Hugh MacLeod
Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards
I'm a cartoonist.
I sell limited-edition prints.
I wrote a book.
I'm CEO of Stormhoek USA, which markets South African wine in the States.
I also draw private commissions.
Prints |
Opening | Current |
|---|---|---|
NY NY |
$275 |
February 28, 2005
Finally, the British media notice English Cut. From The Guardian:
Mahon, who has made suits for Prince Charles and Bryan Ferry, offers a frank insight into the life of a top tailor. English Cut, launched last month, tells of his life in Cumbria, his twice-a-week commutes to London, and his frequent visits to New York on sales trips. He also pens a pithy who’s who of the famous street, and offers tips on what to do if you can’t afford the
February 27, 2005
Since then he has become the first tailor to stage a Paris catwalk show, while also featuring his own collection at the Milan Menswear Show. This week his latest ready-to-wear Givenchy collection went on show in Paris.
Along the way, Boateng has also built up a stellar list of clients that includes Samuel L. Jackson, Mick Jagger, Will Smith, Jude Law and David Bowie.
Usually when a fashion designer names a list of illustrious celebrity patrons, it means “We’ve been handing out freebies like nobody’s business.“
Celebs never pay for anything in fashion. Every schoolchild knows this.
Old media are always harping on about how their main advantage over bloggers is their “objectivity”. Reading this little ill-informed PR tout, I just go “Bullshit”.
But that’s what Big Media can’t get their head around. Here’s Tom giving out A-Grade Savile Row information for free, while here’s some Time Warner fashionista giving out D-Grade junk and expecting to be paid for it. And no corporate strategy meatpuppet knows what the hell to do about it.
Jason Kottke, one of the world’s most-read bloggers, has quit his job and wants to make a living blogging full-time.
He shan’t take advertising, nor charge people money to read his stuff (Good plan. Who remembers Micropayments? That’s right. Nobody.).
Instead, he wants his readers to donate money, a-la Public Radio. “Kottke Micropatrons”. Groovy.
Ah, the ol’ “Quitting my day job to go do something insane” plan. Been there many times myelf.
If anyone is capable of pulling it off, he is, so I’m excited by him taking the plunge and I am wishing him Godspeed.
Rule of thumb with taking-the-plunge-wonderful-insane projects: Figure out the ABSOLUTE MINUMUM amount of money you will need to earn in order to make the project viable. Now divide that number by twelve. That’s usally how much you end up making.
“Hugh’s Obsession of The Day” is figuring out how to sell bespoke suits in Moscow.
We just want to turn up, stay at a nice hotel, measure up a few clients, do some buisness… and keep doing it on a regular basis, just like we do in New York.
We simply don’t know anyone there. That needs to change.
I’m trying to get the word out: If anyone knows any interesting folk in Moscow who might be able to help English Cut, please drop me a line. Thanks.
[SERVER UPDATE:] gapingvoid’s being moved across to a new server this weekend, so if any links aren’t working, now you know why. Should be fine by Sunday/Monday. Thanks.
February 25, 2005
A nice wee mention of English Cut on the Fast Company blog:
So it’s refreshing to learn about English Cut, a blog written by Thomas Mahon, a bespoke tailor on Savile Row in London. Since early this year, Mahon has been telling tales of his trade, shedding light on the work he does, the people he works with, and the people who wear his wares.
As I’ve said before, the entire output for Savile Row in a single year is only a couple of thousand suits… maybe five thousand, ten thousand, tops. This isn’t Burger King, the viral doesn’t have to be massive and huge in order to serve its purpose. It just has to simmer along there, just beneath the surface, spreading almost undetected.
I think that’s starting to happen.
[CARDBOARD SPACESHIP:] Wow. Hamish has been prolific since he started blogging earlier this week. He’s an SAP consultant. I bet you didn’t know, SAP code is written by Elves.
[ASTON MARTIN:] Tom and I have decided to stick with only doing high end “Bespoke” Savile Row suits, and not bother moving into cheaper but more scalable ready-to-wear market, if demand for the stuff grows. [Go here if you still don’t know the difference between the two] Like Tom says, “It doesn’t matter how green your money is, if you want a new Aston Martin you still have to get on the four-year waiting list.“
Ready-to-wear is a nightmare, anyway. Anything to do with retail is.
