“Musings” on people-power

As I was about to go to bed (I know it’s late… and I have a meeting in less than 6 hours!), I noticed that Charlie just posted on Hoehn’s Musings about ABC ripping off a Youtube parody of Lost — and suggested that ABC should have instead thanked, acknowledged, and possibly even recruited the parodists, The Fine Bros.

My suggestion would have been the same, but in different words: to harness/use the available people-power. People-power is what I (and others, albeit with a less catchy name for it) see as the pinnacle of word-of-mouth: people not only evangelizing your product/brand, but actively working to make it better.

Why aren’t you cultivating this yet? The tools to find your people are out there!

“Listening is the first thing and the last thing”

I don’t normally post images/videos/audio clips on this blog, but I’ve got a video for you today that I really think is worth watching. Dan Barber explains for 20 minutes how an ethically (and unconventionally) produced foie gras is the best he’s ever tasted:

I originally checked out the video, intrigued as a foodie-by-association, but found a lot more than just interesting food knowledge. Dan offers a phenomenally interesting example of someone going against so-called “conventional wisdom” in a field that’s incredibly resistant to new processes.

I wish I could source the quotation I used for the title, but it’s something the Director for the musical I’m producing (on now, by the way, at Hart House Theatre in Toronto) offered as a motto for the cast.

Where aren’t you listening? Why don’t you start?

Playing the “people-power” game

Chances are that if you’re doing something worth doing, others are doing something similar too — probably not the same, but close enough. Or maybe they’ve found out about you and are trying to raise money/awareness for you without your knowledge…

Are you doing anything to help them help you?

I was talking to a friend of mine earlier tonight about his work with Journalists for Human Rights, and he let me in on a little secret: they had no clue that this was going on a few weeks ago until virtually after the fact. I’m also pretty sure that Sketch had no clue about the production of The Ugly Duckling that I financed back in November with the clause that at least half of any profits would be donated to their organization (the rest would fund the cast/crew wrap party).

How much clout could JHR have given to the Varsity’s “Rock Show” if they showed up with banners? Or maybe a rep from the UN-funded non-profit could have given a speech, schmoozed, and found a new intern (which I know they were searching for) there! Could Sketch have brought someone who’s found success through their program to Duckling to thank everyone for their donations?

These are just the two examples that are coming to mind right now. But it seems as though groups focus their support on their own initiatives, not those of their supporters. Seems like a backwards way to go about things, n’est-ce pas?

Like I said before: if you’re doing something worthwhile, then someone, somewhere, is doing something similar, supporting it, or at least talking about it. Are you making it easy for them yet?

Imagine a world where your government shared alpha and beta releases of their projects and policies with the interested and affected public. All of which were updated every week or two based on relevant feedback from the users.

Now that’s representative democracy I could stand behind.

There’s a reason I love getting to know policy geeks, web/software developers, active citizens, and dreamers: they’re the people who tend to have fantastic ideas for where society should go — and they also tend to start the ball rolling.

I had the good fortune of meeting a ton of these people at this past weekend’s ChangeCamp. And, in my discussions over the course of the day, I came to realize how significant agile programming methods could be in the political and social realm. (And yes, I know what I’m about to describe isn’t entirely “agile”, but I like to think that it stays close enough to the spirit of the process)

Imagine, if you will, a government that publicly acknowledged — and thrived on — its likelihood to make mistakes. One that focused more on putting something out in a timely fashion for its people (and smoothing out the kinks later) than on perfecting every solution. One that used its representatives almost entirely as  mechanisms for feedback that will be quickly taken to heart.

Imagine how much quicker we would get our answers. Imagine how many more people would be actively involved with their government. Imagine (in Canada, at least) how many more people would start voting for their MPs, not for their PM.

How much faster could you be if you shifted your focus from perfection to iteration? Is it worth the potential sacrifice in performance?

Even Evolution seems to have taken the agile route — as Gary Marcus argues in his book Kluge — with our minds (and not just our bodies). And, while I’m sure my memory could be better, I know that it was at least successful enough to let me share these thoughts with you — and let you share your comments with me.

