Author: Garth Beyer

Is It This Or Is It That

Garth Beyer

Hanksy

It’s frustrating that everyone wants to categorize, compartmentalize, and label everything that enters their life. It seems as though our brain was designed as a sorting structure. I can just picture little minions analyzing each thought and deciding what folder to place it in. That may be how it works, but that’s not how we grow.

Reading up on street fartist, Hanksy, I came across this interview gem.

EA:  Speaking of serious, it seems like the moment you try and talk about art that is on the streets, you immediately run into these competing definitions—street art vs. tags vs. graffiti. Do you think the insistence on different categories has a place in the conversation about art, or is that boring?

Hanksy:  You run into all the time. It’s frustrating. It’s like asking “What is art? What isn’t art?” I feel like the terms mean different things to different people. One person’s vandalism can be seen as another’s artistic expression. It is what it is. The internet, and people in general, will always attempt to lump things into categories. And they’ll always argue over it. When I first moved NYC, I’d go on these long runs, all throughout lower Manhattan. And I’d see Muffin Milk everywhere. Different versions. And I’m like, “Wow this guy sure loves cursive.” Turns out it’s a t-shirt company or something. Is that street art? I considered it to be, despite the end goal of selling merchandise.

It’s one thing to be objective, it’s another to be subjective. But that categorization of either is exactly my point. Everyone has their own view. We grow by understanding how others categorize and label their experiences, not by doing so to ourselves.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Just Read, Read Others

Garth E. Beyer

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As promised from yesterday, here are five new sources I read from.

TED talks are lying to you – I don’t usually read Salon, but this was cool.

Arts & Letters Daily – always a good place to find variety

Dreamscape – images and music speak as loud, if not louder than words

It’s Nice That – it’s nice that this is so nice…just awesome

Neotorama – nothing more than neat stuff (not really something to read, but a swell way to break between reads)

Bonus: Here’s a test to discover if someone sees your point of view (HT to David Pink.)

The Routine We Often Forget To Break

Garth Beyer

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Just as what we eat influences the way we appear and feel, so it is with what we read.

I’ve read stories from the same 10 sources every day for the last six months. My brain is on autoconsumption. I’ve read enough from these authors that I can guess where they will go with their story after reading the first few lines.

As anything goes in life, you have to remember to shake things up.

This is a challenge to both you and me. We can do better if we broaden our informational horizons. At the end of my story tomorrow, I will post five different blogs/news sources that I’ve checked out. I encourage you to do the same by posting what you find in a comment to this or tomorrow’s post.

 

Stay Positive & Explore, Taste Something New

Garth E. Beyer

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Where The Value Is

Garth Beyer

You can find it about 16 paces to your right.

Wait. I mean 16 miles.

No, that’s not right…

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The greatest value is not found. Nor can you literally create something that is valuable. Take for example, a novel no one has ever read, no one knows it exists, it has yet to have a value attached to it.

This is a common mistake I see in artists, writers, and those alike. So much of their intention is to create something valuable that, in doing so, they forget 1. their original motivation for creating (commonly to induce social change) and 2. that most items perceived as invaluable are so far off the paved, beaten, and forked road.

The fault is in trying to create something that fits a current valuable perception.

The answer to create something that does not fit any current valuable perception. (In all irony, that’s exactly where the most valuable perception is.)

I can’t help but think that, right now, there are people walking, driving, flying, and swimming in parts of the world that so few people before them have been. Surely, some are exploring areas for the first time. I envy them. No, I’m down right jealous. They are in the most invaluable places on earth.

Fortunately, art is not limited to the landscape of the earth.

 

Stay Positive & There’s Enough Space In Art For You To Be The First There

Garth E. Beyer

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Tired Of Professionals Saying They Were Lucky

Garth Beyer

I meet with a lot of reporters, journalists, and PR folk. I hear their stories, I heed their advice, and I ask a lot of questions.

