Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 278

My First Job

I was in grade 10. It could have been grade 9.

My entire grade was taking a summer trip overseas. I wanted to become a million by the time I was 18, so the clock was ticking. Tick. Tock. Instead of having fun with my friends, I had bigger aspirations for my summer. I wanted to buy an electric bass... and a stereo. I had to earn the money to get the sugar. I worked in a cosmetic factory. It sucked. My job - day in and day out - was taking this round piece of white plastic, dabbing the center with some glue and using wax paper I would push into place the mascara. From there, I would screw on the see-through top, place them a box, get the right count, tape up the box and put it on a palette. I don't think it rained one day that summer. At least, it didn't feel like it did. I wouldn't know. I was stuck inside a dirty warehouse all day that was filled with people who had no passion, desire or drive. They just did their jobs. Collected their money. Time to make the donuts.

The food sucked too. 

I wasn't a brown bag lunch kind of guy (I'm still not). We'd hit up some greasy spoon or grab something quick at the corner donut shop. It was in a part of town that had lower income apartments and random businesses. It was a long haul to a cruddy fast food joint. It wasn't even worth the trip. I hated the work and only semi-appreciated the minimum wage. It wasn't about the work... it was about the means to the end. By the end of the summer, I got the electric bass that I wanted... the stereo too. I had even made enough money, to put some of it aside. You can bet that I appreciated ownership of the bass and stereo.

Hard work.

It's all about the hard work. Not just at the job - each and every day - but about putting in the hard work. Always. Luck is a lot of hard work. You can chastise Malcolm Gladwell all you like, but he's right in Outliers about the 10,000 hours. It may not be an exact number, but it speaks to the time and dedication it requires to be successful. We hear about the random stories or the lottery winners and we're fooled into believing that luck has something to do with success. I didn't want to work in that warehouse. While that was my first job, it wasn't my last hard job. I must have a thing for hard jobs. I worked at a frozen yogurt place (part-time) one summer in high school. The customers were borderline disgusting ("can you put in a few more strawberries?" - I would try to explain to them that there is a formula to create the best tasting result. They would fight me on it. I'd put in the extra strawberries and they would return it and say that it was too tart). During the day, I was a counselor at a day camp, working with ten 9-year-old boys. It was a great summer, but it was hard work. We forget about how good hard work is. It keeps us engaged, it keeps us motivated and - sometimes - the lesson is bigger. I love hard work, because when it's the stuff I'm interested in, it pushes me to be better. I love hard work, because when it's the stuff I'm not at all interested in, it pushes me because I never want to do that kind of stuff ever again.

I can still smell that mascara. I'm not going back there. I'll just keep on working hard.

What was your first job?

BTW, this post was 100% motivated by Ashton Kutcher's awesome speech at the Teen Choice Awards 2013. Watch this... and show it to your kids:

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There Is No Brand Truth

What is the truth about a brand?

Every brand thinks that they are either able to control their brand message or (at the very least) manage it through social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and beyond. Sugared beverages will spend millions trying to convince you that they care about youth obesity by sharing healthy factoids about humanity, while fried food companies will try to calm your nerves with recipe suggestions. It's not manipulation so much as it is their newfound ability to be a publisher and put out into their world thinly-veiled content as an engine of positive brand perception. It's not for the intelligentsia...  it's for the great masses. Those in the middle. Those who are vaguely paying attention to the newfound brand narrative. In some instances, it works, it connects and populates. In most instances, the brands don't even stick with it long enough to know if it moved any needles. We used to say that Google is like an elephant... it never forgets. Now, in a world of Snapchat, retweets and 15 seconds of video on Instagram, it's less about the Internet never forgetting and much more about, "what have you done for me in this instance?"

The feeds lie.

Glance through your newsfeeds. What do you see? It could be Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or whatever. All that we see is what's in the moment. If someone is ranting against an airline, that will be the bulk of what you see. The vast majority won't do the journalistic work of digging beyond these micro pieces of content to see if there's any truth or substance to what we see. It gets stranger than that. How often have you been in a scenario when an individual's tweet gets retweeted and adjusted. It could be for context or because some space had to made to fit within the 140 characters limit? I'm guilty as charged of changing someone's tweet to fit the maximum space. I do my best to respect the context, but who knows if those individuals are happy about it.

Enter Weird Twitter.

