The difference between saying something and thinking it
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on May 29th, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Social Media
I made an important discovery yesterday. One of those blinding flashes that sneak up on you when you least expect them, yet are so bright they burn colourful imprints onto your retina so that you can still see them even if you close your eyes.
It seems I have more in common with Hugh McLeod than I imagined.
Many years ago I dropped out of university before I even had the chance to start. I went to a very good private school in
Until I went to hospital.
The school organized a works-experience week and I and two others (who made it to the other side) were shuffled into an operating theatre to see what surgeons do first hand. It also gave me the opportunity to see who the surgeons were.
That day I learnt the most important lesson of my life. Who you are and what you do aren’t necessarily the same thing.
The English education system makes it almost impossible to back out of your chosen career path at the last minute which is why at the tender age of 19, I found myself on a plane heading to Italy, where I’ve lived ever since.
That day returned to me recently during one of those “what am I doing with my life??” moments when I was blinded by that flash I mentioned earlier.
It seems that the cutting edge of the blogosphere is social networking. It’s like a massive, uncontrollable Hollywood-style scandal rag reporting round the clock on who’s sleeping where, who said what and how my judgment is invariably wiser than yours.
Getting on this train is easy: Read, write and link. Read, write and link. Hugh calls it “people talking” and people talk perpetually.
Like mainstream chat show ghosts, the stars of the blogosphere are beyond reproach. They’re sneezers, opinion makers, forces to be reckoned with. The rest of us drop like flies.
There is a holier-than-thow element to this. Apparently, to be successful, you’ve got to have your ear (aggregator) to the ground, know the movers and shakers and hang out at the right blog expos. Even better, vlog about them. Corporations in particular can’t miss a beat.
Now I’m the first to admit that, expos aside, I do this myself, I’m doing it on this blog and in this post. It’s also how I met my friend, colleague and rival Richard and it’s how I plan on meeting many others in future.
That’s what I do. But is it who I am?
Didn’t blogging start out as a “web log”? A diary of me, my thoughts and a way of sharing my chunk of life?
I guess at some point some big-boy bloggers’ personal conversations dried up and they sought out other conversations, building traffic for no other reason than because they channelled their thoughts into the comments of others (link love), fueling a never-ending conversation that systematically leads them towards a conversational anti-climax they knew was coming anyway.
Boy does this system get you noticed (and ranked).
But what exactly is the point?
In my book, the only things that ignite and build genuine interest either have a start and a finish or, at the very least, a sense of purpose. Anything else is just a scratched record, with clicks replaced by links that, sooner or later, take you back to where you started.
For my job, the Edelman/Vista fiasco had a start and a finish and it was an amazing experience to be in the middle. Following and countering the adverse PR for my client was an education in syndication management. The bickering about who got the damned Ferrari notebooks and who didn’t frankly didn’t light my pipe at all.
So where’s the link with Hugh? Hugh writes passionately about purpose in the epic “How to be Creative” article.
“One evening, after one false start too many, I just gave up. Sitting at a bar, feeling a bit burned out by work and life in general, I just started drawing on the back of business cards for no reason. I didn’t really need a reason. I just did it because it was there, because it amused me in a kind of random, arbitrary way.
Of course it was stupid. Of course it was uncommercial. Of course it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Of course it was a complete and utter waste of time. But in retrospect, it was this built-in futility that gave it its edge. Because it was the exact opposite of all the “Big Plans” my peers and I were used to making.
It was so liberating not to have to be thinking about all that, for a change.
It was so liberating to be doing something that didn’t have to impress anybody, for a change.
It was so liberating to have something that belonged just to me and no one else, for a change.
It was so liberating to feel complete sovereignty, for a change. To feel complete freedom, for a change.
And of course, it was then, and only then, that the outside world started paying attention.”
I just walked that same path with my wife and our Runaway Parents and Genitori in Fuga projects. The fact is, it’s got nothing at all to do with what we do, but everything about who we really are.
There’s a different flavour to projects you have, to use Hugh’s words, “complete sovereignty over”.
