Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 263

(Almost) No One Is Seeing Your Content

Certainly, this is not the most optimistic headline you are going to read on January 1st, 2014.

We used to tell ourselves a very powerful narrative about how the cream always rises to the top, and the struggle that most brands face when it comes to content marketing and social media is that they struggle to find a true sense of human-ness in the content that they are creating. How many brands can produce stories that people would want to (no, have to!) share? We seem to believe that the brands that are finding any type of success with this stuff are going big (skydiving from outer space, delivering gifts via baggage claim to unsuspecting airline passengers, etc...) and delivering on the production of great stories (one after the other). That bubble was (somewhat) popped by the issue of content distribution strategies. No matter how great the content is, it needs a meaningful distribution strategy behind it to convert into something truly valuable (more on that here: The Failing State Of Content Marketing). So many brands actually have great content, but have a sub-par content distribution strategy where the vast majority of the work resides behind their own walled garden.

Now, even if you have a great story to tell, it could be that no one even knows that you exist. 

Do you find that hard to believe? Before moving forward, please read these two (short) articles:

(Almost) No One Is Reading Your Tweets.

While Everyone Else Whines, This Guy Makes His Whole Living Off Facebook Traffic.

We need Twitter and we need Facebook.

Twitter and Facebook (and there are many others) are no-longer "like to haves" for brands. If a brand is not present on these social media channels, there is a commonly held sentiment that they are simply uncaring or non-present in their consumers' lives. While that is an arguable statement, it is undeniable that consumers now take to social media for resolution, information and more from brands. Some brands can harness these communications channels with ease and others grapple with it on a constant basis. Regardless, anybody in the marketing world would agree that these two channels alone reach a vast audience of customers and potential customers. So yes, they are important. Still, Twitter and Facebook are both faced with a similar business predicament that has yet to be resolved. On the one hand, they must protect the sanctity of their consumers by ensuring that their respective feeds don't become overly polluted with marketing and advertising messages. On the other hand, they are a business and must generate significant revenue to please investors and the public.

This is where we wind up.

No, Twitter and Facebook don't have the same business or consumer challenges, but these two instances point to one massive problem for brands: if these (and other) media channels continually tweak and throttle the content or misrepresent what gets seen by who, this instability will not play well with brands, media companies and advertising agencies. On the Facebook front, if brands have invested significant dollars to acquire and build relationships, but Facebook decides to pick and choose what gets shown to these individuals, marketers will have an issue. On the Twitter front, if almost all of the tweets are all but ignored, what is the exact business proposition to the brand?

Next steps.

If we wind up trying to "trick the system" by using off-channel techniques (like paying people to like and retweet or having some kind of agreement with a handful of other groups to always like or retweet their content in exchange for the same action), we're missing the bigger point to everything. Social media enables brands to have real interactions with real human beings. I struggle to understand why the media, the advertisers and the media companies try to over-complicate this. Facebook would not have to throttle content if consumers weren't complaining about the vast majority of it being sucky. It's not Twitter's fault that it became a massive (and noisy) place to post 140 characters. The issue here is not what Facebook or Twitter have become. The issue is that Facebook and Twitter (and others) have not bended to the way in which advertisers would prefer. If people using social media were getting tremendous value from all of this content marketing, we would not be faced with either of these issues. What we're actually seeing is something that we've known about media for a very long time (but always want to forget): consumers aren't consuming media for brands. They want moments of connectivity, delight and communication. Sure, that may include a brand at some point along the way, but it's not their raison d'être.

Fair is fair.

If I were Facebook, I would open up the pipe. I would let users see and feel all of the content that everyone is posting and let them make their own choices about who they want to friend and like. If I were Twitter, I would do the same thing, but I would also allow consumers to time-shift the content. One of the biggest issues with Twitter is the real-time component of it. I may love following someone in the UK, but I'm usually asleep when they're tweeting away. If I got their tweets adjusted to my own time zone, I may have a chance of getting more of these message through. Some of the brands having the most success on Twitter will schedule one tweet to repeat itself multiple times throughout the day to adjust, but that just seems like too much work and annoying for those who are actively paying attention. Consumers are smart. They will stay connected to those brands that are adding value. It's pretty simple. The reason we have so much disconnect, trust issues and this ongoing throttling is that the companies like Twitter and Facebook don't want to have people abandoning the channel because the content isn't working for the users. We can wax poetic about this forever, but the facts remain the facts: brands are spending a ton of money, time and energy with social media and someone else is deciding what stuff gets seen by those who have already agreed to be connected.

