Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 323

The Virtual Self And The New Trend Of Self-Tracking

Episode #305 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Now, with the ubiquity of smartphones and mobile connectedness, it has never been easier to share with the world our each and every move (look no further than Facebook's one billion dollar acquisition of Instagram). And we're publishing our lives. All of the time - in text, images, audio and video - for the world to see. In fact, it's happening more and more with each and every passing day. Why are we doing all of this self-tracking? It's a topic that has fascinated Nora Young for a long while. The founding host and producer of CBC's Definitely Not The Opera and the current host of Spark (a radio show and podcast about the intersection of technology and culture - and it's one of my personal favorites) spent this past year digging deeper into self-tracking and what this means about our society and who we are. The culmination of her work is the recently published book, The Virtual Self - How Our Digital Lives Are Altering the World Around Us. Over the years, I've had the pleasure of being a guest on Spark on multiple occasions, so it was a lot of fun to turn the tables and interview Nora. 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 #305.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #99

93Is 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:

Why Generation Y is Causing the Great Migration of the 21st Century - PlaceShakers And NewsMakers . "Nathan Morris makes a good case that 60 years of suburban dreams have ended, and that we'll no longer crave the suburbs. Technology, infrastructure, and lifestyle changes might turn the countryside into a ghost town the way the flight from urban cores has abandoned some cities." (Alistair for Hugh).

Startups, this is how design works. "These days, it's all about the interface. With dozens of new companies emerging daily, those that are easy and intuitive get a head start. Wells Riley has a great (and well-designed) guidebook for startups that need to understand the fundamentals of design. It's a good read that illustrates common mistakes and underscores the fundamental reason for designing something: to solve a physical or virtual problem." (Alistair for Mitch).

The Floppy Disk means Save, and 14 other old people Icons that don't make sense anymore - Computer Zen . "I don't know if you have this experience too, but I have a mother who asks me occasionally for help with her computer. She doesn't do it very often because I usually end up shouting at the phone. For whatever reason, my mother just doesn't seem to connect with the fundamental metaphors that computers are built on: file/folder structure, and layers of open-but-not-in-use applications. But what about the young people today, struggling to figure out why 'save' should be denoted by an icon of a floppy disk? What's a floppy disk? Here's a list of common computer iconography that no longer make much sense at all, since the things they refer to in order to help us 'understand' are - for many young people - long extinct and as baffling as the questions: 'what app are you in? what does the menu bar say?' are for my mother." (Hugh for Alistair).

How Books Will Survive Amazon? - The New York Review of Books . "Jason Epstein is the cofounder of the New York Review of Books AND the co-founder of On Demand Books, which makes the Espresso Book Machine - an (industrial) photocopier-sized machine that'll print and bind a one-off of your favorite book in about a minute. So he's the co-founder of both one of the bastions of 'old' literary culture, and 'new' publishing technology. In this short piece, he tells everyone worried about the future of publishing to relax. The details don't matter so much as Epstein's conclusion: 'Barring a nuclear disaster, life will go on as it always has: past, present, and future all at once.'" (Hugh for Mitch).

Dieter Rams On Good Design As A Key Business Advantage - Fast Company's Co.Design . "This is a beautiful speech given by Dieter Rams in New York in 1976. Rams is best-known for his design work at Braun (and for being a heavy influence on Jony Ive - Apple 's superstar designer. Rams is 80 years old today, and this jump back in time is still an extremely fresh and compelling perspective on why design matters." (Mitch for Alistair).

Prime-Time Stern - The New York Times . "On Monday night, the season premiere of America's Got Talent will be on. Anyone who thinks that Howard Stern is a lewd and crude shock jock, will see the side of him that I know and love: he is, without question, one of the smartest people on the plant who commands a conversation like no other. His celebrity interviews are second-to-none because he is no-nonsense and has an acute beat on the human condition. America (and the rest of the world) are going to fall in love with Stern because in a world of fake reality television, he is truly real." (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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amazon

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howard stern

hugh mcguire

human 20

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jony ive

librivox

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wells riley

year one labs

The Trick With Inspiration

Believe it or not, you're constantly being inspired.