Yes, Weird Twitter. Originally, this non-connected group on Twitter popped up by creating strange and absurd scenarios in response to people's tweets. It quickly evolved to the point where they would retweet and "tweak" someone else's tweets (and not in a good way). In a world where any piece of content can be shared, these Weird Twitter people are now pulling off their own version of AdBusters as a way to culturejam the brands or subvert their messages. As reported in the Wall Street Journal's August 4th, 2013 article, Some Twitter Users Push Back on Ads (make sure to listen to the audio component as well in the link), it's not just that individuals are changing the brand's content in their own newsfeeds, they're now starting to engage with the brands. This may seem minimal at this point, in terms of time wasted, but it's not hard to imagine how this can escalate.

The reason this matters.

If Weird Twitter is any inkling about how users truly feel about the commercialization and advertising that is both pervasive and lucrative in social media, brands will also have to begin to accept that they not only don't control their brands (not a new concept), but that even attempting to find the truth (for those who would be inclined to search, dig and better understand the discourse) may as well be all but lost in a world where the manipulation of content is as simple as touching a screen. Can brands protect themselves? They can. It will be costly, time consuming and - ultimately - not worth the hassle and headache. As such, we may be entering the age of truth in branding. A place where a brand is not a unique set of shared emotions through general consensus, but rather an ambiguous mix of content and emotions that are not as clear or easy to define as it once was.

The truth about brands was never really about that one thing that the corporations wanted us all to believe. Now, that mix of emotions is available for all to see and it's morphing at warp speed.

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The Shape-Shifting Reality Of Shopping

Welcome to the one screen world of shopping.

One of the five major movements that have changed brands forever (that corporation are doing little-to-nothing about) that are defined in my second business book, CTRL ALT Delete, is the notion of the one screen world. In simplistic form: the only screen that matters to me - the consumer - is the screen that is in front of me. We live in a world where brands are still thinking in digital ghettos. They're worried about their Web strategy, their mobile strategy, their social media strategy and so on. That's a bad strategy. The only strategy that matters is a one screen strategy. We live in a world where screens are ubiquitous, cheap and hyper-connected. Plus, the data just keeps pointing us further down the road. PC sales have dropped at a dramatic pace as more and more consumers buy tablets and smartphones. Some have called this the post-PC era, while others have tagged it as the post-Web browser era. I like to think of it as the one screen world. Screens are everywhere (walls, pockets, hands, whatever) that are at our beck and connected call.

It's happening... and it's happening fast. 

It wasn't even two years ago that I would poll audiences all over the world about how long it would take for us to do everything that we can do on our personal computers as effectively (if not better than) as we can do on our mobile devices. By looking at channels like Twitter and Instagram, one could argue that the mobile experience is actually superior to that of the Web-based one. That being said, there were always two areas of contention:

Content creation. Whether it's writing a document, editing a spreadsheet or building a presentation.

Commerce. Looking through merchandise and actually buying right from the mobile device.

There is no doubt that Amazon and others have made it increasingly better to transact and purchase from a mobile device in the past short while. Mobile banking also helped pushed this forward as consumers gained confidence in the mobile transactions. Last Friday, MediaPost published the news item, Time Spent Shopping Shifts From PC To Mobile, that stated: "Time spent visiting retail Web sites on tablets and smartphones has eclipsed that of time spent shopping via the desktop. A combined 51% of time on retail sites took place on devices as of February (37% on smartphones, 14% on tablets) compared to 49% on PCs, according to a new study by mobile ad network Millennial Media and comScore. The desktop share is down from 84% in 2010. But comScore indicates that while time spent is shifting toward mobile, it's helping extend the desktop audience by 45% as consumers that start on PCs continue their shopping experience across devices. So there's a fair amount of overlap among platforms."

...And so it begins.

The one screen world is also the convergence of a more important movement: digital becoming physical and physical becoming digital. Companies like Nomi bring the power of web analytics to understanding the movement of physical people that are at the retail level. Companies like Square use digital technology to remove the need for cash registers. Retail has never been so digital and the pervasiveness of both e-commerce and the ability to transact on a mobile device turn shopping into something that transcends typical store hours and the physical limitations of inventory.

This always on consumer.