If that doesn't tell you something about the state of content marketing and social media, I don't know what does.

Tags:

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brand narrative

communications

connectivity

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content distribution

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content marketing

customer service

facebook

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media

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publishing

social media

social media channel

storytelling

twitter

My 3 Words For 2014

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2014. What's your plan?

I was never a fan of goal-setting... and even less of a fan of New Year's Resolutions. For a long while, I was working within a framework called The Goal Cultivator courtesy of Dan Sullivan (aka The Strategic Coach). I felt like his perspective on goal cultivating versus goal setting was a new paradigm, and - in looking back at those initial exercises - it's amazing to see how profound that experience was in shaping my present-day situation (special thanks to my dear friend, Barry Pascal, for introducing me to the work of The Strategic Coach). Every year, Chris Brogan (Trust Agents, The Impact Equation, etc...) does an exercise he calls, My 3 Words For The Year. Brogan explains it like this: "In an effort to tell bigger stories, I've found that the concept of three words allows me to think in more dimensions about what I want to do with my life and it lets me apply lots of tangible goals instead of what most people do when they focus on just a finite task. It's a bit like turbo-charged goal planning." He unveils how his process for coming up with his three words for the year and unveils them on January 1st of each new year.

Going public.

I've been doing this exercise ever since Brogan first introduced it. Each year, around December - without prompting - I find myself starting to think about my three words. The pressure is on. It's a good pressure, but it's pressure. All of us hope to do more, be more and achieve more. Nailing it down to three words is always a welcome challenge. This year, I have decided to make them public (as I did last year). Part of the work that I did within The Goal Cultivator program proved to me that "putting it out there" makes it real, tangible and easier to focus on. So, here's goes everything...

My 3 Words For 2014

Lose. I hate to lose. We all hate to lose. You will hear people say that all of the greats have lost more often than they have won. I still want to "win." Badly. In 2014, I'm going to think deeply about the moments when things don't work out the way I had hoped or wished for. I'm going to try to get through the mourning period quicker by forecasting the lessons of loss in a more pragmatic and less emotional way. Still, that's one of the smaller reasons I chose "lose" as one of my words. In fact, I need to lose a lot of things in 2014. From a couple of pounds (who doesn't need to lose that?) to the bad habits that I picked up last year of not reading enough books. This year, I'm going to lose many more tiny and nuanced changes I have had in my professional career and adjust them more than ever. "Lose" to me represents the same thinking as working with an editor (which, I sadly only get to do on bigger writing projects like a book or submitting a piece to the Harvard Business Review). I am going to do my best to lose and edit a lot of my current work tactics in an effort to "sharpen the sword" and gain more efficiency. Time to lose a bunch of stuff in 2014 that wasn't working for me in 2013, and embrace the fact that to lose is a set-up shot for the rest of the game, when played well and accepted.

Win. A long time ago, one of my business partners at Twist Image once told me that it doesn't matter whether you win or lose every new business pitch, but rather that you keep on going. If you look, historically, at some of the greatest marketing agencies that our world has ever seen, it is not the ones that won the most pitches that have survived and thrived. It is the ones that became resilient and just kept on going (not winning over time, but winning enough to grow). Granted, this great piece of advice came from the same individual who often reminds me that they don't get out of bed in the morning to "break even," and this is the same individual who used to have a sign up in their old office that read: "Be brilliant. Be brief. Be gone." The message is clear: we need to win more. Not that  I didn't have enough "wins" in the past, and not that I don't love to win, but winning more in the sense of crossing a symbolic finish line not by inching my hand across it, but with a smile and a sense of abundance. This is also about taking a moment to celebrate the good stuff too. It's about doing enough training and practice, so that you don't just get something done, but rather you feel like you have won at the task or effort. This notion of "win" can probably best be summed up by thinking about the title of Todd Henry's latest book on creativity titled, Die Empty. To me, winning will be about dying empty. Leaving it all out there and making sure that it was the best that I could do.