“The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will. How your own sovereignty inspires other people to find their own sovereignty, their own sense of freedom and possibility, will change the world far more than the work’s objective merits ever will.
Your idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours alone. The more the idea is yours alone, the more freedom you have to do something really amazing.”
Writing about who you are also puts what you do into perspective, draining some of its ultimate value perhaps, but forcing you to put your long-term strategy into perspective.
Even if you still can’t resist that one last link to someone further up the tree who absolutely, without question has something interesting to say about the state of the
-
Loading ... - 1 Comment
- Print this
If what goes around comes around, when it comes back, whose is it?
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on May 10th, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Copywriting
As you can probably tell from my silence, May has so far proven to have been one hell of a month.
I’m not sure what’s more worrying, the fact that I’m still in one piece, or that May’s no where near over yet.
It’s had some interesting twists, a few hiccups and more than the odd surprise, but the result was/is breathtaking. It all started back in mid- April, when we were handed the Gemstone concept to work on. It was quite big move for Acer but, and I stand by this, a very astute one.
In essence, Acer has decided to take its “solutions provider” reputation to the next level by bringing in a subsidiary of BMW AG called BMW DesignworksUSA to review the industrial design of its notebooks. Have a look at the Wikipedia definition and you’ll see why this was a good thing.
With Santarosa not due until the 10th (today) and the products expected at the end of May we had some margin, but not much. Then, HQ brought the launch forward to the 3rd and all hell broke loose.
In little more than 2 weeks I produced an Acer signature design blueprint that would be used to anchor the concepts, wrote “design” brochures for both product lines, got the websites prepared, wrote a 15-page Acer News special design edition, a 30 minute presentation speech for senior management covering all design, product and commercial aspects and support material, press releases, invites, and a host of marketing collateral while the graphics department went to work on the show itself.
If that wasn’t enough, the day after the presentation we set to work on the Santarosa material. This time all that was needed were two generic product brochure body texts and two headlines that were to be used as a basis for the mini-site. Oh, and two press releases. Those were all published today.
Santarosa’s here, so now we’re working on the products themselves. This is endless.
The best part about working with this client is trying to satisfy the demanding needs of the OEMs. Intel, Microsoft, AMD and Ferrari are all very wary about what you can and can’t say about products they’re associated with, and learning how they think is key to getting things approved and published so fast.
Today I got a real kick. When Merom came out, I suggested we link the “Dual” core concept to a message of “more than twice the fun”. Wow! Everyone liked it. Except Intel who rejected it on the grounds that “dual” did not mean “double”.
I insisted (I got the mails to prove it). I lost. Oh well. Tomorrow’s another day.
Then on Monday I opened the Intel Santarosa messaging guidelines for consumer products and what was the first message that leaped out at me? “More than twice the fun”.
Funny that eh?
-
Loading ...
- 0 Comments
- Print this
Inspired by a Blue Monster
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 23rd, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Copywriting, Gab Gab Gab
I love it when this happens.
Lately I’ve been starting early and finishing waaay too late to be having any fun. My brain is so focused I’ve actually lost my peripheral sense of humour and have noticed I have iTunes playing less often. Productivity? Exhaustion? I don’t know as I don’t have any grey matter left over to give it any thought.
Anyway, like I said I work late. Tonight’s no exception and I’m having a hard time being creative. I’ve been writing almost non-stop for two weeks flat and my inspirations are drying up faster than I can type.
At times like these I usually start doing something I’d more or less given up. This time around I got back on my bike. Ahh, my beautiful Look 486. 8kgs of pure rocket science. 50km a day is enough to clear the mind (and lower the scales).
But not right now. Right now it’s dark and going out on the bike wouldn’t resolve anything as I need to be creative. Which leads me nicely to where this story is going. Click here, click there and I found myself being drip-fed some Hugh MacLeod.
Better yet I found myself watching a video about Hugh’s finest work, The Blue Monster.
Microsoft has a story to tell. My clients have a story to tell. I have a story to tell. This is well worth a watch if you don’t think you do.
