Stepping Down from SOBCon

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This is one of those posts that’s hard to write.

As many of you know, my gorgeous wife Lisa and I were part of the team that founded and put on SOBCon last spring in Chicago along with Liz Strauss, Terry Starbucker, and others.

This past week Lisa and I had a long conversation with the rest of the leadership team of SOBCon. In it we all agreed that the Cree’s would be pulling out of the partnership.

The decision was a very tough one for me to make. We know what a wonderful event SOBCon was last year. And we know how much higher Liz is raising the bar for the experience of all involved this year. Plus, I had a large part in crafting the original idea in the first place.

However, now that Lisa and I are 30 days into the launch of SuccessCREEations, Inc. as a full time venture we are realizing that I had fallen victim of one of the classic business start up blunders: grossly underestimating the amount of time effort and resources it takes to get a new business off the ground. I had this idea that once I left my previous full time employment we’d have lots of extra resources to devote to SOBCon.

I was very mistaken about that. We actually have less. Much less.

So rather than hold SOBCon back we’ve decided to step down from the leadership team.

Liz, Terry & the SOBCon team have a great event planned for everyone. Lisa and I still plan to be there. We just won’t be part of the team that’s running the show.

A Little SOBCon Levity

You may not know Susan Reynolds. But I’m guessing you probably should. She bills herself as a new media consultant. And she is very active in Web 2.0 stuff like Twitter and Second Life.

But don’t let that fool you. Susan also has a remarkable creative streak. You may recall from my birthday last month, it was Susan who created my very own Chris Cree postage stamp to help me celebrate.

Well Susan’s been at it again, exercising her creativity. This time she’s stepping over into video.

Susan posted some Spicy Buzz Hits of the Blogosphere featuring Yours Truly partnered with Liz Strauss strutting our collective stuff in a little salsa dancing.

I’ve been out of the loop for a bit and didn’t realize that Susan has turned this bit of silliness into a regular feature over at her place. It caught me totally off guard. Be sure to check her blog on the weekends and find out who her next victims will be.

Just one note of caution before you click play on this little video piece Susan cooked up: DO NOT take a sip of coffee before clicking the play button. If you do it just might end up all over your screen and keyboard. (I was laughing so loud when I saw it Gorgeous demanded to see it too. And yes, she thought it was hysterical too.)

Thank you Susan. I really needed that laugh last night.

Enjoy!

Book Review: Blogging Tips - What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time getting to know Lorelle VanFossen a bit while we were both at SOBCon a few weeks ago in Chicago. She is one of those high energy folks that I imagine would be exhausting to try to keep up with long term.

She was incredibly helpful to us at SOBCon. If you were there you know how much she helped Gorgeous there at the front registration table, for example. The two of them were the dynamic duo out there.

Lorelle’s Credentials

Lorelle is one of those folks who has probably forgotten more about blogging than many others have learned yet. She’s been writing and running her own web sites for over 10 years, since long before there was such a thing as blogging software to make it easy for us.

Whenever I’ve needed some info about WordPress, Lorelle’s blog has long been one of my go-to sources for tips, pointers, and a heads up on what is coming down the pike in new WordPress updates. She is listed on the WordPress.org About Page as one of their documentation and support folks

I asked Lorelle why Lorelle on WordPress is on WordPress.com and not a self hosted site and how she got started working with them on their documentation. I wish I had written down exactly what she said, but here is the gist of her response as I remember it.

I’ve got a gift for breaking things. So over the years I’ve become one of the crash test dummies for WordPress. They let me play with it. I break it. Then Matt and the guys go and fix the bugs I find.

That’s a gift every software developer could use!

Suffice it to say Lorelle is an expert on blogging in general and WordPress in particular. Read more

Exploring a Couple SOBCon Takeaways

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

SOBCon-07 Eye Candy

Here’s a Flikr slide show of SOBCon ‘07 for your viewing pleasure. Folks will be adding photos to it throughout the weekend. Thanks to Vernon Lun for putting it together for us.

Arriving at SOBCon-07

Gorgeous and I arrived at the Sofitel Chicago O’Hare yesterday. Man what a nice hotel!

We knew we were in good hands when the shuttle driver offered us a complimentary water for the 10 minute ride from the airport to the hotel.

We met with some of the hotel staff and walked through the rooms where we will be meeting for the conference. Everything we’ve seen so far seems top notch.

As the day progressed we caught up with Liz Strauss, who was talking with Lorrelle Van Fossen at the front desk. Right beside Rodney Rumford.

I had to laugh because Lorrelle happened to be wearing an outfit that was the same color as her blog. As I walked up I said to myself, “That must be Lorrelle.” The outfit seemed perfect.

We got a peek at Lorrelle’s new book on Blogging Tips which every attendee will get complimentary. The book is brand new. In fact, the book hasn’t even been released yet. The official release is tonight at the conference. I’m here to tell you the book is packed with great information that you can actually use to take your blogging to the next level. After it is officially released I’ll get you a link so y’all can get your own copy.

We all ended up in the lobby near the bar as the evening progressed. Liz and I caught Steve Farber checking in and went over to introduce ourselves. And before the evening was out, Diego Orjuela came by and sat down to chat with us.

All in all a good day. And things haven’t even gotten started yet!

Heading to SOBCon Early

Today’s the day.

It’s the day I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Especially over the last several weeks, as things have been more and more dramatic around me I’ve been longing for this day to get here.

Today Gorgeous and I get on a plane for Chicago for SOBCon ‘07.

Well be getting together with great relationship bloggers from all over at the Sofitel Chicago O’Hare tomorrow and Saturday. We’ll finally be able to put faces with all those wonderful bloggers out there.

This is one conference you won’t want to miss!

I will most likely be in the back of the room or running around helping out with the gillion and a half last minute trivial details that always come up at an event like this. So if you are in the room, make it a point to stop me, introduce yourself and say hey.

I really do want to meet you.

If you are heading out, I’ll see you there.

And if you can’t make it this year but really wanted to be there, let your voice be heard. Who knows, we might even do this again sometime.

Promote Your Business Blog with Social Networking Sites: MyBlogLog

We are going through some of the social networking sites that are out there and talking about how we can become active in them to help promote our businesses.

Yesterday we talked about StumbleUpon. In the comments of that post Tony Clark pointed out an article on DoshDosh that gives a very comprehensive introduction to StumbleUpon that is worth reading though. Head over to yesterday’s post and check out the link. Thanks Tony!

MyBlogLog History

Today let’s take a look at MyBlogLog.

MyBlogLog started out as a statics program specifically for blogs. I opened an account with them at the beginning of last summer because they were one of the few (free) programs that tracked where people clicked leaving your blog.

There are lots of metrics packages that tell you how people come into your blog. But at the time I was curious about the other side of the equation and MyBlogLog fit the bill nicely. They still do that well. Read more

Interview about SOBCon ‘07

Business blogger, Char, over at Essential Keystrokes posted an interview with me today where we talked about SOBCon.

Char has over 10 years active experience working as a web marketing and design strategist. She’s a sharp lady and asked some really great questions about the conference.

Be sure to head on over and check out the interview.

SOBCon is Blogging!

The gang over at SOBCon ‘07 has started blogging over at their site.

Expect to see posts from the various different speakers. We’ve got plan’s to give the folks who are attending a voice over there as well.

Oh, and you are going to see my name a bit since I’ve agreed to help organize the posting end of things over there!

So go check it out. Subscribe to the feed.

And then make your travel plans to join us in Chicago this May!