Stop. I don't stop often enough. To breathe. To play some electric bass. To read more. To look you in the eyes and have a meaningful conversation. To have breakfast with old friends. To go for a long and unplanned walk. To be "in the moment" instead of thinking about what's coming next. This is a simple extension of what James Altucher would call "time traveling." It's something we all do. And we do it often. We stress over things that happened in the past, or we worry about what could potentially go wrong in the future and all this does is cause us worry, anxiety and damage in the present. We can't control or do anything about our past or a future that does not yet exist, so we "time travel" instead of living in the present with purpose and mindfulness. Stop. 2014 will provide many more instances for me to stop. Yes, even to stop and smell the roses.

What three words will you focus on in 2014?

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lose

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new business pitch

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reading books

the goal cultivator

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todd henry

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Finding Your Creative Confidence

I used to play the bass.

Not the fish. The musical instrument. The electric bass, to be exact. It wasn't just a hobby, either. I took it quite seriously. When I was much younger (around 14 years of age), I decided to forgo a summer vacation with my high school class to work in a warehouse packing make-up, just so I could afford my first electric bass (a new one... as I was already tinkering with a used one). I played throughout high school in multiple bands and even studied music in a post-secondary institution for several years. I wasn't the next Jaco Pastorius, but I loved the four strings. I've always kept music floating around the house and office. Random acoustic guitars, some of my older basses and beyond. My favorite bass was a Spector NS2B that I got in the late eighties. I don't even have a case for it anymore (no idea where that went), but it has followed me for close to two decades. I don't play it much anymore... and I haven't changed the strings in forever.

Then, I got embarrassed. 

We had our annual Twist Image holiday party a few weeks back and our amazing team pulled together a house party-theme for this year's event. It was held in our Montreal office, featured local fare and a live house band. Two of my three business partners are musicians and they decided to jam. They (and some of the other team members) urged me to join them, but I couldn't. I had not played in so long that I wasn't even sure if I knew the notes (let alone the chops to do a simple walking bass line). I was mad at myself. Not because I didn't jam with the boys, but because I wasn't sure if I had lost my chops or my creative confidence. Can you forget how to play bass or is it as silly as thinking that you can forget how to speak if you're silent for a really long time?

It's all about creative confidence.

With the holiday break upon us, I blew the dust off of my Spector bass and started fiddling with it. Wouldn't you know it, it didn't take all that long until the feeling, fun and joy of playing the bass came back. It's hard to play that bass and not smile... and, that's when it hit me. Music is still a powerful, pervasive and creative force in my life, but sadly it's one that I have not been nurturing. I brought the bass down to Steve's Music Store for a tune-up. It turns out that my little patient may have died on the operating table (too many years of neglect), so I decided to buy a new electric bass (and I'll keep the old one as a souvenir). I plan on taking some lessons... maybe even jam with some others at some point in the future (any takers? ;).

This isn't about New Year's Resolutions.

The serendipity of life can be fascinating. In the process of reviving my interest in the electric bass and playing music, I just so happen to be reading the book, Creative Confidence, by IDEO's David Kelley and Tom Kelley. It's a book based on the notion that all of us are creative. It's what human beings are, but we suppress or disguise our creativity. The Kelley brothers think of creativity as "using your imagination to create something new in the world," and they are passionate about empathy (when you understand your fellow human being) as one of the major gateways to gaining that creative confidence. They're also passionate about the fact that all of us - no matter how mundane our jobs may be - have been creative (and that we should be doing more of it). Now, along with reading Creative Confidence, I also found myself on YouTube, randomly watching videos from some of the bass players that influenced my love of the instrument when I was younger. It's not an exhaustive list, but Victor Wooten holds a coveted spot on that list. As I was grazing through some of his instructional and performance clips, I came across a TEDx talk that he gave at TEDxGabriolaIsland  in March of this year. As a long-time TEDster, I felt my world's colliding again. Wooten's talk is titled, Music As A Language, and it stopped me dead in my tracks. Beyond his passion to teach music and play music, Wooten touches on so many important themes in this 18 minute talk.

You don't have to love the electric bass to love this line of thinking.

