Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 317

When Real Time Becomes Really Real Time

Are the rumors about Amazon true?

Here are two true stories I have heard about Amazon recently:

Story Number One... A friend of mine lives in New York City and is a member of Amazon Prime. They ordered some stuff very early on a Friday morning and were shocked to find a delivery to their home by lunch time of the same day. They were impressed. As I recounted this story over the past few months at live speaking events, I've had numerous people come up to me after and confirm that they have had similar experiences. Some of them weren't the exact same day, but by the next morning, etc. Many people also said that they were not even members of Amazon Prime or that they didn't pay for the expedited shipping, but it came that way, regardless.

Story Number Two... A senior executive with a major brand that is headquartered in Silicon Valley was pulling up to work after a lunch meeting and noticed a postal service truck near the deliveries entrance. The postman got out of the truck and rolled up the trunk to reveal a haul with nothing but Amazon boxes - of all shapes and sizes - stacked and packed into this one, fairly large, vehicle.

Amazon is changing retail.

That should come as no surprise, but Slate published a fascinating article on July 11th, 2012 titled, I Want It Today, that dissects the next generation of what Amazon is going to do to disrupt retail as we have seen it to date. From the article: "...Amazon has a new game. Now that it has agreed to collect sales taxes, the company can legally set up warehouses right inside some of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. Why would it want to do that? Because Amazon's new goal is to get stuff to you immediately --  as soon as a few hours after you hit Buy... It's hard to overstate how thoroughly this move will shake up the retail industry. Same-day delivery has long been the holy grail of Internet retailers, something that dozens of startups have tried and failed to accomplish. (Remember Kozmo.com?) But Amazon is investing billions to make next-day delivery standard, and same-day delivery an option for lots of customers. If it can pull that off, the company will permanently alter how we shop. To put it more bluntly: Physical retailers will be hosed."

When the real time Web hits the real time world.

I'm less inclined to believe that this will kill retail. Retail is a communal experience. People do not just shop to buy the lowest price and for convenience. Many people shop and walk through shopping malls to get out, to do something and connect to their fellow citizens. It's not all about transactions. What's more interesting is what this means to our culture as the Internet and our physical worlds blend in one motion of real-time. We've already seen what happens as information transforms this way (look no further than to see how news spreads via Twitter), but it will be amazing to see this transcend from the Internet to physical items.

Slate asks an interesting question.

"For $5 extra, you can have that laptop waiting for you when you get home from work. Wouldn't you take that deal?," asks Farhad Manjoo in this article. My guess is that if you're buying something like a laptop over your lunch break and for an extra $20 you can have it by the time you get home from work, that a good majority would bite at that kind of offer. Beyond the ability for Amazon to make more money per purchase, it will be fascinating to see how it impacts the overall business. Once you can segment customers and better understand the types of premiums that consumers are willing to pay (and at what threshold levels), you're suddenly capturing the kind of consumer and retail data no one else was ever able to capture. Think about the business-to-business implications of this: Amazon will have access to a treasure trove chest of consumer insight that it can use as a bargaining chips with everyone from suppliers and affiliates to shipping companies and beyond.

What this truly means for retail?

It may no longer be about products being fresh, priced fairly and available inventory. The physical store may become much more about an experience (think about this in terms of going to the movies or to an amusement park), while Amazon (and other, inevitable, startups that will either rise up or be created) to transform how we shop online into a much more frictionless experience. Regardless, if this article is accurate, Amazon is making fast moves to act like a major retailer without even having a physical brick and mortar store. Amazing to think that Amazon.com went live in 1995. In under twenty years, just look at how much retail has been transformed.

How disruptive do you think this will be to retailers?

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same day delivery

shopping

shopping mall

silicon valley

slate

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Grow Your Company Or Be Active On Social Media?

Should the CEO blog?

