No, Thank YOU

Garth 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

Missed Connections

Garth 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

The Death Of Fine Print

Garth 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

What Really Pays

Garth Beyer

–  Cash isn’t important to a successful career, connections are.The only money that matters is money that is invested. Whether you invest it in someone to give them a chance to show and grow their skills or when they invest it in you.

–  Time is only valuable when it’s either used to create honest art (not multi tasking, not clicking interesting link after interesting link, not taking halfass notes) and it’s only valuable when you interact with someone in real time (meeting for coffee, talking on the phone, skyping).

–   Having thousands of friends, followers, and visitors doesn’t mean you will instantly profit off of advertising. When it’s between making .002 cents off a stranger or $20.00 from a friend. I hope that it’s obvious what you should be making: friends or strangers.

–   When it comes to advertising, before anything, work on advertising yourself. That’s where the money is. (Or isn’t? Then you need to work on doing more creative work.)

–   Hard work pays off? Determination, motivation, perseverance, commitment… sounds like something you have to convince yourself to do that you just don’t want to.

What about connections, challenging fear, making yourself uncomfortable, revealing yourself, sparking emotional interactions, and taking risks?

Now tell me: What do you think really pays?

 

Stay Positive & Turn Strangers Into Friends

Garth E. Beyer

New Media & Ethics Conference

Garth Beyer

I wish I had it recorded but in print will have to do. Below is my introduction to UW Madison Chapter’s PRSSA Conference. You can also find some great tips and cover by searching #PRSSA and #uwconf on Twitter.

 

I won’t ask you to, but who here can define journalism? If I were to ask each of you, everyone would have a different response, similar, but different.

Almost 100 years ago, journalism emerged and was defined by Lippman as the translator between the public and the policy making Elites. Simple. Straightforward.

Now we have dozens of different definitions and even more subcategories: analytic, backpack, community, enterprise, immersive, mobile, pack, tabloid… you get the idea.

Over thousands of years ago, ethics was easily defined by a few different principals. Aristotle established the Golden Mean principal of ethics, basically it meant that everyone was to strive for the balance between two extremes.

Similarly golden, the golden rule was established. Simple profound, and could be applied to everything in writing and in life.

Unfortunately, long before journalism was established, multiple layers of ethics soon overlapped the golden mean and the golden rule, leaving us with thousands of ethical questions to be asking ourselves.

In this new media age, with so many guidelines, it seems that we can’t do anything without breaking some ethical standard.

We even have people arguing the utilitarian John Stuart Mill and his ethical stance called “the greatest-happiness principle” which holds that one must aim to do that which will produce the greatest happiness among all beings.” How does that not cover it all?

While we have an assortment of speakers here tonight to tell you about new media and a bit about ethics, I would like to express two ideas with you. Think about them throughout the keynote and breakout sessions.

The first is this: have you noticed that we no longer blaze journalists who are the first to report to us? Think to any of the last shootings. Has there ever been a report, the first on a story that was completely correct? That gave the exact number of fatalities? That described the shooter with absolute detail? We have come to trade in ethical standards for being fed information quicker, to being connected, and to being the first to share news with each other.

In a worldwide journalistic mission of getting the story, and getting it first, we sacrifice what historic media interpreters would call professionalism. What were once ethical standards are now breached with the new media methods of being a journalist.

The second note is something that everyone here has heard before, but has yet to be strongly applied to journalism.

With great power comes great responsibility.

We are now more digitally powerful than ever before, most would agree that its beyond governmental control, and definitely beyond the control of one single ethical standard.

With great power comes great responsibility. This means we need to self-regulate ourselves. The age of having ethical standards has passed. There is no right ethical move, or wrong ethical choice, only actions that are popular and actions that are not. It’s up to us to define ethics for ourselves. If we set them correctly, only then will I buy the idea that were journalists.

