I'm Bored With Your Brand

I'm bored with everything about your brand. I'm bored with your logo, I'm bored with your public outreach, and I'm bored with the endless obsession over what your brand means to others.

In fact, if I never hear another word about your brand again, I'll sleep better at night. (And I say this as someone who works in marketing.)

Stop worrying about your brand -- and, more importantly, stop making me (and everyone else you don't really know) worry about your brand.

Just do something.

Do something amazing, innovative, world-changing. Start small but aim big. Or not; small is hard, too. Just get it right. Or try to get it right, relentlessly.

The more amazing, innovative or world-changing your actions, the more likely other people will start talking about you. And they won't be talking about your brand because you want them to; they'll be talking about your brand because they want to.

Except they won't be talking about your brand, really. They'll be talking about your actions. And actions are a lot bigger than a brand.

Image by Tambako the Jaguar.

Your Customer Is Not Your Problem

Two very different experiences this past week have taught me a lot about the value of positive customer service -- and the need to create a workplace environment that encourages and sustains it.

When Good Road Signs Go Bad

A week ago, I noticed that the five-way stoplight at the Forward and Murray Avenues intersection of Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood was broken. One of the light's cycles -- the side that faces traffic coming off the I-376 exit -- was lasting at least 2-3 times longer than it normally does. This is odd because that's usually NOT a high-traffic approach; it also extends the wait time for those on Murray Avenue, which results in 8-block traffic jams during rush hour.

So I contacted PennDOT, informed them of the problem (via email form), and someone wrote me back within a day to explain that traffic lights are the concern of the municipality, rather than the state. They also said they'd forward my email to the Pittsburgh traffic office -- which, I'll admit, is where I thought this story would end.

Today, I received the following email from Amanda Broadwater, P.E., Municipal Traffic Engineer for the City of Pittsburgh's Department of Public Works - Bureau of Transportation and Engineering:

Dear Mr. Kownacki,

Within the State of Pennsylvania, traffic signals are the jurisdiction of the City. Therefore, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation forwarded your comment to us regarding the intersection of Forward and Murray in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood.

The City of Pittsburgh has identified [that] loop detectors are malfunctioning at the intersection. This type of problem happens often during wet weather. When this occurs, the maximum time allotted to the approach with the bad loop is displayed during each cycle, rather than the green time being traffic responsive. Obviously this creates greater delays on the other approaches of the intersection.

The electricians will be back on site today to try and remedy the problem. However, it may be necessary to completely replace the loop detectors. If this is the case, a timing change will be needed to ease congestion during preparation of the work. If a timing change is needed, it should be in place by mid week.

I wanted to highlight Amanda's response for two reasons:

* What speedy turnaround time from a pair of agencies that probably receives dozens (if not hundreds) of similar reports every day.

* What a thorough and understandable explanation! I would have expected a form letter saying "thanks, we'll get to it." Instead, Amanda went to the trouble of explaining the issue to me in layman's terms and then suggested a date by which the work should be completed.

On the Other Hand...

Last week, I stopped at a Wendy's just off the Hazleton, PA, exit on I-80. I've been to this Wendy's half a dozen times over the past year, because that exit is a regular pit stop on my business trips between Pittsburgh and Connecticut.

This time, I was one of the only customers in the place, and the staff of 5 or 6 seemed frustrated. Maybe it was because I was disrupting their side work, or because of something their manager may have said moments earlier. Maybe they were just having a bad day.

But when the kid gave me my order and I said "Thanks," and he just grunted at me with the body language that let me know I was his problem, not his customer, it clarified two things for me:

* There's a reason front-end workers in fast food and retail only get paid a minimum wage, and

* I need to stop eating at the Wendy's in Hazleton.

Conversely, although I disagree with their politics, I enjoy the experience of ordering food at Chick-fil-a. Why? Because their employees (at least in Pittsburgh's Waterfront location) are perpetually in good moods. Not the kind of fake smile most employee handbooks insist their cashiers sport, but the kind of jovial attitude that lets me know they enjoy working there -- and that they're happy I'm spending my money with them.

Like PennDOT and Pittsburgh's Department of Public Works, I'm not Chick-fil-a's problem. I'm their customer - and they'd like me to stay that way.

Photo by lawgeek.

The Thankless Job of Being Ahead of the Curve

This week, the world was all abuzz about the mainstreaming of Twitter thanks to Ashton Kutcher & CNN, Oprah Winfrey, USA Today and countless other "names" who've taken up the habit of Twittering.

Of course, by "world," I mean the relatively self-obsessed cadre of regular Twitter users -- myself among them -- who thought social media was a pretty cool club until the stars showed up. Like the aesthetic suckerpunch that comes from seeing the captain of the football team wearing your favorite indie band's t-shirt, the mainstreaming of any subculture is a tragedy for those who were there first. In one seemingly innocuous act, whatever exclusivity there was that bound you all together is now eroded. It's like your girlfriend taking a sudden interest in Star Trek -- or your mom using Facebook.

You know who wants your mom to be on Facebook? The people who create the service and the people who profit from the service.

You know who doesn't want your mom to be on Facebook? The people who use the service -- or, at least, the ones who used it enough to make it useful to your mom in the first place.