The trick with inspiration is being able to both acknowledge that moment and act on it when it happens. I was reminded of this earlier in the week. I was listening to Howard Stern interview Chris Martin from Coldplay (it was a repeat from earlier in the year). Martin was talking about how the hit song Yellow came to him. He said it happened very quickly - in maybe fifteen minutes. He was in the studio, messing around with his acoustic guitar and doing impersonations of Neil Young in between takes, when the line "Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you." came out in Young's quirky tone. He kept at it... "And everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow." Something felt right, so he kept tinkering with the guitar chords and melodies and that's when the part, "Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones" came along. He told Stern that he knew it was a hit once it was written and the other members of Coldplay had their way with it.

Do you have that kind of courage?

There is a lot of mind space in between Martin's explanation. You have to have a serious ability for self-inflection to be able to recognize that what was, initially, a goof on Neil Young could be the germ of something more. Pushing it and letting the melody take you somewhere is the hardest part. This isn't about thinking up a great idea in a dream but not writing it down and then forgetting it by the time you wake up, this is about what happens to you - day in and day out - on a conscience level. It could be from staring out of your window or from reading this blog post. Inspiration is everywhere and one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself is the ability to acknowledge it. Not every moment of inspiration will be a hit song like Coldplay's Yellow, but you just never know where it will come from.

Inspiration is (not) magic.

It may look, feel and act like magic, but it's a very real proactive acknowledgement of something - usually something quite small - that can take you to strange and beautiful places. I'm thankful that there are artists like Chris Martin who act as reminders that inspiration is not a flash of genius or something that just pops into someone's head. Our brains are constantly spurting thoughts out there and it's important - especially in the work that you do - to be cognizant when than thought is something that can be turned into something that is much bigger and brighter.

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This Blog Sucks (And You're Probably Not Reading This)

I don't mind that I'm becoming a dinosaur.

I'm not going to lie and say that I was shocked to read the DigiDay article, Agencies Ditch Blogs, that they published on Monday. "With the rise of social media, businesses are blogging less. That goes for agencies, too, which are increasingly turning their backs on their blogs in favor of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and newer kids on the block like Instagram and Pinterest." The article went on to quote Sam Weston (director of communications at digital marketing agency, Huge): "Nobody reads agency blogs, and there are so many out there it's impossible for people to keep up anyway. We put ours on hiatus while we figure out what we want to do with it. We do use Facebook and Twitter. We've figured out what works for us there."

Please allow me to correct that quote...

"Nobody reads agency blogs"... THAT ARE BORING AND SELF-SERVING. This is what the Internet brought: just because everyone can publish content, it doesn't mean that they should. Let's argue and say that I'm wrong and that anybody and everybody should be publishing content... fine. Then just because everyone can publish content, it doesn't mean that anyone will care. What advertising agencies are learning is that publishing content on a frequent and consistent basis with a compelling voice is not only a commitment, but it is very difficult. Nothing new here. We've been saying this for close to a decade. It has only become more complicated because there are many other, faster and quicker and different ways to create and share content. This is no longer about the Internet grappling for some of TV's viewers. We live in a world where Instagram is biting into Pinterest's usage and Facebook is tackling users away from YouTube and beyond. It's very complex. It's very complicated.

Blogging is about writing.

Here's a dirty little secret: I hope more agencies stop blogging. I could also name some bloggers that I'd like to see stop. Why? Am I being mean? Absolutely not. I see too many agencies and bloggers struggle with their blogs. It's both obvious and painful to watch. They wind up spending too much time writing about themselves or covering the same areas of interest that everyone else is talking about. They're afraid to have an opinion, step into a territory that they're uncomfortable with and - most of all - they're afraid to go "off brand."    

Why you should blog...

