Is your mastermind group, freelance consortium, small business collective or non-profit organization invested enough in success to sponsor a member to attend SOBCon?

A famous African proverb states it takes a village to raise a child. In this economy, it can take a collective to finance the fantastic opportunities that Successful and Outstanding Bloggers (SOB), Biz School for Bloggers offer.  SOBCon 09 is a great value for the depth of talent gathered at an intimate event of this size. Where else are you going to interact with a number of gifted bloggers and marketers at this level of expertise, for that price? The key word here is interact. SOBCon 09 isn’t about theory, SOBCon is about putting theory into practice, starting right there at the convention. How much money have you spent on books that you never read or pod casts that you never listened to much less integrated into your work? What value do you place on not just on facts and information but interaction and implementation? How can you share that value with your community, collective or organization so it is in their benefit to sponsor you?

If you are a small business owner, a free lancer or a non-profit, the scale of your business might cover conference fees but the added expense of lodging and travel might appear to put this opportunity beyond your grasp. When I looked at my budget, it was beyond my means but I believed in its value. People that I knew, trusted and admired encouraged me to go. I have used the inspiration and wisdom that others gained at SOBCon 08 as a reference in my own posts like Blog naked? blog privacy and vulnerability arose from reading Sonia Simone’s post Feel great naked about putting yourself into your blog. It made sense to me and ever since I read that post, I have wanted to go to SOBCon Biz School for Bloggers.

I also value my own skills as a teacher and consultant. I believed that if I went to SOBCon 09, I would return to my courses with new skills and perspectives that would add merit.  I figured out the total expenses of my trip and asked my students,

“How much is it worth to you, for me to go to SOBCon 09 and incorporate what I learn there into my classes?”

They responded with their wallets, in amounts ranging from $5 to $100. Now, I am less than $100 from my goal. I am registered. My airplane tickets are booked. My hotel and roommate/dogwalker situation is secured. On May 1st, I will be at SOBCon 09!

I recognized the potential of SOBCon 09 and convinced my community of students to its value. What will it take YOU to convince your community, collective or organization to sponsor your SOBCon 09 Biz School for Bloggers?

Welcome to the April 10, 2009 edition of lvs online students and alumni.

Ellen presents A Passion for Barbie – If I Knew Then What I Know Now posted at
Ellifolks – Bears, Critters, and Stuff.

Art

Valerie Beeby presents Inside Out or Outside In?
posted at Seeing Things.

Inspiration

Barbara Hartsook presents 10 Life-Lessons I Wish I’d Known Then
posted at Over Coffee….

Stories

Sliloh presents If I knew then? posted at Sliloh’s Rambles.

Jacqueline Harmon Butler presents Sardine Heaven – The Feast of St. Anthony (Portugal) – Stories – Jacqueline Harmon Butler – award-winning travel writer – JacquelineHarmonButler.com posted at Jacqueline Harmon Butler, saying, “I didn’t have much confidence in my cooking or writing skills growing up. It wasn’t until much later in life that I finally realized I had a whole lot of cooking and writing stories to share.”

Deb Hamele presents If I knew then posted at Blue Barn Farm Blog, saying, “Some musings about what I might have done differently if I knew then what I know now.”

Pete S. presents If I knew then?posted at
href=”http://pingingmyglass.wordpress.com”>Pinging My Water Glass, saying, “A letter to a kid who needed a few hints, from the benefit of a note of hindsight.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
LVS Online Students, Staff and Alumni Blog Carnival
using our
carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

lvs online students and alumni, blog carnival.

Deadline for the March 09  session LVS Blog carnival is fast approaching!  The deadline to submit your blog post is 4/8/09. This carnival is open to all LVS students, staff and alumni.

The theme this session is “If I knew then, what I know now…”. Your submission can be a new or previous blog post that tells us something that you learned the hard way or maybe just a lot later in life. Share your wisdom, your wit and/or your humor with us! Full details about this session’s blog carnival and submission instructions.

Want to get a sneak peek at one of this session’s submissions? Check out 10 Life Lessons.

To get a better sense of what the finished carnival will be like, check out last session’s blog carnival on Inspiration

I am excited to see what you submit!

Pingbacks, and the older form trackbacks, are a powerful blogging tool to build relationships and stimulate conversation in the blogosphere. When a blogger pings another blog, two things happen. Most importantly the blogger is extending a conversation between blogger and readers to become a conversation between blogs, bloggers and readers. Secondly, when a blogger pings a specific post on another blog, that blogger is giving credibility and authority to the other blogger. Basically a pingback is: “Hey, look what this person is saying. I may or not agree with what they are saying, but it is worth reading and talking about. What do you think?”