It seems like a question rooted in 2008, but now that blogging could include things like tweeting, creating videos on YouTube, updating a Facebook profile or taking part in LinkedIn, it may well be high time to start asking these questions all over again. The reasoning for this line of questioning comes via a press release issued today titled, Fortune 500 executives behind on social networking. A study done by Domo and CEO.com looked at the online engagement of Fortune 500 companies' top brass and compared it to that of the mass population. The key takeaway? Less than thirty percent of the Fortune 500's top executives have (at least) one profile within a social media channel and the vast majority have none.

"I'd like my life back."

During the BP oil spill crisis, then CEO, Tony Hayward, became known for his infamous line: "I'd like my life back." Social media and online social networking force individuals to become public. They also force these same individuals to become active media entities unto themselves. These people are no longer just leading a company but are expressing their views and perspectives. This - as you can well imagine - is not for everyone. Some have done it exceedingly well as a platform to share ideas and thinking to foster better relationships with everyone from shareholders to employees to customers, but the majority of them (according to this press release) are simply avoiding it... like the plague.

Why so shy, Mr. CEO?

Here are some of the fascinating data points taken from this survey:

5 of the 19 CEOs on Twitter have never tweeted.

25 of the 38 CEOs on Facebook have less than 100 friends.

The only social network that these CEO outdo the US public on is LinkedIn (129 of the CEOs have profiles vs. 1/5 of Americans).

Only 4 CEOs are on Google + (and that includes Larry Page).

None are on Pinterest (which has, according to this report, 12 million American users).

Only one CEO blogs (Whole Foods' John Mackey). That blog has not been updated since November 2011 (so does that even count?).

Social media is personal media.

From the report: "While the majority of Fortune 500 CEOs have yet to pick up the pace in their personal social media efforts, it seems those who do will be better equipped to successfully grow their companies." I'm not too sure that I would agree with that conclusion. If a CEO believes a more public and social platform would enable them to add economic value to the brands that they represent, there may be good cause to get involved. But, it's not essential. Social media has evolved and I do not believe that consumers have an expectation that because blogging and tweeting exists that there is now a defined line to connect personally to a CEO of a company. It seems like the vast majority of consumers are fine with their current level of interaction with brands so long as they get results that are both fast and end with a positive result in their favor. Does anyone really care if the CEOs of the brands that they like and follow are deeply engaged in the social media spheres? Not every leader is going to be great at developing and nurturing a substantive social media presence and, so long as the brand is actively engaged, isn't that more than enough? In a perfect world, I would love to see more and more CEOs sharing, caring and connecting in a more personal way, but it's easy to see where the apprehension lies, isn't it?

Do you think the future CEO can only be successful if they're personally engaged with social media?

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Want To Get Rich? Quit Your Day Job

"Don't quit your day job."

How often have you heard that line when you did any kind of public performance? What about the blank stares that come when you propose a business idea to people? Rejection is a hard thing to deal with. I saw the founder of Rovio talking about the success of Angry Birds at a Google event last year, and I think he said that the first eighty-plus versions of Angry Birds were not all that good and failed.

How much effort and how much dedication do we really put against our big ideas?

How deeply do we believe in them?

How realistic is our thinking?

How far are we willing to go?

These are the deep questions that many of us kick around (day and night).

Inc. Magazine ran an article titled, How The Rich Got Rich, in June of this past year. The article was based on an annual report by the IRS that provided data on the 400 individual income tax returns reporting the largest adjusted gross incomes and it was written by Jeff Haden. In this article, he deciphers the "watching paint dry"-boringness of this data to uncover some interesting kernels...

Working for a salary won't make you rich.

Neither will making only safe "income" investments.

Neither will investing only in large companies.

Owning a business or businesses, whether in part or partnership, could not only build a solid wealth foundation but could someday...

Generate a huge financial windfall.

Just remember, you are not everybody.

Odds are that these people are the exception and not the rule, so this type of data is sometimes very hard to swallow. It's like trying to figure out if there are any central themes in the top one hundred rock albums sold of all time. What you quickly realize is that there is no universal theme: each and every single one of them are the exception to the rule and that, in small part, is some of the secret sauce to their success. So, looking at all of this corporate data doesn't really provide any clear roadmap. That being said, it declares (beyond the shadow of doubt) that our understanding of what hard work brings is sometimes very far off from the gravity of earth. It also speaks to a trend that is, likely, not going to reverse course...

