This is not a social media post. It is about something I don’t know anything about.
Why our neurons make us think that other people are better than us? First off I have to admit that my knowledge about neurons is limited and can be compared to a cave man’s knowledge about cell phone. Still, I will give it a shot. May be some neuron people would like to use it as a research subject.
In that post one of the pointers on how to flex our empathic muscle is that:
Understand this Universal Human Fear. A fundamental fear experienced by most is the hidden fear of not measuring up. Recognize this and do your part to genuinely make those in your circle of influence feel that they are enough. It’s a powerful act of interpersonal philanthropy.
Now, why is that? If everybody is having this fundamental fear of not measuring up then we should measure up just nicely. This is where it occurred to me that when we actually do stuff then there are a lot more neurons in play than just watching something done. Doh! This is obvious! Here’s the idea, besides all the useful neurons also a special kind of neurons gets active when we do something. Lets call those omg-i-hope-i-don’t-screw-this-up-and-get-laughed-at-neurons or fumbling neurons for short.
When we see someone doing something then our mirror neurons get activated but the fumbling neurons do not. We feel and understand how the speaker speaks or snowboarder makes a jump. So we see others as skillful and confident. We think to ourselves, how can they make is seems so easy. But that’s the point, it only seems that they are at ease and confident. In fact their fumbling neurons work overtime to make them feel incompetent.
For many people fumbling neurons paralyze them and they will do a poor job at their task. I think there is a simple way to overcome this degrading effect. First you have to understand that fumbling neurons will always be there. Second, ignore them! I haven’t read Seth Godin’s Linchpin, yet but seems that the lizard brain that he’s talking about is made of fumbling neurons. The pat of the brain that makes you double check endlessly, postpone and not to speak up.
Just ignore the fumbling neurons and do stuff.
OK, let’s tie this to social media and social networking sites. I believe that if you can create an environment or community where people can feel they are enough and share their experiences then you will have a very good chance of making it a lively thriving system. If you find a way to communicate the fumbling part then people will feel closer together.
“What you do for a living is not be creative, what you do is ship,” says bestselling author Seth Godin, arguing that we must quiet our fearful “lizard brains” to avoid sabotaging projects just before we finally finish them.
Keep shipping! Ideas are a dime a dozen. Only the ones that get shipped have chance to make an impact. If the time runs out ship. If the budget runs out ship. Trash at the beginning, when it’s cheap, not before sipping.
Every time we get to shipping time the lizzard brain say: they’ll laugh at me, I’ll change this a bit… and then that… and that… never shipping. The genius part is making the lizzard brain to shut up untill you ship.
Happy, happy, happy new year to everybody! 2010 will be the best year yet. Social media will integrate into our lives and we stop counting how many times someone is checking their Facebook. Here are our most read post from the 2009.
46 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools. It’s a good strategy to see first what free has to offer and the try to find tools that fit in the gaps you need to fill.
22 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2010. This is what we think will be important in social media in 2010. The slide show in the post was featured on Slideshale and got more than 2000 views in first week.
Facebook More Visited Than Google. Facebook has a good chance to become THE site people visit and a new poster boy to replace Google.
A Simple Social Media Platform. We drew a picture just to get a clear vision how a simple social media platform should look like.
8 steps to social media goodness. Blindingly obvious for some but I still felt that it’s good to write down the basics and revisit them from time to time.
World Map Of Social Networks. People are stat junkies, as with the firs post on the list, everyone wants to see the numbers.
We’ll try to keep thing interesting. Every post we make should be useful to our readers. Please let us know what matters to you and we’ll try to cover that. Thank you for reading.
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Image credit Tibor Fazakas
Another collection of articles for people who want to stay up to date in all things social. Seth GOdin has released agreat free ebook. Marketing will die. What is a relationship and 50 tactics for social media. Share and enjoy.
What Matters Now: get the free ebook from Seth Godin. Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up. Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. Seth’s new ebook will get you started on that path. A page from 60 great thinkers. (Download PDF now).
Be of service. Always. Excellence! Never an exception! If not Excellence, what? — Tom Peters in the ebook
2010: The Year Marketing Dies… (Subtitled) Or at Least Marketing as We Know It! If marketing burns to the ground in 2010, a new and more powerful marketing will rise from the ashes. The role of the new marketer:
Won’t be merely to imagine creative messages but to fashion programs that are seamless with the actual product and service experience,
Won’t be to plan bursts of communication on a yearlong calendar but to respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialog with consumers,
Won’t be merely to talk at consumers but to listen and engage one to one,
Won’t be to build campaigns but relationships…
Clay Shirky: How social media can make history While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics. The same change is taking place in advertising and marketing. Control is an illusion.
Social media-powered show to hit Web. From creator of ‘American Idol’ comes ‘If I Can Dream,’ a social media approach to entertainment. If I Can Dream. Ehh… I had similar idea with my friend. Interaction, between characters across all social media in real-time. In addition to that regular TV appearances that are backed by YouTube and Hulu. This project seems to bypass regular TV. Ideas cost nothing, innovation is in doing…
Relationships Aren’t Universal. You, as a business, may have all the best intentions to forge a relationship with me, meaning that you want to talk with me, interact with me, get to know me better, understand my motivations and my personality and demonstrate that you value me as a customer, and hopefully give me lots of reasons to adore you and express that adoration publicly. I, however, may just want to get a discount, buy your thing because it suits my needs, and move on.
This is an interview I did with Seth Godin when the Tribes book came out. Until now it resided on our Estonian web site as we didn’t have the English site. I decided to copy it here so that all our English content could be found on the same site. If you haven’t seen it before, enjoy.
