Image Separation! It took four hours and a few minutes. After that I watched 8 thirty-gallon garbage sacks ride away in a car never to return again. They were from a pile called “Donations.” The four hours and few minutes weren’t at all what I expected. I had spent them with a love...

The Promise of What’s Inside As a book publisher, I looked at hundreds of suggested book covers. Sometimes the most well-designed were the ones that got turned down immediately. They might have been beautiful, but they didn’t do the job. The cover’s job is to communicate what’...

Welcome to the SOB Cafe We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection. The Specials this Week are Riding Dragons Last summer David Zi...

Relationships in Business We’re not just tools and sticks. Business is inherently social. People add value to or interrupt the flow of every transaction we make. We interact with coworkers, our customers, our clients, our vendors, the person who delivers our packages. How well we do at getting...

Welcome to the SOB Cafe We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection. The Specials this Week are Pick the Brain Whether we are entre...

Last year at SxSW, I told Richard at Dell that I thought the time of Brand You was over and the time of Product You had begun. What I meant was that brand is an interpretation of the “specs,” whereas product was the actuality. My point was that to build a career on concrete we have to bu...

Distorted Reality I worked my heart out for a company. I traveled extensively — living on one coast, working on the other — it’s survival was my goal. The people I worked with were the most invested minds and hearts. My job was my life. That company was meaningful — for all o...

The theme of SOBCon09 is the ROI of Relationships. Relationships with customers, employees, colleagues, coworkers, builders, contractors, developers, and CUSTOMERS — in the form of readers, buyers, clients, and others — are the success of any business. How do we form the best relationshi...

You’re Not Doing Yourself or Anyone Else Any Favors Hey, I know you’re busy, gotta get a lot of things done. But whoa! But, could you stop for 1 second? It’s barely that – . Just stop. Don't do anything, before you read on. – . If you don’t stop once in a while, y...

What a Few Tweaks Can Do I met Carole Hicks on Twitter. Then she asked a question via email and, before I replied, I made her an offer. I said I have this feature called, Above the Fold, I’d like to bring back to my blog. Would you be game for consultation? She was most agreeable. Thus starts ...