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Approach Your Career Plan Like a Project

November 5, 2010 / Luke / No comments

*Special Thanks to Ellen Berry for this guest post.

“What we think or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do.” – John Ruskin

I’ve always had a plan for my career, but after getting laid off recently, I decided it wasn’t working for me. I was frustrated with how long it was taking to reach my goals, and I felt destined to be stuck taking detours just to pay the bills. I felt overwhelmed about how to approach my career.

Then I shook myself awake and came to my own rescue. It dawned on me that my career was simply a project in my life, and I’m trained in my work to handle projects a certain way. So I applied my knowledge of project management to my career, and came up with a career project plan.

Necessary Ingredients of a Career Project Plan

Needs

My dream career has always been to have my own business that is successful enough to allow me to live the lifestyle I want, that’s flexible enough to allow me to travel extensively, that’s interesting enough that I look forward to work every day, and that runs well enough that I don’t have to work insane hours to make it happen. So my goal has always been to earn enough money so that I can save up a chunk of cash, say good riddance to working just so that other people can profit, and start being my own boss, making my own ideas happen.

However, because I don’t have any formal knowledge of running a business, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to handle all of the operational stuff – stuff like accounting and HR and legal issues that come up. Not to mention I don’t have any leadership experience. So I realized I need a real-world education as well as formal training in business before my dream is going to become a reality.

Goals

This time around, for my career project, I decided to break down my grand vision into smaller goals. I wanted to be able to see progress sooner. If my goal was to be an engineer or a physical therapist – a career with a well-defined path to follow – I could have looked up a career profile and used it as a guide to establish my goals. But entrepreneurship is one of those careers that can take shape in many ways, so I had to get creative in my goal-setting.

I took my “happy ending” big picture dream and spent some time really imagining what it would be like to live the dream. Then imagined I was being interviewed about my journey to success. I told the imaginary reporter that “it all changed when I decided to go back to school to get my MBA”. Goal #1.

When the reporter asked me what prompted me to get my MBA, I said, “I met someone who showed me why it was important. He had started his own business, and it had been very successful. I asked him if he would let me volunteer at his company a few hours here and there in exchange for learning the ropes, and he agreed.” Goal #2.

“Once I started really focusing on learning about business,” I said to the reporter, “I started generating momentum and things started happening. My boss at my job left, and the person that took her place asked me to start attending meetings with higher ups and taking on more responsibility. I got a promotion, and qualified for tuition reimbursement so I could start taking night courses in business.” Goal #3.

For more articles on developing career goals and career exploration, career planning, and specific careers, check out BrainTrack’s Career Planning Guide.

Objectives and Timeline

Pleased with these three goals, which would lead me along a path to my ultimate career vision, I then put them into a logical timeline and broke them down further into simple objectives.

Goal #1: Find a role model in business who is successful and is willing to teach me how to be successful

Go to the career development centers at local colleges to check out internships and volunteer opportunities.
Talk to professors and students in business schools about the best strategy for getting started.
Search online for advice on how to choose a mentor.
Subscribe to Entrepreneur Magazine to read about successful entrepreneurs.
Go to lectures given by successful entrepreneurs about how they got started. Attend workshops and conferences.
Ask friends and family what entrepreneurs they know who are successful and who might be willing to let someone mentor with them.

Goal #2: Find a way to pay for taking extended education business courses online or after work

Look into tuition reimbursement options at work and what is required to become eligible.
Compare going to school full time against taking night courses or online courses while continuing to work.
Go to local colleges to check out upcoming extended education courses. Ask about financial aid options.

Goal #3: Get my MBA

Research good business schools that are known for their entrepreneurship programs.
Develop a strategy for getting into my ideal schools, and then start working on it as early as possible.
Apply for financial aid.
Apply for admission into my top 5 business school choices.
Start thinking like an entrepreneurship student now, and begin looking for business ideas that I know suit me well and that I can grow into a successful business.

Resources

Making this checklist of things I could do to generate momentum towards my dream career also helped me get a sense of what resources I have to work with right now – and what resources I need to get. I’m hungry now to learn as much as I can about having my own business, begin tapping the brains and just spending time with other people who are active or aspiring entrepreneurs, and coming up with creative ways of financing my future schooling and business ideas.

