Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 281

Why You Have No Choice But To Choose Yourself

Episode #366 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

If you lost ten million dollars, would you make the same mistake twice? Better question: would you take the advice of someone who lost more than ten million dollars on more than one occasion? Before answering any of these questions, I am going to encourage you to take a listen to this chat with James Altucher. Altucher is a trader, investor, writer, and entrepreneur. His bio is an impressive one. He's an investor in Buddy Media (which sold to Salesforce.com for about $800 million) as well as bitly. His latest book is called, Choose Yourself!, and it's a great read. Also, if you're not following his blog, The Altucher Confidential, you don't know what you're missing. 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 #366.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #160

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:

Sid Meier: The Father of Civilization - Kotaku . "An amazing look at Sid Meier, the nicest, smartest guy in gaming, who has sailed relatively unscathed through the ups and downs of the gaming industry because, well, he's just that good." (Alistair for Hugh).

Let Us Blaze New Trails - Letters of Note . "Last week I looked at Mad Men . Here's a letter from a slightly mad ad-man, Bill Bernbach , which was forwarded to me by friends on two coasts. In it, Bernbach laments the death of creativity that often accompanies a growth in size. In a software-eats-everything world, companies that valued scale are quickly eclipsed by those who favor cycle time and disruption. This letter may explain why." (Alistair for Mitch).

The coming crisis for the oceans - The Science Show . "A sobering look at the state of our oceans, from Callum Roberts , author of The Ocean of Life , interviewed by Robyn Williams on Australia Radio National 's The Science Show ." (Hugh For Alistair).

The Pageview Race - Magellan Media . "My friend and colleague Brian O'Leary takes a critical look at Josh Sternberg 's post at Digiday , about Who's Winning at volume publishing . Sternberg awards the gold medal to Forbes.com , which produces the most volume of content per editorial staff (ratio 1:8). Brian asks a good question: if advertising rates continue to fall, is 'winning' at volume publishing winning anything? Or, is it better to start thinking of 'content' as 'part of a value chain, but not all of it.' The example given is AirBnB 's content strategy, seen as a model of new ways of thinking about using content for marketing, rather than content as a vehicle for advertising". (Hugh for Mitch).

Zipcar For Office Space: A New Service Lets You Rent A Desk By The Hour - Co.DESIGN . "This past week, Alistair, Hugh and I spent a good chunk of time at International Startup Festival held in Montreal. Our mutual friend, Julien Smith was along for the ride. Julien has been making a lot of noise (and raising significant capital) for his startup, Breather . As the company begins to roll out these available spaces in urban centers that members can access, you can begin to feel how significant of an opportunity this might be. This Fast Company piece tickles at what could, ultimately, become a whole new way to look at spaces, how we live, work and more. At first, I couldn't wrap my head around what, exactly, Julien was trying to do with this startup. Now, I can't stop thinking about how interesting it truly is." (Mitch for Alistair). 

23 Books You Didn't Read In High School But Actually Should - BuzzFeed . "I was doing my best to not get sucked in by the seductively ridiculous headlines that BuzzFeed pumps through the tubes. When I saw someone post this link on Twitter , I could not resist. I spent a good chunk of my elementary and high school days daydreaming of wanting to be anywhere else. Thankfully, I never let school get in the way of my education. We're given reading lists and the like all of the way through school. Some of us read the books, but most of us probably just skimmed the surface of the content. I was about to make the foray into reading some fiction this summer. I was considering the latest from Neil Gaiman , before this list came along. It's somewhat depressing that I own, but haven't read a lot of these books...and I should... and so should you (in case you haven't). And, even if you read these in high school, I'm pretty sure they're that much more magical now that we're adults." (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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Insane Ambition

How often do you feel lazy about your professional development?

There are some moments when you're probably highly motivated and others when you struggle. It's like that one time that you decide to ditch the gym and simply can't find the momentum to get back at it. You'll blame everything from the kids to busy being busy at work, but deep down you know that you're simply not motivated to do it. I was listening to an interview with Jerry Seinfeld. He was discussing a conversation he had with Sarah Silverman that never made it to their episode of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, in which Silverman was saying that often friends would come up to her and say, "I'm thinking of writing a book..." and before they could finish their sentence, Silverman would shoot back, "it's never going to happen!"  It's funny enough, but with all comedy comes truth. If you're going to write a book, you're going to write a book. We bog our lives down with lists of things we would like to do, but rarely take even the preliminary steps to accomplish our goals. Perhaps, this is why we admire people like Steve Jobs so much.