[“OBEY THE SUIT”:] A very funny, R-Rated viral commercial for a hip London Bespoke tailor’s firm. It looks liike “Bespoke” is only a small part of their business; I’m guessing by the suits they’re advertising that their main thrust is selling “Made-to-measure” (Bespoke’s poorer cousin) to the brash, young London stockbroker/financial crowd. But it looks like it’s a groovy little enterprise, still. Rock on.
(Again, go here if you don’t know the difference.)
My server went kaput last night.
Just talked to my webmaster. Doesn’t look like too big a deal. Just a few tweaks and it’ll be fine and working again. No data lost.
Update soon…
February 9, 2005
In marketing there’s something called “The Brand Pyramid”.
Basically it describes how the brand “intereacts” at different levels of the value chain.
In the comments of a recent post I described gapingvoid in pyramid terms. Starting from the bottom of the pryramid and working upwards:
–At the bottom, you have reading the stuff on gapingvoid for free.
–Then you have the affordable merch, let’s say, blogcards, t-shirts, books etc.
–Then you have prints and drawings.
–Then at the top you have commissions and consulting.Basically, all the layers inform and nourish each other…
I heard a rumor of a certain well-known marketing guru who (*ahem) shall remain nameless, who basically used his own money to buy back wholesale from his publisher enough books to get his name on the NY Times Bestseller List. He made no money from his book. In fact, it cost him a fortune.
And then he would give his books out for free at his seminars, or mail them out as upscale pieces of direct marketing.
But… he was able to put “NY Times Bestseller” on his business cards and marketing bumf. Made it easier to land those large, 6-figure contacts with big clients.
Having your work become part of the larger cultural matrix– beyond the industry it’s in– makes it much easier to sell within the industry.
But any “creative” or “guru” will have a brand pyramid. Look at Tom Peters. Charges thousands of dollars an hour for personal appearances, but still manages to find the time to write his blog.
Ker-chiiing!
Rock Bands have a similar pyramid– free radio airplay and downloads at the bottom, paid downloads, CDs and t-shirts in the middle, concert tickets at the top etc.
If the record companies are going out of business, it’s because they got too attached to one price point on the pyramid– the CD sales– and stopped paying attention to what their jobs should have been i.e. “Pyramid Builders”.
Gapingvoid is quite different than other cartoon brands because it pays more attention to the top and the bottom of the pyramid (the consulting and the free website part), and less attention on the more conventional middle (publication revenue, books, t-shirts, mass media etc). Although granted, that is beginning to change.
If you’re trying to break into the creative business, try to see the whole pyramid. Don’t think your answer is going to come from one single price point– the royalites from one book, the royalties from one type of merch. You need to learn to juggle. You need to read “The Sex & Cash Theory.“
Even the best income streams have an annoying habit of drying up fast and unexpectedly (just ask Time Warner). Best to have more than one on the go. Best to get into the habit of inventing new ones, faster than necessary.
And yes, all this applies to “non-creative” jobs as well.
February 8, 2005
Right now I’m converting “How To Be Creative” into a book. For the benefit of any potential publishers out there, this is roughly who I think the book will appeal to:
It may be modest, it may not be. It could be a little candle shop; it could be a software company with the GNP of Sweden. It doesn’t matter. Meaning Scales.
1. The Sleeper Has Awaken.
We are entering “The Creative Age”. We have started to look for meaning.
We are hungry. Meaning is the prey.
That doesn’t mean we suddenly quit our accountant jobs and go back to film school, or give up selling real estate and start cranking out our first novel.
Some of us might, but not all. That would be far too predictable.
It means we’re starting to recognize that our work is just as much part of real lives as our evenings and weekends, that our jobs are not mere economic units that pay for “our real lives” outside the office.
Our jobs ARE our real lives, dammit, and we’re going to fight like hell to make sure that people recognize and respect this, not just our colleagues, but even sometimes ourselves.
We’re not quitting out jobs in droves to go open organic bakeries and internet startups because we’re too lazy to go get a real job in Corporate America. No, we’re leaving Corporate America because “real” is EXACTLY what we want our jobs to be.