It doesn't matter if you are a musician or not, please watch Victor Wooten's talk. His lessons about life, success, creativity, learning, passion, permission and smiling are profound. I promise. I'm going to smile a lot more in the office, when I write these blog posts, when I speak on stage and in everything that I do. I think you will too...

Tags:

acoustic guitar

bass

bass line

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business book

creative

creative confidence

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creativity

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electric bass

empathy

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ideo

imagination

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learning

music

music as a language

musical instrument

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passion

smile

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spector ns2b bass

steves music store

success

ted

ted talk

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tedx

tedx gabriola island

tedx talk

tom kelley

twist image

victor wooten

youtube

When Customers Attack

Episode #390 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

I have been friends (and following) Paul Gillen for years. Back when I was giving some of the first full-day social media seminars to marketing professionals, his book, The New Influencers, was part of the recommended reading list. Gillen stayed connected to the intersection of social media, marketing and has a focus on the B2B landscape. The New Influencers came out in 2007 and Gillen has been prolific since that one was published. He wrote Secrets Of Social Media Marketing in 2008, The Joy of Geocaching with his wife in 2010,  Social Marketing To The Business Customer with Eric Schwartzman in 2011, and most recently, Attack Of The Customers. I'm thrilled that the veteran technology journalist agreed to talk about all things digital with me. Enjoy the conversation... 

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #390.

Tags:

advertising podcast

attack of the customers

b2b marketing

b2b social media marketing

blog

blogging

brand

business book

business podcast

content marketing

david usher

digital marketing

eric schwartzman

facebook

itunes

marketing blogger

marketing podcast

marketing professional

paul gillen

podcast

podcasting

secrets of social media marketing

social marketing to the business customer

social media

social media seminar

the joy of geocaching

the new influencers

twitter

video podcast

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #184

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

High Frequency Dating - Mostly Harmless . "Rob Rhinehart wonders just how much of the act of dating can be handed over to machines. Not politically correct, and maybe a bit NSFW, but definitely good satire. Besides, it's the holidays, and you shouldn't be working anyway." (Alistair for Hugh).

Solitude And Leadership - The American Scholar . "Leaders do strange things. They get up early. They spend a lot of time thinking, and are very deliberate in their decisions. This piece by William Deresiewicz, delivered at West Point in 2009, underscores the importance of solitude and contemplation. As the holiday season descends upon us, many of us will disconnect from our daily flood of data and interruption. Maybe this is a reason not to reconnect quite as much after the holidays." (Alistair for Mitch).

The 13 Best Books of 2013: The Definitive Annual Reading List of Overall Favorites - Brain Pickings . "Maria Popova picks her best books of the year." (Hugh for Alistair).

Our Thirteen Most-Read Blog Posts Of 2013 - The New Yorker . "A lazy week of links. The New Yorker's 13 most read blog posts of 2013." (Hugh for Mitch).

How The Sex Pistols Saved Christmas - Dangerous Minds . "Is there anything I could possible say that might get you to click on this piece more than that title? If it were mere linkbait, it might be an act of frustration. It isn't. Just a little piece of a fantastic story that most people don't know about a band that had a crazed reputation. See, even the most metal of metal bands or the most punk of punk bands have a warm heart beneath the tattered t-shirts, piercings, leather, addictions and spit." (Mitch for Alistair).

Li Hongbo Explains His Flexible Paper Sculptures - Colossal . "Well, if we do stop using paper to print books, magazines and newspapers, I think Li Hongbo has an idea of a magical way to rethink what paper is and what it is used for. This is one of those pieces that will have you marveling not just at one individual's creativity, but that these stories may not have nay sense of longevity were it not for the Internet." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

Tags:

alistair croll

bitcurrent

book a futurists manifesto

brain pickings

colossal

complete web monitoring

dangerous minds

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hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

li hongbo

librivox

link bait

link exchange

link sharing

managing bandwidth

maria popova

media hacks

mostly harmless

pressbooks

rob rhinehart

social media

solve for interesting

the american scholar

the new yorker

the sex pistols

william deresiewicz

year one labs

Choosing A Different Kind Of Life

What do you think people like Seth Godin , Tim Ferriss or Tom Peters do each and every day?

