WoW

I got back in a tad before 11:00 last night and we got out of the parking garage within the free time. It was great to be back home. It seemed like 3 full days away, not 30 hours. Maybe only getting 3 hours of sleep Saturday and 6 hours last night will lead to 9 hours tonight. 🙂

I will be making several significant articles on the conference and those who attended in the days to come. There were some truly great people there and I can say with certainty that the world is going to change because of this group of online publishers. I am grateful that there were only 110 people there because with any more than that, we would have lost some sense of community that was so prevalent every time we weren’t listening to speakers.

Terry Starbucker is an SOB, a title he wears with pride after Liz Strauss awarded him with that title. He started Glass Half Full as a lark and took it from there.

Well, this turned out to be a lot shorter than I thought it would be…he’s the MC. /grin

Time for the conference to begin!

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End of conference session, brought to you by Starbucker!

Yes, he actually did sing for us. Poor Elton John! Actually, it wasn’t bad, but it sure was funny. 🙂

Today’s topic is critiquing one of our blogs. They chose Dawud Miracle’s site, HealthyWebDesign. David Armano and Liz Strauss stepped up to help it out.

Dawud said he is trying to transition away from being stuck in the design of being a web designer because he does so much more now. He is going to change his branding. His goal moving forward is to utilize conversation with this clients to help everyone out.

David says he can see the web designer in Dawud coming out in this design and can be taken to the next level by aligning with his personal brand…make it warmer and more personable. (good advice for my blog, too)

Liz noted that there are no visuals above the fold and that his business statement takes up so much real estate that it pushes his content out of the picture. It feels like content that doesn’t change. It seems like part blog, part website.

David says he needs to transition to blog-likeconventions, such as the most recent post coming up to the top. People are getting used to seeing blogrolls and categories and usuallt assume that the first field they see is the search field.

Liz says that Seth Godin always asks where the monkey is supposed to go? If your blog sends people away from your site, then you need to rethink your design. David retorted that with the repeat visitor in mind. You need to meet the needs of both. Keep branding and the RSS feed above the fold. Read the book, “Don’t Make Me Think.”

Oh, crap, time to catch my plane.

Better known as eMom, Wendy has something to say, and we’d better listen or she’ll come over and hug us. 🙂 She is a gratuitous hugger, that’s for sure.

While only touting 16 links, she made a post about being an unsuspecting success in blogging. She was too chicken to post it, but Darren Rowse told her to submit it in the Group Writing Project that he does. The next day, her post wasn’t on the site and she submitted it again, thinking it was lost. It wasn’t there again…it’s a sign!! Oh noes!! After a couple more days, she decided that she had nothing to lose by submitting it again. In the end, Darren posted it alone, outside of the others. That post put her on the map as a blogger.

We broke up into pairs with someone we haven’t been introduced to yet. I paired up with David Armano and we shared our most embarassing moment with each other. The reason is to get used to getting outside of your comfort zone.

Everyone here got to the conference as a result of a link, e-mail, or phone call from someone in the room, and that is an amazing reality to get your mind around.

Muhammed Saleem spoke briefly about his blogging experience since September of 2006. Brian from Copyblogger left him a comment back then and they traded contact information and was just offered a position at the new and improved Copyblogger. This is how he keeps creating opportunities from having a presence on others’ blogs and making an impact in the networking way of working.

[tags]SOBCon, SOBCon07[/tags]

Robyn Tippins with [tag]MyBlogLog[/tag] helps people improve their community. They even work with your problems to fix issues, and that is what sold Chris Cree on using it. The stats package did okay, but it is the widget that took off with the ability to see who visited your blog without them needing to leave a comment. (We got “inside” information about some up-and-coming changes to the site and company that we can’t wait for!)

Diego Orjuela with [tag]Evoca[/tag] has a vision to help bloggers and users post their voice on the Internet. There is a lot of text, but there is something about the human voice that text can’t convey.

You can make your first recording with your microphone or with a telephone right away.

Vernon Lun with [tag]TheGoodBlogs[/tag] adds dynamic content to your sidebar. The widget treats you as a free advertiser in the same way as a link ad, but you are also cross-linked on everyone else’s blogs.

[tags]SOBCon, SOBCon07[/tags]

First, some link-love: Mike Sansone, Drew McLellan, Mike Wagner. The first thing they did was reveal myfeedstream.com to combine content from multiple sources into one.

A blog is a free sample of your brand. People have 2 different brands: default and intentional. To build an intentional brand only requires 2 skills:

1. Be remarkable, unique, creative. You have to believe that you are creative if you don’t feel like you are. If you were ever a child, you can be creative.
2. Care. People are attracted to people that care about them or what that person cares about.

[Read more…] about Mike Sansone, Mike Wagner, and Drew McLellan Speak at SOBCon