The future of business is small and entrepreneurial (don't tell the MBAs and consultants).

The workplace has changed. Economics are funky. The security of a steady job in a big, corporate company has all but dissolved. We've spent the better part of two decades watching these monstrous organizations crumble (some because of corruption, while others failed to innovate at pace). At the same time, we've seen instances where a company like Instagram comes along, plays by their own rules and - whether we like it or not - is able to be sold for a billion dollars to Facebook with not much more than a hope of future growth, expansion and revenue.

It's not all about the money.

I'll be the first one to raise my hand in admission that money is not the only driver for success in business and life. Being healthy, happy and doing important stuff that helps us develop at work needs to trump the income for our personal well-being, but wealth is (whether we like it or not) a leading key indicator as well. So, is it time to quit your job? That's your call. What I can tell you, as an entrepreneur, is that these five data points provided by Haden in the Inc. Magazine article are in-line with my reasoning for becoming an entrepreneur in the first place. I can best sum up my reasoning with this one line of thought: I wanted complete control and responsibility for my financial outcome in life. Was it easy? No. It's still hard - each and every day. But, I know that I have more control over my financial fate than when I was an employee and hoping that the next quarter's result would not have a negative impact on my employment status.

Safe investments. Large companies. Stable jobs. Who knew that those aren't the key factors for success?

Tags:

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economics

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future of business

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irs

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rovio

Is Your Business All About the Product? Or the People?

There is a major shift in business focus that is under way.

Digital media has forced businesses to change. Dramatically. This is nothing new. What's interesting is that we're seeing two, distinct, breeds of business being born:

Product Focused. The product focused business is head down and sleeves rolled up in a constant state of evolving the product. From daily tinkers and iterations to massive updates and overhauls. All they're trying to do is put out the most interesting and relevant products into the marketplace.

Customer Focused. Or, as I like to call this type of organization: "train kept a rollin'." These are the organizations that started off with an entrepreneurial spirit, but are now simply in market: selling and marketing the same product. They shift and adjust their advertising but their core products have, fundamentally, stayed the same with slight updates to ensure market relevancy.

The Internet exposes all.

It used to be difficult to see and understand the differences between the two. While there are a handful of organizations today that may be blurring the lines, you can think of some of the most common brands and ask yourself: are the product focused or customer focused? It's obvious that the majority of online darlings are - for the most part - product focused, while your favorite soda is probably a more customer focused endeavor. The reason this is becoming an increasingly relevant issue is because the more brands embrace social media, building better websites and trying to figure out a substantive mobile strategy to integrate with their business model, it's becoming abundantly clear that most major brands simply don't understand the power and importance of digital media in relation to telling a credible brand narrative.

What we're really seeing.

What we're really seeing is a world where most brands are trying to design and market their way out of a flawed business model. To be kinder: they're trying to use social media to put lipstick on the proverbial pig. But, because digital media is open to all, this strategy backfires. Great design and a cohesive marketing message is, clearly, not enough. Brands can try as they wish to get better at creating content or trying to engage with consumers on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, but if - at the end of the day - it's just marketing blather and not truly relevant, all is lost... including the marketing investment, time and resources. See, if you want to be a brand that is both product focused and customer focused (and yes, in this day and age, that is the ultimate goal), it can't be by leveraging marketing as thin veneer to the business.

Facing yourself in the mirror.

If you haven't had a chance to read Jeffrey Hayzlett's first business book, The Mirror Test, now would be the perfect time. Brands need to wake up, roll out of bed, rub their eyes, lean over the sink and take a long, cold, hard look in the mirror and ask themselves those same questions that keep the rest of us up at night:

What are we doing?

Why are we here?

Who do we serve?

Are we doing this right? 

Would anybody care if we disappeared today?

How can we get closer to the people that matter most to us?

A focused world.