Because it's your own space - not another platform or channel that you can't control.

Because it's good for search engine optimization.

Because it helps an agency build a community.

Because it's good for business and helps your company look more human.

Because it's a great place to share links and advice.

Because it's a great way to attract clients.

Maybe... but no.

While all of these may sound like a good reason to blog, they're not.

Why you should blog (really)...

Because you have something to say.

Because you are passionate about your industry.

Because you are seeing things that not many people are talking about.

Because it helps you to think critically about the changes that your industry faces.

Because you love to write.

Because you have to write.

Because if you had more time, you would write even more.

Because you feel that others out there might connect with the content and the connect to you.

Because you're not blogging for work. Your working hard to make your blog work.

Cowboy up. 

This isn't about blogging or whether or not blogging is cool. Blogging simply allows an individual (or an advertising agency) to publish how they think in words, instantly and for free for the world to read. If someone (anyone) is abandoning their blog, it is for one reason only: the world is not caring all that much. The truth is that the world can be a cold and unforgiving place. The only way to change that is to create something so compelling that it makes people stop, think, wonder, share and engage.

Maybe the agencies just realized that there are no free lunches?

Some additional thinking on this:

Chris Brogan - Nobody Reads Agency Blogs- Or Why You Need Skin in the Game .

Shel Holtz - Agency blogs are like sewers--what you get out of them depends on what you put into them .

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Listen. Engage. Connect.

One of the largest gatherings of professional marketers is about to take place.

The Canadian Marketing Association's 2012 CMA Summit is happening next week (May 16th - 17th, 2012 at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto, Ontario). I'm fortunate to be the chairman of the board of the directors of this association and prior to that role, I was co-chair of these national annual gatherings. Each and every year offered professional marketers from across the globe the opportunity to connect and share. This year will be no exception.

All under one roof.

During the two days, just some of the amazing speakers include:

Sir Ken Robinson. If you've never seen his amazing TED Talk, Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity, it is twenty minutes that will change your life. He is also the author of Out Of Our Minds and The Element. He's a master presenter on the topic of creativity.

Jim Lecinski - Vice-President of US Sales for Google will discuss his ZMOT - Zero Moment Of Truth concepts.

Jordan Banks - Managing Director of Facebook Canada will be joined by L'Oreal Canada's Chief Marketing Officer, Marie-Josee-Lamothe, to discuss the marketing power of friends marketing to friends.

Bryan Pearson - President and CEO of LoyaltyOne will officially launch his brand new business book, The Loyalty Leap.

And much, much more...

On top of that, there will be a breakfast session on May 17th where I will lead one of nine roundtable conversations. My breakfast chat is called, Digital Marketing...is your brand or agency still struggling to catch up? and there are plenty of other choices. My plan is to attend the entire two-day event. It's another great opportunity to both catch-up with my fellow marketing professionals and to learn about the trends and movements in our industry. If you plan on being there, make sure to come over, hang out and say "hi!".

Would you like to come to this event for free?

The Canadian Marketing Association has offered up two free passes to this event to the Six Pixels of Separation community. If you would like to win one of the two passes, all you have to do is leave a comment below about your thoughts on what it takes for marketers to listen, engage and connect in today's world. The deadline for entries will be May 14th, 2012 at 12 pm ET and the winners will be announced by 5 pm on that same day. If you win, you have to cover everything else (travel, accommodations, etc... are not included... it's just the tickets).

I hope to see you there!

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Welcome To "Less Is More" Marketing

Maybe you should not be thinking of ways to create and publish more content.

What do you really think consumers want: to have that much more engagement with your brand or to have an easier, simpler and faster experience? While you may think that those two areas are not mutually exclusive, they are actually, intrinsically connected. If you can make the purchase funnel for your consumers have as little friction as possible, they'll become loyal. With that loyalty comes more engagement (sometimes). It's not as obvious as you think. Most brands are cramming more and more pieces of content (which is mostly thinly veiled marketing pap) into more and more channels, but they're spending less and less energy making their own websites and platforms easier and faster for consumers to navigate.