In short, the vast majority of brands are still, sadly, tinkering away at very traditional e-commerce websites that are cumbersome and already out of date. They're racing to keep pace with brands like Amazon and Fab who have not only figured out the digital commerce model, but are equally engaged in their consumers wherever they may be. These same retail brands have a loosely focused social media strategy that is rarely connected to their digital commerce and - more often than not - the digital commerce division is rarely connected to the physical stores. The numbers don't lie. As these brands fumble over org chats and attribution, the consumer has decided. So, what is a brand to do? These retailers are still busy trying to get ownership of their mobile environments out of IT, while consumers are happily transacting anywhere they please... with brands who understand just how quickly the entire landscape has shifted.

Here's a clue: who owns the mobile experience and how closely linked to the business and marketing channel is it for the companies you deal with? The answers might surprise/depress you.  

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When Fish Climb Trees And Other Stories With Avinash Kaushik

Episode #370 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

I spent a few days in Silicon Valley this week. I was invited there to give the keynote address for Haystack Digital Marketing's Digital Summit At Mountain View, which took place at the Googleplex. Since I was in the neighborhood, I had to spend some quality time with a close friend and someone I consider to be one of the smartest minds in marketing today: Avinash Kaushik. Kaushik is the Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google and the bestselling author of Web Analytics - An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0. Along with that, he is one of the most powerful marketing bloggers on the planet. His blog, Occam's Razor is a site to behold (intentional spelling). On July 22nd, he published another monster post (close to 4000 words) titled, See-Think-Do: A Content, Marketing, Measurement Business Framework and, once again, it's a blog post worthy of pushing further and deeper into a book. I hope he does just that. In the meantime, here's an in-depth conversation about this new marketing framework. It's an important discussion, so enjoy...  

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 #370.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #164

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:

Why you should write - Medium . "I love writing. It's like a less-absent-minded narrative of myself, without the breathless tumbling-over of ideas and side roads. But because I also do it (partly) for a living, sometimes it feels like a chore. Drew Hoolhorst 's piece on Medium reminded me of some important things about the act of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard." (Alistair for Hugh).

The Music Industry, Explained - Pando Daily . "Everything you want to know about the changes the recording industry has undergone, in one well-written interactive post. Must-read for anyone who wants to understand publishing, licensing, and royalties." (Alistair for Mitch).

High 'Game of Thrones' piracy is 'better than an Emmy,' says Time Warner CEO - The Verge . "Time Warner CEO (and owner of Game of Thrones TV franchise) says that piracy is, sigh, destroying their business blah blah... oh... wait. No. That's not what he says. He says: piracy is making them tons and tons of money." (Hugh for Alistair).

In ebook case, Apple wants a stay, and DOJ argues publishers are conspiring again - GigaOm . "Don't you wish the Department of Justice spent as much time chasing the people behind the financial crisis, as they are spending on arbitrating what is, essentially, a war for marketshare between Apple and Amazon ? (Hat tip to Craig Mod for the observation about financial collapse vs. ebook prices)." (Hugh for Mitch).

How and Why to Teach Your Kids to Code - Lifehacker . "This is a great piece with a ton of resources that speaks to a concept I have shared multiple times on this blog and in my latest book, CTRL ALT Delete . We often talk about the profound effect that learning multiple languages can have on a child's development and their success. I believe one of the best languages (and gifts) that we can give our children is the opportunity to learn how to code. Well, if you think that your educational systems are failing on this grade, do yourself a favor and check out this article (big hat-tip to Darrin for the link)." (Mitch for Alistair).

David Ogilvy's Timeless Principles of Creative Management - Brain Pickings . "A beautiful piece full of wisdom and insights from one of the original Mad Men. David Ogilvy was not only one of the founders of modern day advertising, but a creative spirit. But, here's the thing: I can't help wonder what he would think about the Publicis   Omnicom merger news and the current state of advertising as we have seen it. Is advertising still the intersection of creativity and commerce, or has the money truly taken over? If you listen to a slew of the world's top Chief Marketing Officers and agency leaders, it has become rare to hear them talk about the creative craft of advertising. Lately, it feels like data is the new creative. I often wonder what David Ogilvy might say about this... and what this industry has become." (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.

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Sir Richard Branson And Elon Musk Share Their Wisdom

Are you looking for something to watch this weekend?

Yesterday, Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk took part in a Google Hangout for Google For Entrepreneurs. For close to an hour, these two legendary entrepreneurs talk about everything from ideation and entrepreneurship to marketing and how to embrace a squiggly life. It's pretty amazing to see these two incredible and inspirational business leaders jam on ideas and push people to take the path less chosen. On top of that, the entire conversation on disruption and their attempts to take on businesses and global challenges that everyone else considered impossible makes it worth every second.