Do they go to work like you and I do? Do they have an office? A formal schedule? It's something that fascinates me. You can get a glimpse into their lifestyles by watching and listening to podcasts and the like. Did you know that Malcolm Gladwell doesn't have a doorbell? Did you know that the bestselling author of books like The Tipping Point and Blink prefers to write in a cafe in New York City or at the public library? Gladwell's story was told in a fascinating piece on 60 Minutes, and it was a side of him that I had not yet seen. I love seeing and understanding the work/life of people whom I admire and follow. On my podcast, Six Pixels of Separation, I try to angle a lot of the conversation in that direction. I like the mechanics of how people do the work that they do. You can't not wonder what the person who wrote The 4-Hour Workweek does during the day, can you? I had not seen the following video before (it originally aired in April 2012). It's a show called, A Day In The Life, and it is produced by Morgan Spurlock as a Hulu original show. In the second season, they featured Tim Ferris. He's young (36 years old) and has three bestselling books (The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Chef). If that weren't enough, he is also an angel investor and advisor for companies like Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Uber and many others. If you're not impressed by that, Tim also holds a Guinness Book of World Records record in tango dancing and won a Chinese kickboxing championship. As imagined, his day (as produced as this was television) is really unique... maybe even shocking for some. It's hard to know what is work, what is play and what is planning. It's also fascinating that we live in a day and age when individuals can (and are) truly designing the most fascinating (and, dare I say it, squiggly) careers.

I was mesmerized by this show... and I think you will be too.

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60 minutes

angel investor

blink

business book

day in the life

evernote

facebook

guiness book of word records

hulu

life design

malcolm gladwell

morgan spurlock

office

personal development

podcast

seth godin

squiggly career

the 4 hour body

the 4 hour chef

the 4 hour workweek

the tipping point

tim ferriss

tom peters

twitter

uber

work

Get Yourself In Fighting (Mental) Shape For 2014

It's the day after Christmas.

Some are taking it easy. Others are sorting through their holiday gifts and deciding what to keep, return or exchange. Others are getting pumped up for Boxing Day sales. I'm one of those nerds that looks to see what's on sale at the bookstore (both the digital and physical ones). The prices have all dropped, so it's easy pickings. It's also the perfect time to think about this because starting tomorrow (maybe even today), your brain and body are going to start moving into New Year's headspace. And, as great (or miserable) as 2013 was, nobody wants to repeat the same year over again. Most of us want to improve - at best - or even tweak it a little bit more in the positive direction.

Combine those two worlds, and here's a list of books that will inspire you to up your game in 2014:

Accidental Genius by Mark Levy. There are so many books on productivity and how to organize your ideas and thoughts. Most of them give practical tips and ideas, but few take you to the depths of how to grind through an idea and turn it into something more. Levy's instructional techniques around freewriting - without question - will get you there. This simple and fast technique has helped me to get started on projects that have been sitting around, or to have a breakthrough on a concept where the ideas weren't flowing. Here's my promise to you: this book will make your work better and help you to get projects that you have been putting off to move forward. Quickly.

The Art of The Pitch by Peter Coughter. If you are in the marketing and communications business, then you're pitching. Always. There have been tons of books published on how to make your pitches better, but none as strong as The Art of The Pitch. If you're looking to win more business and win more pitches, then this is the must-have book for you.

Choose Yourself by James Altucher. A great, great book about the choices we make in our lives when it comes to business and getting what we want. This book is equal parts motivational and equal parts wake-up call to the new realities of business. On top of that, Altucher is one of the best and brightest business writers out there. The book is easy, accessible, funny and profound. You will think differently about your work after reading this amazing book.

Do The Work by Steven Pressfield. This book was published on Seth Godin's The Domino Project imprint. It's a modernized and abridged version of Pressfield's seminal book, The War of Art. If you're struggling with motivation or how to just "put your ass where your heart is," as Pressfield says, this book will help you meet and battle what he calls, "The Resistance." A brilliant and fast read.

Linchpin by Seth Godin. When people think of Seth Godin, they often think of Purple Cow or Permission Marketing or The Dip. I think of Linchpin. It's one of Seth's bigger/longer books (and for good reason). The subtitle of the book is, "Are You Indispensible?" This book defines what it means to be indispensible in the work that you do, and how to chart the course. This book is indispensible if you're looking to be indispensible. I read this one every year... around this time of year.