Every second count.

At a recent Art of Marketing in Chicago, I shared the stage with Avinash Kaushik (Google's Digital Marketing Evangelist and the author of two bestselling business books: Web Analytics - An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0). I don't remember the exact stat that Kaushik told the audience, but it was something along the lines of this: for every second that a person has to wait for a page to load, the conversion potential drops seven percent. Consumers are unforgiving. They want efficiency and speed... not a cool Facebook page.

Don't believe me?

Yesterday, MarketingVox ran a news item titled, Users Want Ease of Decision More Than Engagement. It turns out that online shoppers could care less about engaging with their favorite brand (unless they have a complaint or need more information). In fact, they'll switch (and fast) to a competitive brand that helps them buy faster. "In a study of 7,000 consumers and marketing executives representing 125 consumer brands across 12 industries, CEB identified a significant disconnect between current marketing strategies, including customer engagement, and preferred consumer buying behavior. While most marketers are behaving as if the majority of consumers are open to having a relationship with their brand, CEB found only 20% of consumers report being open to such relationships. As a result, today's marketing tactics are making customers less loyal and resulting in lost revenue for companies. 'Our research indicates that the impact of simplifying purchase decisions for consumers is four times stronger than the favored marketing strategy of engagement and is the number one driver of likelihood to buy,' said Patrick Spenner, managing director at CEB. 'Too much choice and information causes customers to over-think purchase decisions, making them more likely to change their minds about a product, be less confident in their choice and less likely to repurchase.'"

Don't let your analytics lie to you.

Take a look at your marketing teams and ask this simple question: who amongst us is responsible for ensuring that our consumers can get in, find what they need and convert as quickly and efficiently as possible? Marketing optimization tends to look at opportunities within the campaign realm (how do we make these display ads flashier so people click on them?), but we can't forget about how critical it is to ensure that our entire experience is seamless and easy (and yes, it's an iterative and ongoing process).

It's a cluttered Web.

There's no doubt about it. We've made a mess of things. Most brands have no cohesive brand narrative because they're busy updating their websites with more pages, tweeting randomly on Twitter, working a Facebook page, experimenting on Pinterest, loading up videos on YouTube and more. They're just throwing content at popular channels without looking at the holistic space and opportunity to extend a brand narrative. Even if they're nailed that down tight, they still struggle with simplicity: making their websites (mobile, Web and touch) move quickly and efficiently. Google's homepage looks the way it does for a reason (same with Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and beyond). They know that the simpler and faster they make their products, the less likelihood there will be for consumers to go elsewhere.

Imagine a world where brands published less but optimized for speed and efficiency more?

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This Is Being Recorded... By You

The art of self-tracking.

It was one thing to know where I was going. It was a totally different experience to know how far I had been, how much further I needed to go, what my expected time of arrival was, how long I had stopped for and what my average speed was. Most people just stare at the map of their GPS system and wait for the voice commands to bark out their next turn. I never tagged myself as an analytics jockey, but switching over to the trip data screen of my GPS turned the long drive into both a game and fascinating collection of data. The system was tracking my every move (and it was tracking me even when the car was idle). It wasn't enough. All I could think of is just how cool it would be if I could upload that information and look at other road trips that I had taken to see some averages and cumulative data. What if I could share this information with friends and family? What if I could compare road trips... my mind went spinning.

I didn't think anything of it.

On March 15th of this year, I found myself at the Van Halen concert in Montreal with a friend. As the lights dimmed and Eddie Van Halen's guitar started to wail, instead of the usual Zippo lighters raised fist-pumping high in the air, that flame was replaced by the glow of smartphones. Snapping pictures, capturing videos, texting friends, tweeting and updating our Facebook timelines. Instead of rocking out to 'Running With The Devil', the majority of people in the audience were recording, capturing and publishing the moment instead of soaking in the sweat of the rock n' roll and raising a cold one with some friends.

