to see:

  • the positive and negative
  • the patterns and trends
  • the random and the regular

The information we gather can be overwhelming and contradictory. How we decide when it should move us to change what we do?

Who’s Worth Listening to?

People online are talking all of the time. Sometimes what we say is influenced by the moment or by the group. Sometimes our opinions are uninformed, missing bits of the big picture, bits that would change what we thought or what we would suggest someone might do.

Beyond all that it’s important to remember that we’re a self-sorted group. Everyone online has access to a computer and is literate. Not everyone who has an opinion offers it. Some who offer their opinion have agendas other than helping us improve. And those opinions and the wisdom we offer can fall woefully short of the depth of our feelings. Those opinions and that wisdom also can be far from what we’d actually do.

Even when we listen in the best of faith, we’re still we’re likely to be confused by whom to listen to.

How do you know when a complaint is worth changing a feature or strategy?
Do you listen to the critics?
Do you listen to the fans?
Do you listen to the people who don’t care all that much about you?
Do you try to get the folks who usually don’t talk to weigh in with an opinion?

Seth was brilliant on just this point this weekend.

… the critics won’t be placated. Changing your act to make them happy is a fool’s game.

Here’s a surprising thought, though. You should ignore your fans as well.

Seth suggests that the most important feedback comes from the folks who thrive on sharing what you do. Those “sneezers” are the people who will help you grow.

How do you recognize your “sneezers.” How do you listen for the folks who thrive when you do?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Seven Ways to Offer an Irresistibly Readable Blog to the Undecided Readers of Your Blog

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Who Decides to Read Your Blog?

I went back to the archives to find, revise and expand, and bring this one back to you. The content is even more relevant now that the conversation has moved to so many locations and the noise is so much louder.

In just a brief one-twentieth of a second–less than half the time it takes to blink–people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an Internet site.

–Kamakshi Tandon
REUTERS, Internet users judge Web sites in less than a blink
Jan. 17, 2006
Liz reading computer

We’ve got less than a blink to grab a reader’s attention. The reader clicks in. Looks. Decides and then . . . and then what? . . . Do they stay or do they leave? If they stay, did what they see lend our words more credibility or did it take some away?

Design, curb appeal, packaging — whatever you call it — it’s what brings customer-readers further into our businesses and our blogs. They recognize what works for them and what doesn’t. If it doesn’t, they’re gone so quickly that even our stats programs don’t know. Try the Blink Test if you want a baseline idea of what your readers are seeing before they blink.

What about reluctant readers, undecideds who decide to stay a little longer? What can we do to convince them to stay? Better yet, how can we turn them into fans?

Capturing the Attention of Reluctant Readers

Uber Reader Sign

In educational publishing, we use a euphemism, “reluctant readers.” It’s meant to describe kids who, rather than read, they turn away to find their inline skates or a shiny object online. To get those customer-readers engaged you don’t forget them, you off them something. As a product builder, they’re my favorite customers to write for and to write about.

Why am I talking about this when you write for literate adults? The interwebs offer so much that this information has become vitally important to every person who writes a blog. .

. . . You see, with no time and too much information to sort and process, we’re all reluctant readers and becoming so more and more. If you’re a skeptic, try reading the tax code –or any “have-to” document on your least favorite subject. You’ll wish that there were something more to see than long columns of endless text, something to break up the boring words.

If we want our customer-readers to stay long enough to hear what we’re saying, we need to offer an experience that’s irresistible. We’ve got to

  • offer information that’s useful and makes sense to them
  • appeal to their sense of fun, offers a beautiful experience, or moves them emotionally
  • deliver it in ways that fit into the time their life has available

Irresistible is all about the engaging the folks who come in all three ways above.

Reader Support as Part of Your Brand

Those kids we call reluctant readers leave their inline skates to read what they’re madly interested in — books on extreme sports and the latest gaming websites and blogs — if they’re made right. As educators, we keep them using the research that show us how to construct information so that they’re reading faster and with more satisfaction.