Making a Career Project Plan Work

I have to admit, I wish I’d starting thinking in these bite-sized, manageable tasks towards larger goals a long time ago. I could have accomplished so much more if I had just started somewhere, beginning with what I had to work with, instead of thinking of my dream as a far off goal that would happen someday when I was ready for a big life change.

Now that I’ve officially hired myself as my own career project manager, it’s up to me to keep moving forward no matter what… but not like a bulldozer. More like a boxer who stays light on his feet and adapts to what comes at him. I will look for the best opportunities to have the most impact, and make the most of my strengths and overcoming my weaknesses.

Having this sense of control over my career gives me a lot of confidence that I will be able to accomplish my dream. In fact, it’s not a dream anymore. It’s the next level up.

Ellen Berry is a member of BrainTrack’s writing staff. She writes articles about a variety of education and career topics, and has contributed to BrainTrack’s Career Planning Guide.

Category: creativity, life problems, personal development, strategy /

The too hard basket: Why problem solving at work is hard

April 28, 2010 / Luke / 6 comments

But it’s not impossible? I was in a meeting today talking about research and it occured to me why we need to think and keep on thinking about how we think about thinking in problem solving.

Why?

A situation arose where a tough issue was up for the committee to discuss and the chair rightly made the statement that it’s probably too hard. Often they are. The kind of issues that require a lot of stakeholders, key input from a variety of people and large scale discussions of lots of people and many perspectives. Reaching consensus becomes hard, finding agreement becomes difficult and navigating the terrain of politics becomes very messy. In a hierarchy it’s even worse. The balance of power rests on the shoulders of those at the top who often are framing problems under pressure and as such go for what looks like the best option for everyone. This leads to compromise, satisificing and a situation where we all get some of what we want sometimes and everyone sacrifices something to keep the other group of people happy. In one way this kind of problem solving is negotiation and fails to really handle the deep issue that’s being discussed. Yet, in most situations I have been in, this kind of situation is exactly what we have to live with.

The too hard basket: Decisions that will never be made

True creativity that involves finding new perspectives and better ideas are often missing. Why? It’s too-hard to argue, it’s too hard to fight, it’s too hard to offend people, it’s too hard to be creative, it’s too hard to upset a risk averse culture, it’s too hard to risk the failure that might hold up my promotion, it’s too hard to risk the mortgage, it’s too hard to challenge people because they might not like me, it’s too hard to face up to reality that innovation requires a big risk with a small chance of reward, it’s too hard to create leadership and vision in an apathetic culture and so on and so on and so on. What’s too hard? Problem solving is too hard so we don’t do it. We work around it. We never make the decisions that need to be made because it’s too hard.

What constraints are there? Political, social, cultural…? Lots, that’s what makes it too hard. The cult of ‘balance’ and ‘feasibility’ will tell you that ‘it’s too hard’. They are right it is. We shouldn’t be ashamed of making these kinds of decisions because the opportunity to truly creative isn’t something you will find at most universities, businesses or fund raising events. No, it’s something you will have to search for.

True Creativity and Problem Solving means using the too hard basket

Rules are good except when they stand in the way of change. To be truly creative we need to be making decisions where we have the guts to reframe. Have you heard the saying don’t throw the baby out with the bath water? In most circumstances I have been in we empty a little bit of the water, keep the baby when we should have really tossed the kid and drained the tub. That’s not a good picture is it? Yet, that hidden assumption that things are generally ok is so bad it’s toxic. Sometimes, things are pretty far from ok. They are not ok. They are failing.

Failure is the signpost of change that says: this didn’t work. It’s like Microsoft Windows really or a badly leaking dingy… just patch it up! The bastard is sinking and water is coming in the boat but hey that’s ok because we have a lot of tape in here and that will keep this thing floating until the next poor sucker comes along and patches it up. The problem is…. it’s too hard to change when it’s easier to get people to agree, which in itself is very, very hard.

So what are we to do?