What have we become?

George Orwell's 1984 painted a dystopian view of our society. Big Brother was watching and tracking our every move. Instead of becoming Winston Smith, each and every one of us has become our own, Big Brother. We track our own every move. We post tweets on Twitter, we check-in on Foursquare, we publish pictures of our daily lives on Facebook, upload videos to YouTube, and much more. Now, with the ubiquity of smartphones and mobile connectedness, it has never been easier to share with the world our each and every move (look no further than Facebook's one billion dollar acquisition of Instagram - a social network for mobile photography). And we're publishing our lives. All of the time. In fact, more and more with each and every passing day. It's a topic that has fascinated Nora Young for a long while. The founding host and producer of CBC's Definitely Not The Opera and the current host of Spark (a radio show and podcast about the intersection of technology and culture) spent this past year digging deeper into self-tracking and what this means about our society and who we are. The culmination of her work is the recently published book, The Virtual Self - How Our Digital Lives Are Altering the World Around Us (McClelland & Stewart - 2012).

The virtual self.

"As with most things about technology, I am pretty ambivalent about it," said Young via Skype last week. "I think there are interesting and healthy things about all of this self-tracking, and there is also a danger of losing touch with the physical and grounded reality. At the same time, I also think that these tools can be really helpful and can shed a lot of light on things for us. As human beings, we seek sharing and storytelling. We don't want to think that our lives are just one damn thing after another. We want to create a sense of narrative. I think a lot of this self-tracking comes out of a desire to create a story for ourselves."

The Klout effect.

The challenge with this "story" is that it is being done in public. For all to see. We're not just talking about family, friends and people from high school that we swore we never wanted to see again (but still wind up creeping on their Facebook profiles every so often to see if they got fat or not), but it's also companies who are able to see, hear and know things about us that they could have never known before. Klout is an online platform designed to allocate an actual ranking to individuals as a kind of social scoring system. Klout scores are becoming a powerful tool for marketers to both identify and connect with evangelists as a form of influencer marketing. In the end, all of this self-tracking becomes like an onion being peeled (they are many layers to it). The more we post and publish, the more our friends and family are doing the same and the more brands are watching and capturing it all. Ultimately, you could be doing very little to no self-tracking but if your family and friends are, then your life is still being shared (whether you like it or not).

"The technology that we use directs us to tell a story in a certain way," continues Young. "If you're on Facebook, the story that it encourages you to tell about yourself is the movies that you like or the products that you identify with. It encourages you to make these kinds of lists - partly because that's good for marketing reasons and partly because technology is good at helping us to make lists. The danger is that you start to think of yourself and identify with yourself and others) in those terms. I am a person who likes X, Y and Z, but we're a lot more than just the pop culture products that we identify with."

Have become schizophrenic?

This fascinating moment in time could well become an indictment as to just how schizophrenic society can be. On one hand, we shrill when channels like Facebook make nuanced changes to their terms and service for fear that it will breach our privacy, but on the other hand we are constantly and willfully publishing our each and every move for the world to see in text, images, audio and video. It turns out that our virtual selves are just as confused and complicated as our physical selves.

What's your take?

The above post is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

Montreal Gazette - Twitter this, Facebook that, but mind my privacy .

Vancouver Sun - not yet published.

You can listen to my conversation with Nora Young in its entirety in the upcoming episode of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast (which will be published this coming Sunday).

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It's Not About Advertising. It's About Creating A Brand Movement.

Episode #304 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Welcome to episode #304 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast. Scott Goodson is the founder and CEO of StrawberryFrog, an advertising agency that is looking to help brands cultivate cultural movements. Most recently, Goodson published his first book, Uprising - How To Build A Brand And Change The World By Sparking Cultural Movements. Working with brands like Jim Bean, New Balance, Heineken and Emirates, Goodson knows a thing or two about what it takes for a brand to be relevant in today's world. His book, Uprising, looks at how brands can move beyond advertising into something deeper and more connected to consumer's and their needs in today's market. The bigger question is this: are all brands capable of creating a true cultural movement? 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 #304.

