Jon DiPietro is Domesticating IT

Thomas Edison is frequently quoted as saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” He was referring to his search for the material that would be the filament in his lightbulb. There are many lessons to be learned from that story; perseverance, optimism, ingenuity, creativity, etc… But I think the most important lesson is courage – having the courage to start something, the courage to fail, the courage to try again, and the courage to finally ship.

This process sounds obvious and maybe even simple. But if those are both true, then why do so few of us achieve the level of success we believe ourselves to be capable of attaining? It’s because there are a combination of forces aligned against us; some of them external but  most of them insidiously entrenched inside our own lizard brains.

Fortunately for us, Seth Godin and Steven Pressfield have written a quartet of books that provide a blueprint for being successful and making a difference. I’ve coalesced them into what I call the “Godin/Pressfield Algorithm” (What can I say? I’m engineer, which means I love algorithms.).

Start

“What kind of moron doesn’t know that the first step in achieving success is starting?” That’s a fair point, but I’m using the word “start” in a less literal sense. There all kinds of distractions and time-wasting efforts that look like starting, but are really procrastinating. This is where Godin’s “Poke the Box” (affiliate link) comes in handy. It’s a manifesto that clears the fog away from indecision and provides inspiration and advice for overcoming the fear of getting started. But don’t expect a map, because there isn’t one. Godin explains, “Instead of learning to be more compliant, I want to push you to be the one who takes initiative.”

Work

Undertaking any endeavor is scary because you might fail. But even worse, your brain will fight you every step of the way because we’re programmed to pursue immediate, short-term gratification instead of activities aimed at longer term rewards; in other words, “work.” This invisible force that tells us to check our email or Twitter stream instead of authoring a blog post or writing a few more lines of code or making that client phone call is called “The Resistance” in Steven Pressfield’s book, “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.” Pressfield pulls the curtain back from this insidious obstacle and offers sound advice for recognizing and overcoming it.

Fail

Failing happens. Failing can even be a good thing. In fact, failure is not an option, it’s a strategy. But the problem is that it can be demoralizing. This is where Pressfield’s newest book, “Do the Work” (affiliate link) comes in very handy. He says, “It’s about getting off your behind and starting something. And Seth Godin writes about this, that once you start, you have to finish; you don’t get off the hook half way through.”

Ship

“Real artists ship.” Thus sayeth Steve Jobs, as quoted by Godin in the final book of our quartet, “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?” (affiliate link). This book dares you, actually embarrasses you into making yourself indispensable. It serves as the foundation of the Godin/Pressfield algorithm and stresses the importance of shipping. Otherwise, everything else is boasting, procrastinating, bullshitting. Real artists ship.

And now you have an algorithm for shipping. You’re out of excuses. Grab these books and get started.

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This is the chart no industry wants to see:

From "Publishing in the Digital Era" from Bain & Company

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Artists of America (RIAA) would have you believe this is the effect of piracy. But let’s dispel that right out of the gate: Digital music piracy has steadily declined for the past five years and is nearly half of where it was in 2005.

Is it just a coincidence that music theft began to decline at exactly the same time revenues fell off a cliff? I don’t think so.

In the Beginning…

In the beginning, Publishers created the record and the CD. Now the Internet was formless and lifeless, darkness was over the surface of computer monitors and the Spirit of Tim Berners-Lee was hovering over the wires.

During this dark age before the Internet, music consumers had two choices; the single or album. Once cassettes and CDs took over, however, even that choice disappeared. Consumers frequently had to buy twelve songs they didn’t want in order to get the one they did. There wasn’t any other choice, so we sucked it up and (more often than not) bought the CD.

And Tim said, “Let there be a world wide web,” and there was a world wide web. Tim saw that it was good and he separated the interface from the data. Tim called the interface a “browser” and the data he called “hypertext.” And there was Netscape and there was Lycos – the Internet.

But it wasn’t only the Internet that led to digitization. Inexpensive computers with CD drives that could burn songs into a compact format were also required. Once consumers acquired a taste of freedom to separate the songs from the album, piracy was born. Napster came on the scene and sparked an explosion in digital theft. Although Napster was shut down relatively quickly, new services and technologies popped up in the never ending game of “Whack a Mole” between publishers and pirates.

