Phil Simon's Blog, page 93

Why I’m Bullish on WordPress

Originally published on HuffPo.

You may not have heard of WordPress, but if you surf the web every day, you’re almost certainly using it. As of this writing, it powers an astonishing 66 million websites, including those of many mainstream media outlets like Forbes, CNN, and Reuters. (I personally run seven WordPress sites. My moderation issues are fodder for another time.) What’s more, WordPress is increasingly making inroads in enterprise IT.

Over the weekend, the content management system celebrated its ten-year anniversary. Around the globe, hundreds of events marked the occasion, and I attended a meetup near my home in Las Vegas.

Mulling the Future

I for one am very bullish on its future. I can’t wait to see what happens with WordPress over the next ten years.

Now, that might seem strange. I have no crystal ball. We are living in a time in which it’s never been tougher to make accurate, long-term predictions about technology and business. The tech landscape is littered with ostensibly intractable behemoths like MySpace, AOL, RIM, HP, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others that have recently fallen from grace. Even erstwhile Wall Street darling Apple qualifies. So why such optimism?

Today, for an independent product, service, or company to survive (much less thrive), at least two things need to happen. First, its founder–or founders–needs to be committed to its long-term future. Second, that product, company, or service needs to keep evolving, and quickly at that.

With respect to the former, Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg does not appear to be interested in cashing out. Sure, the temptation exists, especially with Yahoo’s $1.1B acquisition of Tumblr. From all accounts, however, Mullenweg is not out for the quick buck. He has big plans for the platform and, make no mistake, that’s exactly what WordPress is.

The Power of Platforms and Ecosystems

In the Age of the Platform, success is less about what an individual company’s management wants. Rather, stickiness and continued relevance hinge upon where its users and customers want the product or service to go. To this end, WordPress sports one of the most passionate and robust ecosystems in the world. Countless bloggers, web designers, trainers, premium hosting companies like WPEngine, and software developers make their living off of WordPress.

These people and organizations are indispensable. They extend WordPress’s core functionality. They take it new directions. This ecosystem allow Automattic to do so much with so few employees (roughly 150, according to the company’s Wikipedia page.) Scott Berkun’s forthcoming book delves more into the unique culture at Automattic.

Of course, success is hardly guaranteed. We may look back at WordPress as the predecessor of something bigger and better.

Don’t bet on it, though. WordPress does not appear to be complacent. And, more important, it is incredibly democratic. New functionality is added all of the time. New plug-ins and themes appear daily. Anyone who wants to start a WordPress project or site can.

Thank you, WordPress. Here’s to the next ten years.

Summer Las Vegas’ Speaking Events

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be speaking at the following events this summer:

05.29.2013 – I’ll be speaking at Ignite Vegas.

06.07.2013 – I’ll be hosting a writing and publishing day-long seminar in Las Vegas. For more info, click here.

06.14.2013 – I’ll be keynoting a TechCocktail event in Las Vegas. More information to come soon.

 

My Interview with Mark Kelly of Marillion

Originally published on HuffingtonPost. Click here to read the article there.

Mark Kelly knows a thing or thirty about the music industry. He’s served as keyboardist of the English band Marillion for more than three decades. Today, few musicians have his perspective on the business of music.

For instance, for the last few years, crowdfunding and sites like Kickstarter have been all the rage. Kelly and his band recognized the vast potential of the Internet a remarkable fifteen years ago. Marillion was one of–if not the–first group to reach out directly to its fans via the Internet. Marillion used the burgeoning platform to fund his band’s twelfth studio album, Anoraknophobia.

To call Kelly eerily prescient would be a vast understatement. I sat down with him to talk about crowdfunding platforms, the fairness of royalties from superscription music sites like Pandora, and a few other subjects.

Here are some highlights from our discussion.

PS: Do you want to give a quick band update?

MK: There’s not much to talk about, really. We recently finished our run of Marillion weekends we do every couple of years. After that the plan was for everyone to do their own thing. I know that Pete is out in the States working with Transatlantic. Steve H has some shows coming up in August. I’ve been doing various things, industry-related stuff. I’m also trying to fit in some solo album writing as well. Marillion is off until September when we’ll go back in the studio to start work the next album..

PS: Can you talk a little bit about some of the streaming services like Pandora? Are some more friendly than others?

MK: It’s quite a complicated subject. I’m sorry if I get a little technical here. I might lose a few people here. For starters, we don’t have access to Pandora in the UK because of licensing restrictions. As a service, from a punter’s point of view, I think Pandora’s great, as is Spotify. But we know that many artists are unhappy about the amount of money they get paid. A lot of people make the mistake of comparing Spotify to Pandora because they’re both Internet music services, but they’re very different. With Spotify, you can listen to a particular song at the time and place of your choosing.. With Pandora, you can only listen to music in very general terms, like a genre. It’s not the same thing. Pandora’s much more like a radio station.