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advertising podcast

blog

blogging

cultural movement

david usher

digital marketing

emirates

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jim bean

marketing

marketing podcast

new balance

online social network

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podcasting

scott goodson

social media

strawberryfrog

uprising

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #98

93Is 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:

Valve: How I Got Here, What It's Like, and What I'm Doing - Ramblings in Valve Time . " Michael Abrash is a brilliant architect and game developer behind some of the best games around today. He works for Valve , which has almost single-handedly disrupted the distribution channel for games by, well, not being jerks. Valve's CEO is famous for responding to emails directly, and they generally solve for making stuff that works and paying creators well. In this post, Abrash explains how he came to work at Valve, years after it launched. Valve gives workers an unprecedented amount of latitude in what they work on -- relying on peer accountability to keep everyone busy -- so he wound up working on wearable computing simply because it was an interesting problem." (Alistair for Hugh).

Don't work. Be hated. Love someone - Half & Half . "I've been on vacation (sort of) for three weeks, and I've spent a bunch of time trying to decide what to do. So, my links this week are two posts that seem relevant to that concern. This commencement speech by Adrian Tan is reminiscent of Baz Luhrman 's Always Wear Sunscreen , or Bud Caddell 's How To Be Happy In Business . Tan's list is simple: not trying to please everyone, not working on things you hate, and figuring out how to adore at least one other person. Good list." (Alistair for Mitch).

The social cell - New Statesman . "The parallels between biological cells and obscure cultural practices, as explored by Daniel Dennett ." (Hugh for Alistair).

Cuckoo - New York Magazine . "On the pressure that culture has put on our internal clocks." (Hugh for Mitch).

Why You Can't Get a Taxi - The Atlantic . "A beautiful piece about a great little start-up called, Uber , that allows you to use your smartphone to hail a town car. That's right, instead of standing on the corner and hoping that a cab will stop, accept your destination and not give you an anxiety attack during the drive as they whisk through traffic, you can use this service. While it may cost more than a cab ride, Uber solves a problem for many business people (and those who would prefer a ride with a little more class). A friend of mine, Aidan Nulman , has a similar startup ( Hire Winston ) that works great too. As someone who travels a lot, I can not only appreciate startups like this, but I admire the inventiveness of the idea - to serve a specific niche and solve a specific challenge. Not all great ideas have to an Instagram or Facebook sized one." (Mitch for Alistair).

The Flight From Conversation - The New York Times . "It's strange how much time I have spent thinking about the message of Sherry Turkle from both her TED talk this past year and her book, Alone Together. In this piece for The New York Times , Turkle provokes with gems like this: 'At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail. At work executives text during board meetings. We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we're on dates. My students tell me about an important new skill: it involves maintaining eye contact with someone while you text someone else; it's hard, but it can be done.' What have we 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.

Tags:

adrian tan

aidan nulman

alistair croll

alone together

always wear sunscreen

baz luhrman

bitcurrent

bud caddell

complete web monitoring

daniel dennett

facebook

gigaom

half and half

hire winston

how to be happy in business

hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

instagram

librivox

link exchange

linkbait

managing bandwidth

media hacks

michael abrash

new statesman

new york magazine

pressbooks

sherry turkle

startup

story

ted talk

the atlantic

the book over

the new york times

uber

valve

year one labs

Dear Tom Peters

Dear Tom,

It has been a while since we last did an event together, but I was just thinking of you yesterday and I felt compelled to write you this note. I don't think I ever told you this, but over a decade ago, I took a job as a Director of Marketing for a mobile content business. I was very excited about this opportunity because it involved working directly for Andy Nulman. At the time, Andy was best known for being the founder of the Just For Laughs comedy festival, but he decided to try out the technology and content world. I was both excited and intimidated by this opportunity because Andy is quite the character (and I mean that in the most loving way possible). I knew it would be hard to impress him, because this was a guy who had seen and done everything to turn Just For Laughs into the world-class brand that it has become. On my first day, I walked into my new office and he handed me a copy of your book, The Project 50. Up until that point, I don't think I had ever (truly) read a business book. I had given up on book reading after not enjoying my formal education. The book was small and Andy insisted that I read it before working on any projects.