Little Red Book Of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer. I used to think that the notion of selling was icky. I first came across Gitomer's work by reading The Sales Bible well over a decade ago. What I quickly realized is that Gitomer doesn't teach you how to sell anything. Sadly, we equate sales with manipulation, and that is not Gitomer's game. Like Altucher, Gitomer is hilarious and fun to read. HIs books are quick, actionable but - most importantly - practical. Another book you should read and re-read at this time of the year, to get you in the mood to make some moves.

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. This book came out in 2005 and helped me better understand two major forces that the most successful people deploy that most of the rest of the population take for granted. One, the power of networking. Not for networking's sake, but to build a viable community. Two, the ability to use moments like breakfast, lunch and supper to meet and connect - one on one - with people you do not normally connect with. It amazes me how the bulk of the population eat with the same people at work - each and every day. Those with valuable networks get access to opportunities that most can only dream of. This book will help you create the framework.

Now, it's your turn. Which are the books that inspire you to do big things?

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accidental genius

book

bookstore

boxing day

business book

business pitch

business writer

choose yourself

communications

digital book

do the work

ebook

freewriting

james altucher

jeffrey gitomer

keith ferrazzi

linchpin

little red book of selling

mark levy

marketing

motivational book

networking

never eat alone

new years

new years resolution

permission marketing

peter coughter

pitching

productivity

purple cow

read

reading

relationships

sales

selling

seth godin

steven pressfield

the art of the pitch

the dip

the domino project

the resistance

the sales bible

the war of art

Why We Fail At The Things We Want To Accomplish (And What To Do About That)

I caught myself giggling in the car yesterday morning.

I was on my way to work and listening to Howard Stern on satellite radio (it's one of my daily rituals). Stern was doing a "Best Of 2013" that featured some of the gang's favorite segments. I was lucky enough to catch his amazing interview with Jerry Seinfeld (sidebar rant: Seinfeld's amazing Internet show, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, returns in the New Year and Howard Stern is one of his guests). Seinfeld is known for his intense work ethic. If there is one individual who embodies the work of David Allen's Getting Things Done, it is Seinfeld. He was recounting a story to Stern about an earlier episode of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee with Sarah Silverman, and a conversation he had with her that didn't make it to the show. Sarah Silverman was telling Seinfeld all about people who come up to her and say things like, "I'm thinking about writing a book," or "I'm thinking about doing stand-up comedy," to which she always answers, "you're never going to do it." I could not stop myself from laughing. If you start anything with, "I'm thinking about...," Silverman figures, it ain't going to happen. We all know she's right.

How many of those "I'm thinking about..." do you have on your list?  

I'm thinking about losing eight pounds. I'm thinking about picking up the electric bass again. I'm thinking about taking a drawing course. I'm thinking about taking a course on standup comedy. I'm thinking about... It's kind of funny. It's kind of true. I'd really love to do these things, but I'm probably not going to... unless I just do it (then, you won't have to ever say that you're thinking about doing it, because you are doing it). I've been devouring a recently published book titled, Manage Your Day-To-Day - Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, And Sharpen Your Creative Mind, which is edited by Jocelyn K. Glei and Scott Belsky from 99U. It's a mix of great quotes, insights from creative people on how to optimize your time effectively and celebrity interviews. One of those interviews is with Dan Ariely (noted professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, famed TED speaker and the author of Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty). I love Dan's work and - beyond that - I am forever indebted to him, personally (he was kind enough to introduce me to his literary agent who became my literary agent). In the chapter on distractions and multi-tasking, Dan provides this fascinating insight...

"Every time you're doing something, you're not doing something else. But you don't really see what it is that you're giving up. Especially when it comes to, lets say, e-mail versus  doing something that takes fifty hours. It is very easy for you to see the e-mail. It is not that easy for you to see the thing that takes fifty hours."

What activities do you think that we, as human beings, default to?

We're busy. Very busy. The problem is that so few of us can take the ideology of Seinfeld, Silverman and Ariely and coalesce it into something bigger. How often do you find yourself spending countless hours responding to emails, going to repetitive meetings, etc...? We go through our days thinking about how busy we are, based on our inbox and our calendars, but we don't spend nearly enough time thinking deeply about the true work that we're supposed to be doing. It's amazing how these little distractions add up in our lives and fool us into thinking that we're busy and accomplishing anything.

