May 3, 2012
Everybody pays
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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May 1, 2012
“I’m sorry my last book was so long, but I didn’t have time to write a short one”
[Click on image to activate animation etc.]
This is one of the cooler “Social Object Factory” mini-projects we’ve done lately– a little animated Gif for Seth Godin’s lovely little book, Poke The Box.
[Yes. I know. We didn’t use my drawing style this time. The Factory is really about Social Objects, not about Hugh etc.]
One thing Seth and I always had in common, is that we both believe in writing short books. My personal rule is: All my books have to be short enough to be read on a plane ride between Miami and New York. And they are.
A book that makes you feel hopefully really inspired and really excited, that you close and put away satisfied, just as they’re dropping the landing gear, coming into La Guardia. It’s simple enough goal to aim for; certainly a lot less deluded than “Write the next ‘Sun Also Rises’ or ‘Ulysses’”.
Seth talks about his “short format” philosophy some more in a brilliant post, “Tracts and Books”:
The Communist Manifesto is 80 pages long. Certainly long enough to make an impact.
It has never taken me beyond a hundred pages to be persuaded. Sure, there are times when the pages after page 100 help me pile on, give me more depth and understanding. But a hundred (and usually fifty) is enough to get under my skin.
Or to steal heavily from George Bernard Shaw, “I’m sorry my last book was so long, but I didn’t have time to write a short one”.
It’s dirty little secret that most of my business-book author friends (and I have more than a few) will freely admit off the record: Most business books are lucky if people read more than the first hundred pages.
So why write more than a hundred pages? You tell me…
It’s never quite that simple, of course. There are as many ways to write a book as there are authors. If you want to spend the next seven years teaching junior college in order to be able to write the next Great American Novel in your spare time, that works too, go for it.
But if you’re just trying to get ideas to spread– if it’s the ideas that actually matter, not the book itself– I’d pay attention to what Seth is up to, very carefully.
Like I’ve said many times before about Media, we’re now living in the era of #CheapEasyGlobal. And thanks to that, I do honestly believe, it’s never been a more exciting time to be a writer.
Make of that what you will.
May 1, 2012
“Big-city wages, small-town prices” is a damn fine business model
Here we go. The insanely-bright Harold Jarche (who I really enjoyed meeting in Toronto a few months ago) gives a few reasons why/how blogging transformed his life:
1. I live in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada; population 5,000. Even our timezone is unknown to many people. Without my blog, nobody would ever have heard of me. This Spring, I have four speaking engagements out of town (Montreal, Ottawa, Washington DC, Rome). Without my blog, I am sure that IEEE and many other organizations would not have invited me to speak.
Bingo. “Big-city wages, small-town prices” is a damn fine business model: I did it myself for many years when I was living in Far West Texas.
I live in Miami. I have no clients here. They’re all in places like Boston or New York or Texas or California or London. Yet most mornings I hang out on the beach.
Blogging allows me to stay creative and mobile… and like Harold here, far from the madding crowd, if that’s what I desire.
Anyway, feel free to join the conversation, just like Harold: Visit FreedomIsBloggingInYourUnderwear.com, steal some cartoons and maybe check out the book. Exactly. Thanks. Rock on.
[P.S. “Hyperlinks subvert hieracries” is me quoting Cluetrain, of course.”]
April 30, 2012
Any hardcore blogging mavens out there? Here are some cartoons for you to use as you see fit:
Yay!
As you probably already know, I wrote a wee book, “Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear”, which just launched. It is my little love letter to the blogosphere.
We’ve also set up a special webpage: FreedomIsBloggingInYourUnderwear.com
Please click on it — it’s more than just a page about the book. It’s a movement, or at least, I think it should be.
I know for a fact, that a lot of you reading this found a similar freedom that I found through the Internet and blogging. Like me, you found a voice, you found a platform, the rest is history.Your stories are beautiful stories, so I wanted to create some free social objects that help you tell your stories… cartoons, animated videos etc. Simple, fun, stuff.
This week, in honor of the sentiment behind the book, I’d love for you to share your story of how blogging or the Internet has given you freedom. Blog, tweet, post on Facebook or G+… share your story however you want, on whatever platform you prefer. All I ask is that you include the hashtag #FreedomIsBlogging and if you can, email me a link to your post at “Freedom@gapingvoid.com.” I am going to be creating a commemorative print for the book, and everyone who emails me a link to their “freedom” post this week will have their name drawn in the print. I hope you will use these tools to tell your story. There’s beauty in all this, there really is. Which is why I wrote the book, anyway.