Watch this:

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Say Cheese! Instagram Allows Entrepreneurs To Start A Business In A Snap (Literally)

There are a few converging global forces at play that are creating a new marketing and business opportunity, unlike anything we have seen to date.

Call it, "The Instagram Economy," or whatever, but Kickstarter's ability to help entrepreneurs fund their business initiatives by developing a direct relationship with their potential customers, may be usurped by an even easier way to connect an existing product or service with a customer: Instagram. Kottke, recently reported about Kuwait's booming Instagram economy, where anyone with an Instagram account is simply putting a price on whatever is in the photograph, and selling all of these unique, used, new or slightly altered products and services to those interested in the photo sharing online social network. Everything from Manga, make-up and more is being sold in this very simple and direct platform that pushing beyond the borders of Kuwait, while leveraging additional free technology (like WhatsApp for customer service to PayPal and/or Square to handle transactions) to make the business infrastructure as simple as possible. Ultimately, Instagram, WhatsApp and other technologies have scale - in terms of people using it and sharing in these channels - and the trust of the platform in terms of stability and deliverability from the vendor's perspective create the perfect storm for a viable marketplace.

Is this the future of business?

It's doubtful that those in the upper echelons of the massive consumer packaged goods companies are going to care about this, or that Sephora and Walmart may see this as a competitive threat, but the barrier-to-entry for someone to start and market a new business continues to lower and become cheaper (or next to free). Yesterday, we needed a sturdy e-commerce site with analytics, and a robust hosting facility with a Web team to create, design, merchandise, market and more. Today, we need a couple of free accounts on some of the major online channels along with the persistence to to keep at it. Some may see this as the digital equivalent of a garage sale, while others might see these burgeoning entrepreneurs as the next generation of eBay power sellers... or the next generation of business.

Is this the next big thing?

These Instagram businesses may not be the next big thing, but they could well be the nascent stages of what is the next big, small thing in business today. On April 23rd and 24th of this year, the American University of Kuwait hosted the Insta Business Expo, that featured a slew of new entrepreneurs that built and grew their respective businesses through Instagram. Yes, a two day conference, featuring case studies, how-to's and networking for those wondering what it takes to build a business on Instagram. While this may seem small and inconsequential in the grander scheme of global economics and business, consider the global reach of Instagram, the burgeoning ability to use 3D printing to create or augment existing products, a desire from consumers for more unique products and services, local marketing, and the rise and interest in indie brands (more on that here: Rise Of The Indie Brand). There is also a potential play for more traditional brands to try moments of commerce with those who might be interested. Be it selling digital goods or physical ones, an Instagram "pop up store" for a brand could help them validate everything from ancillary products to defining the viability of a new product line, by simply putting it out there and seeing if there are any takers.

Pushing beyond Instagram.

This Instagram economy can also be a powerful engine of marketing. Many individuals (and brands) tie their Instagram accounts to their Facebook and Twitter feeds, allowing those interested to connect more directly with the images, as they get easily syndicated across multiple social media platforms. Because of how this content is delivered - both within Instagram and on other social media channels and newsfeeds - the products can get a pretty effective impression and engagement level within these channels  (doing something that most social media advertising fails to do). Pushing the marketing of this Instagram business further, smart marketers can also follow, create and leverage the power of hashtags in these channels to better focus their marketing on the right audience. Ultimately, this is not a ownable space (Instagram can alter its terms of service, the popularity of the channel could end, etc...), but until then, these Instagram businesses have uncovered an easy way for brands to quickly share new inventory across many channels and a very simple way to conduct business from a smartphone without much technical integration (they're doing it directly on Instagram). And, if your brand has the goods, you can now easily share and sell your new inventory across multiple digital channels while easily testing the market interest. The insights alone might be reason enough to try out an Instagram store of your own. 

Testing, learning and selling with shutter speed.

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Harvard Business Review . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

Harvard Business Review - Does Your Company Need an Instagram Storefront?

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Random Acts Of Business Kindness

What have we become?