Socrates, Meet Seth: Parallels Between Philosophy’s Pursuit of Salient Truths and Marketing’s Propagation of Them

Sitting in what has quickly become my favourite class, I was listening to the Professor explain the pre-Socratic sophists’ roles in ancient Greece: in contrast to the philosophers, who discussed and debated truths that tended to be irrelevant to the Greeks’ daily lives, the sophists discussed notions that were relevant to the Greeks’ lives, but rarely dabbled in the truth.

A point he made about the sophists teaching wannabe-influentials how to effectively get their ideas across (regardless of the value of the position/innovation) struck me as eerily familiar. See, the way the sophists trained the Greeks to make their ideas salient is exactly what old-school ad agencies did for companies.

Our minds seem to be designed to be attracted to things that spread — Seth definitely got that part right, and articulated it better than anyone else I’ve heard yet. The sophists capitalized on that through rhetorical training; agencies discovered effective ways to exploit existing media.

The sophists’ problem came when Socrates came along and tried to push their “horizon of intelligibility” (in other words, when he made them aware of what they didn’t know). And, even though they killed Socrates, Plato and Aristotle made sure his spirit and mission lived on.

Like philosophy, I think marketing can be separated into a “pre-Socratic” period… except instead of Socrates, we’ve seen Seth Godin. He pushed the agencies’ horizons of intelligibility. And, luckily, he isn’t being executed for it.

But what’s next? Permission marketing seems to be just an attitude to an end. It doesn’t offer a method to make ideas salient/catchy. Leadership isn’t it, either — again, it’s an attitude. While leaders may be a subsection of the larger concept, an idea can take hold without a leader. The reverse, however, isn’t true.

Ancient Greece saw Plato come and examine and explore the process by which one develops wisdom, developing a method to pursue and propagate practical, salient truths. Who is the modern Plato to Seth’s Socrates?

Pardon the nepotism here, but I think my father, Andy Nulman, is a pretty decent candidate.

For the past couple of years, my dad has been exploring the element of surprise. And it seems as though surprise is the natural extension of the notion of the Ideavirus: the easiest way to make something catchy and remarkable is to make something that people react to excitedly.

Like Plato’s process to cultivate wisdom (see: the cave allegory), the basis of all practical truths, my dad’s process to cultivate surprise may push the post-Seth period of marketing to a new level of understanding.

—

Note: I still haven’t read my father’s book (see comments for why), and I try to keep enough distance between his work and mine. I think this is one of the first times I’m publicly praising his work in general, and not a lone piece of it. I (think I) would still be saying this if a complete stranger filled the role of “champion of surprise”.

If you need something, start asking

I mentioned towards the end of my post on the value I’m getting out of my undergraduate degree that I was working on a new working relationship, and that I hoped that I wasn’t jinxing it by linking to them.

It turns out I wasn’t. (I will hopefully be able to link that to some article or another in the near future)

A lot of career advice I receive fits the template of “if you need something, ask for it.” This is completely related to the idea of the underdog: if you need something, you’re more than likely being restricted somehow, by some un-/imaginable force or another. And someone will help you if you show to them that you’re the underdog!

I learned that yet again, the hard way, this week. Instead of freaking out over funds for my musical (the new site has launched, by the way) for the past month, I could have asked my friends at UC Alumni for help: they were more than ready to help me make calls and find prospects.

So here’s a challenge to you: post a problem you’re having, either on your own blog or in the comments below, and ask for help. Link to their blog so they can hear about it — and, if you’re feeling frisky, link back here too!

For each one you do, I’ll add another. My first:

Ramit, I need help to find out if my idea for your scholarship is socially innovative enough. I’ll be emailing you a very brief pitch in the next few minutes.

A bonus: I need help developing my idea for Ramit’s scholarship into a full-blown movement. If you’re curious in helping (I don’t think it will be too taxing on time, especially if enough people sign up), shoot me an email.

The idea itself will be posted here in the next 48 hours. Since, you know, that’s another thought for another day…

The power between a dichotomy

A professor said the following to me (and the rest of my Higher Cognitive Processes class) earlier today:

“A necessary requirement for a theory of wisdom is a theory of foolishness.”

Needless to say, that struck a chord. It seems like common sense, doesn’t it? To really understand one concept, you obviously need to be able to show the clear lines between your concept and its opposite.