Real to us.
And maybe we’ll stay within the corporate structure. Maybe we’ll just go find a better corporation. One that’s getting with the program. One that doesn’t take its own strength or its people for granted.
Or maybe we’ll just stay with the jobs we already have. Maybe the change that’s required just needs to happen silently, from within.
Maybe there’s more than one way to crack this nut. Maybe that’s what being creative is really all about.
We are turning off the TV. We are using the internet, reading books, attending museums, buying paint, taking night classes and purchasing art in unprecedented numbers. We suddenly feel alive and excited about life in a way that would have seemed crazy a generation ago.
We are learning to sing.
We are starting to write in record number. We have discovered blogs. 40,000 of us start new ones every day. Will it make money? Who cares? This isn’t about money; this is about getting our thoughts together.
Our thoughts are coming together because we are no longer asleep. We’re not even sleepy.
2. Meaning Scales.
Our eyes are open, and now we’re looking for fun things to do with them.
As Buddha says, there is no one road to Nirvana. Enlightenment is a house with 6 billion doors. While we’re alive, we intend not to find THE DOOR, not A DOOR, but to find OUR OWN, UNIQUE DOOR.
And we’re willing to pay for the privelege. We’re willing to give up money and time and power and sex and status and certainty and comfort in order to find it.
And guess what? It’ll be a great door. It’ll add to this life. It’ll resonate. Not just with us, but with everybody it comes in contact with. The door will useful and productive. Alive and kicking. It’ll create wealth and laughter and joy. It’ll pull its own weight, it’ll give back to others. It’ll be centered on compassion, but will be intolerant of dullards, parasites and cynics.
It may be modest, it may not. It could be a little candle shop; it could be a software company with the GNP of Sweden. It could involve politics or working with the elderly. It could be starting a design studio or opening a bar with Cousin Mike. It could be a screenplay, oil paints, or discovering the violin. It doesn’t matter. Meaning Scales.
3. I intend the book to be bought and read by people who connect with what I wrote above.
I believe their number to be extremely large, and growing larger. I want to make a book for these people, to read while sitting on the john.
[UPDATE:] Just added this post to the book outline.
The cartoon above would be a good motivational poster…
Yeah, I’m thinking more about that business.
An obvious Hughtrain tie-in, wouldn’t you say?
Doc Searls once decribed me as, “Dilbert for people whose jobs don’t suck.“
By the way, I sincerely don’t mind people downloading my images, printing them out and sticking them on their office walls. In fact, I rather they would. Good PR and all that.
[BEYOND LAME:] McDonald’s started a blog. A fake blog.
[ALSO from Steve Rubel:] “I think we’re going to see CEOs doing more blogging in the future when it comes to addressing issues and less media interviews. Why? It minimizes their risk.“
[ALSO:] Good marketing nugget from Liz Spiers: “The blogs are not going to make MediaBistro filthy rich, but they help the bottom line and are the most economically efficient marketing tool we have at our disposal.”
February 7, 2005
One of the people I work with, New York marketing wizz Howard Mann has started a blog:
Truth, Creativity and Power.
That
In business, there’s always a great deal of uncertainty governing every major decision. The larger the opportunity, the more it feels like “herding cats”.
Having gone through this wringer more than once, I can see why there’s such a large market for “business gurus” like Tom Peters or Seth Godin.
It’s not just their ideas are good. It’s not just that they’re “visionary”. It’s not just that interacting with their brand inspires and clarifies our own thinking. It’s not just that their optimism and enthusiasm for what they do and think is infectious.
It’s that what they offer takes our minds away, for a little while at least, from the neverending uncertainty of business, from the “herding cats” feeling of fear and dread that is always with us.
NOTE TO SELF: You really should think about getting more into this business.
In explaining The Ignorance Premium (how the less the customer knows, the more companies can charge) I cite gentleman’s tailoring as an example:
Know diddly-squat about tailoring? Then you’re more likely to pay that extra $300 for that Armani, less likely to save $600 from going with the old man in Chinatown.
But then EnglishCut comes along… suddenly the conversation available to most people gets much smarter.
