June 24, 2011
Authenticity
Hugh MacLeod
I’m Hugh MacLeod. I’m a cartoonist. Occasionally I write books. gapingvoid is interested in start-up culture, because changing business for the better is what we’re about; that’s what Social Object Factory is about. We live and breathe it; we help everyone from lone entrepreneurs, to mid-sizers, to Fortune 500’s do the same. Check out our work here.
We create art that helps companies kick ass, end of story.
We also have a daily cartoon newsletter that makes a lot of people happy.
If you just want to say ‘Hello’, feel free to email me, anytime.
If you want to talk business, then it’s probably best to please contact my business partner, gapingvoid CEO Jason Korman, here. We look forward to working with you. Thanks!
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Archive for June, 2011
gapingvoid business-focused greeting cards…?
Me and my partners, Laura and Jason, have been toying with the idea of “Business Greeting Cards”.
Greeting cards to send people in a business situation. Themes revolving around business situations, as opposed to birthdays and the other, normal rites of passage.
“My Bad” is one of our first ideas to send someone when you make a mistake. We all get it wrong, sometimes.
As the lines that separate “work and life” get more blurry, products that can live in this new blurry space will get ever more valuable to us all.
Anyway, it’s just an idea in its infancy. Let us know what you think. Thanks!
[NB: This was first published in the newsletter yesterday etc.]
June 20, 2011
How To Really Use The Internet
I remember my first really big Internet “A-Ha!” moment like it was yesterday.
It was about a decade ago, just after the DotCom crash, around the same time I first heard about blogging.
I had just heard from somewhere that Salon.com, one of the first big-time magazines to launch exclusively online (that was still a big deal in those days) had blown through $60 million setting itself up, before the crash. Was it ever expected to make back its investors’ money? Of course not.
Sixty. Million.
Then I heard from somewhere that Arts & Letters Daily, a blog that appealed to the same kind of reader as Salon, had been set up for a couple of grand; I think $10K was the number.
People would tell me at the time that yeah, of course Salon was more expensive. It had an office in San Francisco and a big staff of proper journalists. It had all the overhead of conventional magazines, minus the paper and printing press. A&L Daily was just an aggregator blog that pointed to interesting bits and pieces across the web.
Yes, that was true, but as a random, semi-educated dude looking for a place that offered me something interesting to read on a regular basis, I preferred A&L Daily to Salon.
As far as I could see, A&L Daily was not only a better product, it was offering its better product for ONE SIX-THOUSANDTH the cost of Salon. For 0.0166% the overheads.
The idea that media could now be viably made for not just pennies on the dollar, but MICRO-PENNIES, hit me like train. BAM!
So I started blogging. The rest is history.
Ten years later, my only disconnect would be, with this amazing opportunity that hyper-cheap media offers us, why are so many of us squandering it?
While others Twitter or Facebook or Foursquare for hours on end about what hipster food truck they’ve just been to or what dumb TV show they just watched, my young cartoonist friend, Austin Kleon is using social media to transform his life and career (and the lives and careers of others).
This is a totally different league of Internet use I’m talking about. And Austin is just one example. So am I. So is John T Unger or Willo O’Brien of Willotoons fame. I could give hundreds of others.
The Internet has given you a HUGE, life-changing opportunity that simply didn’t exist a generation ago. Don’t waste it. A life just surfing the net for hipster-friendly dumbass stuff is no less a waste of a life than sitting in front of the television.
The way to use the Internet is to be more like Austin or Willo or John. Use it seriously.
June 18, 2011
Why Presentation Matters
[“This Moment”. You can buy the print here etc.]
Earlier today I was thinking of certain “thought leader” friends of mine, people that I know personally. Rockstars in their field.
Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Kathy Sierra, Gary Vee, Prof. Brian Cox, Joi Ito, Ben Hammersley, Doc Searls etc.
Looking for a common thread, it suddenly hit me– besides being hugely talented in their field and the aforementioned rockstardom, what else do they have in common?
Short answer: Presentations. They’re all REALLY REALLY good at standing in front of a crowd and wowing them. Every one of them. I’ve seen them. They knock your socks off. No wonder they get invited to speak at TED, SXSW and other places. No wonder they’re able to command the big bucks for doing so.