If you look at what you get paid via Pandora (relative to terrestrial radio station), it’s far more per listener, per play. The USA is one of the few countries of the world that doesn’t pay artists when their songs are played on the radio. They pay writers but they don’t pay performers.

PS: So, streaming is here to stay?

MK: I think that streaming is the future of music consumption. The Apple model of downloads is a stepping stone technology. It satisfies that need for people to own something. We’ve gone from physical CDs to downloads. People are getting used to the idea that the Internet is not going away and that paying to have access to–rather than to own–music, is ok.

PS: About 40 songs are downloaded illegally for every legal download. To combat the rampant piracy, Marillion has done some innovative things with crowdfunding. You guys were way ahead of the curve.

MK: It’s so hard to make a judgment on what damage illegal downloading has done to the industry. We know that piracy has done some financial damage, as has unbundling albums on iTunes. Just to be clear, though, illegal downloading is bad for the industry. Free downloading from the artist can be a good thing–and we’ve done that ourselves.

PS: While the Internet hurts certain artists, Marillion has shown that it can also help.

MK: The Internet saved us, really. We were in a position in 1997 where our manager said to us that we would have to find something else to do for six months out of the year because Marillion wasn’t earning enough money to carry on paying the sort of money that we were used to. We then sacked the manager. We emailed the 6000 fans on our database to ask, “Would you buy the album in advance?” most replied “yes.” We took over 12,000 pre-orders and went on to use the money to fund the writing and recording of the album. That was the crowdfunding model that has been so successfully imitated by many others including the most successful, Kickstarter. With success comes unwanted attention. In the music industry we have a saying “where there’s a hit, there’s a writ.”

Currently there’s a legal battle going on between Kickstarter and a company called Artist Share–a company that most people probably haven’t heard of. Artist Share filed a patent for the idea of crowdfunding in 2003. In the UK you can’t patent an idea like that but apparently in the US you can. It seems like a bit of a stretch, really. Crowdfunding goes back further than the internet.. Joseph Pulitzer (of Pulitzer Prize fame) made a plea in the New York Times, for donations to build a plinth for the Statue of Liberty over one hundred years ago. It goes to show there is nothing new under the sun.

To watch some of our conversation, see below:

What Public Speakers Can Learn from Comedians

The most effective speakers occasionally don’t speak at all. They pause. They let their words resonate with the audience.

Watch professional comedians and you’ll notice that they do this quite a bit. For my money, no one uses silence better than Dennis Miller.

Take a listen below from his HBO special Mr. Miller Goes to Washington. A few highlights:

At 8:10 in, he talks about IHOP.
At 11:15, he talks about Big Gulps.

Track 1 by Dennis Miller on Grooveshark

In each case, the silence absolutely makes the joke.

Simon Says

Far too often at conferences, I hear speakers who fear silence. They always have to be saying something. Anything.

Don’t make this mistake. Embrace the silence. Pause strategically and for effect. You’ll be amazed at the results.

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On Euphemisms and Speaking Directly

Few people had such command of the English language as George Carlin. While I didn’t always agree with his politics, I admired him immensely as a speaker. To this day, his speaking style informs my own to a great extent.

Watch the first two minutes of this clip and you’ll see what I mean.

Shell shock became post-traumatic stress disorder.

Simon Says

Today, there’s no shortage of horrible jargon and superfluous terms in the business world. Using form factor in lieu of more banal terms like size or shape may seem impressive. It’s not. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using simple language. In fact, you’ll probably find that it makes you sound smarter.

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Folding the Best Hand: A Tech Strategy Lesson

In poker, sometimes you wind up folding the best hand. In certain situations, it just doesn’t make sense to call, even if you might have the best hand. While some people have a problem leaving money on the table, advanced poker strategy requires trade-offs like this to advance the greater good.

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I was thinking about that the other day in the context of IBM exiting the PC business in May of 2006. (It turns out that the company may do the same with servers.) Were there critics at the time? You bet. Ultimately, however, it turned out to be the right move. There’s just more money to be made in services and more advanced hardware (read: Watson-like devices).

Fast forward seven years. PC sales are plummeting. What’s more, they will probably get worse in 2013 and beyond. Windows 8 hasn’t revitalized sales. In fact, some people blame the newly released operating system for exacerbating the decline of the industry.

Whether that’s true is anyone’s guess. Still, do you think the top brass at both Dell and HP wish that their companies had been so prescient? How much would each give to turn back the clock? Today, each company is trapped with no easy solution. It can’t get away from the very thing that it ought to be getting away from. It’s a classic case of Innovator’s Dilemma.

Simon Says

Business is always uncertain. Changing your company’s business model, retiring legacy applications and technologies, launching new products, or establishing new partnerships all inhere significant risks. The era of Big Data has not eliminated uncertainty and risk–nor will it.

There’s a larger lesson here for technology strategy: Sometimes you need to exit a profitable business although you’re leaving money on the table. It’s not unlike folding the best hand in poker. Losing the occasional battle is necessary if you want to win the war.