Finding ambition.

Whenever there is a task in front of me that seems insurmountable or a goal that I'm shying away from, I'll defer to the following BBC documentary on Steve Jobs titled, Billion Dollar Hippy. You don't have to love Apple (or Steve Jobs) to be able to appreciate his tenacity, focus and ambition...

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How To Become A Thought Leader

You are one if someone reputable says you are one.

That is the short and simple answer to what is a very complex thing to define. If Anderson Cooper describes you as a "marketing thought leader" prior to interviewing you on air, you can run with that title. Personally, I would have never defined myself as "the rock star of digital marketing," but when Marketing Magazine called me that, I ran with it as well. Harder than defining what, exactly, a thought leader is would be an attempt to explain how to become one. Mashable recently had a very interesting piece on the topic (which you can read here: How To Become A Thought Leader). It got me thinking about how often we toss that phrase around, how few individuals actually are thought leaders and how easy it is to simply self-anoint oneself as a thought leader.

Who really is a thought leader?

Pushing beyond semantics, a thought leader is someone who is sharing (in text, images, audio and video) their own unique perspective. That would be the "thought" component of the equation. A thought leader is someone whose unique perspective is seen and accredited by both peers or other industry experts as truly being visionary (saying and doing the things that others have yet to do). Leadership isn't just about being first. Leadership is about how the thinking is ingested and used by the audience. It's one thing to be shooting a whole bunch of darts at the board in the hopes that something hits the bull's-eye, and it's quite another to be someone who has successfully hit the target - time and time again - over the years, and have that coupled with the actual growth of the industry that the thoughts have served. Thought leadership is sharing the vision, having the vision being accepted by the industry at large and having that vision become a part of the DNA and how that industry moves forward. People like professor Henry Mintzberg and Don Tapscott are true thought leaders. Their work has changed how we see ourselves and and how we work.

On becoming a thought leader.

Over a decade ago, I read the book, Become A Recognized Authority In Your Field - In 60 Days Or Less by Robert Bly. The main crux of the book is this: publish, do media appearances, speak and more. The more you do these very public acts of publishing and presenting, the more social proof your personal brand will accumulate. The book dives much deeper into developing a core level of expertise in a very niche topic and beyond. It's a great read, and it's easy to see why others might confuse a recognized authority (or, for that matter, someone with a lot of followers on Twitter or a popular blogger) with a thought leader. Being recognized as an authority on a specific subject is still a hop, skip and a jump away from being a thought leader.

Malcolm Gladwell was right.   

In Outliers, Gladwell defines success or expertise as someone who has put in their 10,000 hours. A thoughts leader's perfect formula might look something like: Gladwell's 10,000 hours + being a truly recognized authority + peer acceptance of thinking + work that has changed the industry it serves x multiple instances = thought leadership. Thought leadership shouldn't be a term we toss around like "guru," "expert," or "ninja." The litmus test could be as simple as asking this question: who is really a thought leader in my industry? Before rattling off a list of names, give pause. Is their experience and work (the hands in the game) equal to the published words (a lot of fans and followers)? Are they truly doing and saying things that others have not said before? Do they have the depth of experience that allowed them to do this on multiple occasions?

Thought leaders are an endangered species (or, at least, they should be).

It doesn't mean that they're all going to be gone, it just means that the flock is (and probably should be) very lean. We should care, nurture and watch the thought leaders very carefully, because as we toss that term around we may, in fact, be stripping away those who have this tough-to-be-claimed title in lieu of pumping up our own online egos and bolstering our resumes. My guess is that the real thought leaders don't use that title to define themselves (and you probably won't find it in any of their bios). They're probably too busy doing the hard work instead of figuring out how to best position themselves with a title like "thought leader," because that usually makes the lot of us cringe.

Interested in being a thought leader? Get to work :)

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Are We At The Beginning Or The End Of Publishing?

What would you make out of a question like that?

Regardless, that was the exact question that Alistair Croll (co-author of Lean Analytics, BitCurrent, Year One Labs and one of my weekly link buddies) asked of Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto and my other weekly link buddy), Julien Smith (Breather, co-author of Trust Agents and The Impact Equation and author of The Flinch) and me at today's International Startup Festival. Under normal circumstances, this is a tough question to dissect and answer in a cogent way. We were asked to answer this during a concurrent session being held outdoors in a tent set-up with people mingling and networking outside. Trying to create some energy and excitement in the room (err.... tent) made my attempt frazzled. I'm hopeful that this blog post can clear it all up.