The two most common things that I hear professionals say is

1. Learn to write well, really well.

2. I was lucky that…

The first is a “duh.” The second, well, is a lie.

None of these professionals were lucky that they ran into the headhunter of the PR firm they wanted to work for. They were not lucky that they had the credentials they needed for the job. They were not lucky that they got this or that internship. They were not lucky that the news editor had heard about them already.

These professionals didn’t land in their position by luck. They worked their asses off for it.

The real question is why do these professionals lie? Luck is a curated event, luck is the light at the end of the road, luck is a goal you meet after days, months, years(?) of hard work.

My thought is that everyone knows how difficult it is to become a doctor, yet, people still do. Then why do those in journalism and PR fear that the knowledge of how much work it will be to become a renowned journalist or PRS will stop people from becoming one.

At an even deeper level, why are these professionals not proud of how hard they worked?

I don’t have the answers for you right now. I’m not in their position. I know how difficult it is. I know how much I need to work to get where I want to be. I know the difficult leaps I need to take. I know that where I end up won’t be from luck.

When I find out the answers to these questions though, I will let you know.

Downgrading What Is Free

Garth Beyer

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As unfortunate as it is, some businesses need to downgrade what they give for free.

Let’s stick with the same example from yesterday. Suppose that this bar and grill that gives large and cool designed mugs to those who go there on their birthday had to downgrade. Suppose they have to make cuts in their budget to stay open. They decide to give away the rest of the large and cool mug supply and replace them with small, round cheap mugs that just have their logo on it.

Unlike upgrading what is free, downgrading what is free hurts the customers you haven’t yet gotten.

On the positive side, it makes those who were there to get the free large, cool designed mugs feel even better. However, this has two repercussions.

1. Feeling better about something doesn’t mean they will want to come back again.

2. Giving something awesome for free is as much about optimizing word of mouth marketing as it is about making someone feel good for coming to your bar and grill, and not someone else’s.

The gamut here is that downgrading what is free risks negative word of mouth. Imagine someone who got the large, cool designed mug on their birthday then invites someone else to the same bar and grill in two weeks to celebrate their birthday, only, neither knows that the bar and grill downgraded their birthday mugs.

You can imagine where this leads.

This leaves us with the question of how we can make downgrading what is free, work. After all, while upgrading is always an option, sometimes downgrading is not.

The answer is, when you can’t change the product to make it better (or when you’re forced to downgrade), change the delivery.

People talk more about what they experienced than what they received anyway.

 

Stay Positive & Over, Over, Over Deliver

Garth E. Beyer

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Upgrading What Is Free

Garth Beyer

NittyGritty

There’s a bar and grill in downtown Madison that gives a birthday mug to all those that go there for their birthday. They also fill that mug up with a free drink of your choice if you couldn’t have guessed.

One year they decided to redesign the mug, making it larger and more aesthetically appealing.

It bummed out all those that had gotten the smaller, less good-looking one.

When you upgrade what is free, it is a sign of your business making progress, but you run the risk of hurting your previous customers. It’s never an easy decision to make when you consider that those who have gone to your bar and grill are more likely to return than those who have never been inside.

The first way to fix this is to give the redesigned, larger mug to everyone to begin with. Don’t wait for the profits to do it. We know that people buy into how things make them feel, what also matters, though, is that what the buy continues to make them feel that way. When free things are upgraded, it devalues the feeling of what has already been given away.

I don’t recommend doing it this way.

The second and ultimately beneficial way of fixing the problem is to reach out to those who already received the smaller, less good-looking mug. Suggest that they can come in and swap their mug with a new one. Or state that for the next month, if they come in with their old mug they get a special dessert put inside it, or a discount on their meal, or another free drink.

When you upgrade what is free, you can’t neglect those who already received the smaller, less good-looking thing.

 

Stay Positive & New Customers Is Progress, Old Customers Is Profits

Garth E. Beyer

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