And then, when you look at the great world-changing figures in history, you see the same. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Cicero, Winston Churchill, or Shakespeare’s fictional Henry V (“We band of brothers, we happy few” etc.)- it’s right there, front and center. The presentation.
And then if you read your ancient history, what were the most privileged people in Rome and Athens taught how to do as part of their classical education? That’s right. The art of Oration. Again, presentation. This explains why getting on the debating team at Oxford or Harvard is still considered a big deal for anyone in the know.
For anybody who ever aspires to lead.
So the question I’m asking is, if presentation is SUCH an obvious part of the magic leadership formula throughout the ages, and leadership is so integral to success, why isn’t presentation better taught in schools nowadays? Why aren’t third graders taught how to use Powerpoint, as standard? Why isn’t presentation emphasized as highly as say, grammar or history or math or athletics?
The reality is, the average person doesn’t spend one-hundredth the time working on their presentation skills, as they do on their hobbies or watching TV or going to the gym or whatever.
I think that might be a mistake…
[AFTERTHOUGHT: Yes, I know. Presentation isn’t everything. Steve Jobs’s legendary keynotes wouldn’t be nearly so impressive if Apple products sucked etc. But that’s not an excuse, either.]
new paintings…?
Unify Work and Love from Paul Barron on Vimeo.
A wee video I did for Paul Barron’s People Report Summer Camp and Digital Brand Camp 2011.
Nothing too fancy (although I do think Paul did a good job with the edit), some footage of me drawing my trademark business-card doodles and, in the background, some of my new paintings, including two I did for Rackspace.
The video riffs on the same theme I’ve been obsessing about for two decades, the subject of my second book, “Evil Plans” i.e. The Unification of Work And Love. What that means, what that implies, what ACTUALLY has to happen in order for it to manifest itself etc etc.
Yes, new paintings.
That’s all I’m willing to say about it for now… though feel free to drop me an email if you’re curious, Thanks.
June 16, 2011
Personal Drama
[This cartoon went out in today’s newsletter, with the following commentary:PERSONAL DRAMA
Why are some people such drama queens?
Why do some people get so obsessed with the little stuff, the gossip, who said what to who, who’s sleeping with who, who’s no longer sleeping with who…?
The short answer: Because it gives them something to do.
Life is short. You’d think we would have learned by now, how to make better use of our VERY limited time here on Earth.
Apparently not…
June 14, 2011
The Internet: Keep It New, Keep It Fresh.
The Internet changed my life. Totally, utterly transformed it. Of course it did. In a very short period of time. A couple of years, tops.
And then there’s also my Internet-famous rockstar friends: Those who, similar to myself, somehow managed to create these interesting, web-enabled, prosperous, functioning little online micro-empires of their own. Internet mavens like Robert Scoble, Doc Searls, Mike Arrington, Seth Godin, Brian Clark, Sonia Simone, Loic Le Meur etc etc.
If you read gapingvoid, chances are you know what I’m talking about. You’re probably one yourself, or if you’re not, you’re probably aspiring to be more like that. At the very least, you’ll probably have a few friends like that.
In other words, this “Internet-Transformed Life” is not something alien to you. You GET it. It’s around you all the time.
And heck, even of you’re not one of these so-called rockstar folk, your life has still been transformed utterly, whether you’re aware of it or not. You may not be “Internet-famous”, but try imagining your life without it. Try going a year without Facebook or Google or Twitter or even even email and Internet access. Imagine going without it while still holding down your current job and getting your bills paid.
I’m guessing that would be difficult.
It certainly would be impossible for me. I don’t even want to think about it.
Hey, guess what? This state of affairs is permanent. It’s never NOT going to be transformative, it’s never NOT going to be changing everything and utterly central to fulfilling your needs. Certainly not in our lifetimes.
The Internet is here to stay, and it’s constantly re-inventing itself, and the world that surrounds it.
And yet we still take it for granted, even after all it’s done for us. It’s only been available en masse for little over a decade and already it’s no big deal. Twitter and Facebook? Dude! That’s so 2007!
