Dopp Juice Archive

I have another fun toy for you. This one goes out to all the Creative Professionals out there — those who have something to offer as unique and marketable individuals. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s everyone. LinkedIn is an online community site for networking professionals. Be honest, now. You really don’t want to be searching for a job, client, or new business contact with your facebook or friendster accounts. This one is purely professional, focusing on your goals, accomplishments, and connections. As with any website marketed to professionals, not all of its features are free. But I’ll tell you what is free: creating a full profile, linking to people you know, writing endorsements (testimonials) for your contacts, and introducing your connections to each other. You can also search for new jobs, contacts, services, etc, and use your network to get you closer to those targets. If you’re “A” and you want to get to “C,” go talk to your buddy “B” and she’ll probably hook you up. And that’s enough free stuff for me to dub this site completely worthwhile for all of our efforts. Go sign up, and start by connecting with me (just search for “Sarah Dopp” and I’m there). Or tell me your email and I’ll connect you to my network with an invitation. All of a sudden, you’re network will include everyone I’ve already connected with (instant friends!). If there’s anyone in my network you’d like to have on your side, just tap me on the shoulder and ask for an introduction. If I’ve worked with you and you’d like me to write an endorsement, just give me a nudge and it’ll be up there. Or maybe I’ll notice how I can help you out, and take those steps on my own. Whatever you want to use the site for for, I think you should join the game. I can do so much more for you when we’re working in the same systems. And I think this one will be good.

There’s a new concept floating around out there that I’d like to explore further: Have everything, own nothing. If you can get past the typical American “pride of ownership” issues, you can have a lot more for a lot less. A great example of this is Pandora.com. It’s a music site that allows you to build your own “radio stations,” or audio streams, based on your favorite types of music. But the great thing is, it does it so intelligently. You start by naming your favorite artist or song. Pandora then references the style, quality, and influences of that artist or song, and compiles a list of similar songs by various artists. It’s a great tool for discovering new music based on what you already like. You can have multiple stations, and multiple artists named per station.Even more, I appreciate the interface. They get you started quickly. I went to the site, saw a big text box, typed “Ani Difranco,” and Boom! “As Is,” one of her most popular songs, started playing. They named the attributes of her music style, and then started playing a female vocalist I loved but had never heard of. I checked “I like this song,” and they kept playing good stuff of that variety.For me, this is a gem. I haven’t invested money in new music in years, and I stopped downloading it from the web when it became super-policed (I try to be a good girl, you know…). As a result, I haven’t discovered new artists in awhile. Now I can, and it’s completely free and legal, because I don’t own it. Someone else does, and I just tell them what I want to hear. I’ve also set up some instrumental and world music stations, and I’m using them for backround music when I’m working. I think I just found my new favorite minimized web browser window. Check it out yourself.(Thanks to Dougie for the tip.)

Seth Godin, my acclaimed marketing guru, just made an excellent point with an excellent analogy and based it on a falsehood. I had to wince. But it’s intriguing and worth discussing, so let’s throw it out on the table.

Five thousand years ago, every human was a hunter. If you were hungry, you got a rock or a stick and you went hunting.The problem was that all of the animals were either dead or really good at hiding.Fortunately, we discovered/invented the idea of farming. Plant seeds, fertilize em, water em, watch em grow and then you harvest them.The idea spread and it led to the birth of civilization.Everyone got the idea… except for marketers.Marketers still like to hunt.What we’re discovering, though, is that the good prospects are getting really good at hiding. —Seth’s Blog, 1/11/06

He makes a great underlying point: in order to succeed in marketing at a large scale, you need to create your own prospects. That’s poignant, creative, and true. He’s just got a little work to do on his logic. “The problem was that all of the animals were either dead or really good at hiding.” Sorry. Wrong answer. We didn’t go hungry in our hunter-gatherer days, nor did we kill off all of the animals in sight. There was always enough for what we expected of ourselves–modest population sizes in tight-knit tribes that took care of its members. There’s a lot to be said for the tribal lifestyle, not the least of which was its trust in and compassion for the land it lived on. We didn’t take more from the land than we needed, and we didn’t try to control our neighbors’ food supplies. The main difference between our hunter-gatherer days and our farming civilization days were size and settlement. When we took control of our own food, our population numbers exploded, and we no longer needed to keep moving around. With the added stability, we started putting time into other advancements, like technology that could make even more food, so we could have more people and make more advancements. And that’s still a great business model. To compare it again to marketing, we limit our success by allowing our prospects to be in control. If you can create and control prospects, your potential explodes. You can expand, you can dominate the market you want, and you can create more of what you love. It’s not that prospects are dead or hiding. It’s that they aren’t plentiful enough to meet your great ambitions, which, in the capitalist world, exceed the basic needs for livelihood. That’s just how the system works. But of all the analogies, Seth had to pick this one. What does it say about a happy ending? Yes, we’re in a “thriving civilization,” but we’re also becoming increasingly aware of the damage we’ve done to our land by dominating it. We need the land to survive, and yet we’re pumping it clean of resources and polluting its atmosphere. Our population exploded happily, but now we have more than 6 billion people. And although we have enough food for all our people, we distribute it unevenly in the name of commerce–the system that brought us to where we are–and many starve. And those who have plenty of food take it for granted, and don’t understand what a gift it is to have it. Our explosion has been self-destructive, and we are only just beginning to feel its consequences.While I realize this is a bleak perspective on the analogy, I think it brings up some important questions. What are the consequences of creating and controlling your marketing prospects? What damage does it do those people, whom you rely on for your livelihood? How much success can you handle while still taking care of what matters most to you? And how will it imbalance the systems around you? Generally, I’m gung-ho about marketing and idea viruses, but only when they’re done ethically. The concept of growing your own prospects opens a can of worms for abuse and loss of control. We see it most disturbingly in teen marketing, where the industries feed a cycle of “cool” that pushes teens toward more and more extreme behavior. Young minds are malleable, and the marketers plant whatever seeds they want to see grow there. Marketers have more influence over the upcoming generations than parents do. Is that a good thing?Where do you draw the line?