I don’t know. But I know this: things don’t always get worse before they get better, sometimes they keep getting worse until they become bottom of the fridge nasty. So we are faced with a tough choice. Do we innovate, negotiate or detonate? These are tough choices. In my meeting experience this morning I caught a glimpse of how hard it is to be innovative and create new directions when you answer to so many people. It’s difficult and requires support. In my limited experience, real problem solving means: bringing out the concern, the perspectives that construct it, the stakeholders and finding ways to reach a place where the problem is no longer a problem. It sounds simple? It isn’t!

Category: creativity, rants, strategy /

You don’t need more information to make better decisions… you need better ideas

March 10, 2010 / Luke / No comments

Often we say when we are making decisions that we need ‘more’ information. As Clay Shirky said in something I watched once: it’s not about more information, it’s about better filtering. I think it’s about better perspectives, ideas and concepts. Yes that probably is more information but it’s filtered, tailored and well suited to your problem. Sometimes more information leads to confusion and this isn’t helpful.

What then?

More perspectives? How about better ideas? Why keep digging the metaphorical hole in the same place… try something else. Get somebody from outside the problem to come in and have a look. Quite often they will frame it in way you don’t expect. Sometimes we are coming from the completely wrong angle… this isn’t at all helpful either.

In the long run I suppose it would be easier to say that having more information would justify the amount of weight we put on the top of a organisation. Ultimately though, most of the time, better ideas will do. Wherever you can find them.

Category: life problems, making decisions, personal development, strategy / Tags: decision making

Why I think the internet doesn’t ‘level’ the playing field

February 22, 2010 / Luke / No comments

I have been following the free content debate for a while and have previously discussed the issues with it here. I am particularly struck with the idea of new business models. A lot of the discussion was how the internet ‘levels’ the playing field. While I think in theory this may be true, in practice it isn’t. A better way of saying this would be: the internet could level the playing field. Here’s where the challenge lies:

1. People only buy ‘popular’ media online.

I think the idea of the Long Tail has promise. In fact I have it in my lectures. You could argue that the internet is another culture with it’s own ideas on what the mainstream is, what the 80-20 rule constitutes and what they like. The mainstream internet, things that grow to popularity on the internet, should be considered in context as being part of internet culture. You can’t compare what becomes popular on the internet to what is considered popular on television for one very good reason. They are two completely different mediums. This becomes obvious when you look at how poorly the transition to the internet fiction has had. It’s still stagnant, backwater or very very obscure. That is internet culture. A question for artists, business people and the like is: how do internet cultures buy and sell? How do I tell a story on the internet and support myself as an artist without losing heart? The long tail explains the possibilities but doesn’t give us the pragmatics.

And this is my biggest problem with the ideas of internet business models. It’s still geared towards the mainstream, just a different one: internet culture mainstream. We have heard the mantra connect with fans and give them a reason to buy yet how do we find fans with no money? What if you are selling something that’s unappealing to internet culture? Then what? This is what we need to learn. And I am not saying that there is no long tail effect there is, my point: How much of that is simply because the internet contains so many interlocking cultures? Can you compare the apples (TV) with oranges (internet)? Probably but the shape, tastes and sizes of markets are completely different. We need to look at it differently.

2. The internet could level the playing field but you have to realise it’s another field altogether

My second and final point is that the internet creates the potential for disintermediated content to become popular because it’s the internet. Something that’s popular on television may or may not become popular on the internet. We really need to spend more time looking at internet trends and usage before we can make the claim that it levels out the playing field.

We need new business concepts not just models

I think a way forward for internet business ideas is good quality research. In the days of e-commerce all we had was Michael Porter on the internet. What we need is better thinking. I am personally hoping for this but seeing precious little more than the free culture versus copyright debate. New ideas not the same old crap.

*Note: I am not sure this makes sense. I am absent of mind at the moment. Feel free to comment (constructively).

Category: strategy / Tags: business, internet

EA Games loses money?

February 9, 2010 / Luke / 2 comments

I recently got this from my ‘online fiction’ Google alert. The first thing that sprang to mind is that EA is losing money and I was seriously questioning myself and the world I live in. These people are the staples on the gaming industry. Then I paused, collected my thoughts and wrote this sentence.

