Posts from: May 28, 2010

Published on May 28, 2010 by Scott Gould

Spreadability and Guidance vs Governance

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gRvtVSMB0E&feature=player_embedded

If you can’t see the above video, click here, or watch it directly.

I had a great chat with Sam Ford from MIT yesterday about spreadability. Turns out he and Henry Jenkins are writing a book about it, with the same ideas that I’ve been having over the last 6 months – and we didn’t know about each other until very recently. Funny to see how that happens.

One of the things we talked about is that for something to spreadable, it has to be guided not governed. Reason being that if a peice of content is governed, then it is so heavily guarded and restricted that it can’t be taken into new channels and filter into new areas that are beyond their reach.

This video, with Ben Huh – the maestro of spreadability who runs ICanHasCheeseburger, is excellent as Ben talks about what makes media spreadable – lower barrier to entries and the lifting of restrictions. He’d know about that.

The lesson? If you want things to spread, you have to let go.

Published on May 27, 2010 by Scott Gould

Are You A King, Or A King-Maker?

King LouieI wrote yesterday about my dear friend Trey Pennington who I described as a king-maker. People really liked the analogy of being a king or king-maker, which isn’t surprising - but I wonder how many people really are making kings?

It’s far more rewarding, effective and exciting to be the king-maker, than trying to put yourself on the throne all the time. Ego is hard work, and trying to make yourself king is tiring. I’ve tried it before, and not only did I find it exhausting, but I found I wasn’t helping anyone else but myself.

You know how it is when someone is trying to be king – the ego casts a shadow a mile long, right? Not always. It can be very subtle. In fact, I find pretty much the whole of the Twitter community are trying to be kings. There’s nothing wrong with that, but doesn’t all this ‘share’ talk annoy you when the ones who shout ‘share’ really mean ‘share me?’

Those who are trying to be kings are always:

  • Trying to get attention, rather than give it
  • Trying to get traffic, than send it
  • Trying to get comments, rather than give them
  • Trying to sell, rather than buying
  • Trying to build the house, rather than build the hostel

The difference between these people, and king-makers, is that king-makers get attention, by giving it, and so on.

Of course some people are kings. But the best kings were king-makers first - and will always be king-makers – because these are the ones that better the country they lead.

Your Leading Thoughts

Every regular at this blog that comments aren’t self proclaimed – I know you all. So my question is:

  • Are you a king-maker. If yes, or if no, why?
  • If you’re not, shouldn’t you be?

Image courtesy of Timothy K Hamilton.

Published on May 26, 2010 by Scott Gould

I Love Trey Pennington

A year ago today I met Trey Pennington: 26th May 2009.

We got talking on Twitter in early 2009, and when he was due to come over to England, we arranged to meet up. Trey actually did one better, and came down to Exeter for one of our first tweetups.

For those of you who know the history, it was the same day that Like Minds began. Trey suggested we do an event, hooked me up with Olivier (whose blog I had been reading for sometime), and we set the date of Friday 16th October 2009.

You know what I love about Trey and people like him? They connect like minded people together.

There’s a saying that you can be a king, or a king-maker. You only get to be king once, but you make many people kings. When I look at Trey I see a king maker, and it inspires me to do the same. Trey never seeks to build his own kingdom, he just helps others build theirs. Another friend I made, Chris Brogan, would call it being the elbow.

In fact, Trey so believes in making kings out of other people, that through doing just that he got to interview his hero (and almost everyone’s hero) Zig Ziglar recently, saying his classic line: “if you help others fulfil their passions, you’ll fulfil yours along the way.”

When I think about how much Trey means to me, as a friend and a person who kickstarted the vision that’s taken me thus far, I realise it’s far more rewarding, effective and exciting to be the king-maker, than trying to put yourself on the throne all the time.

While we’re here, I also want to shout out to my friends Ruairi Fullam and John Harvey, sat either side of Trey, who’ve also supported me continually and mimic Trey’s king-making talents.

So here’s to Trey. I love him, and I thank him.

Published on May 20, 2010 by Scott Gould

What Have You Bought, Because Of Social Media?

We had a great discussion on yesterday’s post, where I shared a video and we debated whether or not it made you buy the product they were advertising.

Here’s the question I’d like to ask: what have you bought because of Social Media?

For example:

  • have you bought books because someone on a blog recommended one?
  • have you attended an event because someone tweeted about one?
  • have you bought expensive goods because someone linked to them?
  • have you bought a brand’s product or services because it engaged with you?
  • have you attended or bought local because a local business engaged with you?

I think we can mine an incredible amount of insight if we all share our experiences – which is why I’m asking you please to not just read but comment, as well as asking you to share this article profusely so we can grow our data set.

Looking forward to discussing with you – I really do think it will help us all a lot,
Scott

Published on May 19, 2010 by Scott Gould

How To Sell, Today (With Video Example)

[vimeo 9357984]

If you can’t see this video, click here, or watch it directly on Vimeo.