Yet, around 2005 piracy started to decline and music sales began to fall off of a cliff. Hmm… Wha happa?

Let There Be Downloads

I remember clearly sitting in front of my computer in 2003, calling a friend over to show him the announcement of a new online store that would sell individual songs and let you download them straight to your iPod. “This is great! I’ll never by another album again!” I exclaimed. My friend looked at me and deadpanned, “The record companies will never let that happen.” Well, you know what happened. In fact, take a look at what happened right around 2005 (click on the image for full size):

Downloads exploded but revenues fell off a cliff. Consumers were liberated from having to buy stuff they didn’t want. Meanwhile, the MPAA and RIAA spent enormous time and effort battling the white elephant of digital piracy and started sending their customers to jail. They were caught in a business death spiral.

Newspapers and magazines are battling a similar mirage. They think that the enemy is bloggers who are stealing their content and giving it away for free. In reality, consumers want their content in tiny, hyper-relevant bites. But so far, publishers haven’t figured that out and continue to try to force-feed us the all-or-nothing options on a shiny new object.

Freedom!

The chart at the beginning of this post is an illustration of what happens to an industry that has enslaved its customers when they are finally liberated. In his blog today, Seth Godin addressed the issue of “pricing power.” He suggested that there are two reasons why you aren’t getting paid what you think you’re worth:

1. People don’t know what you’re worth, or
2. You’re not (currently) worth as much as you believe

Most businesses refuse to believe #2 could be true. If it’s not, you have a marketing problem.

If it is, you have bigger problem.

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Weekly High Five lists the most interesting, compelling, and/or useful links of each week.

Weekly High Five lists the most interesting, compelling, and/or useful links of each week.  This week’s theme is “Your 2011 Primer.” This week’s links take a look at some tips and trends to help get strategically prepared for 2011.

#5: Maybe next year…

Let’s get started with a quick pep talk from Seth Godin. “It’s not too late, it’s just later than it was.”

Link: Seth’s Blog

#4: 10 Trends That Are Shaping Global Media Consumption

In reading this article, I am reminded of Clay Shirky’s theorem of technology’s impact on society: “These tools don’t get socially interesting until they become technologically boring.”

Link: RIA Journal

#3: 10 Business Models That Rocked 2010

What struck me in reading this article was how many of these models had been attempted before. It’s probably equally worthwhile to examine how these implementations succeeded when predecessors failed.

Link: TechCrunch

#2: Blogging Forefather Seeks to Re-Invent Blogging, Again

Dave Winer, inventor of RSS (Really Simple Syndication), is very concerned about silos. So he’s doing something about. “The important thing is that you and your ideas live outside the silo and are ported into it at your pleasure… You never have to worry about getting your stuff out of the silo because it never lived in there in the first place.”

Link: ReadWriteWeb

#1: Can Google Get Its Mojo Back?

At this time last year, Google seemed unstoppable: so much so, that many of the news stories and blog posts were questioning whether or not they were too powerful and even advocating a Google-free existence. Just a year later, many experts are questioning whether or not they are in real trouble.

Link: TechCrunch

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Let’s face it – most organizations’ social media efforts are lame. We like to mock them and ask, “What were they thinking?” While it’s easy to criticize, I doubt most people could actually articulate the fundamental reason why a particular effort is lame or cool. Or take it one step further – what would you change to improve it? I think it’s like watching an athletic performance; easy to criticize but difficult to do better.

But there is a very simple rule of thumb every organization can follow. It won’t guarantee success, but it will absolutely prevent lameness.  The rule can be summed up by a single, four-letter word: G-I-F-T.

If the answer is so simple, why is it so hard to execute?

When Norms Collide

I’m not talking about two guys named “Norm.”  I’m talking about two different sets of rules of thumb that determine how we behave.  Economic norms are the rules that we follow when we’re conducting business. Social norms are the rules we follow when we’re interacting on a personal level. When a particular situation clearly dictates the appropriate set of norms, it’s easy to know what is and isn’t acceptable behavior.

Problems appear when those norms get mixed together and we aren’t sure which rule of thumb to use in a given situation.  The classic example of this is dating. While dating is mostly governed by social norms, there are elements of economic norms that can creep into the picture. When those situations aren’t handled delicately – like who pays the dinner check – feelings can get hurt and things can end badly.