Whether we're looking at last month's cover of Fast Company magazine (where Baratunde Thurston is pleading with us to #unplug) or checking out what Arianna Huffington is doing with GPS For The Soul and beyond, we all feel trapped in a hyper-connected business world where we're but a short grasp away from emails, text messages, tweets, status updates, newsfeeds, pings and more. We're shackled to the work that we do - seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day. Many struggle with this sense of constant connectivity combined with our smartphone devices, while others have turned this social habit into a business unto itself (check out Tim Ferriss' bestselling opus, The 4-Hour Workweek or The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau). The notion of work-life balance is constantly being debated in a world where the work that we do has become a more integral component of how we see ourselves, how we define our own happiness, and as we think more about the legacy that we will leave behind (instead of our next performance review). With this new found awakening, where work isn't the life of Dilbert, but rather the life that we were meant to lead, we're all still faced with some realities: a struggling economy, major metropolitan cities filing for bankruptcy, more social and medical issues amongst our global cities than we can comprehend, unemployment and a world where big business just keeps getting bigger (look at the recent merger of advertising network giants Publicis and Omnicom).

Thick is the skin.

While the philosophy of why we work continues to evolve and modernize, it still fees like we hold on to the dogma of what business is supposed to be. You'll still hear sentiments in boardrooms around the world like, "it's nothing personal... it's just business," or "you have to have a thick skin." You don't have to search high and low for stories of whistleblowers, class action suits, employee theft and more. It's like we remove the humanity from ourselves to endure this kind of physical pain and psychological torture throughout the day as a way to earn compensation. It's a paradox. It's an enigma. It's an enigma, wrapped in a paradox... wrapped in bacon ( as Homer Simpson, might say). Why do we all agree to this social contract?

Thin skin. Taking it personally.

Famed business and leadership thinker, Tom Peters (author of In Search Of Excellence, Re-Imagine! and countless other worthwhile bestselling business reads), tweeted out a quote from George Saunders' graduation remarks to a group of students at Syracuse University: "What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness." Is that a line that you can relate to? I'm skeptical that there aren't many business leaders, mid-level managers or entry-level employees who would not agree in the power of kindness. We live in a world where you'll pay it forward by buying a cup of coffee for the car behind you in line at the donut shop drive-through on your morning commute, but ten minutes later you are conducting in business what would be socially comparable to mass murder in terms of trying to cripple the competition or win new business. From a kind gesture of offering a stranger a coffee to primal animalistic acts of self-preservation, where there is no physical imminent threat. Perhaps with all of this moral awakening, sharing on social media, connecting to others and events like Occupy Wall Street or the Arab Spring, we should be paying closer attention to the human bottom line rather than the financial one?

Some random acts of business kindness:

Kindness. What if we compensated people for not only getting the job done, but by the level of which their kindness in the conduct fostered the outcome? What if kindness was not just part of a mission statement, but core DNA to how business must be conducted? The unspoken number one rule.

Win-win. By my estimation, the best business deals tend to be the ones where the party that is paying feels like it derived full value from the exchange, and the party receiving the funds feels like it was fairly compensated for the work delivered. It's unfortunate that most deals need involve one party feeling like they either got screwed over or were taken advantage of. If you think there aren't millions of instances where the gap is far and deep between two parties on this notion of "win-win" you haven't spent any time in the office of a law firm that specializes in corporate litigation.

Acceptance. Sometimes it doesn't work out. It could be a big business deal or the engagement of an employee. It's easy to point the swords in or to point the fingers at someone else, it would be far better for both parties to simply accept the fact that it's not working (maybe even agree to disagree) and make it much easier on one another. In fact, having been fired in the past, I could have easily pointed my finger or lay blame elsewhere. I was younger... and it took many years... but looking back, I should have accepted that I deserved to be let go. Was it all my fault? It rarely is. Still, acceptance is a big part of personal development.

Candid conversations. Imagine having kindness as the baseline, striving for a win-win and accepting that something simply didn't work out. Sadly, we live in a litigious society that encourages laying blame. Wouldn't it be more practical (and mutually beneficial) to have a candid conversation. Not one that points fingers or attempts to lay blame as if we're all trying to tip a scale in a preferable direction, but in one that simply enables both parties to find the time and space to have both a period of mourning and then recovery? Candid conversations are all-too-often discouraged because of the fear of litigation. It's too bad.

Help. Whether it's putting the dishes away from a colleague who left their mug in the communal kitchen sink to staying late and helping out somebody on a project that has no bearing on your performance. We see many glimpses of this in our day to day lives, but not enough. What if helping (one another, ourselves, our industry) was as common as holding the door open for somebody or saying, "bless you" when they sneeze?    

Does anybody remember kindness?