It’s a mistake to think like that. So blogging is past-tense. Same with Facebook or Twitter. Who cares? The Internet is SO MUCH BIGGER and long-term than any of that. That’s like comparing a bottle of Perrier with the Pacific Ocean.
If the Internet doesn’t seem new and fresh to you, you’re doing something wrong, end of story. You are basically extinct, end of story.
That’s my advice to any adult, regardless of age, class, race, nationality or gender.
Keep it new. Keep it fresh. By any means necessary.
There, I’ve said my piece. Thanks for listening.
[PS: This blog post is dedicated to my old friend, the wonderful Doc Searls, legendary co-author of The Cluetrain, the first person to REALLY open my eyes to all this. Thanks, Doc!]
When You Create [for Lisa Oz]
Today’s newsletter cartoon was inspired by Lisa Oz, wife of Doctor Oz, interviewing me for Oprah Radio last week, while I was in New York City.
It was a good interview. Lisa is a lovely woman who asked VERY smart questions about Creativity. She also plugged both my books, which was quite nice for me. Heh.
And I did my best to answer her questions. As I get older I’m less squeamish about talking about creativity in spiritual terms, rather than just “Because it’s cool and sexy” terms.
And whether you believe in God or Buddha or Allah or something else entirely, this creativity/spirituality is something you should not be afraid of exploring at some point. Life is short and you’re going to be dead one day; that’s all the motivation you need.
So I designed Lisa this cartoon to go on her business card. Like I said, I enjoyed the interview.
Anyway, I’m happy to report that the interview is broadcasting tomorrow, (Wednesday) at noon New York time [EST] on XM 111 and Sirius 204. It’s about 20 minutes long, so if you have satellite radio, I hope you’ll give it a listen.
Thanks, and Godspeed!
To my jaded veteran blogger friends: Get over yourselves.
People think that blogging has changed a lot in the last few years, far from the heady early blogging days of 2000 – 2005 etc etc.
Hmmm. Maybe. Certainly having things like Twitter and Facebook make it easier for people to natter to each other without having to write continual blog posts first… the latter is certainly time consuming, and people are already way too busy.
Actually, the business model for gapingvoid hasn’t changed very much over time. I can only handle so many projects at one time– a dozen at the most. So as a way of generating business, I only need enough readers to attract one new possible collaborator every so often.
Which works out to be how much? Maybe one out of ten thousand readers. Or something.
Whatever the final numbers might be, compared to the ad-driven blogs like Gawker or Techcrunch, they’re relatively small ones. And Thank God for that, “Audience” is a bitch.
And then there is the fun of drawing and posting cartoons on the blog. In business terms, that really can’t be measured. All that can do is create good karma. But I enjoy it immensely so what the hell… same is true for the daily newsletter cartoons.
I keep hearing the same complaint a lot these days. That blogging isn’t as much fun or as interesting as it used to be. It used to be subversive. It used to be cutting edge. Now it’s mainstream and boring. That kinda thing.
To my jaded veteran blogger friends: Get over yourselves. Blogging hasn’t changed, you have. What’s happening on the Internet isn’t important; What’s important is that the world knows how you intend to change it. Right here. Right now.
Same as it ever was…
June 13, 2011
A brand’s first job is to be interesting. Aligned brands are far more interesting than brands that just want somebody else’s money.
Here are some pictures Rob La Gesse sent me- people at Rackspace who downloaded my cartoons off the web, printed them out and hung them on their walls.
“Crap jobs are created by other people, dream jobs you make yourself” and “Life is short, Make it amazing”.
No “Reason Why” to buy the Rackspace product. No top-down mission statement.
Nope. Instead I tried to talk about stuff that ACTUALLY MATTER to people inside and outside the company.
Like I said in my last post, ALIGNMENT is where the action is.
“A brand’s first job is to be interesting”. Aligned brands are far more interesting than brands that just want somebody else’s money.
Just because you work for a big company doesn’t mean you don’t have to think about REAL human values. In fact, it’s more important than ever.
Think about it.
[More Rackspace cartoons here.] [More corporate cartoon commissions here.]
The Porous Membrane: Why Corporate Blogging Works.