Seth Godin is the marketing guru who talks about how marketeers shouldn’t spam people and how we should gain permission to communicate by being remarkable. He predicts that average products for average people will become invisible as mass media advertising loses effectiveness. He has written a lot of insightful books on the subject. Some of them are free Unleashing th Ideavirus and Knock Knock.
On 22 October 2008 Seth introduced his new book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. The presentation was excellent in helping to better understand the the idea behind the book. It is not just a marketing book. It’s about leadership. How leading a tribe is a much more rewarding activity than just trying to yell at them. You can find the audio of the presentation here and the slides here (slides are with notes). If you take marketing seriously check these out. It is a time well spent.
Priit Kallas: Your last book about tribes is leadership-marketing-motivational. Are product/marketing related tribes created or they just happen? If marketer tries to create a tribe, isn’t that just another trick to push his product?
Seth Godin: No one accidentally joins a tribe, and if we’re tricked into it, we won’t stay for long. But yes, it’s clear that some politicians and marketers are able to intentionally create tribes.
Priit Kallas: Marketers are afraid that if they let people to talk freely then a lot of negative will be said, that will erode the brand and all kinds of bad thins will happen. How would you respond to that?
Seth Godin: They’re right. Things will be said. If you create a movement that’s honest and a product that matters, those things will be largely positive. The only other choice is to be ignored, and we know that this doesn’t work very well.
Priit Kallas: It seems to me that to be remarkable and gain permission you need to know what people want, but for that you need to talk to people who haven’t yet given permission. Do you just do something hoping it will be a hit rather than a miss?
Seth Godin: I think the art is in understanding what people want, not running a focus group and having them tell you what they want. Smart marketers have an empathy that allows them to do this.
Priit Kallas: In small markets (like Estonia) some tribes fail due to the fact that there just isn’t enough people to keep the tribe going. But with spam you could reach enough people to turn a profit. Do you have examples how to deal with that.
Seth Godin: Spam always works in the short run, but it fades out very quickly. The long term win is in building a tribe, and since it’s not limited by geography any longer, that tribe can be larger than Estonia.
Priit Kallas: You have said that we need meatballs (average products for average people). To market meatballs you need to do things the old way and spam people. This is going to be less and less effective so the meatball model won’t work and we don’t have metaballs… Do you see some kind of equilibrium developing between old and new (spam and permission)?
Seth Godin: I think it’s likely that society will accept a certain amount of spam as background noise. It won’t ever go away. The opportunity for growth, though, doesn’t lie in doing something that people merely tolerate. The real wins will come, over and over, from marketers who are welcomed, not shunned.
Priit Kallas: TV-Industrial complex is/was a repeatable model. What can you say about a new model emerging to replace that. Is there a model? Do this, then that, profit?
Seth Godin: Do something worth talking about. Word spreads. Make a profit. Repeat. Along the way, earn permission to make it easier to spread the word next time.
Priit Kallas: Media is atomizing. Currently you can buy ads in a TV channel, a news paper and a few billboards. If we need to use thousands of channels to deliver relevant message is this going to be all automatic (like Google AdSense).
Seth Godin: I think ad buying is not ready for a one-stop shop, but there’s no doubt that much of it will be consolidated and automated….
Priit Kallas: What will happen to the traditional media?
Seth Godin: Media doesn’t go away, it just evolves.
Priit Kallas: Are you wearing mis matching socks all the time or just on the events?
Seth Godin: I wear mismatched socks every single day. It’s a nice reminder.
Priit Kallas: What we need to do to get you to Estonia?
Seth Godin: Alas, it’s just too far to travel.
Questions from our blog and email:
Lembi Sander: How to market a DVD of a small theater, so that it would get attention and be remarkable?
Seth Godin: The question isn’t how to market the DVD. The question is how to change the theater. What would the theatre have to become in order to earn the expectation that people would talk about it?
Silja Oja: The market is down, sales are down and the company is in the red. What would you suggest to a marketer, where to focus their efforts?
Seth Godin: This is a great opportunity to build relationships, to lead a tribe, to create a movement. Everyone else is scared and quiet, looking for leadership. That should be you.
Peep Laja: What do you think is the best way to develop relationships (online) with potential and current clients?
Seth Godin: Do things for people. Relentlessly. Be helpful, be generous. Don’t ask for anything in return!
The results of an update to the comScore highly publicized “Natural Born Clickers” research, conducted two years ago with Starcom USA and Tacoda, indicate that the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen from 32% of Internet users in July 2007 to only 16% in March 2009, with an even smaller core of people (representing 8% of the Internet user base) accounting for 85% of all clicks.
The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks.
heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.
Other comScore research has shown that online display ads generate significant lift in trademark search, online and offline sales, and brand-site visitation across all verticals, among those internet users who were exposed to the online ad campaigns – whether they clicked on the ad or not. via Mediapost
In large organizations most of the money paid for projects goes to overcome organizational friction (or bureaucracy). I have seen organizations where as little as 20 percent of the money goes to actually do real work. Seth Godin writes that it is an art and skill to work in an environment like that. In his experience 40 percent of the fee is for the work and 60 percent to lubricate the system. It is a huge waste and waste is not an art or skill. I wonder if there is a way to reduce the waste of organizationa fiction.
Seth Godin posted a video where people were aked what is a browser. The point is that if you film real user reactions it gives you a lot more understanding than just dry statistics that only 8 percent of people know what a browser is.
About the video: What is a browser? was the question we asked over 50 passersby of different ages and backgrounds in the Times Square in New York. Watch the many responses people came up with.
Graduate school for unemployed college students via Seth’s Blog. Althou this is a good advice for unemployed college students it is a great idea for your company if the times are slow. Do something that leaves a mark or has a potential to get bigger. Else you’ll just waste the time.
This is not a social media post. It is about something I don’t know anything about.
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