Posts Tagged ‘ voice ’

Why talk small?

I was at my friend’s apartment last night, and we were sitting on a couch together when I asked him a pretty pointed question about his girlfriend and where he saw things going with her. He answered, but then asked where that question came from. My answer surprised me too – “Well, I think we’ve run out of small talk, so I figured why not just jump into something meaningful?”

While it wasn’t a normal topic to delve into so matter-of-factly, the conversation was good, meaningful and not strange. We’ve had serious talks before. The only difference this time was that instead of stumbling upon it by accident, I intentionally started a valuable conversation. I’m glad I did.

Small talk is our default mode when we don’t think we have anything to say, or have something but don’t feel comfortable saying it. Intentionally flipping the switch takes courage and can be risky, but if it falls on receptive ears, the result can be priceless.

2012
03/16
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Whose movie will you watch?

When you hear about a new movie, how do you decide whether or not it’s worth your attention? Probably based on who’s in it. Easy enough.

But how do you decide that say, Christian Bale, is someone whose movies you want to see? Probably based on what you’ve seen him do before. Probably not based on whether or not he won an Oscar last year.

If anything, Christian Bale winning an Oscar only serves to validate your opinion that he’s a good actor; it doesn’t really establish that for you. If he didn’t act for a year and thus didn’t win any Oscars, the next time he’s in a movie, you’d probably still want to see it. Because it’s not about the award; it’s about the trust he’s built with you.

When trying to break into a world we’re unfamiliar with, sometimes we aim for the superstars, the ones who’ve won awards and have been featured in major industry media. But even if we can get them on our side, are they really the ones everyone cares about?

What if an industry superstar is like an Oscar winner? He certainly deserves the award, but if he only have two fans, all the award has done is validate the faith those two fans had in him. People who didn’t know him before still don’t know him.

What if the real authorities of the world we want to reach aren’t that famous? What if we can’t Google the tribe leaders? What if instead, we look for the people with loyal followers, even if it’s fewer than a thousand?

What if, at its core, marketing is about joining a conversation, not starting it?

2011
12/03
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Reaching our audience

I was with a ministry group last night, and one of the takeaways was that when speaking to a young audience, there’s an inclination to want to use their lingo to better reach them, but that doesn’t usually work.

I’ve seen this done with college students in the audience (more than I’d like to have seen, really – I’ve blogged about this before), and that it turns me off to hear it. I’d much rather hear words from a person’s heart, words that ring true in his/her life. I’d much rather the speaker be him/herself.

Generally, the people who will be reading this are mediapreneurs at some stage in the game. Whether you have five followers (and half of them are your mom) or five thousand, here’s some food for thought – where do we draw the line between producing for our audience and producing from our core?

And, what happens when we go too far either way?

2011
10/23
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