There is no doubt, you can't have one without the other moving forward. As important as product focused organizations are, so too are customer focused organizations as well, and this is where our business world could, potentially, get very exciting: when the best of brands become the perfect balance of both. We've already started to see some nascent signs of this (companies like Fab and Kickstarter), where a hybrid of constantly iterative and head-down product focused organizations have an equally compelling customer focused drive as well (be it driven top-down by the corporation or enhanced via peer to peer engagement). It seems to make perfect sense, but we have to remember that social media isn't just about brands being able to talk to consumers and provide platitudes that serve customer service as the prime driver. The digital platform and channels have enhanced how we feel about brands and how brands can express (or react) to that in much more powerful and profound ways. It has switched from a traditional, linear, approach to a much more circular and organic one.

Your exercise of the day: is your business more product focused or customer focused? What are you going to do to bridge the gap?

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post called, Media Hacker . 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:

The Huffington Post - Is Your Business All About the Product? Or the People?

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mobile

pinterest

product development

product focused

social media

the huffington post

the mirror test

twitter

From Economics To Likeonomics

Episode #313 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Welcome to episode #313 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast. Rohit Bhargava has an impressive resume. He is the SVP of Global Strategy & Planning for Ogilvy and a professor of global marketing at Georgetown University. He has one of the most popular marketing blogs on the Internet called, Influential Marketing Blog, and is the author of Personality Not Included and his recently published sophomore effort, Likeonomics. Rohit describes Likeonomics like this: "Likeonomics is a new book about why some people and companies are more believable than others and why likeability is the real secret to being more trusted, getting more customers, making more money - and perhaps even changing your life." Powerful stuff from one of the smarter marketing brains out there. Before getting on with the show, I am frequently asked about the music at the end of the podcast. The song is 'St. Lawrence River' and it's by David Usher. I've been friends with David forever and his music always inspires me. He let me know that a new project he's working on, Artists For Amnesty, is giving away this song for free. Just go to the site and follow the instructions. 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 #313.

Tags:

advertising podcast

artists for amnesty

blog

blogging

brand

business book

david usher

digital marketing

facebook

georgetown university

influential marketing blog

itunes

likeonomics

marketing

marketing blogger

marketing podcast

ogilvy

online social network

personality not included

podcast

podcasting

rohit bhargava

social media

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #107

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, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so 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:

11 Months, 3000 pictures and a lot of coffee - YouTube . "Nothing to see here. Just a guy stripping down and rebuilding a motor over nearly a year, taking pictures of each step so he can put it back together properly. Which makes for an amazing film." (Alistair for Hugh).

The Hidden Economy of Esteem - Cambridge University Press . "It is said that the first treatise on the Gulf Stream began with the sentence 'There is a river in the ocean'. As there is indeed a river hidden in the tumult of the ocean, so we suggest that there is an economy hidden in the whirl of social life. I've been thinking a lot about new economies lately, partly because of the reduced friction from electronic systems that allows them to emerge, and partly because Tim O'Reilly stocked the waters of Foo Camp with folks from Kickstarter , AirBnB and elsewhere to discuss the subject. As I was writing up my thoughts on the event, I came across this piece, published in 2000, by Geoffrey Brennan and Philip Pettit . It's particularly relevant in a world where we can track not only money, but also attention and reputation, like currency. It's really dry stuff, more worth skimming than reading, but it does pose some fascinating questions that are much more relevant today than they were before we lived our lives online: is esteem like a pheromone? Or is it more like money? And I love this line, known as the Elster Axiom: 'nothing is so unimpressive as behavior designed to impress.' As it turns out, it takes 98 pages to say don't market like a douchebag." (Alistair for Mitch).

Cyberwar's eerie echoes of the A-bomb race - New Scientist . "A couple of weeks ago my link was about the revelation that the computer virus Stuxnet was indeed the creation of the US and Israeli militaries, which signaled an 'official' beginning of militarized cyberwarfare (I say 'official' because, well, I assume this has been happening for years). This article looks at the parallels between the early days of the nuclear arms race, and the kinds of statements coming out of the US about cyberwar." (Hugh for Alistair).