Being Useful Is the Fastest Way to Die

In order for any business or service "succeed" -- social media included -- it has to go mainstream. This means it has to be considered useful (or at least interesting) by the masses. But since "the masses" tend to be less interesting than the individuals who comprise them, when something does generate a wide appeal, it tends to do so at the expense of the individuals who partly defined themselves through it. And as the originators of a subculture leave, they take something with them: the originality, eccentricity or unconventional wisdom that made that subculture worth noticing to begin with.

So now, as blogging, podcasting and social networking become commonplace, the power centers behind these tools shifts away from the geeks who'd started them and becomes concentrated within the same media conglomerates for which these tools were originally conceived as an antidote. (This is not unlike veteran political skewer Al Franken eventually being absorbed into Congress.)

How Many Coonskin Caps Is One Fail Whale Worth?

What we've been seeing this week is the lamentation of hardcore Twitter users who've realized that their much-maligned (and yet, paradoxically, much-loved) service may be on the brink of becoming mainstream -- and, simultaneously, irrelevant.

If all these Twitter pioneers sound bitter, it's because they realize society is now waiting for them to pull up their stakes and migrate away from Twitter, on toward some other as-yet undiscovered social media country... that can be colonized and mined for profit, by others, in another 2 or 3 years.

Meanwhile, any book written decades from now about the success of Twitter will almost surely mention Ashton Kutcher's name, but it probably won't mention yours -- even though you were there first.

Image (taken along the Oregon Trail) by Fokket.

I Have Seen the Future, and It Is Me

I was profiled in a KDKA TV News feature about Pittsburgh's young entrepreneurs. Reporter Andy Sheehan talked to several local innovators about the ways our businesses differ from the norm -- my tendency to work from cafes while producing STBD, for example, or the wisdom of converting a home into the (multi-employee) office for local design firm Blue Tomato.

As always, most news items about young people in Pittsburgh tend to focus on two themes: whether we'll save the city by reinventing it, or whether the city will empower us to make our dreams come true. This particular clip does a bit of both -- which is typical of the city's identity crisis. As the region with the second-oldest population in the country (behind only Miami), Pittsburgh is forever torn between the need to redefine itself and the presumption that it doesn't have to.

If I were a casual viewer, I'd probably think every one of us featured in this video -- including Nick Pinkston and Kellee Maize -- are naive young crackpots who need a real 9-to-5 job to drive some reality down our throats. But, on the off chance that one of us succeeds, that same casual viewer can take pride in the fact that we didn't listen to their conventional wisdom after all.

If YOU'RE Not the Boss of Me... Who Is?

Last week, blogger Joyce Dierschke asked a not-quite hypothetical question: Do you censor yourself online? Her example, of whether or not she should have re-posted a link to a (biased) political video that she personally found amusing, encapsulates a question we all ask ourselves on a regular basis:

When I'm online, am I allowed to be me?

The answers to the question are (if you ask me) far too complicated, because they can only be revealed by first determining who you are AND what you believe.

Some Things to Consider About Who "You" Are:

Are you a person or an employee?

Are you a brand or an individual?

Are you more concerned about being authentic or about getting paying work?

If a potential client decided they didn't want to work with you because of something you said or did online -- essentially, because of who you are (and the judgment they believe you display) -- would you regret the action in question?

Are you using the internet for communication or self-promotion?

Is your belief system permanent, or does it evolve over time?

Would the person you are today be embarrassed or ashamed of anything you did 10, 5 or even 2 years ago?

Are you steadily advancing toward a specific goal, or are you exploring for the sake of experience?

Do you expect greater integrity from others than you do from yourself?

Does transparency trump ethics?

Forget Big Brother -- EVERYONE'S Watching

Every decision we make online is a personal decision, undertaken privately (or so it seems) yet available publicly to anyone who knows how to look for it. Classic concepts of privacy, identity and "the self" are in flux now due to the web's multiple layers of "personal branding" and anonymity. And while Jonah may have believed that God could see him even when he was inside the whale, Jonah also never had to deal with recruiters scouring his friends' Facebook accounts for all his potentially incriminating kegstand photos.

So before you start censoring (or uncensoring) yourself online, perhaps you should first figure out who YOU are... and who you answer to.

Image by amanky.

Stop Telling Me I'm Amazing. I Know.

When was the last time someone came up to you and launched into a glowing report on how smart / talented / wonderful you are, and you preemptively cut them off with two words:

"I know."

I'm pretty sure your answer is "never," because doing so is considered rude, ungrateful, egotistical or any other personality trait we apply to celebrities who've lost touch with "who they are" and "where they come from." (Evidently, remembering "where you come from" implies that you should never admit that you aren't there anymore.)

Instead, conventional wisdom mandates that such exchanges must always proceed as follows:

Fan: "You're amazing!"

Hero: "Shucks. No I'm not..."

Fan: "Yes you SO are! And here's why!" [produces voluminous list of rationales]

Hero: "Well, if you say so..." [smiles sheepishly and stares at his own $4,000 shoes]

Such interactions imply that having enough confidence in your own work that you don't need to pretend to be validated by the words of others is somehow a character flaw.

But why?

Because the fan must also feel validated by the hero.

The Inverse Value Proposition of Being a Fan

In the eyes of the fan, the hero already appears to have everything. The hero is getting paid to do something that the fan considers to be a dream job, and by definition, having a dream job means that the possessor of said job would naturally be forever thankful. (After all, if the fan were in his hero's shoes, he'd be thankful.)