Block some time. Block some real time.

That's what I am starting to do during this break. I am blocking an hour here and an hour there in my schedule, each and every week to work on those projects that will take fifty hours (or more). It's basic math. Two hours a week equals eight hours a month. Just think about how those big projects can come together in a much shorter period of time. I'm also going to block those hours when things may be a little quieter (earlier in the day) and when I'm feeling most creative (usually before and after regular work hours). As amazing as technology is (see my post from yesterday), I often catch myself addicted to the drug of the inbox, the newsfeed, a to-do list, or related content on YouTube. The wormhole of technology is now a deep one. Emails don't make us do great work. Emails keep us busy. So, it becomes (somewhat) obvious that we fail at the things that we want to accomplish, because life is full of small, medium and large distractions. Perhaps the answer is to figure out a way to re-program our habits, so that the things that we want to accomplish can be broken up and booked into a schedule in a way that enables the true work to replace the distraction of everything else. Sounds like a sound strategy to me.

I'm hoping to see that "something else" that Ariely talks about. I hope you can too.

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Thinking Of You

It's getting late.

Most of you are settling in to the holidays. Family and friends. I'm doing the same. Because regardless of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation or what have you, we're all human and 'tis the season. But, before I lay me down to sleep and the house goes quiet (yes, not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse), I wanted you to know something: I am thinking of you. Seriously.

Watching. Listening. Reading. Smiling. Enjoying.

As hard as I am on brands about how much of an opportunity and potential that technology and connected networks have brought to our world (and why, oh why, are brands simply using this as an advertising channel?... it is such a waste), I still marvel at this technology with each and every passing day. I'm often pointed to as the guy that doesn't respond to comments on this blog. I'm often misquoted on this topic or misunderstood. It doesn't seem to satisfy people when I say that I am simply not good at it (I try... and I'm going to try harder). People seem irked that I would rather spend my time writing the next blog post, magazine article, book, or build a new presentation. That because I don't respond to everything, it must mean that I don't care. That's simply not the case. I care deeply. I read, review, ponder and think about every comment, tweet, post and more. I'm so grateful, that I often find myself not being able to find the words. It feels to me like a simple, "thank you" is somewhat inauthentic.

It's true.

Tonight, as the house got quiet, I looked at my feeds: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. I didn't look at the stuff about me. I was looking at you. Thinking about you. Watching your posts and pictures. The smiles, the families, the holiday cheer, the humor, the irony, the rants, the thoughts. It made me smile. It always makes me smile. No matter where you live, no matter how you celebrate, we do so together. Each and every one of us gives one another an intimate peek into this life (regardless of filter) and that's nothing to take lightly. It's so warming.

It's about connections.

In a week where we also see the bad (online lynch mobs, political disrupt, warring factions, etc...), I reconnected with someone I was very close to many years ago. We met back in my early days of the music industry (late eighties). Through the years, we stumbled into one another, but because they never embraced technology, the distance and the changing lifestyles (for both of us) made it difficult to stay connected. We spoke for close to an hour this week, and it felt like family. The story goes that this individual was walking the streets after a gig and ran into an individual who not only recognized them, but was able to convince this individual to give Facebook a chance. We reconnected and through this connection, I feel like a big piece of my life is back. After nearly two decades - and because of technology - we are connected again. As I was trolling through their Facebook page, it was amazing to see the love that people (from all over the world) have for this musician, as well. Children have been named because of this person's lyrics. Tours have taken place halfway around the world for people wanting to hear their songs. Magic. This stuff is magic. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.

It's a Facebook miracle.

People can make fun of social media all that they want. It's no laughing matter to me. Each and every day on Facebook, I take a peek to see whose birthday it is. What a treat to send a little message to people that I don't get enough time to connect with. What a treat to see so many people that I have met through these digital channels and - regardless of geography - be able to connect in a small digital way, until we can spend more time together in our protein forms. I'm thinking tonight of so many people who inspire me to keep on going. It's an impressive bunch. Wow, this world is filled with passionate, smart and creative folks just waiting to connect to others who are likeminded. What a shame for those that don't see it, can't make the right connections, or simply fail to see how amazing this all truly is.

