Nov 29 2013

“The Dip” by Seth Godin

I’ve been reading some books on marketing, business, and promotion.  Here’s my 5 minute summary of Seth Godin’s The Dip: 

  • We now live in a winner-take-all economy – in other words, the top search for a product, service, doctor in Google is going to have the lion’s share of the business. It’s no longer enough to be #4, you’ve got to be at the top of your market to succeed. (I think this is super depressing but it may also be true.)
  • The top of your market could be “The Best Pediatrician in Poughkeepsie” or “The Best Bagel Place in LA.” Know your market and be the best in that market.
  • “The Dip” = the long hard slog that weeds out the many from the few superstars. Examples of this could be: Organic Chemistry, Law School, a rigorous exercise program that gives you washboard abs – anything that is a barrier to excellence.
  • Looked at correctly, “The Dip” is your friend, because it weeds out the competition for you. If you’re willing to get through it – with creativity, etc. – it will protect your status when you get to the other side.
  • There is a difference between “The Dip” and dead-end, pointless, or diminishing-returns pursuits. Successful people know the difference. Successful people quit things that are pointless to continue, and double down on difficult activities that will eventually pan out. He gives examples to differentiate the two.
Nov 28 2013

Go Where You’re the Only One

I’ve been reading a lot about marketing and promotion lately. So, here’s my first marketing post, about my personal experience in the world of music promotion.

Before my Lyme-tastic hiatus, as a singer-songwriter I frequently attended music conferences like SXSW and Folk Alliance.  Every March during SXSW, all of the musicians schlepped all their gear around Austin, trying to get heard over the din of 1,000 other bands, and hoping against hope that “somebody” would make it to their showcase. I found experiences like this very frustrating; the headache and expense of attending the conference was high, the ratio of musicians to industry folks was 10 to 1, and most industry folks already had a list of bands they wanted to see. The chances that your music would be “discovered” were really quite tiny.

If I’d been smart, I would’ve avoided the music conferences completely. Instead, I would have gone to the SXSW Interactive conference, where hundreds of bloggers and technorati all assemble, hungry for new content. One tweet or mention from a well-known blogger could easily be worth the price of admission in terms of web traffic and promotion. And there’s much less competition to hand your CD to a blogger than there is to hand it to a DJ.

So, one trick in marketing and promotion is to approach your target audience using a method where there’s much less competition. For example:

  • A musician at a tech blogger’s conference.
  • An artist who creates space-themed art at an astrophysics conference. Wear a t-shirt of your own design to the conference, and when every astrophysict says, “Wow, that’s a great design! Where did you get that?” you tell them it’s your own design. Orders will come pouring in…and it’s way less competitive than an art show.
  • A writer with a PhD, writing for Oprah Magazine. A layman-level article about important scientific findings in Oprah Magazine, Parade, or another “déclassé” publication would reach millions of readers and further the public discussion more than another dry academic journal article.
  • A scientist at a Science Fiction writer’s convention. You could collaborate with one of the writers by providing them with the nuts-and-bolts science to back up their futuristic story.

So, in sum:

Go where you’re the only writer, artist, musician, quilter, massage therapist in that space.

Go where they need you.

Go where there’s not a lot of you.

Go where you’re the only one.

Nov 14 2013

How to Be a Grownup: Getting Rid of Stuff

If my experiences growing up with two packrats have been useful in any way, it’s that I have learned, internalized, and then unlearned a whole bunch of excuses for holding onto crap.

If you’ve ever thought, “Hrmm, I appear to be living in squalor“. . . some of these excuse-busters may be useful.

1. But it’s an Heirloom! 

No, sweetie. An “heirloom” is something that is kept by several generations and cherished. You’ll know it’s an heirloom because you love it, you use it, and you want to show it off.

That horrible, heavy old piece of furniture? The one with the smell? The one that’s stuck in the basement because you don’t want it around? That’s called a “burden.” 

Keep the heirlooms. Lose the burdens.

2. Aunt Gladys gave this ugly thing to me, and now she’s dead! So I have to keep it forever!

No. No, you don’t.

Aunt Gladys probably gave you many things throughout your life. Really nice things like that sweet 16 necklace, and really forgettable things, like weird fruitcake tins. And then she died and you thought, “I can never get rid of these fruitcake tins because AUNT GLADYS DIED and if I get rid of them it’s like I’m Killing her Again! AAAUGGGHHH!!!”…then you hide the tins in a drawer and feel weird about them.

Did your Aunt love you? Do you think her last wish for you was, “I hope she keeps those fruitcake tins….Forever! May They Haunt Her Dreams! Bwah haha hah aha ha!” 

Probably not.

The trick is: “Keep the memories, Lose the stuff.” If you find it hard, you can take a picture to remember it by. You’ll never look at that picture again, of course, because you don’t want to.

3. But Invisible People Will Judge Me!

For years, I carted around loads of books I didn’t like and hadn’t read, because I was afraid some mysterious judge would pop out of the woodwork at any moment:

“You only kept the copies of that series that you like? How dare you break up the set!”

“You got rid of your Algebra II textbook?! But what if there’s an emergency, and you have to factor a polynomial?!?”**

“How can you possibly think of getting rid of your copy of Godel, Escher, Bach? Even though no one you know has ever made it through the whole thing, you just won’t be intellectual without a copy silently glaring at you from the bookcase!”

In short, I feared some friend, acquiantance, or family member would come and insult my book collection if I pared it down only to the books I truly loved and used. But after I pared it down, no one came over to my place to get on my case about getting rid of Coriolanus.***

Oh, and libraries have been invented. So that helps.  

