The first time was youthful bravery–I was playing hockey with people far better than I (not older, merely better) and they slammed me into the boards. That's something almost heroic, at least when you're twelve.
No, the second time was two days ago. I finished a delightful breakfast with a friend and as I walked out of the restaurant, I focused on the door to the street and the weather outside–and completely ignored the interior plate glass door, slamming right into it at full speed.
The important lesson: while it matters a lot that you have a goal, a vision and an arc to get there, it matters even more that you don't skip the preliminary steps in your hurry to get to the future. Early steps might bore you, but miss even one and you might not get the chance to execute on the later ones.
My nose is fine, thanks, better every day, but the reminder was a worthwhile one.
November 7, 2012
When my friend Elly taught in a middle school, he never hung out in the teacher's room. He told me he couldn't bear the badmouthing of students, the whining and the blaming.
Of course, not all teachers are like this. In fact, most of them aren't. And of course, trolling isn't reserved to the teacher's room. Just about every organization, every online service, every product and every element of our culture now has chat rooms and forums devoted to a few people looking for something to complain about. Some of them even do it on television.
The fascinating truth is this: the people in these forums aren't doing their best work. They rarely identify useful feedback or pinpoint elements that can be changed productively either. In fact, if you solved whatever problem they're whining about, they wouldn't suddenly become enthusiastic contributors. No, they're just wallowing in the negative ions, enjoying the support of a few others as they dish about what's holding them back.
It pays no dividends to go looking for useful insight from these folks. Go make something great instead.
November 6, 2012
Here's what political marketers learn from people who don't vote:
Nothing.
If you don't vote because you're disappointed with your choices, disgusted by tactics like lying and spin, or merely turned off by the process, you've opted out of the marketplace.
The goal of political marketers isn't to get you to vote. Their goal is to get more votes than the other guy. So they obsess about pleasing those that vote. Everyone else is invisible.
Steakhouses do nothing to please vegetarians who don't visit them, and politicians and their handlers don't care at all about non-voters.
The magic of voting is that by opting in to the system, you magically begin to count. A lot.
If you don't like negative ads, for example, then vote for the candidate who ran even 1% fewer negative ads. Magically, within a cycle or two, the number of negative ads begins to go down.
One reason that people don't vote (a real, usually unspoken reason) is that they don't want to feel responsible for the person who wins. The other reason is that they don't want to live with the disappointment of voting for someone who loses. Both of these reasons ignore the marketing reality: not voting doesn't make marketing or politics go away. It merely changes the person the marketers are trying to please.
Vote tomorrow. Bring a friend. If enough smart people start voting again, things will improve, because billions of dollars in political marketing will suddenly be trying to please you.
November 5, 2012
In the industrial age, the boss defines a good job as one that meets spec. If you do what you are told, on time and on budget, it's a good job.
A bad job, then, is one that requires repair or rescheduling or produces a shoddy output.
In the connection economy, the post-industrial age we're moving into now, there are two other kinds of work worth mentioning:
A remarkable performance is one that exceeds expectations so much that we talk about it. (Remarkable, as in worth making a remark about). In just about every field, it's possible to be remarkable, at least for a while, and thanks to the increasing number of connections between and among customers, remarkable work spreads your idea.
It's difficult to be remarkable every day in every way, though, because expectations continue to rise. Which leads to a fourth category:
A personal performance.
A good job is largely anonymous and forgotten (but still important). A personal job, on the other hand, is humanized. It brings us closer together. It might not be remarkable, but it stands out as memorable because (however briefly) the recipient of the work was touched by someone else. Often, remarkable work is personal too, but personal might just be enough for today.
November 4, 2012
Don't wait for the right answer and the golden path to present themselves.
This is precisely why you're stuck. Starting without seeing the end is difficult, so we often wait until we see the end, scanning relentlessly for the right way, the best way and the perfect way.
The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now.
Step by step, page by page, interaction by interaction. As you start moving, you can't help but improve, can't help but incrementally find yourself getting back toward your north star.
You might not end up with perfect, but it's significantly more valuable than being stuck.
Don't just start. Continue. Ship. Repeat.
November 3, 2012
isn't.
[the reaction to this post surprised me. It's a bit of a Rorschach test, I guess. What I wrote was that we can/should hope for more and expect more and yearn for more, that we shouldn't accept false limitations. Some people misread it to mean that you probably won't get what you hope for. Alas, the price of brevity. If you re-read it, I hope you'll see what I was aiming for…]
November 2, 2012
Actually, I don't.
I know what I would do in this situation, but I'm not you.
I know what your customer should do, but I'm not her.
I know (and you know, and we all know) what we would do in a given situation, but that's not the same thing.
Empathy requires something extremely difficult: accepting the fact that we are not and never will be in the other person's shoes. There's no rational, universal course because individuals have different goals, different worldviews and different experiences.
November 1, 2012
In the face of billions of dollars of destruction, of the loss of life, of families distrupted, it's easy to wonder what we were so hung up on just a few days ago. Many just went face to face with an epic natural disaster, and millions are still recovering. Writer's block or a delayed shipment or an unreturned phone call seem sort of trivial now.
We're good at creating drama, at avoiding emotional labor and most of all, at thinking small. Maybe we don't need another meeting, a longer coffee break or another hour whittling away at our stuckness.
There's never been a better opportunity to step up and make an impact, while we've got the chance. This generation, this decade, right now, there are more opportunities to connect and do art than ever before. Maybe even today.
It's pretty easy to decide to roll with the punches, to look at the enormity of natural disaster and choose to hunker down and do less. It's more important than ever, I think, to persist and make a dent in the universe instead.
We've all been offered access to so many tools, so many valuable connections, so many committed people. What an opportunity.
October 31, 2012
Search marketing harvests demand, it doesn't create it (ht to Drew at Dropbox).
Most small businesses believe that they're too small to have an impact on the whole market, so they resort to picking the fruit that's already grown instead of planting their own seeds. It's far easier to wait until someone is ready to buy than it is to persuade them to buy.
Except the answer isn't to poach demand at the last minute. The answer is to redefine the market into something much smaller and more manageable. You don't need to persuade everyone that you have a great idea, you merely need to persuade one person. And then make it easy for that person to share.
One last semi-related thought: Wenda Millard quotes a Mercedes Benz exec, "If the only time I show you a Mercedes ad is just before you're about to buy a fancy car, I've lost." The fact is, advertising to build brand and recognition and demand is a very long-term proposition, not something you measure with clicks.
A last-minute swipe of purchase intent is a tactical win. It's not, however, a long-term way to build your organization.
October 30, 2012
Who you hang out with determines what you dream about and what you collide with.
And the collisions and the dreams lead to your changes.
And the changes are what you become.
Change the outcome by changing your circle.
October 29, 2012