Katherine in the comments rightfully asks:
How much extra does not knowing have to cost me before it’s worthwhile to get smart? Sure, I can save $600 by finding the tailor in Chinatown. But if the time I spend finding him is worth more than $600, what have I really saved?
Obviously, if the time you spend finding him costs you more than $600, you haven’t saved anything.
But what if the cost was only $500? $300? $50 $15? Or how about “virtually free”?
And what if this virtually free information, which is now only available to the few readers of EnglishCut, somehow managed to spread out to thousands of people? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?
How would a company like Armani adapt?
But this isn’t really about tailoring. This is about all of us.
A lot of the markets we work in are starting to get far smarter, at a noticably faster rate than the companies we work for i.e. the companies servicing these markets.
Have you a plan?
February 6, 2005
Blog As If Your Life Depended On It!
Blogging, I firmly believe, is the premier emergent marketing-brandbuilding-lovemarkcreating tool of our times! It is the premier way to have intimate-engaging-informative-WOWing “conversations” with Clients and prospects! This all goes double for small enterprises and niche enterprises; and goes triple for the Professional Services; and works wonders in the Public Sector as well.
Do you see Blogging in these exalted lights? If not, why not? Please … Blog-As-If-Your-Professional-Success-Depended-On-It.
(Hint: I think it does.)
I completely agree. “We have gone beyond the tipping point. We are not blogging because it’s cool or hip. It’s now mostly about survival yak yak yak…“
Blogging isn’t that hard, you know. Anybody can do it. And most people I know professionally are smart and lucid enough to do it well.
I’m seeing two problems holding them back:
1. Getting them to actually keep at it. They want the thing to magically write itself.
Tom Peters tries to bypass this problem by paying other people to help write his stuff. I’m not sure if I would recommend this approach. People come to your blog to hear what you have to say, not to hear what your underlings have to say.
2. Expecting the blog to behave like an old-style website.
Like a traditional, Flash-enabled, bell & whistle website, they pay the webmaster a wad of cash, they write a few pages of stuff, and suddenly they expect the world to beat a path to their door.
It doesn’t work that way. What works is writing better stuff, more often, and doing it for longer than the next guy.
The reason Jeff Jarvis’ blog is one of the most widely read in the world is exactly for those reasons:
–He’s been doing it longer than most.
–The quality of his writing is better than most.
–The quantity of his output is greater than most.
And the same is true for every other “A-Lister” on my list.
Continuity. It’s all about continuity.
[My two cents:] If you really, really want your blog to be read by a lot of people, you’re going to have to be prepared to put in the kind of sustained effort it takes to get a published book out, before you start seeing the kind of results you’re hoping for.
How much effort would it take to write a bestseller on a subject you know a lot about? That’s about ballpark.
Smarter Conversations: “Upgrade your users, not just your product.“
[From Headrush]
Starbucks used to be a HughMark, but decided there was more money in being a LoveMark.
Robert Scoble is a “HughMark”.
Microsoft is not.
So what is Microsoft going to do about it?
[UPDATE:] Robert answers the question in the comments. And extremely well, in my opinion.
[“Glob of Chaos” cartoon reposted on a a reader’s request]
In the comments of a semi-recent gapingvoid post, Alan Herrel, one of the funniest guys in the blogosphere, offers me some wonderful business advice for my fine art print idea:
Fine Art Prints?
naahhhh. You need to rethink here. offer ‘limited editions’ printed on that cheap micro-perf business card stock that you can buy at the Gigantic Office Supply Outlet or walmart which ever is closer..(time is money you know)and limited by how many times you hit the ‘print this’ button.….
for a few extra bucks you can toss in a presentation case to display them crafted from…”Genuine Imitation Virgin Vinyl!!” in a plethora of personality pleasing colors!!! avacado, harvest gold, orange shag carpet.…..
For those that need or want that ‘strong lasting experience’, a limited edition, blown up, printed on standard post card size stock, and offered as the ”Postal” Series, perfect for writing ‘I fucking quit’ on the back.…
The ‘Nuclear’ series can be printed on 8.5 by 14 legal stock, which ya oughta pick up for a song(keep an eye on production costs) since the legal industry has moved to regular size paper, and the only folks using legal size are your kids school for newsletters.
oh yeah…loose the frame idea, make the bastards buy their own damn frames! ya can build another website where you can have folks take pictures of their completed missions, and post them.
