Plucking up the courage to start a blog or joining a conversation by commenting is not easy. For many of us, it means stepping out of our comfort zones – comments and blogs are, after all, easily found by the all seeing eye of Google; and you never know whether you might face a backlash or become embroiled in a heated discussion. But while it’s easy to sit in the shadows and read a blog – there really are great rewards for those who step into the spotlight.
Some time ago, Todd Andrlik suggested that I read Step into the Spotlight by Tsufit. The book appealed to me because of my background in theatre – so when Tsufit asked me to share a personal story about stepping into the spotlight, I couldn’t resist. In this guest post I share the trepidation I had when first commenting on Russell Davies’ blog.
I am sure you know what it’s like … “am I smart enough”, “is this witty”, “will I get flamed?” … all ran through my head. But in the end, it was the best thing I could have done.
I am currently fascinated with personality … in understanding how our personalities manifest, and what our artefacts, our stories and our living spaces tell about our lives. Interestingly, much of what we disclose either on purpose, or inadvertently, provides a much clearer picture of our "selves" than other profiling tools such as MBTI and similar frameworks.
This has all come about because of this intriguing book, Snoop, by Sam Gosling. I will be doing a more thorough review over the next week or so. But in a nutshell, the book explains what clues you should look for when assessing someone's personality. More interesting for me, is the insight that can be garnered from a Facebook profile or a website. There is even a Facebook application that you can use to assess the impression you are leaving others!
However, when it comes to the personality of your business, Rohit Bhargava is the person you should turn to. Not only does he work, daily, on the helping companies inject life into their products and services (with the 360 Digital Influence group at Ogilvy in New York), he is also the award winning author of Personality Not Included – a book that steps you through this process. Take a look at this presentation on how he got his book published … and see if there are aspects of his personality that you can gather from it. Then, later, after reading Snoop, look again and see if you were right. It's fascinating, I promise!
We consumers are fickle beasts. Even those of us involved in marketing are often wrong footed by other marketers. Jon Burg has a great post, and provokes an excellent discussion around Seth Godin’s new book, Tribes:
I’m part of a tribe – a Godin follower. I generally enjoy his work. I think he’s an overall brilliant marketer. The early reviews of the book looked positive. I was glad that I finally had the foresight to pre-order the book everyone would be talking about.
But Jon’s enthusiasm is tainted when, on the day that the new book arrives, he finds the audio book version is available for FREE. Is this a mistake or a great marketing ploy? Does the availability of a free audio book stop you from purchasing a hardcopy book? Would you feel that your author (or brand) loyalty had been betrayed? Take a look at Jon’s post and read through the comments and then let me know your point of view. Brilliant marketing or betrayal? You tell me.
We owe a lot to Chris Anderson. Not only did his Long Tail give us a way to conceptualise the business models around aggregated, niche, online markets, he continues to challenge the way that we think about business in an always-connected world. Here he tells us why free is the future of business.
David Armano has taken the visual approach (of course), mapping out the four types of free that Chris is talking about:
Free 1: Get one item free, buy another (as popularised by King Gillette — yes, of the razors — give away the handle but charge for the razor blades)
Free 2: Free item paid for by your attention (ie advertising)
Free 3: The so-called "freemium" — where the free "version" of a product or experience is cut down in features, prompting the purchase of the "feature rich" product or experience (ie shareware software)
Free 4: The "Gift Economy" — where something is given away in exchange for a non-monetary (or indirect) reward.
It is this final "free" that Christina (CK) Kerley has been talking about (as the share economy). It is the fundamental transformative move AWAY from price as a measurement to VALUE as an indicator or worth. Of course, this places the individual at the centre of the method of evaluation and ranking … for the value of a product or experience will depend on a combination of its RELEVANCE to a consumer and their NEED state. This alone will require us to re-think our approach to the business-to-consumer relationship. Moreover, it will transform how we imagine a business-to-business environment.
But the question for marketers of all shapes and sizes is not, "What will FREE cost us"? — but "What value can I exchange?".
Like many bloggers I daily receive emails pitching various products or services. Strangely enough, many are about debt and finance (it seems my "blog debt" category is a sticky search term) — but occasionally an email will pique my interest. A while ago I received one such email about Michael Port’s new book, Beyond Booked Solid. Not only was it a well written email, it was actually on a topic close to my area of interest, so I accepted an advance copy of the manuscript to review.
One of the things that I liked about Beyond Booked Solid was that it is not about the theory of business building. Sure, there are plenty of abstract ideas there — but they are presented as building blocks that can be applied to your business. This book, for example, builds upon Michael’s first book, Book Yourself Solid, which is a how-to guide for marketing your small business. But what happens after you are successful? How do you keep growing? How do you start to grow big, better?
Having worked with some large enterprise companies with responsibility for organisational change, I was pleasantly surprised to find Michael has taken proven enterprise best practices and reframed them for the small business. Not only does he provide the context for the changes that you need to make in your business, he provides you with downloadable workbooks and a series of thought provoking questions that help you understand the current state of your business. And while your business’ organic growth may have sprouted a series of unusual (but now entrenched systems), the book explains the importance of standardising your processes, aligning your strategies and automating your systems — to help you grow your business in a way that works for YOU.