Giving it Away: How Free Music Makes More Than Sense - Derek Webb . "We all know the economics of media has gone topsy turvey, and music was the first to go. This is interesting because I spend a lot of my time thinking about what's going to happen to books. I was talking to David Usher the other day about the music biz, and he said 'Really, selling music is dead. Live shows are great, but there's no money to be made in selling albums/downloads anymore.' Here's an article by a working musician arguing that there is more value in giving away music than selling it, because if you give it away, and control the contact with the listener - you have something valuable. If you sell it, you make pennies." (Hugh for Mitch).

The U.N. Declares Internet Access a Human Right - The Atlantic . "How will we keep the citizens of the world informed? I'm not just talking about the latest breaking news that we capture on CNN , but everything from changes at city hall to things happening in your neighborhood? It used to be a lot simpler when people got their news rolled up on the doorstep or at 6 pm on the local news or by listening to the radio on their drive to work. Now, with the disruption of new media and the always on world, there's no clear place to go to get the information your need. I blogged about this issue nearly two years ago (right here: The Internet As Your Birthright ), so in an 'I told you so!' moment, I'm happy to see that the U.N. is declaring access to the Internet as a basic human right." (Mitch for Alistair).

William Faulkner House Gives Peek Into Writer's Life - The Huffington Post . "I used to have the entire series of The Paris Review 's book series titled, Writers At Work (in looking at the prices for these books on Amazon , I probably should not have donated them to goodwill!). I've always been fascinated with the environment of writers: not just the physical space but where they find inspiration. This article reminded me of how much I enjoyed reading the Writers At Work series when I was much younger (probably not something that many young writers ever did), but a line from this article really struck a chord: 'You're going to hear about the agony and the sweat and the difficulty and the compulsion,' Griffith said. 'You're not going to hear anything about how great it was, how relaxing and beautiful it was. None of that. He just did what he had to do to get it done.' Nothing sums up the stress of writing more than that." (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:

airbnb

alistair croll

amazon

bitcurrent

cambridge university press

complete web monitoring

david usher

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foo camp

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hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

kickstarter

librivox

link exchange

linkbait

managing bandwidth

media hacks

new scientist

philip pettit

pressbooks

story

stuxnet

the atlantic

the book oven

the huffington post

the paris review

tim oreilly

william faulkner

writers at work

year one labs

youtube

Making Copies

I have a massive frustration when it comes to reading books and magazines with my e-reader.

I like to copy and paste portions of text that resonate with me. I like to share them (it could be a tweet or a blog post or on Facebook) and I like to centralize them (in a place like Evernote). The problem, our course, is that this content is usually locked down. You can't just highlight it, copy it and paste wherever you want. There's DRM all over it and the publishers don't want this content floating about. In fact, it's not just my e-reader. It could be a portion of a physical book, magazine or newspaper as well. It would be great to be able to capture this text and turn it into usable content.

There's an app for that.

TextGrabber to the rescue. This iPhone (and iPad) app allows you to take a picture of something in print and it uses some fairly advanced OCR software to turn it into digital text that you can cut and paste and move about freely, but there's a little hack that I've learned when it comes to content you're reading on a screen: If you press the on/off switch and the home button on your iPhone or iPad at the same time, it takes a screen capture. So, all you have to do is take a screen capture of whatever you're reading digitally and then open TextGrabber, bring it in and poof, you've got digitized copy that is free to roam about the cabin.

It's the little hacks that count.

Am I breaking some kind of copyright law? Probably. Am I using the content to sell or for monetary gain? No. I just want to be able to use copy (of content I have purchased) without having to re-type it, and this one little hack has made all of the difference in my content creation and curation.

Why am I sharing this with you? Two reasons:

I am not alone. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is frustrated because they can't copy and paste some quotes out of a book being read on a Kindle.

You have some too. We all have these simple (but powerful) little hacks and workarounds that make us more productive (just take a look at the Lifehacker site). We often don't share them. We should be sharing more.

So, what's your simple little hack that makes your world just a little bit more productive? Do share...

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A Fascinating New Trend

"If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else." - Marvin Gaye.