Conversely, if the hero no longer appears to be thankful for external validation, that means the hero has "changed," and it now becomes the job of the "fan" to instead tell the hero that he sucks. This is because the fan must feel as though his outreach to the hero is justified by imparting information on him that the hero would never otherwise know (or at least admit to).

All of which means that the rules of modern interaction were obviously written by fans who made the mistake of approaching too many heroes who were confident enough in their own abilities to not realize they needed "others" to validate them. (This makes sense, because their heroes were too busy doing heroic things to bother deciding how they should feel about them; that job fell to the fans, who had a lot of free time on their hands.)

I'd Like to Forget All the Little People

The bizarre lesson being taught here is that being confident enough in our own abilities to not constantly require external validation is somehow wrong. It's not. Not that you'd know that from the hyper-self-fascinated world of social media, where every view / follower / comment is analyzed to ensure maximum validation for the recipient, but it's true:

It's okay to be confident in yourself.

You don't have to be a douche about it, but you're certainly welcome to admit to yourself -- and, yes, to others -- that you are good at what you do, that you do stand out from the crowd and that you really did expect to succeed all along.

And if you're so good that you can be a douche about it and still remain at the top of your game, let's be honest: there's only so much time in the day, and sometimes douchebaggery is the finer part of brevity. So accept the obligatory applause, walk away, and get back to being a hero.

Because if you're good enough at being a hero, the fans will write your legend for you... whether you want them to or not.

Image by Our Hero.

Why Should We Care?

Brian Conley (right) with Jeff Jarvis at the
2006 Video on the Net conference in Boston.
Brian Conley, creator of the videoblog Alive in Baghdad and a tireless campaigner for human rights, was reportedly detained in China after filming (and webcasting) a street protest for Free Tibet.

This comes just days after internationally famed artist James Powderly was arrested and detained for a similar display of pro-Tibet dissent during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

As of this blog post, I don't believe either man has been heard from since his detention.

And yet, if you read the comments from either link above, you'll notice that the majority of the commenters make the same case: these guys are either too dumb to realize they'd be jailed for protesting in China, or they simply got what they deserved.

Funny, I always thought the ideals of the West were built on the concept of freedom of speech and sticking up for the oppressed.

So, in a cultural climate of zero support... why bother?

And, more importantly, why should we care?

Technology Trumps Humanity Every Time

The world has always had its fair share of corruption, violence, war, famine, human rights atrocities and general self-destruction. But now, thanks to the internet, news of these disasters and tragedies can travel around the globe instantaneously.

Instead of making us all give a damn, however, this overwhelming surge of negative news is simply making us all more jaded.

Now, instead of caring about how one person (or government) is destroying the lives of innocents, we lament that this negativity is ruining our day. Harshing our mellow. Making us aware that the world is not always a bright, shiny (and stark white) iPhone commercial.

We resent that.

We're now so much more aware of just how shitty a place the world can be, I think we're all subconsciously tuning out anything that doesn't provide us with an escape from that reality.

We also have to earn so much more money during this troubled economy just to keep up with our comfortable level of consumption, we don't have the time, energy or resources to care all that much about anything that isn't adding to our coffers or providing us with relief and amusement.

And, even if we did develop the urge to care about something, we still have to cultivate the strength and awareness to take action -- and to know HOW to take action. That requires research, which is time intensive, and often requires sacrifice -- none of which really fits into our modern schedule.

This explains the proliferation of impassioned blogs and tweets about every meaningless technological ripple under the sun -- every new iPhone model, WordPress plugin, or beta test invitation -- and the comparably deafening silence whenever the subject changes to sociological issues. (Except politics. Every LOVES to let the world know what they believe, even if that belief doesn't necessarily translate into action.)

So where do we go from here?

Web 3.0 as Lightning Rod or Escape Clause

As the web gets more intelligent (both the services and their users), we have a choice: we can use this worldwide connectivity and instantaneous data transfer to accomplish more progress faster than any other generation has previously...

... or we can use it to distract ourselves from the horrors of reality, which seem to be ever-growing in number and degree.

I don't blame people for not caring. I don't even blame them for thinking that we should string up the people who DO care. After all, the people who care make the rest of us look bad.

When we hear about the actions taken by people who care, we run the risk of realizing that we probably could have done something more productive with our day than whatever it was we actually did do -- populating databases, animating spinning logos or selling goods to be purchased solely with discretionary income.

If only everyone would just settle down and stop caring, we could all get on with our lives.

And yet...

... would we need to distract ourselves from the terrors of the world if there weren't quite so many?

And would there be so many if those of us who did care actually... took action?

Who Are You Trying to Impress?

Last night, I saw Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely at the Harris Theater. Afterward, Pittsburgh Filmmakers and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership offered free food and drink, intended to spark a post-film discussion among the strangers in attendance. (This is supposed to be a good thing.)

Unfortunately, strangers, bound solely by the shared experience of having just seen the same movie, have nothing else in common yet (that they know of). Result? Out comes the posturing, the pomposity and the need to impress one another with armchair film school dissections of "symbols" and "meaning." (I nearly choked on my stuffed grape leaf -- catered by the inimitable Affogato -- when someone posed the [rhetorical?] question: "Was the pastoral violated?")

In the end, I doubt any friendships were forged from this discussion, but I suspect more than a few people went home worrying, "Did everybody else think I was smart enough?"