EA games are losing money.

Think about it. That is a big statement. So what are they doing to fix it:

1. Downsizing

2. Bringing out fewer games (my favourite Cricket game was one of these that suffered at the hands of this ‘downturn’.

Two things I would have thought are drastic measures for such a big player. Why do companies downsize in a downturn? Instead of thinking up new ideas and using the talent you have to innovate to recover lost profits, you decide to get rid of people? Do you know what kind of message that sends to other employees? Bringing out less titles. Why not bring out more on a smaller scale? As the article says:

Instead of spending $60 on a shiny new disc, many people are playing free or cheap games online, on their mobile devices and on Facebook. They are spending a few dollars here and there to buy virtual add-ons for the games, or they are signing up for subscription-based online games.

Find new models EA! Don’t just sit around waiting for people to decide to buy disks again. Make new models! You are the industry leader in games and personally speaking gave me great pleasure with your titles. What are some ways you could release a niche game cheaply and support it with trendy new ideas around new business models?

If EA games goes under then the world will end as I know it. Well not the world… just the fun part of it.

Category: strategy /

Everything comes with a cost

February 8, 2010 / Luke / No comments

The recent hyperbole about free business models has gotten me more than a little excited. I have read a great deal about it, though I still haven’t found the time to listen or read Chris Anderson’s new(ish) book. One of the things though I have noticed that’s absent from debates about ‘free business models’ is the cost that comes with running, developing and diffusing new ideas. There is a cost. And that cost is value.

If you want to be a leading writer, you have to write and keep at it until you get good enough. That will take a lot of time. If you want to sing and be the best you can, you need to practice. Anything that’s easy or ‘at hand’ is usually simple to learn and master. The cost versus the benefit in that equation is something like this:

Simple thing + Low Skill = Low Benefit.

However, if we raise the barrier it should look like this:

Hard thing + hard skill = High Benefit.

However, there is something missing from that equation and it’s this:

Value + Hard thing + Hard Skill = High Benefit.

You could say it this way, the more value increases the higher the cost to you and to your consumers, students, partners, chickens and whatever other relevant category you would to shove in here.

Now I have added another cost to the learning of a skill that has been overlooked. The free business model idea hinges on value, as do most other ideas. Without value you can work as hard as you like at giving things away and it won’t matter a damn. If we take a poorly written book or a bad movie and say, ‘I don’t know how anyone can like that’, the answer is value.

So what is the cost associated with value?

Category: creativity, strategy / Tags: life problems, value

The practical problem of pragmatism in problems

December 2, 2009 / Luke / No comments

Here’s a short thought:

Problems can only be practically solved because of the things we take to practically restrict their solving them. People often blame politics, the environment, marketing, accounting but the biggest issue is what’s feasible or practical to do, given the known constraints. There is a big difference between assumption and actual barrier, yet the actual barriers can be nothing else but thought in the beginning even though it may actually be a real issue that would hinder the problem solving effort. Thinking, as someone said (sorry), doesn’t make it so. The truth may be what happens after we do something, not sure about that; yet there is a level of pragmatism that always drives decision making in business. We can’t do this because of that and we can’t do that because of this. We need to think through these barriers carefully to see if they are real or a matter of our discourse.

One example happened to me years ago when I tried my hand at business. We kept making decisions because ‘we had to’ and over a period of time the direction I blissfully steered the business to failed. Each decision was thought out, reasoned over, implemented with an eye to improvement. Yet as complexity unfolded, new ideas emerged which reset my decision parameters and modified my heuristics, I realised I was playing a fools game. There was no ‘right’ answer, only what was feasible and known to me at the time and with the resources that I had to use. Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber talked about this years ago, yet in all the work I have done, I have seen little progress in this regard. Complexity is a bitch. Scholars like the late Herbert Simon called it decision making under ambiguity, what decisions are made that don’t contain that? Tell me if you know.

The hidden tiger of decision making and complex problem solving is complexity. It laughs at us when we confront it with our ideas, and changes shape the minute we make a choice. What’s known becomes unknown and what seemed ‘right’ becomes not right after the action has been taken. Is the truth something that happens to an idea as William James said? Maybe. Perhaps the truth is not just what happens to the idea but the reasons why it didn’t work in the first place. It is elusive, nevertheless.