I can’t wait to hear your stories! Rock on!
- Hugh
[P.S. I am holding a “virtual book tour” this Thursday, May 3, at 6pm EST. You can sign up and join me, for free, HERE]
April 29, 2012
Evolutions
Thought experiment: It’s easier to be successful when you think of your business as a dialogue, rather than property.
I’ve been saying this for years: That all evolutions in marketing are evolutions of language.
In Cluetrain parlance, “Markets Are Conversations”. People talking to each other, metaphorically or otherwise.
When markets change, the conversation changes. People who change the market, change the way the market speaks to people.
Ergo, language changes. Language evolves, and so does the market.
People who want to change the market they’re in (in their favor) should think about this… how does your product “talk” to the market, how is the “voice” different from your competition?
Exactly.
[Originally sent out in the newsletter etc.]
April 26, 2012
My latest book launches today: “Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear”
Amazon. Amazon UK. Barnes & Noble. 800 CEO Read.
In this era of everybody talking about the latest shiny app or the latest shiny billionaire, I decided to write a book about blogging, and why it matters: “Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear”.
[From the intro:]
In May of last year, my blog, gapingvoid.com, turned ten years old.
Having a blog, a voice, having my own media, utterly changed my life. Suddenly my career as a cartoonist wasn’t dependent on other people: the “gatekeepers” — publishers, editors, Hollywood executives, etc., etc.
Suddenly I had direct contact with my audience. They had direct contact with me. I could just do my thing, without having to wait for somebody else to give me the “green light,” somebody else to write a check. I didn’t have to wait around for somebody else to deem me “worthy” …
This gave me the freedom I spent most of my adult life searching for, the same freedom I believe we’re ALL searching for, in one way or another.
Careerwise, blogging gave me everything. Even in the early days, the benefits of blogging were so glaringly obvious to me that I couldn’t understand why more people weren’t doing it. Ten years later, I still can’t. So I decided to write a book about it; maybe I could help other people find this freedom, too.
Like I said, I’m a cartoonist. I don’t consider myself a “blogging professional.” I don’t consider myself a “social media authority.” That being said, I believe my experience as one of the very early visual artists to totally establish their careers via this wonderful new medium might help folks understand not only how powerful blogging is, but WHY it’s powerful and WHY it matters. And once you can understand this, I believe, your life will be quickly transformed, same as mine was.
[If you’re going to Twitter about it, please use hashtag #FreedomIsBlogging. Thanks!]
April 18, 2012
“FASTER THAN REAL TIME”: I’m going to Le Web London, June 2012
Hot off the press, my old friends Loic and Geraldine Le Meur asked me to do the theming for the Le Web this year. I’m especially honored as it will include their first London LEWEB which they announced yesterday.
“FASTER THAN REAL TIME”. Le Web London, June 19th-20, the # 1 European tech conference. Join me, Loic and all the gang at http://leweb.net
Having attended the first LEWEB, then called Leblog in 2004, it’s been amazing to see the event grow into Europe’s most important tech conference. It’s one of my favorite conferences (the other one being SXSW), and I’m really excited to be going again. The lineup of speakers is incredible; every year it just gets bigger and bigger.
I’ll be doing a talk this year, and sketching on stage. It’ll be nice to be in London again.…
LEWEB has kindly offered a GBP 100 discount to our friends. If you’d like to buy a ticket, just enter GAPINGVOID at checkout to receive the discount.
April 17, 2012
The new hardback copy arrived…
Look what my publishers just sent me. The first hardback copy of “Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear” [Kindle version here]. Awwww.… I’m so happy!
I love the purple cover… it’s kinda appropriate: It was after reading Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow” that the idea of writing books occurred to me. “That looks like fun, I can do that, I want a piece of that” etc.
The book is a love letter to the blog, of sorts. I think blogging matters, I think having your own piece of online real estate THAT YOU OWN YOURSELF (not Twitter, not Facebook, not Google+ etc), on YOUR OWN SERVER that YOU pay for, is important. But it’s an idea that’s kinda been lost in recent years. BLOGGING MATTERS.
So I wrote a book about it.…