I just saw an image on Facebook of this quote. It's not the first time. Over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed a veritable onslaught of motivation and personal development quotes that are embedded in images (with varying degrees of artistic quality). Some of them are profound and powerful and some of them are quirky and cheesy. My added interest in this trend is the request to share, comment and spread them.

What's going on here?

What's with the sudden fascination in sharing powerful quotes and why is this, primarily, relegated to Facebook? Have the people of Facebook suddenly had a global awakening that life is short and we need to cherish not only this moment but the people in our lives? Have we become tired of LOLCats, Someecards and  other random memes?

Fascinating memes.

The Internet provides a deep river of flowing memes that are fascinating (and funny) to watch. The most random of content spreads with a speed that is uncanny. On top of that, the majority of these memes disappear without notice as well. A few manage to have some semblance of longevity. In makes me wonder: if these random memes can go viral (and we can debate the definition of "viral" at some other point in time), why do brands (which have access to resources and more creative horsepower than the average human being) struggle so hard to find their groove?

Follow the memes.

As trends like these unfold, it's important to put on your marketing hat and analyze the words, the images, how these memes spread, who is spreading them, what the comments look like and more. Is there hardcore data in this information? Probably not. It's much more subjective than scientific when it comes to what captures people's attention, but there's one thing you can bank on: the people who start these trends are learning too, and the ones that are successful at it, tend to get better at it with each successive iteration on the theme.

With that, I'm still trying to figure out why these motivation quotes on Facebook are so pervasive and popular. What's your take?

Tags:

brand

content

facebook

internet meme

lolcats

marketing

marvin gaye

meme

motivational quote

personal development

someecards

trend

viral

viral marketing

Independence. Forever.

Happy Fourth Of July.

I have a soft spot for any day that celebrates independence. This blog is about independence. Brands (can) have independence now. It's powerful. It's big. It's not going to change. It's going to be a lot more of this for years going forward. We take it for granted. We think that content is just content and that because anyone can publish, it means that there's an abundance of it and that the majority of it is simply not important.

It's not true.

As far as places to publish content, I love this blog (and the podcast) more than anything and it can be summed up in one word: independence. I spent more years than I care to mention chasing down publishers and editors in an attempt to convince them that my story ideas had merit. Getting rejected is never fun, but it's only worse when you know that there must be an audience for the stories that you want to tell. That's what a real blog will provide. You don't need permission (or, as Seth Godin calls them: gatekeepers) to validate you or your stories. Brands don't need to only communicate their messages through advertising in the format that the publishers have pre-determined. It's a white canvas and that canvas is full of independence.

Who cares about my podcast?

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: my podcast is the most selfish act I undertake each and every week. I see it as an opportunity to corner someone in the business, media and marketing world and pick their brains with anything and everything that I want to know about them and how they think. Yes, I share that content with anybody who wants it, but it's the independence of new media that brings it to life. It's not a radio show and it has no set format. The true spirit of the Six Pixels of Separation podcast is to experiment with audio and to experiment with business content. After three hundred-plus episodes, I don't feel an inkling of slowing down. The same goes for this blog. Each and every day, tons of news items, tweets, emails and random thoughts about media come across my personal wire... and with that, I pick one idea and run with it. Sometimes, it gets me thinking in new and magical ways and other days, it's like pulling teeth. In the end, it's not about whether each and every blog post was able to make a dent in the universe (as Steve Jobs would say). It's much more about that feeling of independence... that the ability for me to publish ideas, share them with you, get your input (positive, negative or neutral) and come back for more the next day that makes it magical for me.

Independence. Independent. 

My one take-away from my time in the music industry is that every major artist was independent at one time or another. It's beautiful to think about art (it can also be an author or even the work that you do) with such a prism. Does a great producer, co-writers and a major record deal change that? It can. But, you'll note that any musician with true longevity and respect maintains a certain level of independence when it comes to the creative process and output. Whenever I sit down to blog or record a podcast, I take a moment as I lift the lid on my MacBook Air to honor the power of independence that these people have and that my tools provide me with.