This week I spent a lot of time shuttling contracts and e-mails between myself, my agent and a very smart fine art publisher. Soon I should have some interesting stuff to sell both on and offline. Rock on.
The online and conventional retail markets are quite different; both have their pros and cons. We’ll see how it develops.
One of the more unfortunate things about entering the advertising profession at a young age, is that it invariably turns you into a compulsive “Trend Watcher” within nanoseconds.
So when you hear that Hollywood is now turning out a disproportionately high number of movies based on comic book superheroes, instead of a reasonable, normal reaction (i.e. Who the hell cares), you find yourself going, “Gosh! That’s so interesting!“
Or when you hear that unmarried New Yorkers are staying in more, opting for home-cooked dinners in lieu of trendy bistros and restaurants, instead of a reasonable, normal reaction (i.e. Who the hell cares), you find yourself going, “Gosh! That’s so interesting!“
Or when you hear that the major American TV networks are spending more money on Reality TV, less money of sitcoms, instead of a reasonable, normal reaction (i.e. Who the hell cares), you find yourself going, “Gosh! That’s so interesting!“
Or when you hear that the more European car advertising is using more and more arty, black & white photography, instead of a reasonable, normal reaction (i.e. Who the hell cares), you find yourself going, “Gosh! That’s so interesting!“
Or when you hear that Celebrity Divorce is on the upswing, instead of a reasonable, normal reaction (i.e. Who the hell cares), you find yourself going, “Gosh! That’s so interesting!”
And you find that everybody else is doing it too, including the folk with the high salaries and big corner offices that you, yourself covet.
So you start emulating them. Don’t have a clue what to say in the meeting? Mention the unmarried New Yorkers.
Don’t have an idea for the ad? Pitch some parody thing where the movie superhero arrives on the scene toting the client’s product.
Don’t know what to say to the client who thinks you dropped the ball on the new campaign? Suggest arty black & white photography.
Just so long as everybody in the office thinks your “finger is on the pulse”, it doesn’t matter how good your ideas are, how effective your thinking is, you find yourself being showered with money, favor and status. And high reward is addictive.
So to feed your addiction, you stop thinking. You start watching. Harder than ever.
You read all the magazines, you watch all the TV shows, it doesn’t matter how utterly bad they are. Your life becomes an orgy of mainstream popular culture. You begin feasting on it like a hungry animal. It doesn’t matter that the client’s business is going down the pan, what matters, dammit, is that Brad and Jennifer are still remaining the best of friends and in regular contact.
Of course, the minute you step off this treadmill, the minute you start thinking about real people with real needs, wants and problems, you’re dead. No more corner offices and 1965 Jaguar E-Types for you, Nosirree.
But like they say, who the hell cares.
It says in The Hughtrain:
“THE MARKET FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN IS INFINITE.“
We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary.
We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature.
So, me being the shameless advertising whore that I am, decided to invent my own version of the [*ker-chiiing!*] LoveMark: the brand that is loved beyond all reason yak yak yak, the brand that commands a stunning position on the Love/Respect Axis yak yak yak…
“The HughMark”: Any person, company, product, service, brand, pet goldfish etc that makes it easier for the person, customer, end-user etc to believe in his own species.
Wow. It took Saatchi’s four years to develop the LoveMark concept. Took me all of ten minutes to do mine.
Do I have a book deal yet?
[SEE ALSO:] This ties in with what I call “Expressive Capital”.
[PS:] Just added this one to The Hughtrain. No surprises there.
From an e-mail from artist/sculptor/blogger John T. Unger:
I’m in the process of extricating myself from the whole gallery thing and offering commissions to friends instead if they can find buyers for my work. I think I’ve nearly got the model nailed for this and should be sending out the initial invite this week. Very hughtrain, cluetrain, ect.
John and I have been swapping e-mails a lot recently, basically talking about how once you’ve lost your Cluetrain/Hughtrain cherry, how hard it is to do business through conventional channels, be they art galleries, book publishers, ad agencies, whatever.