[First published in 2005. I thought it could use another airing etc.]
The other day somebody asked me to explain why corporate blogging works. Sure, we know it’s the hot new thing and people are paying attention to it (including big media)…but why? Why does it work? Seriously.So I drew the diagram above.
1. In Cluetrain parlance, we say “markets are conversations”. So the diagram above represents your market, or “The Conversation”. That is demarkated by the outer circle “y”.
2. There is a smaller, inner circle “x”.
3. So the entire market, the “conversation” is seperated into two distinct parts, the inner area “A” and the outer area “B”.
4. Area “A” represents your company, the people supplying the market. We call that “The Internal Conversation”.
5. Area “B” represents the people in the market who are not making, but buying. Otherwise know as the customers. We call that “The External Conversation”.
6. So each market from a corporate point of view has an internal and external conversation. What seperates the two is a membrane, otherwise known as “x”.
7. Every company’s membrane is different, and controlled by a host of different technical and cultural factors.
8. Ideally, you want A and B to be identical as possible, or at least, in sync. The things that A is passionate about, B should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool, and so do their customers. They are aligned.
9. When A and B are no longer aligned is when the company starts getting into trouble. When A starts saying their gizmo is great and B is telling everybody it sucks, then you have serious misalignment.
10. So how do you keep misalignment from happening?
11. The answer lies in “x”, the membrane that seperates A from B. The more porous the membrane, the easier it is for conversations between A and B, the internal and external, to happen. The easier for the conversations on both side of membrane “x” to adjust to the other, to become like the other.
12. And nothing, and I do mean nothing, pokes holes in the membrane better than blogs. You want porous? You got porous. Blogs punch holes in membranes like like it was Swiss cheese.
13. The more porous your membrane (“x”), the easier it is for the internal conversation to inform and align with the external conversation, and vice versa.
14. Not to mention it makes misalignment, if it happens, a lot easier to repair.
15. Of course this begs the question, why have a membrane “x” at all? Why bother with such a hierarchy? But that’s another story.
N.B. And yes, this works with internal blogs as well, poking holes in the membranes that seperate people within a corporate culture; aligning “the conversation” internally etc.The other advantage of internal blogging is that it organises conversation into a long-term manageable form. Two people sharing ideas via blogs is a lot more permanent, viral and useful for the company than two people sharing the same information over by the watercooler.
Poking holes in membranes subverts hierarchies. Avast, ye scurvies etc.
[AFTERTHOUGHTS, JUNE, 2011:]
1. It’s six years later, so when I say “blogging”, feel free to add other forms of social media to the mix– Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare etc…
2. The big play in corporate blogging is not eyeballs, it’s ALIGNMENT and CULTURE. Alignment precedes eyeballs, not the other way around. Meditate on this.
3. A corporate blog needs two things: i. It needs to be written by somebody who ACTUALLY knows how to write and ii. is not afraid of getting fired. Good luck finding that person etc.
4. Read this excellent post by Sarah Dopp, “Can I have a witness?”, where she kinda asks herself the age-old question, what is blogging ACTUALLY for? Something that needs to keep on being asked, and asked again. Especially now, with the tedious “Game-ification of Everything” trend that is currently spreading everywhere Zzzzzzzzzz…
June 7, 2011
Pixie Dust & The Mountain of Mediocrity
[NB: Today’s guest post is by the world’s most famous ex-blogger, the great Kathy Sierra.]
We’re always searching for that secret formula, that magic pixie dust to sprinkle over our products, services, books, causes, brands, blogs to bring them to life and make them Super Successful. Most marketing-related buzzwords gain traction by promising pixie dust results if applied to whatever it is we make, do, sell. “Add more Social!”. “Just need a Viral Video!” “It’s about the Storytelling!”. “Be Authentic!”
The rise of social networking and media opened up a world of new possibilities, yet most Marketing 2.0 is basically:
“If you cannot out-spend the competition, you can out-friend them!” He who has the most Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and blog commenters Wins! It’s all about Social Capital now!
Sure, you can try that. You can work your ass off to be, as one marketer put it, “the person your customers want to party with.”