So yeah, before I go to sleep, I just wanted you to know that I'm thinking of you... and thankful for you.

Happy Holidays.

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My Love Affair With Pocket

Where do you save and read your online content?

You would think that with all of this technology and content that we're constantly creating, publishing and reading, that it would be a whole lot simpler to save, share and consume it. It's not. It's a mess. And, I'm guess that if it's a mess for me, it's an even bigger disaster for those who are less inclined to spend the time figuring out which services are the best and which ones can be trusted. If we go back to the early days of online content, I quickly became enamored with Delicious (which, at the time, was a bookmarking service coupled with an online social network). You could not only save and retrieve content on Delicious, but you could follow friends and see what they were saving. Most of that technology was driven by the nascent days of tagging content. Over the years, other services came online, Delicious got acquired by Yahoo, RSS readers (like Google Reader) came into play and, well, things just started getting messy again.

A system to save and find content.

For years, I would bounce back and forth. From taking physical notes of things to check out, to using Google Reader to having specific folders in my email program for areas of interest. In short, it just felt like everything was all over the place. It was less about trying to capture and consumer everything, and much more about having an efficient and unified place to get it and keep it. When Instapaper came out, it provided the most ideal place for me to save articles that I wanted to read, but proved less efficient for other pieces of content that I wanted to store (little pieces of data, ideas for clients, videos from YouTube to watch, concepts for a future book, column ideas for the Huffington Post or Harvard Business Review). Still, it felt like I was adding in another place to save my content. Then, Pocket came along. Pocket changed everything. I love Pocket.

Why I love Pocket.

Pocket seems to do everything that a lot of other tools did well, but it just works on many levels. Pocket allows you to save anything that you see on the Internet to an asynchronous experience (meaning, it is cloud-based and once an item is saved, you can view it from a computer, tablet or smartphone, so long as you have the apps and are signed in). If you see something in your email, you can forward it to a specific email address and it shows up in Pocket. If you add the Web browser bookmarklet, a little button appears in your Web browser, so you can add that piece of content. And, best of all, you can add tags to everything. It's simple, fast and easy (I know, this sounds like a commercial, but it's true). Because the tagging system is so well designed, Pocket makes it extremely simple to not only save content, but keep it organized from day one.

It gets better.

Perhaps one of the best features of Pocket is (much like Instapaper), is that once you save something in the app, it automatically downloads the content. This is huge. It means that while you're not online, you can still read, review and work with the content. Sure, the vast majority of us are connected all of the time, but this is also magical because the speed of which you can access content (without Pocket having to run off into the Internet, find the link and pull the content down) makes it that much more magical. From flying to public spaces, having all of that saved content on the app (without needing connectivity) is a massive plus.

Everything in your Pocket.  

Of course, as you start using Pocket more, you start seeing the tremendous amount of work that these people are doing to make it better. They have integrated their tool into several apps like Twitter, Flipboard, Zite and more (close to 300 applications). And that is part of the magic too. Pocket made me realize how transient I can be with content. My context for content consumption is so different from when I'm on my MacBook Air to my iPhone to my iPad. Being able to save, consume, share and annotate the content that I'm devouring as an Infovore - no matter what type of hardware I'm staring at - seems to keep the tsunami of publishing from washing me away. Pocket is a true one screen world system.

Organization as part of your New Year's resolutions.

If you want to get a handle on the content that you're seeing, and put it to better use, I can't recommend Pocket enough. As an example: the content that I cover on my Monday morning CHOM FM radio segment is, typically, more of the general news-y things in technology and social media that I don't bother delving deep into on the blog, in my columns or in books. With Pocket, I can just tag all of that content from Mashable and BuzzFeed as "CHOM" when it comes in, so when it's time to build the topics of conversation for the radio show on Sunday night, it's all there... in one click. Once the segment is done, I delete everything with that tag in a very simple way. As human beings, we have never been faced with this much content from so many disparate places, finally you have the right tool on your computer, tablet and smartphone to keep you perfectly informed and totally organized.

If you have some down time during this holiday season, go and check out Pocket . You won't be sorry.

(full disclosure: Pocket is not a client of Twist Image, I am not invested in this company and I don't think I know anyone who works there. I just love it :)

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