Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
At the core of the long tail, what matters is not where people who connect with you are, or even how many of them are seeking a particular way you word things or express yourself or display images, but only that some number of them exist, somewhere.
Stay Positive & Don’t Let The Fact You Don’t Appeal To Most Shy You Away From Appealing To The Few
Garth E. Beyer
We’re extraordinary inventors.
Not my generation, not Generation Y, not our parents’ parents, not teenagers, not our ancestors, not students at Harvard or Madison, not one specific group. All of us.
All of us are extraordinary inventors. And we should be ashamed.
We invent something in particular that there is already a surplus of. This something, we receive no credit for, no handshake, no raise, no stamp of approval, ribbon, medal, or award. We invent this something that should have only began as an idea that we acknowledgingly and self-respectingly shrugged off.
We invent new excuses.
Stay Positive & It’s Not Something To Be Proud Of (then why do it?)
Garth E. Beyer
Visitors, clicks, subscriptions, pinbacks, emails, tweets, retweets, follows, facebook impressions, favorites, stars, ratings, statistics, forwards, reblogs, and bookmarks are all great. All fantastic. All give the ego a boost, maybe your moral too.
But do they matter?
If you create out of the necessity for subscriptions, if you create solely because you have people reblogging your creations, if you create to see your stats rise, you’re working, not creating.
If you can take out all stats, trackers, measures, feedback, impressions, reach, views, and audience and still create – that’s what defines an artist. A creator for the sake of creation, a creator that will follow through no matter what, with no guarantee of it working, and no expectation of it meaning anything to anyone but you, the artist.
Stay Positive & Artistry Is Always A Lonesome Process At Its Core
Garth E. Beyer
It’s been said that everything popular was once ridiculed and the thinkers behind it demoralized. The reason “it” became popular was definitely not the work of those who gave up, who let themselves be emotionally influenced, who backed off in the face of criticism.
Nor was it brought forth by those who were indifferent. Take, for example, the move to legalize gay marriage. Those who could care less whether it’s legalized or not have little to no influence over it being legalized. (counterarguments anticipated)
It’s the avant-garde who break through the glass, the threshold, the wall, the oppression, the fear, the criticism; all the obstacles that go along with something incredible.
“Those who belong to the avant-garde are committed to the future and thus by necessity, are also isolated; but their conviction that they are ahead of their time enables them to endure.” – Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
More or less this is a salute to the avant-garde, as well as an expression of hope that you will become/remain one of them.
Stay Positive & There Is No Popular Without Avant-Garde
Garth E. Beyer
Every damn time the barista gives me the coffee I ordered, he says, “thank you.”
I don’t write this in anger or resentment, more astonishment than anything. Is it not me who is supposed to say “thank you” to him. After all, he’s the one who did the work of making it, who topped it with whipped cream, who took an order and delivered. On top of being thankful for him making me coffee, I even tip him. So whose honor is it, really?
Obviously the artists. Obviously the person who was not only happy, but willing and passionate about taking action. Since I wasn’t ecstatic about the process of ordering a coffee, that opts me out, leaving one person left.
Seems to me like I’ve met an impresario. What would you say?
Stay Positive & Do What You Can Be Thankful To Be Doing
Garth E. Beyer
Successful businesses are built around the idea of connecting. And with new media, this has never been easier to do.
Just yesterday I posted on Seabird’s Facebook page and they actually responded with an honest and sincere update. I thought to them I was just a fan. Now, I’m a friend.
Today I posted a suggestion on Boulders climbing gym’s page. Instead of saying something along the lines of “great idea, we’ll consider it.” They asked me a couple of questions in an effort to make my suggestion happen.
I see business to stranger interaction on Twitter all the time. The result? No longer strangers, no longer consumers, no longer another person on the email list. Instead: friends, connections on an emotional level, and above all, real trust.
What I see is businesses connecting with strangers and turning them into friends. Next, what I believe businesses need to do is discover a way to then connect friends with other friends.
For example, a friend of mine is working on her first startup. She is building a website that you can rent graduation gowns from other students who graduated before you. She can connect well with the target audience, being a recent graduate herself.
But what matters most to her business plan is the level of social interaction and connection she is using to leverage herself. It’s not just about saving money on a cap and gown. It’s about inspiring, creating, aspiring, and sharing your story with other past and current graduates within your field of interest and geography. Beneficial connections for any graduate!
If I may throw an idea in. I think every Facebook page for a restaurant/gym/local shop/retail store/movie theater (you get the idea) should have a missed connection portion on their page.
Business to peer connecting has gotten easy. Now, to benefit more than your competition, it’s about businesses connecting their peers to other peers.
Stay Positive & Once You Connect, Connect Others
Garth E. Beyer
Let me correct myself real quick: Fine print isn’t dying, but companies, businesses, non-profits who use it are. Death by Fine Print.
Fine print is like the Overly Attached Girlfriend meme, except, it’s not funny.
Fine print is a safety net, a terrible but acceptable excuse, a scapegoat to those who are building an emailing list of people whose expectations they know they cannot fill.
Fine print is like making a promise with your fingers crossed. Void, but only you know it.
If there’s fine print to any contract, any agreement, any deal, then there is a clear case of soon-to-be trust issues on the consumers end. Likely showcasing that the business is built on profiting from one-time consumers instead of repetitive investing tribe members.
Through the industrial revolution fine print was acceptable, in some cases, honestly necessary due to the risk of using machines rather than people to create what the economy and America needed. Businesses were not built on connections other than the ones you had to your right and left on the assembly line.
That has changed, yet, somehow, fine print is being used (poorly used) in the post-materialistic, post-industrialistic, economy that was built on peer-to-peer connections, not commercialism. And here is where the problem lies. Not really the problem for you or I (unless you’re still using fine print), but for businesses who think they can save their integrity with a tiny clause.
They can’t. Not when trust, connection, and interaction is what makes them money.
Stay Positive & I’m A Millennial And Still See The Value Of A Handshake
Garth E. Beyer