I devoured that book.

Not only did I devour that book, but it sent me on a virtual spiral to read, consume and find anything and everything like it that had ever been written before. In short, your book, your thinking and your writing style was the catalyst (along with some prodding from my good friend, Andy) to learn. Not to read, but to learn. Not to worry about school, but to get a real education. Since then, I have probably read thousands of books (including all of yours) and my life has dramatically changed because of it. I wound up launching the Montreal Business Book Review and an audio podcast entirely dedicated to business and motivational books called, Foreword Thinking. While I have stopped both of those projects, all of that type of content still seeps its way into everything that I do here on this blog and podcast. I can't even count how many new and interesting authors your work has introduced me to (I still think that Funky Business by Jonas Ridderstrale and Kjell Nordstrom is a gem!).

In 2003, right before you released Re-Imagine! I heard that you would be speaking in Toronto. I got in a car and drove six hours (twelve total!) to see you speak that afternoon. I was so excited, that I actually wound up going to local Toronto bookstore where you were also doing an event in the earlier part of the afternoon to see you twice in a day. What happened at those two events changed my life forever. I had never seen you speak in public before, so watching you walk up and down the aisles (who needs a podium!) and speaking to people in both a whisper and then a scream inspired me to think differently about what a corporate presentation should be. The way you designed your slides and used them only as a catalyst for the words that were coming out of your mouth, taught me that knowing your content is a whole other world away from presenting content from a screen. I was more than inspired... it was a religious experience.

From there, we've had the chance to not only share the stage on numerous occasions, but to connect, chat and catch-up. As someone who spent over a decade in the music industry, I would often tell people that if they ever get the chance to meet the rock stars that they admire, to not do it. It winds up always being a letdown, and the image of them in their minds will always be more glamorous and powerful. Well, Tom, you are definitely one of the rock stars in my life, and am I ever happy that I didn't take my own advice. Meeting you and speaking to you has only reinforced the words that you write and the presentations that you give. You are compassionate, caring, real and a true conversationalist.

I'm not just a massive fan of yours because of the content that you create, but because it's obvious (from your books, blog posts, tweets and speeches) that business is personal to you. It's a life lesson that took me a couple of years to reconcile. People would often say to me, "it's nothing personal... it's just business." I hated that line. I spent my days (and nights) building my business. It's my passion and my love and I take it (all) very personally. You helped me realize that it's ok to take business personally. You have a care not just for business success, but a care for humanity. You preach about equality and doing what is right and - even after all of these years - it's a breath of fresh air.

I look forward to the next time that we have a moment to catch up. Until then, know that I'm following every post, tweet and word that you put out into our world and I do, sincerely, think that our world is a better place because of you.

Thanks, Tom... I don't know where I would be without you (and I owe Andy the old hat-tip for the intro to your beautiful mind).

Warm regards,

Mitch

I was very moved by the book, Steal Like An Artist , by Austin Kleon . Especially the section titled, Write Fan Letters. The truth is that I used to always write a note to the author of the book that I had just finished. I guess I got too busy (or read to many books or became lazy) to keep at it. In Kleon's book, he recommends writing a public fan letter and ends the section by saying: "The most important thing is that you show your appreciation without expecting anything in return, and that you get new work out of the appreciation." It's a beautiful concept. With your permission, I'll be using this space from time to time to write these kinds of letters. Welcome to Project: Public Fan Letter. Feel free to do a few of them yourself. I wrote my first Public Fan Letter to Seth Godin (you can read it here: Dear Seth Godin ).

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