We should all thank Tom Peters for bringing this quote more out into the open. We go to work and turn from kind loving family members, friends and community citizens into military generals who use warring terms to get through the work day ("let's crush the competition!"). If It will be Pollyanna to wish that businesses embrace the power of kindness, then I am guilty as charged.

A boy can dream. 

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

Huffington Post - In Business, You Can Still Be Kind .

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The Internet Needs A Morning After Pill

Buyer's remorse. Opps, I did it again.

Everything has a publish button. Every publish button is quick and easy to use. Every publish button puts it out there - in text, images, audio and video - for the world to see. In real-time. The Internet needs a morning after pill. It's one thing to make a purchase and then have buyer's remorse, it's another to publish something in the heat of the moment. The truth is that many of us have posted something - from a simple tweet to a YouTube video - that we wish we could take back. In fact, according to the MediaPost piece, Think Twice (Or More) Before Social Posting, it happens more than we know. From the article: "29% of users of Facebook, between the ages of 18 and 34, have posted a photo, comment or other personal information that they fear could someday either cause a prospective employer to turn them down for a job, or a current employer to fire them if they were to see it. The survey covered Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and other popular social media. A form of 'day-after remorse' seems to be evident, says the report. Close to the same percentage of young social media users, 21%, say that they have removed or taken down a photo or other social media posting because they feared it could lead to repercussions with an employer."

Be the media.

We need to be making the case that people - young and old - need more formal media training. We used to live in a world where editors and fact-checking gave content creators the space to breathe, edit and reconsider whatever it was that was going to be published. Furthermore, that content would have to be printed or aired, giving it even more time to decant. That world no longer exists. Once you take a picture, the ease with which you can publish it is equal to the ease with which that you can close the lens. What seems like a good idea now can turn into an, "it seemed like a good idea at the time" within seconds. Yes, we've made some inroads helping consumers to better understand and use their privacy settings (according to the same news item, "82% of young social media users say that they pay at least some attention to their privacy settings. Only 6% said that they pay no attention and only use the default settings when using social media."), but there doesn't seem to be a more public outcry to better educate our population about what the ramifications are when we're not recording our every waking moment, but broadcasting them to the world.

It's nothing new.

We are decades into this, but seemingly nowhere in terms of this evolution. So, if people are starting to tinker with their privacy settings and better understanding how public we all are because of social media, we may want to enlist the power of a morning after pill for the Internet - something that detonates that stupid post or idea that we had that should have never made it past the organ between our ears. Of course, the problem is that no matter how many safety valves we create, anyone can grab our stupidity, copy it and turn that into a brand new piece of content. Ahh, the joys of everything digital!

Be smart.

We're looking for filters, privacy settings and better technology to solve this. We're looking for a solution in all of the wrong places. Here's the best filter and privacy setting ever (and it will work for everyone): before publishing anything (from a tweet or Facebook comment to a blog post or video on YouTube), ask yourself one, simple question: "If my children were to see this, long after I have passed on, would they be proud?" No, this doesn't mean that everything you tweet must have the depth of Hemingway, but it does mean that cumulatively, the many platforms of publishing equal something that serves to honor your family (past and present). You don't need to have kids to play along. Simply think about your parents, the family legacy, whatever.

Amazing.

It's an amazing world that we live in. To think about how we connect through smartphones and social media in a much grander and powerful way is something that we should all be doing more frequently. We're humans. We make mistakes. We say the wrong things. In the absence of a morning after pill for the Internet, give yourself a couple of seconds pause before hitting that publishing button.

Remember: just because it's there, it doesn't mean that you have to publish it right away (it's something we all wish people like Anthony Weiner would do).

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Confessions Of A Media Manipulator

Episode #369 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

There are certain people and brands who know how to manipulate the media. Not in a nefarious or evil way (those kinds exist as well). They manipulate the media to draw multiple layers of attention to their causes, products, brands and services. While young in age, Ryan Holiday seems to have a knack for driving attention to things like fashion brands and authors unlike any other. You could call him a PR professional, but his seminal book, Trust Me I'm Lying: Confessions Of A Media Manipulator, was not only a bestselling book, helped garner Holiday a ton of attention but nurtured his title as, Media Manipulator. He's worked with American Apparel, Tucker Max, James Altucher and many others. In this chat, Ryan talks about the difference between a publicity stunt (a moment in time) to creating something that makes people say, "do you remember when..." (something legendary). Think you're really marketing? Listen to this. 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 #369.

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