Pingbacks build relationships between bloggers

One of the first posts on this blog was about using contests for blog promotion and pinged back to a promotion by Rachelle Chase and Lorelle Van Fossen. Because of that pingback, Lorelle visited this blog and added to the conversation. In the year since that post, we have exchanged pingbacks on various topics where we wanted to expose our individual audience to each other’s point of view.  Now, we are beginning collaboration on a new project that we are very excited about. We nag and nurture each other in equal measure and she has definitely helped me out in times of need.  I have had the pleasure of meeting and interacting with a number of bloggers as the result of a pingback.

Pingbacks stimulate conversation

Blogs are basically a conversation initiated by the blogger.  When a blogger pingbacks a post of another blogger, they are extending the conversation further into the blogosphere. Instead of the conversation being limited to one blog, it has expanded to two or more blogs. Barb at Over Coffee was inspired by Liz Strauss’ post on visible authenticity to write her own post on being authentic and letting go the status quo. The ensuing comments bore testament to how the converation wove between the blogs.

Pingbacks add value and perspective

WordPress had a few glitches in the new auto-update feature for 2.7.1. I found some solutions in forums and blogs and tweaking  on my own.  I wrote a post on troubleshooting the initial upgrade, consolidating my findings and adding my own experiences. Other bloggers started pingbacking to that post as a service to their readers as they discussed their own experiences with the upgrade. Their readers benefited from their perspective AND my handy dandy troubleshooting guide.

Pingbacks expand your audience

The pingbacks to that troubleshooting post brought a much larger audience to my blog, making it the most popular posts on the blog. Writing a pingback on another blog can also increase the audience of your blog. This week, Viki in the Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune class, posted this on the class message board, I am reprinting it here with her permission to .

Bean, I wanted to tell you that I’ve gotten a good deal of exposure with my most recent post on upselling, which contains a pingback to a post on Michel and Sylvie Fortin’s web site . Michel himself tweeted my post(!) and is now following me on Twitter(!) and ever since then, I’ve gotten an outpouring of people following me on Twitter (more than 40 people in less than 24 hours!) Hopefully, some new blog subscribers, too. So pingbacks can be a very effective marketing tool, like you’ve been telling us all along, of course.

How to create a pingback

1. Make sure that your post has its own unique content and perspective. You can use the original blog post as inspiration for your post, a supporting document for your content or as an opposing view. Just copying content from another blog and giving credit via permalink just creates a blog echo and dilutes the amount of innovative and original content on the blog. Lorelle has declared this the Year of Original Content and explains why this is so important.
2. Include the link to a specific blog post, not the general blog URL when writing about the other blog post.

I am blessed with artists in my blogging classes and I believe that blogs can be a great way to inspire, share, teach and sell art.  Karol shares a lot of the inspiration behind her art, in her Folly beach post, she shows us the inspiration of the collage and her love of patterns. Pete is an artist of photography and conversation, he shares his artistry and techniques in Thinkin’ Spring. LVS Online is blessed with a number of art teachers. Dia, who teaches painting and abstract art, shares an example of student art from her abstract art class. Carla sells her exquisite custom clothing via her web site. You can see the artistry in her work in these custom leather pants.

In the above sample paragraph, my point is that art blogs can serve a variety of functions. I used pingbacks to current student blog posts to support my view on art blog functions.

Why doesn’t my pingback show on the other blog?

Three things need to happen for the pingback that you create on your blog to show up on the original blog.

1. You need to make your link to the other blog to a specific post, like http://lzydaz.com/getting-started/why-buy-name-brand-food-items/. It isn’t a permalink if you just link to the blog as a whole, like http://lzydaz.com
2. The other blogger needs to have permalinks enabled on their blog and their blog theme.
3. The blogger needs to approve your permalink, like they approve the comments on their blog.

How do I get other bloggers to pingback my blog?

The key is quality, original content. Create content on your blog that will inspire others. If you write or display thought provoking content, it is much more likely that another blogger will want to talk about it or share it with their own readers.

Summary

After a long day of blogging, you probably aren’t going to end up naked in a hot tub, like I did with the Fairy Blog Mother. It is likely that you will never meet face to face the bloggers that you ping back. That in no way diminishes the relationships incurred, the ideas inspired nor the conversations sparked when bloggers pingback.

Welcome to Week Two and your new blog!

I will be creating a blogroll of all student blogs this session. Please add a comment to this post that gives us the web address/URL of your new blog. You can also use the comments here to find a classmate’s blog to visit and comment on for the last portion of your assignment. Peruse the Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune student blogs for inspiration and practice.

Get blogging!