I never understood how any of this made sense, given that very little of what I see “brands” (or their human spokestweeters) do on social media is changing the fundamental nature of how users interact with their products. “But that is not the point! It is about being human!”. Nope, I still don’t get it. Why would anyone want to compete on *that*? It felt fragile to be in essentially a marketing arms-race of who-is-the-most-engaging-social-media rock star. What does that really have to do with what users do with the product?
And I saw examples over and over of social media rock stars with tons of followers, yet they were not able to convert those followers into Actual Paying Customers unless the product was what people really wanted. Being super-friendly, “liked”, etc. has limits when it comes to *paying*. I will follow your blog, but no matter how awesome I think YOU are, I won’t be paying for your book unless I think it’ll make ME a little more awesome.
So, why are people still so convinced that social media and all related buzzwords are The Answer? It has always appeared that if the product is truly crap, “your social media strategy won’t save you.” Even the social media gurus agree on that one. But it seems the opposite end is true as well… If the product makes the users awesome (at whatever the product is helping them do), no special secret magic pixie dust sauce is needed either.
Oh, social media does play a massive role in the success of a product that people love, but it is not the product-to-users “engagement” that matters, it is users-to-users (and users-to-potential-users). If people love what a product, book, service let’s them *do*, they will not shut up about it. The answer has always been there: to make the product, book, service that enables, empowers, MAKES USERS AWESOME. The rest nearly always takes care of itself.
Which brings me back to, why are so many so convinced that [insert favorite buzzword] is the answer vs. just making a product that helps people kick ass in a way they find meaningful?
And then someone I trust said this: these [insert favorite new buzzword] approaches are not about saving a crap product or marketing an awesome one… where these tools really DO make a difference for a brand is when the brand has little or no other compelling benefit over the competition. If the product is mediocre, or even really good but with too many equally good competitors, these things can make a difference. If you have little else to compete on, then out-friending/out-viraling/out-gamifying can work.
At least until your competition out-hires a good social media strategist or compelling extroverted social media star and out-friends you.
You do not want to be That Brand. You do not want to be That Product. That Book. That Consultant. You do not want to be in that arms race because it is an exhausting and fragile place to be. You want to use social media not because you *must* but because you can add even more value for your users by doing so. You do not want to be the guy that must ask constantly, “how can I get more comments on my blog? how can I get more followers and fans?”
The real pixie dust is when you ask yourself, “how can I help my users get more comments on THEIR blog?”. You want to be the guy who asks, “How can I help my users get more followers and fans?” And that is why I have always been such a fan of Hugh and Gary V and Tim Ferris, for example. Not for the comments their followers make about Hugh, Gary, and Tim… But for the comments their followers make about themselves. In a nutshell: Hugh, Gary, and Tim might well be the people you want at a dinner party, but what matters is that they help people become more interesting at their OWN next dinner party.
What prompted me to write this is the latest magic pixie dust buzzword, one that I am passionately against: gamification. Applying principles of game design to non-game activities can be done carefully, artfully, and with wonderful results. We use principles of game design in our programming books, for example, and you may have heard me at SXSW talk about using aspects of game mechanics to help create passionate users. But the current crop of “gamification” experts are doing nothing more than “pointsification/badgification”, taking the most superficial, surface mechanics of games and applying them out of context to areas where they are, as I have referred to it, “the high fructose corn syrup of engagement.” Once the sugar-rush novelty has worn off, there will be a substantial crash from the high. And it may be one from a which a brand cannot recover.
Don’t be that brand.
Don’t be that product.
Don’t be that book.
Be the one people talk about NOT because of your latest gamification and WOM campaign, but because it is obvious to your users and those they influence that your brand, product, book has made them better at something. Something they care about. Don’t be the slot machine of your industry. Give people an experience that leaves them feeling a little better about their own capabilities, not better about the faux-status awards they know, in their heart, are not examples of anything more awesome than a marketer’s attempt to use them.
Just make people better at something they want to be better at. When your goals and your user’s goals are truly aligned, you don’t need pixie dust. Don’t out-spend, don’t out-friend, and please don’t out-badge. There is a world of difference between helping someone *appear* more awesome and helping them actually BE more awesome.
–Kathy Sierra