A very well-known art dealer recently told me that if the internet thing was working for me [which it is], I should stick with it, because “apart from a tiny elite minority, galleries don’t actually work for artists.“
i.e. We know it’s bullshit but we do it anyway, because besides lucking out, we don’t really have a plan.
A lot of buisnesses are like that.
Anyway, kudos to John for trying to push the envelope.
February 4, 2005
I LOVED Hamish’s recent quip in the comments:
That is certainly the style of the current American Anglo Empire [he was referring to this cartoon]. The rest of the world has more to play for, and consequently may be executing the real deal just a little bit harder.
In the immortal words spoken by Martin Sheen in the deeply flawed but still brilliant Apocalypse Now, “Charlie [The VietCong] didn’t need R+R, he just wanted a bowl of rice and little bit of rat meat.”
It occurs to me that a worryingly large chunk the people in the Anglo-American middle class basically make their living from charging an “Ignorance Premium”.
Know diddly-squat about tailoring? Then you’re more likely to pay that extra $300 for that Armani, less likely to save $600 from going with the old man in Chinatown.
But then EnglishCut comes along… suddenly the conversation available to most people gets much smarter.
Know diddly-squat about tech? Then you’re more likely to go with the $400 iPod, less likely to go with the $250 Microsoft-powered alternative.
But then Robert Scoble comes along.… and suddenly the conversation about personal stereos gets much smarter.
Suddenly the Ignorance Premium is devalued. Exactly.
With the Ignorance Premium, you’re paying extra for not knowing. Instead of MICRO knowledge, your basing your choice on the cooler, hipper MACRO Brand Metaphor. Branding is all about about being cool and hip, because branding is all about propping up the Ignorance Premium.
And have you noticed that Big Media makes their living selling advertising to people like, for example, Armani and Apple?
And then a few days later, for example, you see a news clip on the TV, reporting on what’s happening with Armani at Fashion Week, or what’s happening with Apple at E-Tech?
And the same people who own the news channel also own the magazines that, for example, Armani and Apple advertise in?
Again, propping up the Ignorance Premium.
Though I have no financial involvement or personal stake with EnglishCut, my reasons for being interested with Thomas Mahon and his bespoke tailoring blog go WAY beyond helping my friend out.
It’s about the MICRO Smarter Conversations absolutely wiping the floor with the MACRO Brand Metaphor/Ignorance Preium.
When I say “Branding Is Dead”, that’s what I’m talking about. The Big-Media, celebrity-pimped designer label is getting this clocked cleaned by phenomenon like EnglishCut. It’s watching the Ignorance Premium dying.
As with Robert Scoble, I see EnglishCut as a petri dish for something MUCH bigger. Sure, Scoble’s blog is much bigger and more famous than EnglishCut, but the teeth are just as sharp at a close range.
And yes, it’s still early days for all this stuff I rant on about, but really, seriously…
This why blogging matters.
February 3, 2005
A former colleague talks trash online about my bespoke Savile Row tailor friend, Thomas Mahon.
Thomas rips the poor chap a new asshole:
4. While I was at A&S [Anderson & Sheppard, their old alma mater], Mr Beaman was primarily an alteration tailor. But he was never an actual cutter, at A&S or any other company on The Row since, that I know of. In 1993, while I was there, he was sacked from his job for reasons of behavior I’d rather not talk about (and neither would he, most likely), but others on The Row probably will, if you asked around. Feel free.
On his website, he said he left. He did not leave. He was fired. On my website, I said I left A&S. That is true. Also, unlike Darren, I was also offered a large pay rise to stay, which I declined.
…
8. On his website, he said:
Darren has worked in Savile Row for 23 years, beginning as a 15-year-old apprentice with the renowned tailoring house Anderson & Sheppard. Devoted from the beginning to learning and excelling at his craft, he was marked out from his earliest days as possessing that ‘je ne sais quoi’ — a tailor’s eye, a feel for fabric, and an ability to communicate effectively with a client — that distinguishes the most masterful and respected tailors from their peers.Yes, Darren was a good tailor. But he was primarily an alterations tailor, he was never an A&S cutter. He certainly was never thought of a “master tailor”, nor thought of as “distinguished from his peers”.