Category: life problems, making decisions, strategy /

On Hits and Misses 3: The Cutthroat Island Problem

November 10, 2009 / Luke / 2 comments

Previously in this series I have talked about engagement and other important things to do with hits and misses. What I want to finish this on is the problem of timing in hits and misses or what I call the Cutthroat Island problem. So what is this problem?

The idea basically is that to have a ‘hit’ you must understand timing. Books like the Tipping Point go a long way to explaining the ‘how’ but leave out a very important ‘why’. The best example I have found of this kind of resonance is Cutthroat Island. It actually bankrupted an organisation yet it was about pirates, adventure and has since proven to be a winning formula. What went wrong? Timing for one and before you start and say what most people say when a box office hit FAILS, no the movie wasn’t all that bad either. A lot of people didn’t go to see it, which is why it’s a timing problem.

When timing fails so does everything else. You can be first to market, as I was, with ideas that are now being taken up and sure it makes you pull your hair out and still fail miserably. Why? People aren’t ready they haven’t developed the need for it and the cycle of innovation hasn’t reached it peak. I call to memory Kindle versus the Rocket E-Book reader and others. You can argue that it’s the technology or the framework, which it may be, but it my mind it’s timing.

The best example I have found of this is e-learning. Years ago (1996) we were told that the ‘internet’ was going to replace formal education structures because this new technology would revolutionise education. Thirteen years later and a recent announcement by the incumbent Vice Chancellor of University of New England states that ‘blended learning’ (e-learning pretty much) is the way of the future! It was the way of the future in 1996! Why is there a massive uptake of it now? People are ready for it. People weren’t ready for Geena Davis back then but they were very ready for Johnny Depp.

In finishing up the hits and misses series I want to say that it’s horribly complex. A hit is often the result of pipe size and audience engagement and resonance. It is also a matter of the right time. How can we know if people are ready for our products? Research? It’s very hard to say. It could be like Rittell and Webber argue that we will not know what works until we try or what William James said, ‘the truth is what happens to an idea’. The truth is unpredictable, complex, ever changing and multifarious. Yet if we study the patterns of engagement and the time in which popularity occurs we can begin to understand what a hit is and a what a miss is. And yes we should seek to understand these things through a systemic strategic lens!

Category: strategy /

On Hits and Misses Part 2: Engagement and Why things become popular

October 28, 2009 / Luke / One comment

In my previous post on Hits and Misses, I talked about Pipe Size. In this post I plan on talking about ‘engagement’ and why things become popular.

Engagement

The level of excitement we feel for something and the degree of participation that it causes us due to that excitement, is what I like to call engagement. Engagement is not purely participation, that connotes mere activity; engagement is more an emotional and social response to things that excite us because it provokes activity. When you watch the news for example there will be a story on it at some point that grips you. It will grab a hold of you and shake you in some way. For me, it’s stories on the housing market. Stories such as how there will be another boom. It causes me to swear, rise up out of my seat, and wave two fingers at the presenter. It engages me and causes me to engage. The biggest reason things fail is lack of engagement.

Examples of lack of engagement

Whether it be the failing of a university program (INFORMATION SYSTEMS) or the decline in interest in television shows, the ultimate failure of any mass produced vehicle is the result of declining engagement. Great, you say, that’s wonderful… I already knew that. Ok smart ass, what then is the primary reason why people stop engaging? Interest? Probably, I believe it’s because the program in question no longer creates ‘engagement’ space for participants. This means creating new opportunities for conversations and new examples of how to create those conversations. A key example of this can be found in the recent movie, ‘Tenacious D: Pick of Destiny.’