Anatomy of a Conversation

When we're thrown together in a pseudo-social situation, the quaint tradition of "breaking the ice" often gives way to the more aggressive method of preening like alpha males / females, meant to establish a social hierarchy we can all understand (and find -- or reject -- our place in).

In every social situation, there seems to be at least one of the following:

* The conversation driver
* The friends of the conversation driver
* The people who WANT to be friends with the conversation driver
* The people who DISAGREE with the conversation driver
* The dropouts who eat the free food and make snide comments in the background

(Hint: this last group is almost always the most interesting group, due possibly to the fact that they're coincidentally the most impossible to actually meet.)

This conversation rarely has the opportunity to become inclusive because it automatically becomes a pitched battle between two (or more) speakers vying to establish that their opinion is the "right" one (at least for the duration of this situation).

If that's the case, why bother speaking at all, if the only reason to get involved is to try and out-shout the opposition? Wouldn't a lot more be accomplished -- and more bonds between conversationalists be created -- if we all agreed that the perfunctory building of these walls was a waste of time?

Your Comfortability Makes Me Uncomfortable

Not everyone is so eager to let their wall down. Some people enjoy that distance because it keeps them from getting too attached, or seeming like they're too interested, or too available. They need to impress others before they can take their wall down, and convince themselves that they have "the upper hand" in the conversation.

If you see this type of behavior encroaching on your social interactions, whether online or in person, why not try one of the following:

* Agree to Disagree. Table the contentious issue for the moment, and then actively find a point on which each side can agree. Knowing that each side's disagreement stems from a common starting point can reduce the sense of "The Other" that often fuels the need to establish conversational dominance, and instead replaces it with a simple curiosity about how each side arrived where it is now.

* Agree... For Now. Maybe you still disagree with the other person(s), but you're astute enough to realize that endlessly arguing about details isn't going to move the conversation forward to a deeper, more engaging state. So agree with the other side, for now. Admit that you may not have all the facts, or that the other person might (gasp) actually be "right." A concession isn't a defeat; it's simply a way to pause the invective, which can disarm a conversational "opponent" and provide an opportunity to move the conversation ahead to new topics.

(PS: If you temporarily agree with someone else, you owe it to yourself to follow up afterward and see if their argument actually does hold water. You may be surprised to find it does.)

* Volunteer to Be the Underdog. Often, contentious conversations are all about establishing a social pecking order. The other side doesn't even care if they're right or wrong, so much as they desire to be seen as the dominant voice in the conversation. In that case, let them be it. NOT needing to appear "perfect" can immediately nullify the race to build artifice, and win you some subconscious respect in the process. Suddenly, the race to build higher walls is replaced by the race to dig deeper moats, inviting more and more people to get closer, and closing the gap of The Other that makes getting to meet new people -- and caring about them -- so damn hard in the first place.

This doesn't mean you need to divulge a laundry list of All The Horrible Shit That's Ever Happened to You. No one loves a self-flagellator, but everyone appreciates a person who can honorably assess his/her own shortcomings, even as they're content in their strengths. That's called "being a real person," and it's a much better way to create a meaningful conversation than endless ideological pissing contests.

(And, for the record: no, the pastoral was not disturbed, because there was no pastoral in the first place. But Samantha Morton does one hell of a good American accent, and those stuffed grape leaves were fabulous. I would have mentioned that during the post-film discussion, but I was too busy eating the free food and making snide comments in the background.)

5 Things I Learned While Apartment Hunting in Pittsburgh

This week, I spent huge chunks of time tracking down a new apartment. Our lease is up at the end of July, and since Ann wants to get a dog, we're moving to a building that allows dogs. (That means we had to find one first -- and in Pittsburgh, that's no easy task.)

In doing so, I learned a lot about Pittsburgh, realtors, and myself. To wit:

5 Things I Learned While Apartment Hunting in Pittsburgh

1. Dogs Are Pariahs

As most of my Twitter friends heard this past week, owning a dog in Pittsburgh makes you the least desirable of all apartment renters, judged by prospective landlords to be slightly less savory than thieves, grave robbers and amateur yodelers. It seems the average landlord in Pittsburgh would rather rent an apartment to a convicted criminal or a scab-heavy leper than to someone who owns a dog. We don't even have a dog yet, but we did learn that the quickest way to cut a conversation with a realtor short is to ask, "So, what's your pet policy?"

Oddly enough, cats are far less problematic. Evidently, shedding and clawing is far preferable to shedding and barking.

2. Landlords Often Forget That EVERYTHING Is a People Business

Most of the landlords and realtors we encountered were decidedly chilly in their demeanor -- some even downright dismissive. (And these are the ones who allowed dogs.) Only 2 or 3 treated us like people, rather than names on a call sheet, and took the time to connect with us on a more-than-functional basis. Unsurprisingly, those are the ones whose apartments we seriously considered renting.

Note to landlords: If I'm about to pay you over $1500 and commit to living under your roof for at least the next year, you could treat me like a person from the time we first meet. (This includes phone contact.) You could make me feel like you care about my needs and well-being. You could stop making excuses for the less-than-perfect conditions of your properties. You could give me the impression that you'll be concerned if our power, water or heat go out in the middle of the winter. In short, you could put some effort into being a person, rather than a business owner or an employee.

3. I'm All Growns Up

Several places we looked at were in buildings obviously intended for grad students -- aka, not overly spacious or in the best shape, but centrally located and affordable.