-
Loading ...
- 1 Comment
- Print this
More Net Neutrality videos
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on March 26th, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Gab Gab Gab, Problems
More on the Net Neutrality debate.
Keep your eye on this.
-
Loading ...
- 0 Comments
- Print this
Net Neutrality - coming to a server near you.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on March 26th, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Gab Gab Gab, Problems, Social Media
I had no idea this was on the cards.
Just as I started to believe in the power of the many, it looks like some of the few have very different plans for the future of the Internet.
Spread the word.
-
Loading ...
- 0 Comments
- Print this
No going back now
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on March 23rd, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Copywriting, Gab Gab Gab, Internet Marketing, Problems, Search Engine Marketing
It’s a fascinating moment for me.
On the one hand I’ve got a great job. Copywriting - and in particular freelance copywriting - has given me both the insight and education that lets me put my thoughts and feelings into words as well as the time, freedom and inclination to explore the outer reaches of web life.
At ‘work’ I have been busy drafting the story behind a few upcoming product launches with various success. I have been studying various ways of approaching the thorny subject of internal communication and recruitment. On top of all this, I have also been looking into creating the master content of a series of web strategies so that the text is both easy to translate and effective across 7 key European markets.
Not a dull moment then.
But just like anyone with time management problems, I have also been distracted by what has in the past been called “blind ambition” but now goes by the name of a “challenge”.
You see ever since I stumbled across the letters, S, E and O, I have been drawn to their power - the fact that words, chosen carefully, could actually change the geography and relevancy of search engine results.
Then there was what you could actually do once you had uncovered this secret. White Hat is my natural colour of choice, of course, but nevertheless these three letters have unquestionably permitted some fortunate few to exploit a system to the detriment of the many.
These letters also have a more sinister side: they alienate you from the “real” world around you. I recently brought to my multi-billion dollar client’s attention that there was precious little activity on their site from any of the search engines. I even went as far as to recommend reformulating their web strategies not only to generate new traffic streams from natural search engine results but also to build enough reputation throughout the entire site to change the formula used by my client when linking to its resellers.
I got a big bunch of nods, a number of smiles and quite a few “wow we had no idea”s but never heard from them again about it. Meanwhile my client continues to pour truckloads of money into individual projects which, because they are disjointed from the overall core principles and are void of any shared values, detract from the performance of the site as a whole.
Ugh!
Either SEO (and SEM for that matter) is still in its infancy outside the US or I’m starting to be earn a reputation as a lunatic.
Best thing is to start my own business and boy do I have a few ideas knocking around. Thing is even then when I talk to friends and neighbours about them, even some who have offered to invest, the “big picture”always remains a few feet out of reach, as if what I see happening across the world in blogs, media companies and other online industries is merely a figment of my imagination, or just part of a game I’m playing all by myself.
‘Slow world’ meets the ‘fast world’, as an Italian web specialist once said, is when those living in a world fed by mainstream media have to deal with the lightning fast reactions of those of us who have chosen a more democratic, if slightly more volatile, path online. It’s never a pretty site and we (fasties) always come out worse off.
The question of whether to continue or go back is a rhetorical one. However the answer opens up a whole new debate: Then what?
I have ordered the near future into challenges I have to face:
- I want and need to master the art of RSS as I believe RSS technology is what’s needed to create the world’s most advanced e-learning platform.
- I believe that niche communities and experience aggregators are the key to entrepreneurial success in a Web 2.0 world. Jeremy’s “No Money in Web Advertising” articles have been instrumental in this decision.
- I believe strongly in a healthy relationship between paid content and free services. E-learning, for example, is an ideal platform to experiment with both.
Each of the above is a open project I’d like to see up and running by the end of the year and if there are any talented writers, teachers or programmers reading this, I could probably bring that forward quite some way.
Want to know why I got buzzed today. Because I read this, then watched it here.
Oh and Jeremy, if you’re reading, I’ll be in touch soon - or you will… 
-
Loading ...
- 0 Comments
- Print this
Recent Comments