You can use that same educational research to engage your customer-readers. Brand your blog as a worthwhile source of quality content. It’s one more way, that you can make customer-reader support a resounding part of your offer.

  1. Tell the story of the information. Quality is essential, but know that quality information can’t carry the load. If people only want information sources are plenty. The story of the facts, your experience or response to them is only where you are. It’s the story that gives connects people to the information. Give your words and your blog life, appeal, and meaning and you’ll be most of the way there.
  2. Use sub-heads liberally. Sub-heads break the text into shorter bits. Subconsciously that not only tells me what this bit is about. It also says I only have to read this far and then I get to breathe again. Our brains like subheads. Search engines like them too. The keywords are guideposts that organize our thoughts.
  3. Use everyday words. Everyday words keep the reader moving forward. Big words make us stop to consider them. Think about it. The word use is a fine one, use it. Do you really mean utilize? Use keeps me going. Utilize makes me stop to wonder whether you mean something other than the what use would have said. Anything that stops a reader works against your message being heard.
  4. Use one or two pictures, images, art, and color to enhance your message. Place them with care where add value to the text. Put images where readers expect to find them. If you’re not sure ask a customer-reader to give you feedback on how you’re doing. Design seems easy, but it’s not.
  5. Take the time to write something short. The point here is to make every word count. Be lethal. Remove every word that you don’t need. It’s amazing how many extra words you can find when your quest is to go looking for them. A few sentences ago, I turned this into two posts instead of one.
  6. Use typographic cues, such as bold and italic, to show what’s important. Be consistent and try not to make everything important. If you use underlined text to show what is a link, don’t use an underline for anything else. If you make everything important, then nothing is.
  7. Show up to let folks know you want them there. Write with room for them to add their view. Consider the questions you ask them. When they take the time to respond, let them know that you heard. Take time to answer back with your thoughts and if you can, ask another question.

Each of these points are about helping reluctant readers access your message in the easiest most straightforward way. When you support me like that I feel like we’re both smart.

Ever read something that made you feel like the writer was saying something you always thought? . . . or something that just made you feel smart for reading it? Bet you went back to see what else that writer had to say . . . . These are just a few more ways to a fan.

What makes an irresistibly readable blog for you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

What to do if people are messing with your brand online

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For your resources tag on delicious, some info on Reputation Management/Monitoring:
‘Smoking Smarties’ Videos Create Blaze of Unwelcome PR – Advertising Age – News

1. Don’t fight it. Trying to cajole, warn, threaten or even sue someone who is misusing your product or making a joke will only come off as heavy-handed. “Maybe some Neanderthal thinks that they can control this, but the reality is no one can,” said Pete Blackshaw, exec VP of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services. And antagonistic attitudes will only invite more criticism and mocking.
2. Survey the extent of the problem. Is it a small group of jokers no one will take seriously or a more reputable group? How damaging is what they’re saying or doing? That is, are they completing maligning the product and associating it with extremely unsavory behavior? Or is it just goofing around?
3. Turn to your social-media crisis plan. And if you don’t have one yet, develop one.
4. Be open with employees. They use social media too and likely already know about it. But make sure to discuss what’s happening and give them the information you want conveyed (for instance, what to say if a friend asks at a party, “Hey, what’s up with all these kids smoking Smarties?”).
5. Respond accordingly. At the very least, have a prepared statement for any media calls. Make sure it is available to all senior executives who may be queried. And make sure to respond as quickly and as transparently as possible to any direct questions from your customers.

And Toddand provides a list of 300+ Online Reputation Management Tools:

Online Reputation Monitoring Tools

Who Is Coming to SOBCon?

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Andi Fisher
Andi Fisher

Andi Fisher is. And boy, is she excited about it. She wrote a post about making her decision and it carries some special meaning for me – because Liz had the very same effect on me last year.

Misadventures with Andi: My intuition is telling me to attend SOBCon09

Over the past month, since returning home from [another] conference, I have been visiting Liz’s blog and reading the information time and time again regarding SOBCon. But each time I have dismissed it as a conference for the “Big Dogs,” and as the owner of a personal blog that is less than a year old and a business that is just a little over a month old, I thought I didn’t fit the label.