Now that you have some things to think about and without further ado, I would like to introduce our keynote speaker of the night Theo Keith, reporter for WISC-TV

Problem Solution

Garth Beyer

It has almost been a year since I attended Seth Godin’s Pick Yourself event in Tribeca. When I was sifting through a box of my memorabilia I found a card. Not a thank you card, not a blank card, but a life changing card.

Seth gave out these life changing cards that, as you can see in bold, said, “PROBLEM.” You can guess what was on the back, but we will get to that in a moment.

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We were asked to think of the (or any) problem that we were facing that was holding us back from shipping, making the call, and in general, committing to something. Then we wrote it down on the card. We were then told to switch cards with the person next to us and they would fill out the back.

(Jumping forward real quick, this is not my card, we were supposed to keep our own but the lady I did the activity with accidentally kept mine and I kept hers. Not a problem, I’m actually thankful for it. It’s allowed me to write this post.)

The first half of the idea behind this card is that we have to face our fear. We have to think about what truly is holding us back. We had to make sure the problem was one actually worth writing down. Most importantly, we had to let someone else – who we barely even knew – see it.

As you can read, she has a real problem. It’s hard to sell anything to an audience you don’t have and even harder to an audience you have no clue where they are. Obviously, she needs a solution. That’s where I came in.

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Three solutions to her problem.

1. “Just start dedicating time to grow audience and the audience will form themselves.” When you’re just starting out. Forget the audience. Commit to revealing yourself first. No one is going to follow someone they can’t see, someone they can’t connect to, someone who is invisible or a mere shadow. Here’s a thought: Seeds flowing in the wind never land on soil that is never watered. You have to water the soil before any seeds will consider planting themselves.

2. “In order to find your audience, you have to go after everyone by testing your ideas and see the response.” Naturally, this is the second step once you begin “watering the soil.” It’s great to have an idea of what your audience is, but no one knows your audience better than your audience! – and if you’re just starting out, it’s likely you’ll be wrong a few times before you’re right. Better to make the big mistakes now than later.

I started a PR blog to show what I know when other professionals or employers checked me out. Soon I discovered that my audience was made up of students and people interested in learning about PR, not necessarily my original intention. You can have foresight, but never let yourself have a narrow mind.

3. “Take 10% of your time to grow your audience.” That’s not a lot of time, for good reason.  Get good at creating first. Get good at seeking criticism. Get used to challenging your fears. Get in the habit of shipping your work. Then follow-up by connecting, by interacting, by messaging like-minded people.

(Note: The third solution can work in reverse.)

Did this solution help her, I’m positive it did, but believe it or not, that’s not the point or the goal.

The point is that whatever problem(s) you have, there is always a solution. The moment someone else sees that, you’re held accountable, you can’t lie to yourself anymore that there is no solution, and above all, you have no excuse, nothing holding you back.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Often A Move We Have To Make

Garth E. Beyer

We got tricked into this by not knowing what we were doing, why were doing it, or what we would have to do later. It takes someone bold to express what their problem. Are you up to it?

If You’re Creating Something That Takes Time To Process

Garth Beyer

It might be worth considering to drop it.

It’s a given that we’re in a world of next day delivery, instantaneous email confirmation after you click “submit,” and immediate Tweet/email/txt/snapchat back. We’ve built our interactions (purchases, connections, and outreach) on the idea of instant feedback.

Overall, it’s a positive change. A constant stream of feedback allows the creative class to correct what doesn’t work before too many people notice, to be thoroughly bathed in motivation (thanks Zig) with positive reviews, and most importantly, the stream of feedback gets you in the habit of dancing with your fears (negative reviews). No more ups and downs. You’re either on or your off.

Processing time? It’s a dying strategy. It used to be the norm. It used to lead clients and consumers to anticipate the result. Beyond all else, it used to be something worth waiting for.

Processing was an art. It gave the creators time to interact with the buyer while they were fulfilling their orders. Thing is, now the connecting is the two pieces of bread sandwiching the purchase.

And boy do people love to have their sandwiches.

 

Stay Positive & Note, Consumers And Clients Never Get Full

Garth E. Beyer