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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Are You Talking At Your Audience?

If you were having a conversation with two or three people, you would probably look them in the eyes. You would react to their verbal and non-verbal cues. You would engage them. If you did not, then you wouldn’t be talking to them; you’d be talking “at” them–and that’s generally not a good idea.

There’s no reason that you can’t do the same basic thing while on stage. Now, don’t get me wrong. Making eye contact with five people is much easier than with 500, but the same principles apply.

While presenting, I find friendly faces in the first few rows and engage them. It just feels more like a conversation, more natural. I observe their reactions and ask myself questions like:

Do they seem to be responding to my message?
Do they laugh when I make a joke?
Are they nodding their heads in agreement?
What’s the overall vibe?
And, most important, are they looking up at me or down at their doohickeys?

Of course, this method represents just a sample of the audience. My talk might fascinate the people in the first few rows while bore the hell out of people in the back. Generally speaking, however, this isn’t likely to be the case.

Simon Says

If you’re talking to people, then you’re not talking “at” them. Big difference.

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Maybe I Am a Social Media Expert

Like countless others, about four years ago I started using social media. To use it effectively, I did what I always do: I educated myself. I read a bunch of blog posts and a few books. (Trust Agents was helpful.) I attended conferences and spoke to smart cookies.

It didn’t take long for me to get the hang out it. Understand that less is more. Don’t tweet every 8 seconds. Hashtags were useful. Avoid link bait. Not exactly rocket science.

Change the behavior and you’ll probably change the outcome.

Yet I didn’t like calling myself a social media expert. The term just seemed pretentious, and there were plenty of poseurs claiming to be experts because they knew how to set up a Facebook fan page. Plus, I didn’t spend all of my time on social media. I fancied myself a business and technology guy, not a Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn specialist.

These days, though, I’m reevaluating things. I see far too many companies fail to abide by generally accepted social media practices. I’m talking about using Twitter and Facebook in downright spammy ways. Some will tweet but fail to include the Twitter handles of the people who wrote the very article about which they’re tweeting. And then there are the questionable calls to action.

Maybe I really am a social media expert?

Simon Says

It seems so basic to me. If you want to use a tool effectively, learn how. In my experience, people and companies who fail to see the benefits from social media are probably making some fundamental mistakes. Change the behavior and you’ll probably change the outcome.

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Do You Need to Use Slides?

When was the last time that you saw someone give a presentation or talk without slides? I’ll bet that you’ll have to think about that one.

While extremely common these days, slides are certainly not a requirement to give any talk—even an effective one. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The origins of PowerPoint date back to 1984, and many engaging talks took place prior to that. In a low-tech environment like a coffee shop, you might not even have access to a projector, screen, proper A/V system, and the like.

While common today, slides are certainly not required.

Many TED talks are given by people who opt not to use them, although visuals and pictures can have an enormous impact on the audience.

On a personal level, on more than one occasion I’ve turned down the opportunity to speak with slides. Perhaps it was the contrarian in me, but sometimes I just wasn’t feeling the need to use a proper presentation program. They seemed forced. Why use slides when you’re going to speak for a mere five or ten minutes? For my upcoming keynote in Toronto, however, slides seem completely appropriate.

Simon Says

Not using slides can distinguish you from other speakers. They definitely make you appear more corporate. Depending on the event, that can be either a positive or a negative. If you opt to use slides, here are some useful rules of thumb.

On Narcissism and Business Etiquette

Narcissus was a hunter from the territory of Thespiae in Boeotia who was renowned for his beauty. He was exceptionally proud, in that he disdained those who loved him. As divine punishment he fell in love with his own reflection in a pool, not realizing it was merely an image, and he wasted away to death, not being able to leave the beauty of his own reflection.

Narcissus Lives

I often meet Narcissus in the business world. Consider a few personal examples over the last few years.

Before I started writing and doing public speaking, I used to deal with recruiters who needed to fill contract positions. More often than not, they needed me to drop everything I was doing to get them what they needed. At first, I would oblige, only to either never hear back or have to track them down to find out that the position was now closed. Some would even contact me months later oblivious to how poorly they behaved.

In 2011, I had to get the head of a marketing agency a proposal by the end of the day. The agency needed my help for blogging and social media for one of its blue-chip clients. I provided a detailed quote later that day because, to quote the woman, “the client needs to find someone immediately.” What then? Crickets. It took several emails on my end to find out that the agency went in a different direction.

I had been in touch with someone to run a piece on The New Small in 2011. I would answer his questions, give him what he needed, and then never hear back. All of a sudden, when the person needed “filler” content for his blog, I was the flavor of the month again.

Simon Says

The inconsiderate make a conscious choice to ignore you when they no longer have a use for you. Ultimately, however, they do themselves a disservice: They lose credibility with you–and the opportunity to work with you again.

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