Traditional publishing still matters.

This isn't about big book and magazine publishers killing trees and maintaining the transport industry while feeding a distribution channel to retail. It means that these big publishing houses still have professionals who love and care about content in a way that allows customers to get true value from the products that they are buying. These products may be physical, digital, audio, digital audio or whatever. When I look at the people who work at Grand Central Publishing - Hachette Book Group (the publishers of my two business books, Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete), I do not see the same type of professionals that I was subjected to for over a decade while I was in the music industry. These book publishers know and understand that the landscape has changed, they know and understand that their consumers are buying their products and using them in new and different ways and, they're trying their best to not make the same bad decisions as those in the music industry. It's not perfect. They are some ugly things happening. There is going to be more messy stuff as we wander this road through business purgatory. Still, traditional publishing matters. It brings long form content to a bigger and more diverse audience. Not every author is going to have a shared experience, some will get book deals because they have a lot of followers on Twitter, and others will get a book deal because some editor believes that their content could set the book world on fire. As Seth Godin likes to say, your mileage may vary.

Self-publishing matters more than it ever did.

Take a look at the bestselling business books on Amazon's Kindle ebook page. Along with the expected slew of new and notable business books, you will find self-published and independent authors rocking this list with books as cheap as one dollar. With minimal technology and investment, anyone who wants to write a book can do so. It doesn't mean that it's going to work, and it doesn't mean that it's going to sell, but it does mean that they can not only write a book, but have access to a viable marketplace to sell and promote it. This doesn't mean that big book publishers go away, it simply means more competition and more choices for the consumer.

Digital publishing opens up a world of opportunities.

It is very alluring. Anyone can have a thought and publish it in text, images, audio and video instantly (and for free) to the Web (and to the world). Whether it's a simple tweet or all the way up to building a robust online publishing platform like Tumblr or Medium. The opportunities and the ideas are endless when it comes to digital publishing. With each and every passing day, we are seeing new and creative ways for people to publish - look no further than what is happening on Vine or what people are creating with Instagram's 15 second video.

It's just the beginning...

People crave content. It has never been easier to get content published or to make the decision to become a publisher. With that, more and more startups will launch new and inventive ways for content to find an audience. Will other kinds of publishing disappear? Possibly. Is it the end of the book as we have known them to date? Doubtful. People will still want and enjoy this type of content and media. I can't imagine an end to books or magazines. With that, this moment in time is a new beginning for the publishing industry with no end in sight.

What do you think? Are we at the beginning or the end of publishing?   

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Don't Be An Anonymous Cog - CTRL ALT Delete With Seth Godin

It was a magical night in New York City.

In thinking about the release of my latest business book, CTRL ALT Delete, I had no intention of doing the standard book launch party. I didn't want to stand in a bookstore with family and friends, sipping wine, eating cheese and reading from CTRL ALT Delete. My good friends at Google offered up their event space in New York City office to do something a little bit different. With that, I invited famed business leader (and personal mentor) Seth Godin to join me in a conversation about just how much business has changed... and what this means for all of us going forward.

Are you in the idea business?

We live in a day and age when books have become devices to start a conversation and we - the individuals who have to show up to do the work - no longer have to be anonymous cogs. That is the spirit of CTRL ALT Delete, and those are just some of the gems that came out in this conversation with Seth, and because of the great questions from the audience of over 250 people. Here is that conversation in it's entirety.

Mitch Joel & Seth Godin - CTRL ALT Delete - Talks At Google:

Special thanks for making this event happen goes to Google, Business Plus - Grand Central Publishing, everyone at Twist Image and, of course, the always inspiring Seth Godin.

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What's The Point In Commenting On Blogs?

What is the true value of a comment on a blog?