As a single guy, I would have jumped at the chance to live in one or two of these places -- especially considering their proximity to the social locations I already frequent. After all, I wouldn't have viewed them as long-term living solutions, but more as temporary places to sleep between jobs, social events and other such gallivanting. (When you're single, your apartment is where you go when you're not doing something interesting.)

But as a 31 year-old man in a committed relationship, my (our) needs are different. For one thing, we have more stuff than I would if I were single (see below). For another, we tend to stay home more often. That makes space, and the *use* of space, more important to us than it was to Single Justin. We like to entertain guests, so we need a space that's suited to the needs of social adults, not beer pong-playing students. And since it's cheaper to cook dinner for two every night, rather than always eating on the run, we need a kitchen that we can *live* in, rather than a tiny one where I can microwave something for solo feeding.

4. Stuff vs. Things

When you're looking at an empty apartment, trying to imagine where all your possessions would go, you can usually approximate the big items. You know where your furniture (beds, dressers, couches) would go. You also know where your stuff *might* go -- all the vague items you know are in every room but can never quite articulate, like lamps, storage containers, filing cabinets, smaller chairs and computer equipment.

But what about all that crap? All the boxes, bins and seasonal items that you only think about when you can't find something you actually *want* -- like a toolbox or a photo album that you swear is in "this closet somewhere."

Ann and I have aggregated a LOT of crap over the years, so we had to look beyond the obvious space and consider the phantom space -- the closets and basements that don't seem important in your daily life until you realize you have zero space and must resort to storing your shoes on the dining room table...

Suffice it to say that we picked a place that allows us to expand, instead of something that's "just big enough" for who we are today.

5. Location, Location, Location... Kind Of

As a freelancer, I don't have to worry about the home-to-work driving distance -- but Ann does. As long as she's working in the Oakland / Shadyside area, we thought we should look for something nearby -- Friendship, Shadyside, Bloomfield, etc. -- so she doesn't waste time and money driving long distances twice a day.

We also identified the things we do and places we go on a regular basis -- grocery shopping, bookstores, banks, coffee shops that stay open 'til midnight -- and tried to look for apartments that would be near as many of those locations as possible. It didn't make sense to save money in one capacity -- like proximity to Ann's job -- if we'd only be driving further to everything else.

In the end, we found a place in an area of town -- Greenfield -- that we never would have thought to look in the first place. Not just because we hadn't realized it was closer to Ann's work than we thought, but because it's in an area that feels more like an actual neighborhood than the places I traditionally seek out. Instead of being surrounded by grad students and commuters, we'll be living among people who own their homes, who have families, and who take pride in their houses and yards. For someone who hasn't had a yard in nearly ten years, this will be a change of pace -- and, since ours is paved, it saves me from having to mow it.

I may be all growns up, but I'm still not ready for yard work...

The Culture Gap

Last week, I saw a play that was written by an African-American playwright. It dealt with issues of gender, race and identity. It tackled sensitive subjects like sexual abuse and racism. And it was framed around an iconic myth of nature, hope and redemption.

And I hated it.

Not because the play was heavy-handed, unsurprising or obvious (which it was), but because it was being lauded despite these shortcomings. Lauded, I felt, *because* it was a play about a different cultural experience than what the theatregoers in Pittsburgh are used to. In this particular case, I felt quality (or its absence) was being ignored in favor of political correctness -- of the NEED to champion a work of art that presented a less-omnipresent POV than that of the Straight White Male that governs so much of American society.

My continued evaluation of that play, and of my experience with it, have prompted numerous questions over the past week, including:

* Am I unable to connect with art created by artists from different cultural backgrounds because we lack the same shared experiences?

* Does our cultural background directly impact our ability to emotionally or intellectually evaluate art?

* Is mediocre art from underexposed cultures given a "pass" by the cultural gatekeepers simply because they feel obligated to promote any voice from within those cultures that are willing to step forward?

* Does allowing mediocre art to flourish do a disservice to the potential artists from within a specific culture by lowering the bar of expectations?

* Is it fair to compare art from various cultural backgrounds? Is it racist NOT to?

* How profoundly does a difference in gender impact one's ability to understand another?

* What larger cultural or social implications arise when art created for "shock value" ceases to provoke a "shocked" experience in its audience? Does that mean we've diverged too far from a "norm" of behavior, or does it mean we've simply assimilated that previously "extreme" behavior into our larger frame of reference and nullified its impact?

I don't have answers to any of these questions, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

What Does Success Mean to You?

I've been creating Something to Be Desired for four years now. I consider us to be "successful" in that we've kept the show online and interesting despite numerous hurdles.

And yet, whenever someone asks me what my goals are... I realize I can't articulate them, because I haven't defined them for myself.

Things Are Changing

I've been having a lot of conversations lately with social media folks -- and reading a lot of blogs and Twitters -- that lead me to believe the bulk of the people in this space have a hard time defining what success means for them, and therefore understanding the steps they need to take in order to get there.

Last year, PodCamp Boston exceeded expectations because it had never been done. This year, although attendance was up, it was still about 50% of the registered total. Was that a "success"? It depends on whom you ask.

Most of the no-shows were people "outside the fishbowl" -- those interested parties who weren't yet creating content and therefore weren't 100% invested in having a conversation about it.

"How do we get those people involved?" was the question a lot of us have been asking for a long time, and there still aren't clear-cut answers.