I dare say that the lessons from this book may challenge many a business owner. But for those who are looking to work smarter rather than harder, reading it could well turn out to be the best business investment you make. You can buy Beyond Booked Solid here.
This year has started in a very different way for me than last year. As some of my longer term readers will remember, there were quite a few dramas and a few surprises at the time. Not only did I come to a new understanding of the value of life, but also the importance of family, the generosity of friends and the need to focus on creating lasting, beneficial change in a circle that is as wide as you can imagine.
This year, I took time out from all things digital to reflect on a dramatic year. I spent time with mostly with my family, but was also thinking about my friends, colleagues and those who made a big difference to my life over the past year. I responded to only a handful of emails and my most adventurous/creative effort was to pull together this Animoto to present to my family. I wanted to find a way to show how different 2008 was to 2007 … and to remind us all to focus on the future, not to dwell on the past.
And as 2008 began, I held back from posting here. I didn’t login to Twitter. I frugally checked Facebook. I held back from social media in all its forms. I chose to read instead. I read the blogs of my friends of those I admire. I discovered new, worthy, brilliant blogs (and will post links soon). I read books like Joe Jaffe’s excellent Join the Conversation, John Grant’s The Brand Innovation Manifesto and Ian Jones’ Ned Kelly (I am sure there is a joke in there somewhere — brands and highway robbers). I thought, read and remembered.
2008 promises to be a year of change and a year of connections … and I hope, happiness. As Lewis Green’s new book Lead with Your Heart discusses, happiness comes from a type of service — to our families, friends, businesses, ourselves and our world. Lewis links the bottom line with doing good … and it FEELS like the right time for such an approach. For me, the cross-over between work and play, between profession and passion, and profit and generosity fills me with happiness. I am never more excited than when I bring two different areas together, be they people, ideas, causes or businesses.
My story for 2008 will be built around this. What we started with The Age of Conversation in 2007 we will continue and grow in 2008. Lookout for another ground breaking collaborative publication this year, a meetup of epic proportions and a raft of ideas, commentary and connections on social media, branding and digital storytelling. While it has been a slow start for me, I can feel the pace, beat and energy already starting to build. Peace to all my readers and friends this 2008!
You know eBooks and publishing has been on my mind quite a bit lately … and I stumbled upon this rather cool site. You will see why it struck a chord … it is a promotional site for a book — and the site itself tells a great story about the need to create a website and get your message across in a unique way. Oh, and not spend a million dollars …
Now, I saw this a few days ago … actually it could have been longer, but you know what it is like in the blogosphere — things come and go so quickly! If I remember rightly, I first saw this site by following a link from Lewis’ blog over to Seth’s blog … but then I forgot about it — not because it wasn’t interesting or even remarkable, but mostly because I thought that Seth had it covered. But then, tonight, I stumbled on it again and remembered that this was, indeed, an interesting approach … but more importantly, I wanted to blog about it because I may want to remember it again in the future … and it is much better for me to leave my ideas here than on the top of my fridge.
Remember the dotcom boom? It was a giddy time of energy, ideas and technology for its own sake. There was not a business model to be seen (or very few), and the gold-rush style staking of domain names was big business.
In Australia (as in many parts of the world) there were vast sums of money made and lost. An old buddy of mine, Grant Butler, spent some time documenting the rise and fall of the dotcom era in Australia in a book called "Where’s the Loot". And while some of the events and personalities have slipped from our memories, there are some salient lessons that could easily applied to the current technology/business world (especially in the mobile space from what I have seen).
The book has now been made available as a free download. If you feel like a walk down amnesia lane, or simply want to learn what NOT to do this time around … check it out here.
I love these neat little web tools that generate pictures. I saw this over at Russell Davies’ blog and thought it was PERFECT for the MarketingProfs Book Club. I KNOW I have already raved about it … but this fun little tool was too good to pass up.
Sometimes the best strategy does not win. Sometimes, no matter how much work you do or how much thinking you put into a project or pitch, the results just don’t come to you. The question is not what you missed, but what was your customer expecting that you did not deliver.
Mike Wagner from Own Your Own Brand has a great post on the linkage between teaching and brands that got me thinking. It reminded me of a couple of things in my own life. In my university days I was certain my career would be in directing theatre or film. I remember directing a play and noticing the difference in the style, presentation and effectiveness of the performances based on how I dressed. When I dressed in a blazer the performance was better than when I turned up in ripped jeans. After a couple of bad performances, I just decided to dress "up", more conservatively, and more obviously attentive to my appearance. I must say that the changes were remarkable.
It was pretty clear to me that if I wanted to achieve a high level of team performance, I needed to dress a certain way. This, in itself, was quite strange — as the work we were performing was considered avant-garde, non-conventional and self-consciously artistic. But the more that the performers were pushed, the greater was their need for a solid and dependable base (which was me). And the more conservatively I dressed, the better the performance was. The troupe and I were building an unspoken, but deep trust.
When it comes to brands, sometimes your clients are the ones who need YOU to look the part. They need to be able to trust in your approach and your reliability — especially when you are pushing their brand to its creative limits. Remember, it is not about YOU, it is about delivering the results for your clients. But equally, sometimes, it is about making your clients feel comfortable with you and your approach. It is a matter of trust.
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