Exploring a Couple SOBCon Takeaways

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There is something amazingly exhilarating about sitting in a coffee shop overlooking picturesque Lake Michigan knowing that the entire world is just waiting at my fingertips to be explored.

As I’m reveling in that wonder and the potential of the unexplored I run smack into reality by breaking my blog. IE7 seems to have a little trouble with the Ajax side bar widget manipulation in WordPress for some reason. And that caused some of my widgets not to display.

Ah, well. I’ve been meaning to put FireFox on Gorgeous’ laptop for a while now. Since I didn’t put a wireless card in mine in the craziness before the conference, I’m using hers while she preps for the mother of all rummage sales later in the week.

My SOBCon Lessons

I sat down to write up a couple of the biggest takeaways for me from SOBCon this year. If we don’t make the effort to evaluate where we’ve been and what you’ve learned in an effort to improve, then we end up spinning our wheels and never move forward.

There were two things that really hit home for me this past weekend. Read more

CREEating Value - 1 March 2007 - Special Blogtipping Edition

CREEating Value - About once a week I go through my feed reader and pull out a few gems that bring value to you as a business blogger. This week’s CREEating Value just so happens to coincide with Blogtipping Day.

Blogtipping is a little thing started a while back by Easton Ellsworth over at BusinessBlogWire. The idea is on the first day of the month to go choose a few blogs out there, share three things you like about the blog and offer one constructive tip that could make their blog better.

I’ve never participated before, mostly because I don’t remember the date until well after I’ve posted and I miss it. Well today we’ve got a fortunate convergence of days!

So here are this week’s juicy finds, complete with tips.

Enjoy!

Working at Home on the Internet (feed) - Joe Hauckes is one of the first true blogging friends I ever made. He’s incredibly generous with his time and his talents. He was one of the first to dialog with me back and forth on our blogs consistently when I was getting started. He is not afraid to try new things and wants the details to be right because he wants the best for his readers. His site has a forum. Joe hosts and manages the Work at Home Blog Carnival. Even though we’ve got our own things going now and don’t “see” as much of each other as in days of old, I still consider Joe a good friend and I’m so looking forward to meeting him in person at SOBCon ‘07.

Tip - Joe keep keeping your priorities just where you’ve got them. Family first. Us bloggers will still be here when the dust settles.

Black In Business (feed) - Jim Walton is one of those guys that on first brush I wouldn’t think I’d have much in common with. I mean just put our two pictures side by side! But Jim’s passion for his subject is compelling. He writes about the challenges and what it takes to be black and in business. I really don’t didn’t have a clue about the issues that I don’t face as a white guy. Jim is not afraid to wade into the sticky subjects from time to time. And yet his is still a blog for ordinary people wanting extraordinary success. He’s another fella I’m looking forward to meeting this May in Chicago.

Tip - Jim consider putting up a button to make it easier for folks to subscribe to your feed. I had to dig the link for you feed from my reader this morning.

ConverStations (feed) - As long as we are on the subject of guys I’m looking forward to meeting face to face in Chicago, Mike Sansone is definitely on my short list too. His blog is well on the way to becoming the definitive resource for business blogging. His Itinerary page is a tremendous resource chock full of all kinds of business blogging know how treasures. Then there’s his Blogroll page! Holy Smokes! If you never looked at another blog outside of the ones he has there you would still be miles ahead of the pack.

Tip - I feel a little awkward “tipping” such and accomplished master. I do have a stylistic idea, though Mike. If you changed to a three column layout you could have even more of your great resource information available on your front page.

Cutting Through the Social Media Noise

Yesterday Renée Alexandrea commented about all the junk that comes up when she searches on Technorati for stuff. She brings up a good point. There’s a lot of crapola out there and it can be hard to sift through.

Then last night Mike Sansone hosted a podcast with a roundtable discussion about Social Media Tools.

The show is two hours long and I haven’t had an opportunity to listen to it yet. However Mike solicited topic questions so I asked if they’d discuss the issue of sorting the signal from all the noise out there on these tools.

Knowing Mike, I’m sure they covered the topic and have a bunch of pointers waiting for us.

Check it out. I’m looking forward to listening to it on my new iPod myself

Enjoy!

Joining The Good Blogs

I’ve been hearing a lot about a relatively new blog cross promoting service lately called The Good Blogs. I first heard about it nearly a month ago when Mike Sansone mentioned how much he was digging having the widget on his blog (that’s a lower case digging. )

Since then I’ve noticed Ben Yoskovitz has become part of their community over at the Instigator Blog and has the widget in his side bar. Carolyn Manning used the The Good Blogs widget on her thoughtsphilosophies.com to find a few treasures to add to the z-list meme.

Ben Yoskovitz took an even deeper look at the company and service when he posted his interview with Vernon Lun, one of the co-founders of The Good Blogs over at Startup Spark at the beginning of the month.
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Blog Shift

Those of you who have been following SuccessCREEations know that we’ve been on a journey of discovery here. And, as is the case with discoverers, the new things we discover sometimes lead us to make some changes.

SuccessCREEations is going though some changes.

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Better Get In Motion or You’ll Be Stuck With Dead Ducks

This morning Mike Sansone posted a quick note on Perfection.

Do you struggle with wanting everything to be “just so” before you get started? Are you looking for a sure fired guarantee that you will see the results you want so you can take that first step to get into action?

Are you a planner? I am.

I have been through long years of training and an even longer career where working out the details, preparing contingencies, covering my bases, and yes, even getting my ducks in a row.

Are you more comfortable working out the details than pulling the trigger?

Read more

Contemplating a Bit of a Course Change

Y’all know that a big part of the whole exercise here at SuccessCREEations involves a certain amount of introspection. The idea has been to explore ideas tips and strategies so we can all become more successful.

As I noted yesterday, some of that introspection involves finding where our passions lie. I am exploring and doing some heavy thinking along that vein keeping my eyes out for whatever treasures I can find along the way.

Obviously one of my passions is blogging. I like sharing ideas and the community of people from all over the world that can connections all over the world that blogs do better than most other avenues.

Another of my passions is business. Business is what makes the world go round. I know you may have thought it was money that kept things moving. But it takes businesses to create the goods and services which generate the money to make the world go round.

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