Maybe that's because we're not demonstrating that social media is a "successful" investment of OUR time and resources yet, simply because so few of us know whether or not we ARE successful. It's hard to lead by example when you're not sure where you're headed.

What Constitutes Success For You?

Are you a creator? Does the thrill of making something from nothing give you an unequaled charge?

Are you a collaborator? Do you prefer working with others to make something greater than any of you could have done independently?

Are you seeking an audience? What kind of audience? Is it more important for you to have a wide, "mainstream" appeal in your work, or a smaller, highly-engaged readership / listenership / viewership?

Are you seeking investment? What kind of investment? How much money / resources? From whom? What would you do with it if you had it?

Are you seeking to make a living at what you're doing? To become profitable? What's your break-even point? Where will that money come from?

What do you want to be doing in a year? In three years?

Very few of us seem to know the answers to these questions, which therefore prevents us from being able to take the steps to accomplish them. As a result, I see a lot of rudderlessness throughout the medium. I see disinterest, worry, cynicism and frustration. (I should know - I'm the generator of a significant amount of it.)

So, if that's the case, why don't we refocus for a moment and ask ourselves, honestly: What does success mean to you?

And, to kick-start the conversation, I'll list my POV. To me, success would be:

* Being out of debt
* Making a comfortable living
* Having health insurance
* Working as a writer / director / producer
* Having STBD viewed by 10,000+ people per episode
* Earning enough money from STBD to pay the cast
* Seeing STBD become one of the top shows in modern media
* Collaborating with creative people from multiple fields
* Helping shepherd other people's ideas to fruition
* Investing in / growing other small businesses
* Being able to donate time / resources to charities
* Being able to travel

Yours?

Looking Toward Pittsburgh's Political Future

The best comment I've read (thus far) about the future of Pittsburgh's political situation came from a comment on The Burgh Report, from a commenter named "hatesyinzers":

I don't see any potential Democrat knocking off Ravenstahl in 2009 despite his "weak" showing yesterday. The Yinzers love Ravenstahl's anti-intellectualism, brazen arrogance and sense of entitlement, meaningless boosterism and lack of ethics. He will grow stronger over the next two years... the Yinzers will love him more and more for every scandal and ethics violation he is involved in... he has the mayor's office as long as he wants it...

I'd like to say I disagree, but the sad truth (as near as I can see it) is:

* Pittsburgh is in the throes of the ineffectual, old boy-network Democratic machine

* Ravenstahl is a very young cog in that machine, with years and years of political rewards ahead of him as long as he supports traditional cronyism

* The average voter is chronically unable to understand the issues and therefore votes based upon preconceived notions of party or personality

* A Republican (or any non-Democratic) mayor in Pittsburgh will probably never happen in my lifetime

In short, the Pittsburgh mayoral election is a snapshot of the pointlessness of the current political system in America. Shall we explode the two-party system and force people to run on their own merit (and individual fundraising ability -- or in a fundraising-free system)? I'd love to; wake me up when that's a possibility.

Meanwhile... did anyone else write in Mathis 4 Mayor?

When Do You Say "No"?

Here's a near-universal question we can all relate to:

Have you ever been employed by a company that took great pains to convince you how fortunate you were to be employed by them? So fortunate, in fact, that you should be happy with the following perks:

* A substandard salary

* Being overworked and underappreciated

* A general inability to produce quality work due to inferior working conditions, and

* A dedicated team effort to NOT improving those existing conditions?

On paper, most people would walk away from a job like that at the earliest possible opportunity. Some might even go out of their way to CREATE an opportunity to leave.

And yet... SO MANY PEOPLE remain in jobs they despise (or relationships that make them miserable, or servicing clients they can't stand) because they don't know how much they, themselves, are worth.

Do you?

The "No" Factor

When was the last time you said "no" when someone asked you for a favor?

We're trained to believe that friends, family, coworkers and employees -- aka "nice" people who want to live peacefully within an existing system -- don't say "no." Instead, they say "yes," and then they find creative ways to juggle the extra work / errands / obligations.

Why?

Because saying "no" would create strife.

It would force the person who was relying on you to then handle that problem himself. And, worse, it might mean YOU were unreliable, or not well-organized enough to shift your workload at a moment's notice, or -- worst of all -- that you said "no" because you didn't LIKE someone else.

No one wants to rock the boat like that. So we say "yes" endlessly.

That's because we have no idea what we -- and, therefore, what our time -- is actually worth.

Snapshots of Impending Disaster

Your boss walks into your office and says, whoops, he forgot to inform production that a certain project was promised to the client by Thursday. Sorry, you'll have to work late.

A coworker stops by on his lunch break and says, hey, he forgot he had something else planned after work -- could you cover him at a company event?

Your brother calls and asks, please, would you mind babysitting tomorrow night because they just got tickets to a concert?

Before you reflexively agree (or disagree) in each of these situations, you first need to understand what your answer says about you, and how you present yourself to the world.

The Problem With "Yes"

Admitting that you can rearrange your schedule at the whim of another means that you don't consider your own plans to be particularly important -- especially when compared to the plans of someone else.

Adding additional tasks into your existing workflow means that you're either SO competent at your current job that you don't mind the extra work (which begs the question, "So what DO you do all day?") or it means the work you're doing is so unimportant that it can wait an extra day or two while you do someone else's (in which case, why ARE they employing you in the first place?).

