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Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

You're only a stranger once. . . .

5 Ways to Motivate Virtual TeamsYesterday

by Patty Azzarello

How do you motivate people you can’t spend time with in person?

1. Virtual Team Building (literally)

I always did team building exercises when I had my team in a room together. But somehow with a remote, virtual team, I never considered that it was possible. This was a brilliant idea that one of my members offered. I wanted to share this because it is a great idea that I wish I had thought of ages ago.

How to do remote team building

First, prepare.  Distribute a template ahead of time that each person fills out.  It should include a photo of them, and questions which help people get to know each other.

Some examples:

1. What is on your iPod?
2. What was your best/worst job ever?
3. What are your hobbies?
4. What is your favorite book, movie, sport, animal?
5. What is something from your childhood that

Social Media & Blogging: Panel Discussion (Part 2)September 1

A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors to help manage their online book promotion. As part of my job I read a lot of books (and I love to read anyway!). I am here to offer a weekly post about one book author I am working with and one book I have put on my reading list.

I am mixing things up (again! - you can read part 1 of panel discussion on blogging and social media) for my weekly blog post at Successful Blog. I thought I would ask a few of the authors I have highlighted to offer their strategies and tips regarding blogging and social media.

Panel Discussion about Blogging and Social Media

The panel consists of the following people:

Himanshu Jhamb thrives on challenges in Software Project Management and has successfully led global teams in industries ranging from Telecommunications to eCommerce. Himanshu is Senior Project Manager for Atypon Systems and co-founder of Active Garage, where he frequently writes about Projects and Project Management. He is also the co-author of #PROJECTMANA

What Are You All About?September 1

Do you want me to read your blog? Then tell me about yourself? 

Dan Keller recently wrote that blog post, and it got me thinking. When I check out blogs, and I am in the constant state of searching for new content, the absolute first link I click on if I like what I’m reading is the About page.

Here’s what I’m looking for:

1. Who is this blogger? What does he/she do for a living, and why?
2. What does this blogger hope to achieve with this blog?
3. How am I going to benefit from following it? Am I going to benefit at all?

I ask myself these questions every time I click on that About link. But I’ve never put them in writing. Now that I have, I feel I have some work to do. Are you giving your readers this basic information?

You know you need a change, but how?

So, I look at my About page on my blog, and it answers what I hope to achieve with my blog. That’s about it. I’d say this is the

@StevePlunkett, Saying Thank You for ReTweets, and Signal v NoiseSeptember 1

Small Observations

On Friday, @StevePlunkett and I started a small column on this blog called “Steve’s Shorts.” It grew out of my admiration for Steve’s view of the social web and an idea that small observations can be powerful and worth talking about.

That first post had an interesting result. Apparently a behavior on Twitter can go unnoticed, a statement said in 140 characters on Twitter can float by without response, but point out that behavior or that comment and put it on blog and suddenly it has a new importance. In this case, some of that response seems made without consideration to the bigger picture or the reputation and generosity of the person who offered the original comment.

Not a good situation. I am compelled to offer my own thoughts …

What @StevePlunkett said

It started with a short statement in which Steve explained why he doesn’t thank people for ReTweets …

When people say “Thanks for the RT,

The 10 Point Plan to Build an Internal Community of Brand Loyal FansAugust 31

Community Starts at Home

During my years in publishing, I was a serial community builder. It seems that every job I took included “rebuild the department, refocus the vision” in the role. I’m fairly certain that those two challenges are what attracted me.

Even as a teenager, explaining the quest, translating the context, and helping folks bring their best to what they’re doing has been my natural response. I’ve always done that. Not that I’ve always done it well. Still the failures and successes of the past have taught me what moves people to trust in a vision and to join in to build something they couldn’t build alone.

So I was the one they hired

• to rebuild the company and the strategy for growth six months after the company had laid off 40% of the previous employees.
• to re-establish the department identity when it had grown too quickly and lost its role within the organizational process.
• to build a cross functional team that could function with professional ease and confidence from a crew of new hires when the start up started growing.
• to establish a winning brand and a high performance product / marketing team from a single product offer an