Embrace your independence.

It's a magical time to be alive. It's amazing to watch the constant innovation and shifts that businesses and brands are going through. The potential to create and do amazing things has never been more readily available. The ability for you - yes, you! - to make that dent in the universe has never been closer to your grasp. You see, independence isn't about whether or not your boss lets you do something. Independence is not about whether or not you have what would be considered the proper formal education to make a run at something. Independence means that you can make some very powerful choices. And yes, social media, now plays a massive role in this. Don't believe it? Stop reading this now and look at some of the projects on Kickstarter that are currently seeking funding.

Independence is not just one day in the year to celebrate.

Have a project on your mind? Got something to say, but haven't blogged in a while? Been thinking about changing the direction of your Facebook page to actually connect to people about something more relevant to the world? What are you waiting for? Independence Day is the perfect day to wake up and realize that every day of your life can now have one component of independence: your own, special space to be who you are and share what you're thinking with everyone.

Happy Independence Day... every day.

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You Can't Pay Me To Do That

At what price integrity?

There was book on the future of advertising (or media... or something) that was being offered for free. I clicked the link, read the synopsis and thought to myself, "why not! I'll download it, find some time and peruse the book." Then, I clicked on the link to download it and was suddenly told that I have to tweet about the book before being able to download it. The service that this author was using is called, Pay With A Tweet. The tweet made me feel uncomfortable. I'm probably in the minority here. My guess is that the majority of people would be willing to shill to their network with a single tweet if it meant scoring a free book. I mean, after all, it's just a measly tweet... who cares? What's the big deal?

The big deal.

I prefer to see, read, acknowledge and think that whatever I put into whatever social media stream is something that I think you will value. It made me feel immensely uncomfortable tweeting about something that could be junk. It made me feel immensely uncomfortable that people think this is good marketing. To me, it all felt kind of dirty and wrong. Why would anyone want me to send a message to my entire social graph about something that I have yet to spend any time with?

It's a trade-off.

I know what you're thinking: a tweet for a free book is a fair deal. It may be. I'm not sure. I'd have to read the book first and then decide... and isn't that the point? Here are the two ways to look at this:

I tweet. I get the book. It's very transactional. For sending a message to my network (and spreading the word that this book exists), I get the book. Whether I love the book or hate the book, the deal is done. I've done what was asked of me.

I get the book. I tweet. It's very human. Because I got a free book and because it blew mind (let's face it, if anyone is going to publish a book, let's make sure it blows our minds), I'll do anything for the author. What happens next? I'll tell everyone (and so will you). It won't just be a tweet, it could be something on LinkedIn and Facebook too. I may write a blog post about it. I may email my close friends and tell them to pick it up. I may want to interview the author for my podcast. I may even want to write it up as one of my regular columns. Who knows? When a consumer derives value - especially from something that was given to them for free - they become the best kind of evangelist.

You can't pay me to shill to you.

Here's why I don't like to tweet for a book (or anything like it, for that matter): I respect the relationship between me and my followers. If I tweet for a book, I get a book and you're the pawns. I'm using you to get something and you do not benefit from the exchange (that's not a win-win scenario). It's the same reason I do not complain about brands or customer service issues that I encounter: I do not want to use my social graph as leverage. That's not part of our social agreement. It falls outside of the parameters of the social contract that I have both created and do my best to enforce.

It's just a tweet.

Maybe it's just a tweet to you. Maybe you think that the majority of your followers are probably not seeing it anyways, so what's the big deal? Maybe. For me, it just feels like I'm being asked to broadcast something to my group that I have not vetted. I'm being asked to share something regardless of how I feel about it. In a world where everyone of us is a media channel and publishing content in text, images, audio and video in a near real-time and constant flow, I'm doing everything I can to hold my content and the valuable relationship I have with those connected to me to a higher standard. I'm fine if you consider me a snob. I'm fine if you think I'm being overly-dramatic about nothing more than a simple tweet. I believe that the brands that win are the ones who will hold themselves to a higher standard.

What do you believe?

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