And consenting to work late, especially when the reason involves someone else's mistake or mismanagement of their own time and resources, implies that you're willing to subvert and sacrifice your own health, happiness and peace of mind for "the good of the company."

Would you ever say any of those things out loud? No!

And yet, when you chronically say "yes," that's exactly what you're admitting.

The Power of "Yes, But..."

Inevitably, there will be situations in which you'll have to work late, you'll have to cover for someone else and, yes, you'll have to drop everything to help a friend.

Those are exceptions, not rules. And the way in which you ensure that those are exceptions is to not answer "yes," but,"yes, but..."

Yes, you'll work late this week -- but you're taking next Friday off.

Yes, you can cover for your coworker -- but only if he gets you tomorrow's reports today.

Yes, you can babysit tomorrow night -- but you need to borrow your brother's camping gear next weekend.

Why "But" Matters

Saying "yes" invariably means you're sacrificing something of yours for the good of someone else, and you think that's okay.

Saying "yes, but" means you're open to helping out, but not at the expense of your own well-being.

If you're losing time, you expect that time to be made up.

If you're disrupting your workflow, you'll do so in conjunction with someone else.

If you're losing freedom, you expect to exercise that freedom elsewhere.

What you're NOT doing is subverting your own independence and autonomy for the sake of another, because that sets a precedent that invites your job / coworkers / friends / family to continually take advantage of you -- subconsciously or not.

Aren't you worth more than that?

Why Twitter Scares People

Some people claim to fear Twitter (and social media in general) because of its seeming captivity at the hands of the inane. They worry that our culture is being hijacked by the mouth-breathers and the endlessly self-fascinated, and they refuse to give in to the urge to tumble into their own navels.

Fair enough.

But an equally large portion of the populace are petrified of Twitter for its disarming ability to cut through the BS and the way it encourages its users to remove their veils. Its 140 character limit is challenging, not just because it enforces brevity, but because it robs many of us of the flowery contexts we've come to rely on in blogs, or podcasts, or other social networking tools.

On Twitter, we have to be blunt. We have to be relevant. But most of all, we have to be ourselves.

And that's when people panic.

Not everyone, obviously, or the site wouldn't be growing at the rate it is. But, now that it's entering its 3rd or 4th iteration of acceptance, and ebbing further and further into the mainstream, it brings with it a host of new users who believe these highly-targeted opt-in services are their ticket to insta-marketing dominance.

Boy, Are They Wrong.

Whenever someone "follows" me on Twitter, I check their profile to see if it's someone I'd like to follow back. I read their most recent page of posts. If those posts are all links to their blog (or someone else's), I ignore them.

Why? Because Twitter leaves the power of the conversation in my hands -- and why would I want to voluntarily be talked at by a company while I'm otherwise engaged in useful conversation?

Likewise, the people who mistake Twitter for an invitation to repost their RSS feed, or to make PR-tinged statements designed to lure people to their own website, are missing the point. Instead of proving their merit through legitimate dialogue and adding value to the ongoing discussion, they believe disrupting that very discussion with a personal announcement -- essentially, an ad amidst the content -- will somehow be well-received by the participants.

How ludicrous.

Ask yourself this: who's more likely to get your business as a wedding photographer -- the person who takes great photos, is courteous and witty when approached, and engages you in conversation near the open bar, or the person who usurps the microphone during the best man's toast to remind the guests that she offers discounts on bulk prints?

Like social media in general, Twitter is all about personality. If you don't have one, don't bother.

The Negative Drain

I have to be honest with you: I have trouble empathizing with people.

It's not because I don't care when bad things happen. It's because, by and large, the things that happen aren't "bad" or "good" -- they're just things -- and what determines their effect in our lives is how we react to them.

I make mistakes. I indulge in self-sabotage. I frequently make decisions I'm fairly certain are not optimal. And, when it comes time to pay the price, I expect no sympathy from other people because, let's be honest, I brought that complication / conundrum / failure upon myself.

Thus, when YOU do the same thing, it's hard for me to feel especially bad for you. After all, it's not like you didn't have options.

What This Has to Do With Social Media

We're all connected, now more than ever, as we forge our way through each day. We all know that life moves fast, and we only have so much time to achieve our dreams. So, ideally, we help push each other forward -- or at least we get out of each other's ways.

More often than not, our success in life is based upon two principles: perseverance and momentum. Few are the mountains that are conquered without the aid of one or the other; we call those "hills."

So when we're sifting through our millions of media impressions each day, you know what ISN'T helping us achieve our dreams?

The Negative Drain.

That's the stray "woe is me" Twitter / email / blog post / news article / ABC News exclusive that distracts our inner momentum and derails our perseverance. It forces us to stop moving forward and address someone else's -- or our own -- need to wallow in self-pity.

In short, it's not helping anyone.

Why Your Bad Day Doesn't Matter

You bad day isn't a bad day: it's just a day. You happened to be in a bad mood. Therefore, that neutral day registers as a bad day in your mind.

You now have two choices:

A) Suck it up, fix it and get on with your life.

B) Alert the world to your misfortune in the hopes of generating sympathy.*

How often we allow ourselves to indulge in B directly affects our own momentum and perseverance. Ironically, it also affects everyone else's.

How many times has this happened to you: while scrolling through everyone's recent messages on Twitter, following all the project updates, useful questions, cries for tech help and neverending inside jokes -- WHAM! -- someone is having a bad day. In fact, their day is SO bad, they had to Twitter it.