But then a couple of things have happened.

A couple of months ago, I purchased a program from Naomi Dunford, of IttyBiz.com. I was in the incubation program with Ladies Who Launch for my business and was looking for resources to help me. I bought the information but didn’t do anything with it (dumb, I know, but the truth) and from time to time I think about pulling the materials out and going through them. Then on one of my lurkings on the SOBCon site, I saw that she was a sponsor, was this a sign?

I kept going back to the SOBCon event site, and then closing the window. This past Tuesday, I said, “Screw it, I am just going to email Liz and ask her about this damn thing!” And I did, and she answered, and she said (among other things):

“…Everyone is a big dog at SOBCon — that’s my rule. Check Naomi Dunford’s blog … IttyBiz.com She’s a full sponsor this year. Her business is just her….You won’t be sorry you came. You’ll leave with 100 or so very important friends. Some will be friends for life. ”

I thought about that all day, and Tuesday night I went to a Ladies Who Launch workshop, a workshop that I thought was about business strategies, but mistakenly (my misunderstanding) it turned out to be about honing and honoring your intuition. Now, I feel like I have pretty good intuition, I have hunches and feelings and I usually follow/honor them, but I was dismissing the feelings I was having around SOBCon, why? At the end of the workshop, we did a visualization exercise. Me, being the practical person that I am said, “oh here we go…” in my head, but decided to just do it anyways.

At the end of the visualization exercise, we were told to write down what came to us.

Mine was, “Go to SOBCon.”

Well, now. After reading this I needed to talk to Andi about her upcoming SOBCon experience. We had a great little chat on the phone and she graciously accepted my request to answer a few questions that I thought would add some punch to her post.

The Questions:
How has planning to go to SOBCon changed your outlook and your business model?

I am not sure it has changed anything significantly yet. My business is just starting out so I am still trying out lots of new things, whatever feels right. My business model is still taking shape and I think it is a great time to attend this conference because I am flexible and nimble enough to incorporate new ideas and concepts with having to “re-do” a lot of work.

After we spoke on the phone it sounded like you had to re-learn some things that you already knew in a different context. What insight can you share with someone who might be “on the edge” of deciding to attend a conference?

One of the key factors that someone thinking attending should consider is what the personal ROI will be? Will putting in the time, effort and money bring value to you and your business (blog, etc)? Also they need to consider what their expectations are in terms of what that ROI is. Are they in it for immediate gratification or do they understand that meeting people, making a connection, building a relationship with genuine context takes time and investment? I believe that those who are serious about their desire to connect and build their businesses through authentic means should look no further than Liz, her network of influencers and influencees, or her business community to find that. And SOBCon is the manifestation of those people, guided by authentic principles, which make this event a “do not miss.”

What is the main thing that you are looking to learn/discover/create at SOBCon?

I am interested in understanding the business-model of some of the tier-1 professional bloggers out there such as Chris Brogan, Problogger, Copyblogger, Remarkablogger, Havi and Ittybiz. The blogging community always amazes me in that the people within the community are constantly opening themselves up to new members, sharing their knowledge, and taking newbies under their wings. Having said that I want to know why they choose to do business one way over another, what knowledge have they gained along the way (that they are willing to share) and what are some pitfalls to avoid. I hope to engage in interesting conversations and suck up knowledge by osmosis just by being around some truly remarkable people.

Thanks so much Andi, I really appreciate your time and participation!

I look forward to participating and brainstorming, I enjoy these activities immensely (and I am secretly hoping that other people in whatever groups I am part of enjoy presenting because I abhor it!). It should be a conference of vibrant, intelligent people and the interaction should be fantastic.

I hope to gain ideas for mainly for my business, including my business blog, but also for my personal blog. I’d like to increase readership and marketing/co-marketing opportunities in the areas that I enjoy.

How about the rest of you? What are you looking forward to at SOBCon this year?