And here’s where businesses get social media wrong. They behave according to economic norms in a situation that demands social norms. Social media is the ultimate form of democracy. Everyone gets one vote and every vote counts once. As a result, there are two coins of the realm in social media; trust and generosity.  You earn the former with the latter.  Think of it this way.  When you’re invited to someone’s house for dinner for the first time, what’s the customary behavior?  We generally bring a bottle of wine, flowers, or some other form of housewarming GIFT. Our social evolution as humans has taught us to build trust through generosity.

I Have No Gifts to Bring

I’m not buying that. But before we get into that, I think it’s time to bring Seth Godin into the conversation yet again.  In a blog post titled, “Generous gifts vs. free samples,” Godin provides his definition of what a gift is (and isn’t):

A generous gift comes with no transaction foreseen or anticipated. A gift is a gift, not the beginning of a transaction. When you see a Picasso painting at the Met, Picasso doesn’t get anything (he’s dead). Even his heirs don’t get anything. His art is a gift to anyone who sees it.

There you have it.  Your product brochures and press releases are not generous, they’re self-serving.  In other words, they’re lame. The chances are that if you’re a competent and experienced professional, you have gifts to give to people. Furthermore, most of the people who could benefit from those gifts are probably potential customers.

So before you post that next Facebook update or Tweet, look yourself in the mirror and answer the question, “Would this make someone’s day a tiny bit better, in some form or fashion?”  If you can honestly answer, “Yes,” then go ahead and pull the trigger.

Simple Does Not Mean Easy

I’ve laid out a case that it’s simple to avoid social media lameness.  However, I am certainly not saying it’s easy. In fact, I’m not even saying it’s always worth it. But it’s definitely worth considering what it will cost for you to be generous and how that trust you earn in social media will translate into your desired outcomes. Because hope is not a strategy.

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Weekly High Five lists the most interesting, compelling, and/or useful links of each week.

Weekly High Five lists the most interesting, compelling, and/or useful links of each week.  This week provides resources everyone can use to draw inspiration for their personal and professional inbound marketing efforts.

#5: Google Grows Revenues 23 Percent In Third Quarter

Google blew away earnings estimates again this week.  The inbound marketing takeaways from this story are the stability of their search business and the growth of their non-search revenue.  While Google is under “theoretical assault” from Facebook and Bing, it has yet to show up on their bottom line.

Link: TechCrunch

#4: John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview Transcript

This long interview is worth the time.  While reading it, my mind was jumping around in a dozen different directions contemplating its implications on a wide array of businesses and organizations I’ve been involved with.  On the surface, the interview is about Steve Jobs but in reality, it’s about major differences in business strategies and philosophies with regard to marketing, product development, advertising, recruiting, organizational structure and much more.  Read this article and then consider your own professional challenges by asking, “WWSD (What Would Steve Do?)”

Link: Cult of Mac

#3: How To Generate Revenue Through Facebook Marketing

If the All Facebook blog charged for their content, I would pay up in a heartbeat.  Every week they provide substantive articles that demonstrate how to leverage Facebook for all it’s worth.  This particular post is not as data-dense as many of theirs are, but it is a good example of how they consistently cut to the chase: generating revenue.

Link: All Facebook

#2: 60 @HubSpot Employees. One Take.

OK, this is an entertaining little video that Hubspot created for the admitted purpose of driving employee recruitment.  But I’m not posting it on this week’s High Five simply for its entertainment value.  There’s an important marketing lesson here that isn’t necessarily apparent.  Inbound marketing is all about creating remarkable content.  There is more than one reason why content may be remarkable and this video illustrates one of them; entertainment.  When creating content I always encourage clients to think of the content as a gift: to ask themselves if they could honestly classify their content as a gift.  A fun, upbeat video that entertains people for a couple of minutes is definitely a gift, even if it doesn’t overtly provide the same sort of professionally relevant information their content normally does.

#1: Heroes and mentors

Seth Godin is often quoted here.  Why?  Because – according the criteria he sets in this post – he is an online hero.  Godin makes the case that the Internet is giving each of us Average Joes free and unfettered access to people who show us examples of how to be successful.  We draw inspiration and knowledge from these folks and they are everywhere.  Find yours.  Or become one yourself.

Link: Seth’s Blog

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