Perfectly Petersen

Happy Birthday, Liz!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Today is Liz Strauss’ birthday. Birthdays are fantastic days of reflection and celebration in my family, and I hope you have a fabulous day yourself.

I just found out about this special day about 7pm while I was sitting in class and my eyes perked up a bit. My mind flashed to this post and it became a creation in an instant. I didn’t have time to put together anything elaborate, but I hope this has some meaning to all of us who know Liz. Cue story.

The day was December 2006, and I had just stumbled across Liz’s blog through a link from some of the big blogs I started delving into in order to learn how to write better content and reach more readers. I saw her hypothetical questions and a post by some guy called Chris Cree. Skimming some more, I found SOBs and B.A.D. bloggers, too.

Then I did it. I left a comment.

My blogging life changed. More »

Jesse’s SOBCon08 Takeaway

It’s been quite a weekend, by any measure of meaningfulness. I know that the following would be a heck of a run-on sentence, so here it is in outline form:

It was a time to

• explore a new city
  • Downtown Chicago
• re-connect with virtual friends who know all about each other
  • Liz Strauss
  • Terry Starbucker
  • Phil Gerbyshak
  • Chris and Lisa Cree
  • Easton Ellsworth
  • Dawud Miracle
  • Wendy Piersall
  • Lorelle VanFossen
  • and the recent Cory Miller
  • and many more
• meet new people whom I’d never heard of
• network with new companies whom I apparently have been remiss in remaining ignorant of their tools
• the best dang presentation on personal success that I’ve ever heard (David Bullock)

After 55 hours of online publishing immersion, what was my takeaway? It happened over the course of two speeches by David Bullock: his presentation on Saturday, and a brief kudos/pep-talk this morning during the cool-down session. More »

SOBCon08 Presentations Part 8 - Liz Strauss

Liz Strauss

Successful-Blog

Customers:  Is your traffic a reader or a customer?

Don’t sell your customers something they don’t need or what you think they need. Sell them what they want.

Make it about them.

How to be irresistable. They are all about Frosted Mini Wheats. The fiber appeals to the adult in me. The sugar appeals to the kid in me. If I don’t want breakfast, you need to tell me something to make me want them. Tell me they make a good snack or that they are good for me.

Head, heart, and meaning.

Why I’m Excited About SOBCon08

Following Terry Starbucker’s lead, I decided to tell you why I’m excited at the prospect of attending the second annual SOBCon08 in Chicago May 2-4.

• Obviously, a big pull for a founding attender is to re-connect with old friends from last year’s event. I met more people in one place in those two days than I had in a very long time before that, and not since.
• The speakers and format of the event is unlike any other I have seen around or heard talk of. We will actually be in small workshops to look at ways to make our blogs better, to meet the needs of our readers and ourselves.
• Liz and Terry picked a terrific venue for the event this year at the Summit Executive Centre, near the Miracle Mile. There are several selections of hotels within walking distance, and two of them are offering conference discounts. I will likely be staying at the Club Quarters, if you want to meet me in the bar for some chillaxing and geeking.

SOBCon08 Is Coming - Biz School for Bloggers

Many of you may remember that I attended the first ever SOBCon blogging conference in Chicago last year by hitchhiking my way there through various forms of donations and compensated help I did for the preparation of the events. It was a great evening and day, and I’ve looked forward to it all year long, though I’ve admittedly kept it on the down-low in my mind just in case I can’t make the trip this year.

I’m going to keep this short and sweet for you, because I’m sure you’re as busy with the New Year at work as I am:

If you enjoy writing and having your writing read by those on the blogosphere, you need to seriously consider coming to Chicago May2-4. Here is what you will find:

• Passionate, accepting writers.
• Fun, creative entrepreneurs.
• People just like you!

I’m never comfortable in new, big situations like conferences, but uncomfortable wasn’t even a word in my vocabulary after I arrived and started meeting people. If you want to improve your blogging, business, or network, you owe it to yourself to come join us.