The movie itself is largely for fans, herein lies the problem. The fan base for Tenacious D probably couldn’t generate 40 million dollars worth of movie dollars. Why? Well the movie didn’t create the engagement space for people who weren’t fans. Watching it, I loved it because I am a fan, and I could relate to at least 60% of all the jokes on screen. I had seen it before, I had heard the riffs that are used as cues in important parts of the movie and I was aware of the history. If my wife watched that she would have no engagement space there because she has no idea about Tenacious D or their history. In all honesty, Tenacious D probably should have made the movie more accessible to non-fans. Then again, maybe they still wouldn’t have engaged because they didn’t know who they were anyway? On the other hand maybe they can’t grow their fan base?

Another example of how to maintain an engagement or to put it simply: keep people talking, can be found in the on-going popularity of Lost. At each turn they introduced something new, exciting and interesting, that create the engagement space for on-going conversations. There was a point at which it did seem like Lost was, ‘everything happens for a season.’ But now, the bigger picture is being unveiled and it’s creating conversations. This doesn’t just apply to movies either, can you do something where you work to create conversations?

Why Things Become Popular

Ok, so I don’t have a social psychology background or enough of an idea to explain why things become super popular. Here’s what I know, for me it comes down to a few key things.

1. Creating Engagement Space (or creating conversations)

All of human kind communicate. They share information with each other and have done for centuries. In order to facilitate the popularity of something you need to have something that people will talk about. This is why excellent service increases business overtime and why programs fail … it works both ways. The concept of leverage provides a useful metaphor here. If you have something that people want, you have leverage and provided you find a way they can talk about it, they will. This works in the negative and the positive. For instance, if you have a degree program that is failing the first thing to do is to find out why. How do you find that out? By talking at length to participants. My first instinct is: why aren’t you spreading the word about how great we are?

Sure you might be tempted to make a whole lot of people redundant, transfer load or worst do nothing. Find out why people aren’t talking positively about your stuff and boom I guarantee you will turn things around… if you catch it in time. Negative leverage is as easy to create as positive leverage… especially in a social network where trust, sharing and conversation abound.

2. Facilitating the conversation

You can’t control what people say but you can control what you do in order to help them say what they say. Here’s an example: I went to sea-world last year and I wanted a coffee. What I got was hot watery milk. I went to Borders the other day and asked for a book (Outliers) and I already had $200 worth of books in my arms. The lady told me it was out the back and promptly returned to doing something else. See? Now I have told you because Borders made it easy for me to facilitate a negative conversation. Sure, I could just suck it up but I was amazed that they didn’t want another sale… I left after that because I didn’t want to spend any more of my faculties money! They didn’t want me to spend my money.

3. Making the transition from conversation to action easy

William James said that the truth was something that happens to an idea. It’s the active part. When we go from talking about something to using it, if we find it difficult and hard to manage. When I was in business last time this was the single flaw that stood out more than others. What I was trying to sell wasn’t easy to use. I could start conversations but they would always end in a bad experience for the customer. It isn’t enough to create conversations, you have to make it easy for people to access and use what you are talking about. Make it hard and the engagement fails and people will begin talking about alternatives.

4. Maintaining the conversation

Once we have access to the material, keep us there. You know amazon made a fortune of it’s recommendation engine? It nearly went broke until it realised (or they realised) that selling things to existing customers helps your bottom line. Maintenance… simple maintenance! Things become popular and stay there because we ‘maintain’ the conversation. Stop doing that, yes you who don’t answer your email or respond to customer queries online… YOU, and people will talk about something else. Keep the flow of customer interaction going. Don’t believe me? Go to twitter search and look for a product. You’ll see why Dell made 3 million dollars off twitter.

5. Creating new spaces for engagement and innovating conversations

In closing this second part it’s important to look for ways to create new conversations and use those to develop innovation. Things maintain popularity because they keep us talking and constantly create new ways for us to do so. Without discourse and then action you have nothing. New conversations must continue the old ones and add something interesting to the existing one. The Lost people do this by keeping us guessing. Others are much better at this and do it by testing the boundaries of the audience.

In the final part of my epic blog trilogy I want to talk about the ‘cutthroat island’ problem and some things that are conversation worthy don’t become popular.