When I was working on my new theme, it only had one sidebar. I added the second but then things didn’t seem to line up quite right in my widgets. With a little css styling though, I got them all looking good. First, in the widget, add:

<div class=”whatevernameyouwant”>Then all your code and the closing </div>

Then in your css file, I usually just put mine at the bottom, so I know what I’ve added, add this:

.whatevernameyouwant {

width: 150px;

margin: 2px auto;

margin-left: 9px;

padding: 1px;

text-align: center;

}

You can add whatever kinds of adjustments you want in there. The margin-left: 9px; was what centered this widget. Some of them took much more.

Also, you can change the width of widgets that don’t quite fit your sidebar. Many of them can be changed right in the widget code (see image). If not, add some code like above and set your width and height in the css.

If you have a widget that refuses to clear the one above it, you can try adding <p></p> around it. Or adding <div></div> around it, or around both widgets. Then there is the magical clear both which solves any number of clearing issues. That would go at the bottom of a widget like so: <div class=”cboth”></div> (nothing in between the <div></div>). In your css add this:

.cboth {

clear: both

}

Hope this helps, someday I might tackle the issue of actually making your widgets validate. I’m obsessive about valid code and was real surprised when I tackled my blog and found out how many plugins and widgets don’t validate!

An easy way to keep all your feeds in one place with easy access in Firefox, is to simply drag the tab up to your Bookmarks Toolbar. Then you are just a click away from them! I like Google Reader but in all honesty can’t compare it to others as I haven’t tried many.

If I knew then, what I know now… is the topic for the next Blog Carnival for LVS students, staff and alumni.

How many times have you said “If I knew then, what I know now…”?

What have you learned that has made your life so much easier, more efficient, more fun or more fulfilling?  What do you want to tell the world about, so they can avoid some of the frustrations or heartbreak that you have endured?  Please share your wisdom and inspiration with us!

How it works

1. Publish your art and/or writing to your blog or web site.
2. Go to http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_6139.html and submit the URL of your work by April 8, 2009. In the remarks section, please indicate if you are a LVS student, alumni or staff. It is also a great place to summarize your post. You can type in a sentence or two to introduce your post or I can write the introduction for you.
3. On April 10, a list of all the submissions will appear here with a brief a description.
4. Check out the informative and entertaining art and stories of fellow LVS Staff, Students and Alumni  that will be posted here.
5. Post a link or story on your own blog or website about the carnival, letting your readers know about your participation. This will allow them to peruse the carnival submissions and visit the blogs and web sites of your fellow participants. It is a great way to be discovered!

Tot get a better sense of how it all works, check out last session’s blog carnival entries on Inspiration.

I am really looking forward to seeing your submissions!

The March session at LVS Online is just around the corner. The classrooms open on Monday,  March 9 for the Blogging Basics and the Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune classes with the first lesson on 3/14/09.

Registration deadline is March 11, 2009.  Don’t miss out on the fun and information. We have a lot of new material in the blogging studio course, Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune this session on blog statistics and monetizing your blog.

The theme for this year’s SOBCon is “ROI on Relationships” and how it relates to the business blogger.  If you have your MBA, ROI is probably part of your everyday vocabulary. If you are a small business owner, the acronym ROI maybe new to you but the underlying concept of calculating the return on your investment of time, money and resources is not. It is a core business concept and one that helps determine your profitability.

When I talk to someone about starting a blog for their business, the savvy business owner often asks me:

• How much is it going to cost?
• What will it entail?
• How much time will it take?
• How will it impact my bottom line?

The first three questions relate to the investment and the last one relates to the return. All are important and valid questions but when it comes to blogging it can be difficult to quantify the direct impact on your bottom line.

Why?

Sure, you can track the traffic from your blog, you can monitor conversions and you can count the sales from your blog but that is only part of doing business. The strengths of blogging lies in the opportunities to initiate, develop and maintain relationships with your customers. The time and effort that you spend on your blog is rewarded with an informed and engaged customer base.

When evaluating the return on your investment into blogging, be sure to consider the impact of relationships fostered there.

1. The cost of finding a new customer and making a sale  versus making a sale to a return customer
2. Your advertising costs versus word of mouth promotion by your customers, be it via their own blog, the phone or over the garden fence
3. The influence a satisfied and engaged customer has with friends in making purchasing decisions
4. The value your customers attach to being heard and their issues addressed
5. The suggestions and inspirations for your business that come from your customers comments and interactions on your blog
6. The feedback from your customers to help you adjust your inventory and/or services to best meet their needs more efficiently
7. Cost savings in terms of money and reputation when you can quickly address problems with your product or business
8. The intrinsic value to your and your employees in actively engaging a satisfied clientele.

These are just an inkling of the ways that blogging, with a focus on customer relations, can impact your bottom line.

Want to know more about the potential of ROI in relationships for business bloggers? Well, so do I! This post is part of the #blogitearnit promotion at  Terry Starbucker’s site, one of the cofounders of SOBCon. You can join the conversation early and save $200 off your registration for SOBCon 09. Hope to see you there!