If you go back in time (a little over a decade ago), the mainstreaming of blogging as a publishing platform brought with it a couple of unique features. Initially, these instant publishing platforms were seen as simple online journals for those who wanted to keep them. Eventually, additional features like the ability for a reader to comment on a post and the introduction of RSS (a syndication feature that would notify readers by email or web-based readers when the blogger updated or published to the blog) helped to propel the platform to the mainstream. To this date, there is a constant slew of criticism and discourse on the importance of comments. Simply put, there is a strong legion of new media pundits who believe that a blog isn't a blog without comments and the back and forth between the key blogger and the readers. There are some famed bloggers (like Seth Godin) who don't even allow comments on their blog posts, there are people like yours truly who allow people to comment freely but rarely add to the discourse, and then there are those (like Gini Dietrich, Chris Brogan and Mark W. Schaefer) who spend a lot of time playing in the comments.

There are no wrong choices, so long as they are tied to a strategy.

Blogs are a publishing platform that allow anybody to have an idea and to publish said idea in text, instantly and (mostly) free to the world. Individuals and businesses need to best define how this type of media drives the overall strategy and adds true economic value to the brand. People like Godin, are simply looking for a way to share what they are thinking with their readers. Personally, blogging is a publishing medium that enables me to publish a thought, idea or perspective with the world, in the hopes that others will take it and add to it. For people like Dietrich, Brogan and Schaefer, they are trying to build an engaged community in the spirit of peer-based communication on their own platforms. Each individual is, hopefully, acutely in touch with what the end game is and laser-focused on ensuring that their blogging matches the strategy.

The conversation is everywhere.

The truth is that you no longer need Seth Godin, Chris Brogan or my blog as a destination to comment. As social media continues to expand, individuals interested in leaving a comment for a Seth Godin blog post can do so on their own Facebook page, on Twitter, on YouTube or even on their own blog. That's what makes the non-hierarchical and disintermediated publishing platform that social media affords us so fantastical. If something's upsetting to you, if something has inspired or if you feel that you just want to acknowledge something that a blogger published, you don't need their platform or their validation to add to the discourse. The idea of a centralized receptacle for everything surrounding one, particular, piece of content seems both silly and counterintuitive in these hyper-connected platforms.

Sharing and sharing alike.

A personal story: often when people leave a comment on my blog, I do not respond. It's not a policy. It's not the law. It's probably a character flaw. Ultimately, I feel like I have said everything that I need to say on the topic, and I'm hopeful that the comments from readers are additions to that piece. Some agree, some add perspective and some disagree with my content. There are many instances when other readers respond to comments left by other readers. There are instances when I jump in. All comments are being read, digested and considered, but the need to leave the digital equivalent of a high five doesn't fit with my personality. It's not an indication that I'm not appreciative of the discourse (quite the opposite, I'm extremely thankful that individuals read the content and feel compelled to comment). I've had people leave a comment, then post to Twitter that they have left a comment, then posted a link to the blog post with an additional comment on LinkedIn, Google + and more. There are many social media "experts" who feel that every comment must be acknowledged on a blog post. Does this mean that bloggers must also acknowledge those additional comments, shares and more on every other channel as well? The power of social media and blogs comes from the ability to easily share something that matters. The additional content that gets bolted on by others (including comments) help turn this content into a more three-dimensional piece of text-based content. In the past, the amount of comments to a blog post used to be a major metric for success. In a world of abundance, perhaps the more important metrics should be:

Did the content resonate?

Do people talk about it beyond the blog (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, on other blogs, podcasts, etc...)?

Do the readers keep coming back for more?

Do the readers have the means to add their own perspective wherever they would like?

Did the content amplify beyond these readers into their networks?

Do the people who curate the type of content that the blogger writes about take notice and share it?

Can the content be repurposed for the brand, the industry or the greater community at large?

Does the blog act as a great entry point to learn more about the brand?

Does the blog humanize the brand?

Does the blog communicate in a more humane way?

Let's get over the comments.

Comments are great. They add perspective and personality. But, they may no longer be a key metric for success. At a more macro level, social media affords brands the opportunity to create unique and new metrics that aren't universal. An ad is about an impression, the amount of people who saw that impression, the amount of attention it created and, ultimately, did people buy and talk about the brand. Blogs can do a myriad of other things, and those metrics should not be dismissed or admonished simply because certain individuals feel that a blog (and the comments that go along with it) all need to act and play a certain way as a metric for success.

What's your take? Is a blog merely the sum of its comments and commenters or is it time to redefine the value of comments on a blog?  

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 - What's the Point In Commenting On Blogs?

Additional note: This blog post was inspired by questions asked by Mack Collier during our #BlogChat on Twitter. It also serves as a response to the blog post, Should Bloggers Respond to Comments?  

