I don’t know about you, but I read Liz Strauss’ successful blog assiduously. Because no matter what she writes about you leave her pages richer: richer with an idea, richer with a dream, richer because you have the privilege to meet incredible bloggers. You probably know that Liz rewards value with the SOB badge. And you’ve probably seen the SOBCon07 badge displayed on several sites, including Liz’s. If you visit the official site of SOBCon07 you’ll learn that this event will “take your blog to the next level”. And you can be sure: it will. Meeting bloggers like Liz Strauss, David Armano, Terry Starbucker, Phil Gerbyshak, Chris Cree and many others, can only be an enriching experience. So I had to interview Liz about this event, to get answers to some of my wonders and to bring more value on these pages, for your benefit (and mine).

Mihaela “Mig” Lica: Liz, I see the SOBCon07 badge almost everywhere I turn and I am sure other bloggers see them too. Although it is pretty clear what this badge represents, I am not sure it is clear how SOBCon07 works.

Liz Strauss: Hi Mihaela! Thank you for inviting me to answer these questions. It’s always nice to have a chance to clear up what people might see that could be concerns.

Mig: My first question is: is SOBCon07 an exclusive event opened solely for the bloggers fortunate enough to have a SOB badge on their sites or is it opened for all?

Liz: What a great question! I should have realized this might cause some confusion. The SOB badge — which stands for Succcessful and Outstanding Blogger is part of a program that started on my blog 74 weeks ago. Those badges are something like an award that I give every Saturday to bloggers who take the conversation out to the blogosphere in such a way that they make us all stronger.

No, SOBCon 07 is NOT an exclusive event. I cannot tell you for certain at this moment whether everyone speaking has an SOB badge. I should probably make certain that they all do, because they are making a contribution that deserves reconignition and that’s what the badge is about really. That’s all — not exclusion, but recognition.

Mig: What are the most important requirements to participate?

Liz: The most important requirement to participate is the understanding that relationships last longer and are stronger than coded links. When you move blogs or business, links and traffic break down, but true relationships last.

Mig: What are the benefits of such a participation?

Liz: The content rich presentations are built around seeing every part of our blogs as a way to go deep and higher in building the conversation with readers. Like a blog post the real presentations takes value from the audience adding their thoughts. The entire experience is people having a dialogue, not speakers talking AT the audience.

Mig: SOBCon has many events on the menu. Could you please list them and describe them shortly for my readers?

Liz: The night we arrive is a warm up in which we will have a concert set by Christine Kane, blogger and independent music artist.

Then we will have an event popular on my blog for netowrking, fast-thinking, and fun — open comment night. It’s a time in which everyone gets to talk about everything. We often start with a theme. I’m keeping the theme secret. However, the plan will be that folks at home will be able to comment on Successful-blog and we’ll comment back on what’s going on.

On Saturday the schedule is morn formal.

Phil Gerbyshak will start with how to be a relationship geek. He’s the guy who knows. I’ve seen the pictures on his computer and the numbers on his phone. Everyone knows Phil and he knows how to make connections that last and go deep.

Then I’m going to talk about how to reveal who you are through your writing so that people feel some real is behind the blog they are reading, how to turn comments into conversation, and remarke into relationships. We’ll start with the six traits of a writer and show how they support relationships by supporting readers. Then I’ll tell the secrets of how this little blog that I write on got to be a community. Along the way there will be gawky pictures of me as a metaphor of a blog growing up. The audience will be highly involved in everything that I talk about. I don’t like to talk alone much.

David Armano is going to show how the artchitecture of blog can actually stimulate and enhance conversation.

Rodney, a main force behind mojopages and podblaze will introduce www.videosticky.com a kind of flickr for video and talk abou the basics of using video on blogs.

Ben Yoskovitz will give a short class on the basics of podcasting for bloggers. Naturally all of the above and after will include plenty of audience input on what has worked on real blogs.

After lunch the Iowa Guys - Mike Sansone, Mike Wagner, and Drew McLennan — will be walking about Marketing and Branding a blog to making not just outstanding but truly our own. They plan on including audience members on stage with them.

A panel moderated by Chris Cree will include Scott Rafer, the CEO of MyBlogLog, Diego Orjuela of Evoca will explore how to ad widgets for that fabulous social community and the newest voice comments.

Wendy Piersall will bring us news on how to expand beyond our blogging friends into our neighborhoods in the real world where folks might not even be blogging.

Then we’ll come back around to me and with the audience, we’ll critique a few blogs together to decide what makes Successful and Outstanding Blog.

Mig: What is the most amazing experience you had since the commencement of the SOBCon07?

Liz: Yesterday the partnership of the boutique firm run by four profssors of the Innovation School of the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University — of of the three most prestigious Business schools in the United States put their backing behind SOBCon in a very big way. That was thrilling!

Mig: If you could describe this event in just a few words, what would those be?

Liz: It’s about being part of an experience, not part of an event. It will be different because of the voice that you bring. It’s not about the speakers, it’s about ideas and the audience. Every person who attends will bring something back that they didn’t have when they went. It’s about knowing, imagining, and being part of something bigger than anyone of us alone.