The power in this statement, as I mused in my notes, lies in the subtleties it implies:

First, the order of the sentence. To be able to get a grasp on the positive aspect of something, you need to understand the negatives first. While you don’t necessarily need to think about wisdom to understand foolishness, you do need to understand foolishness to think about wisdom. It’s the classic “predictive vs. productive” situation: you can’t work too hard on developing wisdom (or other positive traits) until foolishness (or the corresponding negative trait) is mostly eliminated.

Second, the difference in terms used. My professor didn’t say that you need to have a theory of what is “wise” and what isn’t, but instead that you need to have a theory of what is “wise” and what is “foolish”. And though they’re fairly opposite, there’s more in this dichotomy (and others) that lies in the contrast of the two poles than can be found in the comparison between one concept and its backwards-state.

Third, and most importantly, the word theory itself. Knowing the simple difference between two definitions means nothing… it’s only when you internalize the concepts and develop your own personal theories that you really begin to understand the whole picture.

Any thoughts? I’d love to continue this conversation with you before I go and speak to my Professor this Monday…

Mission for change?

Yesterday, as a response to Nick‘s comment, I wrote that (and I paraphrase here) a blog that I find of value has a “mission for change and/or a desire to motivate others to think/do originally.”

Since then, I’ve been worried that I’m not providing the value I hope to see in others’ work.

Is this a case of an artist not recognizing his own thematic content (like Frank Henenlotter boldly confessed to during a Q&A this summer, after screening Bad Biology to a decently full house during Montreal’s Fantasia festival)? Or am I actually as scattered as I think I am?

Seriously… Comment on this post. Let me know where you think I’ve been going wrong — or, better yet, where I’ve been going right. Let me know what I’m onto that you want to read. Let me know where I’m providing value in your reading… or what value I could be providing you, if I just focused some more. I — and hopefully you, too — will really appreciate this insight, and what will come of it.

As much as I enjoy writing, this blog has never been solely for me. And I want to hear what you have to say.

The Problem with “Millennials”

A friend of mine, Ryan Stephens, recently posted a list of his favourite Gen Y blogs, as well as others that come highly recommended, in the hopes of paring the 35 shortlisted ones down to a “Top 10″ of sorts. For some reason, I’m on that list. So are a few other blogs I read regularly (and really enjoy), like Hoehn’s Musings, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and Ben Casnocha.

There are a lot of them on there that don’t deserve anything.

I haven’t read most of the blogs on the list, though some look fairly intriguing. My issue is with the standard “Gen Y blogger” stereotype… one that I see far too often.

Why do so many of my “ambitious” peers and contemporaries insist on writing about their “expertise,” while settling for standard (or, worse, boring) jobs? I’ve read far too many self-important Gen-Y-related posts, ones where the author is desperately inflating his or her ego by reciting generic, recycled tips about “how to ask your boss for a raise.” Where’s the value in that?

I’m guilty of this as much as anyone else on that list. I’ve written simple news posts before, or little tactical things that I know aren’t original but have still helped me in my projects. But there is a difference, I think, between what I (and others who I like) write, and what the typical Gen-Y-blogger does:

I (and others like me) try to offer value to you, or at least your project. We want you to do something, and we try to help you get it done (if we’re not doing it ourselves).

The others try to offer advice to you. They want you to succeed in the workplace.

Then again, neither of these approaches is “wrong.” I just side with the people who are getting things done, who are implementing change… or, at least, the ones who are trying to.

The Indian Dream: Every Challenge is an Opportunity

When I first started thinking about The Indian Dream the other night, I was struck by the historical significance that makes it markedly different from the American one:

The American Dream originated with a mass emigration to a new land, a (relatively) sparsely populated land of opportunity… The Indian Dream is happening in one of the most populated countries in the world.

This factor will play a defining role in how The Indian Dream plays out — whether many or few will achieve it, let alone how, depends on how this seemingly-emerging mindset meshes with the existing culture. Aravind Adiga, in an article on Time.com, writes about the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor… one that will only grow without some sort of intervention.

Efficient ships allowed the European cultures to enter the Americas, providing them with new land, which then became a new opportunity… Could cheap, efficient data transfer and storage mechanisms be India’s Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria? And, if so, will the Old World successfully mix with the New World this time around?

A note to all of you budding entrepreneurs reading this blog: this could be your chance to be the next Rockefeller or Carnegie. What does India need that you could provide?

Then again, it might amount to nothing. That’s the thing about risk: it’s risky. Still, I’m already looking into how I can provide value…