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Melle
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11 months ago
in Every day I write the book on The New PR
As someone who has recently returned to the startup ranks from the grey-cube-landscape of Big Company life, I wish you every success, exponential learning, and just enough roller coaster moments to keep you savvy and agile. Congratulations! :)
1 year ago
in Develop a Strong Personal Brand Online Part 1 on Chris Brogan
Standard apologies for the length of this. Please consider it a compliment to the amount your words got my brain chugging. :)
I think the comment about "what you are capable of sustaining" is the big one that tends to get forgotten, especially in 15-minutes/celebrity-obsessed culture. Too much focus on getting there (and the definition of "there" is as variable as the number of brand meanings out there), and little focus on staying there and being credible with what you've achieved once you've achieved it.
I admit that, though I certainly get the concept and importance of personal branding, and know there are plenty of tricks and bad habits companies and traditional marketing need to unlearn, I remain uncomfortable with the idea that developing a good personal brand is just being you - transparent, authentic, insert-buzzword-here. It's not. It's Schroedinger's Cat: by nature of being cognizant of our presentation to the world, even if the effort is to crumble synthetic facades, that awareness affects the presentation. Face, words, actions, whatever. Might not be in a bad way -- hell, might make vast improvements and filter out all kinds of bullshit -- but it's not "natural". (I.e. there's a concerted effort behind it that wouldn't necessarily be getting made if there wasn't something we were trying to accomplish, and for many, that accomplishment is self-serving.)
Business is not "natural", and never will be, because it's backed by intent. 2.0 is not natural. We may all be friends now, but we're still selling (to each other and those beyond our tech/media/social ramparts). Using your comment about being able to say what you're about in one easy sentence -- to me an excellent example. Your average non-business joe doesn't spend much time or effort, I'll wager, making sure he has an elevator pitch for himself.
Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with any of this, per se. People have to make a living, and dealing with people and companies that act like people is vastly superior to dealing with people and companies that are all about prevarication and manipulation. I just don't think we should delude ourselves that there isn't intent here, or that this doesn't fall under the category of business evolution. There've been other evolutions, there will be more, and there is an element of fashion to it. And in 10 years who knows what our focus in self-presentation and the subject of our blog posts and comments will be. (Though we'll probably hang out on some entirely different platform by then...)
I think the comment about "what you are capable of sustaining" is the big one that tends to get forgotten, especially in 15-minutes/celebrity-obsessed culture. Too much focus on getting there (and the definition of "there" is as variable as the number of brand meanings out there), and little focus on staying there and being credible with what you've achieved once you've achieved it.
I admit that, though I certainly get the concept and importance of personal branding, and know there are plenty of tricks and bad habits companies and traditional marketing need to unlearn, I remain uncomfortable with the idea that developing a good personal brand is just being you - transparent, authentic, insert-buzzword-here. It's not. It's Schroedinger's Cat: by nature of being cognizant of our presentation to the world, even if the effort is to crumble synthetic facades, that awareness affects the presentation. Face, words, actions, whatever. Might not be in a bad way -- hell, might make vast improvements and filter out all kinds of bullshit -- but it's not "natural". (I.e. there's a concerted effort behind it that wouldn't necessarily be getting made if there wasn't something we were trying to accomplish, and for many, that accomplishment is self-serving.)
Business is not "natural", and never will be, because it's backed by intent. 2.0 is not natural. We may all be friends now, but we're still selling (to each other and those beyond our tech/media/social ramparts). Using your comment about being able to say what you're about in one easy sentence -- to me an excellent example. Your average non-business joe doesn't spend much time or effort, I'll wager, making sure he has an elevator pitch for himself.
Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with any of this, per se. People have to make a living, and dealing with people and companies that act like people is vastly superior to dealing with people and companies that are all about prevarication and manipulation. I just don't think we should delude ourselves that there isn't intent here, or that this doesn't fall under the category of business evolution. There've been other evolutions, there will be more, and there is an element of fashion to it. And in 10 years who knows what our focus in self-presentation and the subject of our blog posts and comments will be. (Though we'll probably hang out on some entirely different platform by then...)
1 year ago
in The Community Ecosystem on Chris Brogan
I've always found the dynamics of sites interesting, particularly ones with a fair bit of exposure. Some are truly communities, with as much, or nearly as much, participation from readers as from the person/people who publish it. Others are almost entirely one-to-many, more like being in school with the teacher talking and students quietly listening.
I'd mostly thought that it was the writer's style, content, and general... atmosphere (?) created on a site that affected the amount of interaction that developed. But now you've got me wondering how much more of it relates to how much the writer intentionally interacts with the readers and with the broader online community (by topic, demographic, industry, geography...).
It's pretty normal human behaviour for people to need to be coaxed out of their shells (even with the invisibility phenomenon of the internet), but once they have, and are engaged, not only will their presence encourage others to come forward, but their engagement is more likely to lead to passion, which, of course, leads to evangelism.
Bottom line: you want to build a community, be part of one from the beginning, even if it's only you there at first. (Until you have readers who start engaging, you can engage outward, reading, commenting on, and posting about others' work that engages you.)
Good stuff. :)
I'd mostly thought that it was the writer's style, content, and general... atmosphere (?) created on a site that affected the amount of interaction that developed. But now you've got me wondering how much more of it relates to how much the writer intentionally interacts with the readers and with the broader online community (by topic, demographic, industry, geography...).
It's pretty normal human behaviour for people to need to be coaxed out of their shells (even with the invisibility phenomenon of the internet), but once they have, and are engaged, not only will their presence encourage others to come forward, but their engagement is more likely to lead to passion, which, of course, leads to evangelism.
Bottom line: you want to build a community, be part of one from the beginning, even if it's only you there at first. (Until you have readers who start engaging, you can engage outward, reading, commenting on, and posting about others' work that engages you.)
Good stuff. :)
1 year ago
in Things you say that make you sound stupid on The New PR
Another all too common one in the corporate sphere is "around". Meetings around topics, discussions around ideas, testing around defects. Sooo...technically people really want to avoid all these topics, discussions, and defects and address everything else?
A second I've been introduced to in my current workplace is "planful". "We want to proceed in a planful manner." "We need to be planful about strategy." Like verbal fingernails on a blackboard...
A second I've been introduced to in my current workplace is "planful". "We want to proceed in a planful manner." "We need to be planful about strategy." Like verbal fingernails on a blackboard...