Category: creativity, strategy /

On Hits and Misses part 1: Pipe Size and Audience Engagement

October 18, 2009 / Luke / No comments

The theory of the day is the long tail, a reworking of the Pareto Principle (i.e. 80% of the wealth of Italian landowners is concentrated in the hands of 20% of the people), which seeks to explain why hits and misses wind up where they do. In real terms the idea is a useful w to explain why, in theory, 80% of all that’s consumed accounts for 20% of all products and so on. Ironically, this is not a reflection on taste as the following video explains, it’s a reflection of the method of distribution and supply (I call it pipe size). Yet this is not what determines a ‘hit’. Not in my opinion. A hit is determined by many different things… which I will talk about in a minute.

Pipe size has to do with a number of things. We all have a certain amount of influence and as such we can distribute messages to people via our own methods of communication. When someone in the family dies or a baby comes along, the pipes of family communication get to work and the word spreads. Some us are more influential ‘sneezers’ as Seth Godin calls them, and we can have a broader impact. But it’s not a formula and neither is it a constant reason why. The concept of ‘engagement’ or ‘resonance’ as someone else I know put it, explains why things are spread around. We participate. When this occurs on a massive scale the network gets bigger, the pipes get bigger and massive demand is generated.

The long tail works as a technical explanation quite well, that is, it explains how ‘pipe size’ and demand and supply corroborate to create ‘hits’. Yet, it fails to adequately explain why hits occur. This fails in the realm of the unpredictability of human ‘systems’. Human systems form groups, make meaning and do what I call ‘engage’. William James said it this way, ‘the truth is something that happens to an idea… not the idea itself’ (that’s a paraphrase by the way). While I don’t wish to debate the idea of what truth is, I want to touch on what James was saying in my lateral understanding of it anyway. Why things become popular can be stated as: they become popular because we engage with it on a massive scale (big pipes), we spread it around and share it (talking –> see Tipping Point, Idea Virus), and we resonate or engage with it. This latter concept, the idea of engagement is the most understated yet most powerful because big pipes don’t guarantee a hit, engagement does. What level of participation do people have in an idea? A high amount, then you have success, a low amount depending on the context you have a different kind of success, or you have a failure.

Success and failure come down to audience engagement yet we cannot ignore pipe size, marketing or methods of supply. We have to consider these as important, yet the level of engagement, discussion and talk around a product or idea and the overall level of activity, is what propels a product to success. This is what the publishing, music and other industries know and exploit all the time. Consider this qoute from a well known literary Agent Donald Maas:

The fact is that roughly two-thirds of all fiction purchases are made because the customer is already familiar with the author. In other words, readers are buying brand-name authors whose work they have already read and enjoyed. The next biggest reason folks buy fiction is that it has been personally recommended to them by a friend, family member or bookstore employee. That process is called word of mouth. Savvy publishers understand its power and try to facilitate its effect with advance reading copies … samplers, first chapters circulated by email, Web sites and the like. In most cases, someone reads a novel, gets excited about it, and tells a friend. (Taken from Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas).

Now we know this and we can reliably track all success (yes I said ALL!) down to people. You know why, everything social is social. Wow, it took three degrees for me to work that out but it’s true. Everything social is social. Nothing happens without people. We have fancy ideas such as those found on the shelves of Borders yet in reality the process of sharing information and excitement has not changed ever. What is hard to know is what is likely to be a hit and what is likely to be a miss. Pipe size has a lot to do with it of course. The bigger the pipes, the bigger the exposure. Yet, in this world of media falling apart and the growing disintermediation of media, the pipes are awfully big and the potential for sharing for word of mouth is the biggest and most responsive it has ever been thanks to the internet. Still this is no guarantee of resonance, or engagement, big pipes don’t guarantee success

I will finish part 1 with a story on the recent television phenomenon Flash Forward.

A colleague of mine pointed me towards twitter search a while ago and sent me a link when Flash Forward was on. I watched as real time feedback about the show, jokes and other randomness came up one tweet at a time. I saw people saying what they liked and didn’t like about the show to their friends on the twitter (sorry couldn’t resist) and then sharing with others in other networks these thoughts. Watching the conversations go through in real time showed me how unpredictable and different we really are, and how the idea of the long tail is relevant. Now on to Part 2… Coming Soon: Engagement and why things become popular!

Category: ideas, strategy /

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