Their day was SO BAD, they had to announce it to the world, in the hopes that the world would somehow intervene and make everything okay.

Goodbye, momentum.

The Negative Drain Exception

As humans, we're great at realizing when we're getting screwed by the world at large. And, inevitably, we need to vent about it or we'll snap.

In order to vent without losing momentum, we've developed a useful tool called "irony." Thanks to irony, the clever among us can point out the ills of the world without falling prey to the lure of self-pity.

Sometimes, it's even funny.

Believe me, there's a BIG difference between people who cry out to the world for sympathy and people who laugh their way through a bad day.

The ones laughing are the ones you'll meet on the other side of the mountain.

* Admittedly, there are times when we, as humans, also NEED sympathy. Sometimes, life seems unbearably cruel, and irony isn't enough to weather the storm. Sometimes, we actually NEED someone else -- or a whole world of someones -- to help us through.

The problem is, in our increasingly self-focused world, where everything that happens to us is mistaken for news, the line between "inconvenience" and "life-changing tragedy" is becoming highly subjective. Where we once expected sympathy for the loss of a loved one, some of us now expect the same for the loss of some stored data on a hard drive.

Meanwhile, one friend of mine is currently navigating some serious family misfortune. If anyone I know deserves sympathy, or at least the right to vent about life, it's her. And yet, she's consistently one of the sunniest people I know. In fact, SHE tends to buoy MY spirits, even though her "bad" days FAR outweigh mine.

In the end...

...there is no good and bad. There's just perspective.

Onward and upward.

Overheard in My Apartment Building...

30 seconds ago, from the people who live upstairs:

"Okay, one drawback of this place? No elevator."

Punchline: They live on the third floor.

Mirror Thinking

Esalen's Law: You will always teach others what you most need to learn yourself.

The Corollary: You are your own worst student.

So many of us in the social media sphere seem very passionate about "empowering the community," "continuing the conversation," and generally improving the way we interpret and utilize our lives.

But what are we teaching ourselves in all this?

What is the crux of what you create? What do you blog about most? What are you most passionate about?

Are you good at it?

Could you be better?

How many of your lessons, imparted upon the masses, could be put to even better use if you adopted them yourself?

Nothing specifically prompted this line of thinking from me. (Actually, I found the above quote in a book yesterday, but it wasn't spurred by anyone in particular, so fear not.) But it did resonate within.

Are we all kidding ourselves into believing we're making a difference by nudging each other along while we neglect what it is we, ourselves, truly want?

How Much Is Your Reputation Worth?

Until last week, Billy Donovan was the head coach of the University of Florida men's basketball team. He'd just coached the team to two consecutive NCAA Championships, something that hadn't been done in 16 years. He was on top of the world.

He signed a huge contract extension with Florida. He was set for life.

Then, last week, he changed his mind and accepted the head coaching job with the NBA's Orlando Magic. Sources claimed he'd always been interested in making the jump from college to the pros, and that this represented the best opportunity -- a 2-time champion, at his peak, leaving to coach a team located near his family? What better situation could he ask for?

Staying put, apparently, because it's being reported today that Donovan has changed his mind again and will remain at the University of Florida after all.

In addition to the financial repercussions of such "decision-making" -- some sources are claiming Donovan had already signed his contract with the Magic, which means this about-face will likely cost him millions of dollars in breach-of-contract payouts -- the past week has also turned Donovan into possibly the least trustworthy coach in sports.

How does someone manage to go from the absolute top of his profession to a punchline in only 7 days? Simple: He didn't think about his reputation.

If you thought war hero John Kerry was a flip-flopper, how do you explain the prerogative of a man who signs (or doesn't sign, depending on the source) various contracts, only to leapfrog from one to the other when the situation becomes too complicated?

How do you expect the athletes he's hired to coach -- at any level -- to take a word he says seriously? Or his employers, who must now perpetually believe Donovan is one bad weekend away from quitting on a contract?

I'm sure we're not hearing the whole story -- we never do, in these cases -- but the circumstantial evidence has mounted to make EVERYONE in this situation look, to one degree or another, like a fool. And none moreso than Donovan, whose sterling reputation is now permanently warped.

How Does This Apply to You?

Whether you're a freelancer, a social media creator, a boss or an employee, you operate under agreements and deadlines. You have clients and audiences that expect you to deliver on those promises.

Even if you've never signed a contract or issued a mandate, the people you work with / for still have developed a perception of who you are based upon your past behavior.

EVERY CHOICE YOU MAKE IMPACTS HOW YOU'RE PERCEIVED BY THE WORLD.

(It also impacts how you see yourself too.)

If you say your next podcast will be up on Monday and it isn't, you can't complain that your audience didn't come back a day later to see if you'd caught up.

If you tell a client the project will be ready for review by Wednesday and it isn't, you can't blame them for not wanting to work with you again.

People in every walk of life complain that they work themselves to the bone every day for no reward, while others are able to skate by on reputation alone. This is partially true. But the bigger picture is that the people "skating by" are actually doing just as much work, if not more: not only did they have to work themselves to the bone to reach the level of success they've attained, but now they have to maintain their reputations.

Next time Billy Donovan signs a contract, the other party will know the piece of paper is worthless.

Next time you tell someone you'll "have it done by Friday," will they believe you?

Should they?