My wife shared this video with me yesterday, so I assume it’s doing the rounds. But watch it to the end and there is a masterstroke of salesmanship.

So go watch it.

Done? Now, here’s what I think:

The credits are the two guys in the video quirkily thanking the individuals who did each part, and asking you to subscribe to their channels. Of course, having watched 4 minutes or so of stop-motion mastery with these guys, their facial expressions and creativity creating an emotional bond, you trust them. You like them. And you want to be a part of the community that they are a part of.

Published on May 18, 2010 by Scott Gould

People, Not Parts

What A Team

The Dream Team – hanging out with some of the people at the Like Minds Summit 2010 at Bovey Castle.

Around the end of the last year I wrote a series of posts on ‘free from the factory‘, in which we talked about the shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, and the change in business and society that followed.

The main point is that in a knowledge economy you don’t manage people like parts in a machine – you lead them and guide them, because unlike parts in a machine, they have the ability to develop and grow, rather than rust and break. It’s this difference in mindset, between managing production and leading people, that is the reason why most companies don’t get it.

The organisations that will thrive and are thriving are people-to-people. They value people, not parts. The news yesterday was that YouTube now has 2 billion views a day. Facebook is about to hit 500 million users. What causes their success? Factories that churn out products faster and cheaper (the way we compete in an industrial age), or are they teams of very skilled, highly motivated people whose synergy and vision creates communities and platforms with depth that better provide customised experiences that meet the emotional needs of other people (the way we compete in a knowledge age.)

Published on May 17, 2010 by Scott Gould

Model: The 7 Levels of Participation

Levels of Participation

The above model is something I’ve been thinking about for a while – and would love to now think through with you – that aims to present some guide and scale for participation, with the goal of helping us know what level of participation to pitch for our communities or projects.

My basic assumption is that as the level of participation increases, the number of people who participate decreases. A lot of the successes, and failures, that I see not only within Social Media but community engagement in general are linked to pitching at the right level of participation:

  • Failure generally happens where the amount of participation is overestimated, and only a high level is provided
  • Successes generally happen where multiple levels of participation are provided, meaning lower and higher levels happen

Whether you’re building a social network, running a blog, doing an online campaign, cultivating a community, and so on, you must consider your levels of participation.

Published on May 14, 2010 by Scott Gould

My Like Minds Slides on Spreadability at WOM UK

[slideshare id=3565713&doc=spreadabilityvsreach-100326135459-phpapp02]

If you can’t see the slides above, click here, or view them on Slideshare.

I spoke at the Word of Mouth UK Association earlier this year on the subject of Spreadability vs Reach, but never go around to posting the slides up for you. Sorry.

So if you want to learn how we do a lot of Like Minds, how we make things out of nothing, and how we motivate and build a team of people, there’s a good number of ideas and thoughts in here.

If you want more detailed analysis of the Rage Against The Machine vs X-Factor example that I talk about, I wrote the top ranked case study on it at the end of last year.

Also, I found this exceptional series of articles by Henry Jenkins called “If it doesn’t Spread, it’s Dead“, on the subject of spreadability. He wrote it over a year ago, but I only just found it. As you can imagine, a lot of our ideas overlap, but Henry provides a far more academic and structured approach. You can read it here.

Published on May 12, 2010 by Scott Gould

4 Things Charities Can Learn From Christian Aid Week

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdRbDXf8Hxk

If you can’t see the video above, click here, or watch it directly on YouTube.

I got an email last week from Sally Douglas from Agenda21Digital.com asking me to say something about Christian Aid Week which runs all this week to raise awareness and finances for some core social justice issues around the world.

Why am I posting it? First of all, I believe in it.

Secondly, it’s not hard to imagine they targeted UK bloggers based on keywords like “Christian” and “Pastor” – but the fact that they did that, that not only an agency did it, but a charity like Christian Aid also went with it, deserves some respect.

I also love the way Sally went about doing it. She gave me very clear points, posted three bit.ly links (so as to not cram my screen), and then kindly asked me to post a link to them. It was easy for me to write this post - all the research was done for me. The tools were complete.

The campaign is actually pretty cool. You can do things like “donate your Facebook status” (on this page here), which is a very low participatory way to help spread the message that is also new and not just the regular retweet button or host of share buttons that no one ever uses.

Published on May 11, 2010 by Scott Gould

Let Attendees Be Participants

I wrote a while ago about the issue with Social Media events being that they aren’t Social. I suggested a few reasons why this is – but they really boiled down to two core problems:

  1. Ego
  2. Ego

Ego in the first instance is like speakers like to hear themselves talk, and Ego in the second instance is that we love to say we heard ‘so and so’ speak. (Thank you, Jeff Jarvis, for inspring me to tell the truth, and use the word Ego here.) Unfortunately, these aren’t conducive to effective learning.

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