————-

** We all felt foolish during The Great Polynomial Apocalypse.

*** Or Titus Andronicus. That is one weird-ass play.

Oct 21 2013

Agatha Christie, Psychologist

I’ve been reading Agatha Christie novels for the first time, and what surprises me is how shrewd an observer she is of human nature.  I’ve decided that she’s like Jane Austen, with a body count.

For example, here’s a great exchange between two young heiresses, from Death on the Nile. Heiress 1 is about to visit with a friend of hers, who’s fallen on hard times, and she’s talking about her unfortunate friend with Heiress 2:

 “Darling…won’t that be rather tiresome? If any misfortunes happen to my friends I always drop them at once! It sounds heartless, but it saves such a lot of trouble later! They always want to borrow money off you, or else they start a dressmaking business and you have to get the most terrible clothes from them. Or they paint lampshades, or do batik scarves.”

“So, if I lost all my money, you’d drop me tomorrow?”

“Yes, darling, I would. You can’t say I’m not honest about it! I only like sucessful people. And you’ll find that’s true of nearly everybody — only most people won’t admit it. They just say that really they can’t put up with Mary or Emily or Pamela anymore! ‘Her troubles have made her so bitter and peculiar, poor dear!’ “

“How beastly you are, Joanna!”

“I’m only on the make, like everyone else!”

“I’m not on the make!”

“For obvious reasons! You don’t have to be sordid when good-looking, middle-aged American trustees pay you over a vast allowance every quarter.”

I love this exchange for so many reasons. First, the descriptions of people who’ve fallen on hard times selling dreadful, tacky items . . . it is an exact analogue to today, when fallen C-list celebrities launch their own lines of mediocre handbags.

My favorite part is her canny description of how we justify dropping people once they fail. That was revelatory – so clear, concise, and true. We really are just the same today, only with the advent of that great blame-the-victim trend The Secret, our disdain is sprinkled with such comments as, “I just don’t know why she keeps attracting such bad things into her life.”

And finally, the comment that you don’t have be sordid when you have a trust fund. How often the wealthy complain that their inferiors seem to talk a lot about money. Yes? And asthmatics always seem to be talking a lot about breathing, for some reason. I can’t imagine why.

Sep 20 2013

On Corporate Doublespeak

I just received a letter from our internet provider that irritated the crap out of me.

Here are the pertinent parts:

“We hope you’ve been enjoying your special monthly promotional rate {note: in other words, the normal rate we signed up with and have had for one full year}.

Currently, you pay a total of $65.98 per month, which includes your promotion . . . As this promotion is set to end soon, your next bill would reflect the current standard rate of $90.98 per month.

As a thank you for your continued business, we’d like to extend you another special offer on your services.

When your promotional rate comes to an end . . . you’ll keep enjoying the services you love for a total of $75.98 per month — that’s still a savings of $15.00 per month off the standard rate . . .

No action is required — this great new rate will begin automatically with your next bill.”

Ok. There are several things here that are just incredibly irritating:

1. The way corporations now say things like, “Well, the real rate for this is x, but for now we’re going to give you a lower rate” is ridiculous. In reality, everyone is getting the lower rate. But when they start off with this gambit, they think somehow you are fooled into thinking that a rate hike is not a rate hike, but rather a “discount” off the “real rate.”

2. Can’t people just use simple verbs? Instead of saying, “your service will continue” they have to say stuff like, “you’ll keep enjoying the services you love.” Really? I enjoy this service? I love this service? You mean, like, love love?

3. They think that if they call something “bad” by the name “good” enough times, you will believe them. “This great new rate” — really? Sounds like a “higher” rate to me. You’re not fooling anyone with the whole, “Mmmm, rate increases are wonderful! Actually, if you look at this rate increase from a completely asinine point of view, it’s actually a rate decrease!”

It’s insulting, not only to a customer’s sensibilities, but also to a customer’s ability to perform basic math. Grumble.

Sep 15 2013

The Death of Illusions

The Illusion isn't always Correct.

The Illusion isn’t always Correct

[Cross-posted in Applied Grace]

Over time, I’ve come to the conclusion that the death of our illusions is one of the hardest kinds of death. And so, even when our stories do not work, we cling to them anyways. We may avoid providing the help to alleviate suffering, because the type of help does not fit neatly enough into our understanding of the world.

I remember years ago, when I lived in New York, there was a pilot program in which welfare recipients were given better supports. They were allowed to go to school, and still collect benefits. They had regular counseling to help them find, interview for, and keep jobs. After they found jobs, they were allowed to keep collecting benefits for a time, to help them with transition costs. They received regular monitoring in all aspects of their lives.

And it worked. The women in this pilot program got off welfare, found decent jobs, and stayed off welfare. While the up-front costs of the program were high, it ended up saving money over the long run, because it was so much more effective than traditional programs which only provided penalties, without help. So it was win-win, right? It worked and it saved money. But when the time came to expand the program, it was axed, because it was politically challenging to justify. In a world which wants black-and-white morality come election season, this investment in the poor could easily be twisted to appear like something else. So a program that worked could not get funding, while programs that don’t work — hello, abstinence-only education — can.

The solutions which work may not be the solutions we’re most comfortable with. At a certain point, our old moral filters only get in the way of real change. Certainty is a comfort, but it is also an illusion. As Dr. Pauline Chen says, “We have yet to deploy what could prove to be the most powerful weapon . . . our own humility.”

Sep 14 2013

Goldmine!*

OMG! So excited to see that Take 6 is coming to Austin! These guys have such tight vocal harmonies that it defies description.

I’m psyched they’re still touring . . . and after all this time, they’re still Take 6, and they haven’t downsized to Take 5 or Take 4 or Take 3 1/2 or Take Pi.

Cause “Take 3.14126535897” just doesn’t have the same ring.

Here’s Goldmine, just one of their awesome songs.