An alterations tailor is never allowed to deal with customers, unless being invited by the cutter under very rare circumstances. Nor was the prospect of Darren ever being let into the front shop as a cutter ever considered an option for the future, even before the unfortunate behavior which led directly to his sacking. Yes, I have spoken to a former director who will back me up on this.
9. He says on his website that he worked on the suits of HRH Prince Charles. Yes, he did. As the alterations tailor. Under me. I was the cutter. I dealt directly with The Prince. Darren never met him.
As Cluetrain says, markets are conversations. Be careful when you start them.
February 2, 2005
Gapingvoid regular Dave Parmet was fired from his PR job yesterday:
There
According to to its CEO, David Sifry, Technorati is now tracking 40,000 new blogs a day, up from 15K only a year ago. Source: Jeff Jarvis.
OK, that’s the population of New York, every 6 months.
I happen to agree with what Jarvis said in another post: your brand is “the most valuable commodity of the age.“
We have gone beyond the tipping point. We are not blogging because it’s cool or hip. It’s now mostly about survival.
We have entered an age where anyone who wants to make a living above minimum wage will have to get used to the idea of building and owning their own “global microbrand”. If you’re not blogging already, I would start. Seriously.
[The Scoble-MacLeod Lovefest continues unabated:] Salient thought from Robert Scoble in the comments of a a recent gapingvoid post:
Have any of the Lovemarks ever said they are sorry?
Apple, for instance, is a lovemark (it’s in the book) but they sued their fans multiple times.
Us? [i.e. Microsoft] Our lawyers get out of control and I apologize and clean up the mess.
Why? Because I am on the Hughtrain!
Or trying to be, anyway.
A Lovemark apologizing? Wishful thinking. The Lovemark is just the corporate version of the Golden Calf.
It’s a CALF, it’s made of GOLD, and it’s ALL MINE. So better put on your shades; you need to protect your eyes from all of that sunshine currently high-beaming out of my ass.
It’s the “Golden Calf” objectification-fetish School of Marketing.
I prefer the “Town Square” School of Marketing.
i.e. A brand is place, not a thing.
i.e. A place where good people gather and talk about the stuff that matters. Out of that conversation better ideas, products, services and transactions emerge.
This is where the “Smarter Conversations” stuff starts becoming useful.
So the next time an ad agency pitches your company, ask yourself what they’re actually trying to sell you– Golden Calf or Town Square?
Your call, not mine.
Heh. The “How To Be Creative” PDF just knocked Tom Peters off the #2 most downloaded postition on ChangeThis.
Seth Godin remains in the Number One slot, but it’s his website, so fair enough.
I’m a big fan of both of them, so being sandwiched between the two ain’t too shabby at all.
I know, I know, I should get a life etc…
[ALSO: You can read whole thing online here.]
[“PRIVATE” COMMENT IDEA:] Instead of leaving your email address on your blog, could you not just have a “private” option for people leaving comments instead?
A guy could leave a comment instead of an e-mail, tick the “private” box, so it wouldn’t be seen by anyone else.
The commenter could leave his e-mail address, so the blogger could then get back in touch with him. Or the blogger could also have “Private Reply” option, to save him having to send an e-mail.
It could feasibly keep the entire conversation “on the blog”… the more conversations that can be maintained solely on the blog, and not branching out into other media, the better.
Talking to too many people via too many media gets awfully “cluttering” after a while.
Has this idea been tried yet?
Aaaargh… just when I had comment spam pretty much beaten, along comes TRACKBACK SPAM.
This Royally Sucks!!!
Loic, is Six Apart doing anything about it? [Six Apart is the company that makes Movable Type, my current blog software.]
[UPDATE:] Damn, just got whacked again by the “Online Poker” boys… At this rate it’ll be a couple of hundred whacks every 24 hours.
At least with MT 3.121 it’s easy to remove spam. Back when I had MT 2.65 it took forever. God, it was awful. Almost switched to another platform (and I’m a uber-loyal MT user!). Sheesh.
I just hope in the long-term, spam doesn’t become MT’s “Kryptonite Factor”.