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Online Video Is About To Change Marketing Forever

Episode #365 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

This is also episode #26.20 of Across The Sound. Joseph Jaffe is widely regarded as one of the top Marketing Bloggers (Jaffe Juice) and Podcasters (both Jaffe Juice in audio and Jaffe Juice TV in video). He is the author of three excellent books (Life After The 30-Second Spot, Join The Conversation and Flip The Funnel) and his latest business venture is, Evol8tion. He's just finishing a new book (that he launched on Kickstarter) called, Z.E.R.O. A long-time friend (and one of the main inspirations behind the Six Pixels of Separation blog and podcast), we've decided to hold semi-regular conversations, debates and back-and-forths that will dive a little deeper into the Digital Marketing and Social Media landscape. This is our 26th conversation (or, as I like to affectionately call it, Across The Sound 26.20) and we dive deep into everything video from Vine and Instagram to the new (and amazing) slew of video podcasts... and the opportunities that it provides for brands moving forward. 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 #365.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #159

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:

The Weird, Recursive "Mad Men" Ads - The New Yorker . "Since Mad Men is about advertising, and since its stars like Jon Hamm and Christina Hendricks are celebrities in their own right, the ads have become a little meta. Okay, more than a little: tone and tenor borrows from a bygone age, blurring the line between show and ad. Who needs product placements when the pitchmen are doing the pitching?" (Alistair for Hugh).

Where Don Draper ends, D.B. Cooper begins - Medium . "I haven't watched much Man Men, so this could be a horrible spoiler. I really want to spend a week consuming them, uninterrupted; my undergrad focused on advertising and my uncle was a larger-than-life ad man in the South Pacific. If this speculation isn't how the show ends, then I really want them to create an alternate ending. It's so symmetrical, so perfect, that if Lindsey Green 's conclusion of the show is mere coincidence, something is fundamentally wrong with the universe." (Alistair for Mitch).

First-ever human head transplant is now possible, says neuroscientist - Quartz . "This week's links are not for the faint of heart. I have a cousin who got a full lung/heart transplant, which is astounding and terrifying to me. But here's something... well I don't even know where to start. The title to this story says it all." (Hugh for Alistair).

A short film about the monkey head transplant experiment of the 1960s - io9 . "The astounding article above is a bit 'disappointing'... in that the science discussed seems to be theoretical, and not tested.  But, if you can stomach it, take a look at this short documentary about Dr. Robert White (referenced in the above article) and his (successful) experiments doing monkey head transplants. In 1970. Don't watch this if you are squeamish. Even if you aren't squeamish, be careful watching this." (Hugh for Mitch).

First Human-Made Object To Travel Beyond Our Solar System - PSFK . "I'm not sure if it's because I watch too much Star Wars and Star Trek , but I would have thought that we have already had satellites and probes peek past our solar system. We have not. This explains why I probably should have stayed in school, instead of watching Star Wars, reading comic books and playing video games. We're so used to seeing things like warp speed and more on our favorite science fiction shows, that we forget how little we actually know about space and what is beyond our solar system. The cool news is this: we're about to find out." (Mitch for Alistair).

How the Hum of a Coffee Shop Can Boost Creativity - The New York Times . "How inspired are you to create from the corner coffee shop? It's a cultural thing, isn't it? Sitting there, sipping a cafe au lait, staring at the glow from the screen as patrons chat, mingle and co-work. The hum of the coffee machines and people's conversations can be inspiring... or, do they distract you? Well, it turns out that there is some research that demonstrates how hard it is to be creative when it's quiet and how hard it is to be creative when it's too loud. Its turns out that that there is a goldilocks theory for your creativity as well. Enter Coffitivity . Perhaps this ambient coffee shop sound generator will boost your productivity?" (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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alistair croll

bitcurrent

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christina

coffitivity

complete web monitoring

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dr robert white

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mad men

managing bandwidth

media hacks

medium

pressbooks

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social media

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star trek

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the new york times

the new yorker

twitter

year one labs

Jerry Seinfeld Makes The Internet Even Better

When you take away the gatekeepers, that's when the magic happens.

Jerry Seinfeld is doing a new show. It's on his own terms. It's on the Web. It's amazing. It's called, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. Its' self-explanatory. He picks a comedian. He picks a car. He calls them up. He asks them if they're in the mood for coffee. He picks them up. Hilarity ensues.

Watch it here:

Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.

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