On Sunday nights, Mack Collier runs a Twitter-based group chat called #blogchat, which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about blogging while hobnobbing with their peers.

But, based on the defensive reaction to some of my comments from several of the #blogchat participants, I’ve realized that #blogchat is strictly a place for sunshine and puppies, and I rarely come armed with either.  So I thought I’d take the time to do some much-needed bubble-bursting here, rather than continuing to ruin the #blogchat vibe.

NOTE: If you cry at the sight of anything other than unicorns, hugs and kittens, please close this window now.  You’ll only depress yourself, and you’ll spend the next hour telling me why I’m wrong, when I don’t really care.

Still here?  Great.  Because…

1. There’s no rule that says you have to be nice in social media.

I know, all the important people are.  But I’m not important, so I don’t have to be.  And even if I was important, I’d probably still be an asshole.

(In fact, most people become assholes after they’re important, so the fact that I’m an asshole before becoming important means my assholishness is actually authentic.  And isn’t authenticity one of the social media cornerstones?)

2. All social media is not created equal.

Yes, the tools are “democratic,” inasmuch as anyone with an Internet connection can use Twitter.  But you are not Chris Brogan, nor are you Sara Schaefer.  You are you.  And you matter exactly as much as you matter, to whomever is counting.

To say that there’s “no social media hierarchy” or “no social media pecking order” is ludicrous.  Just because there isn’t an officially accredited list of A, B, C and Z-list bloggers doesn’t mean we don’t all know who they are, give or take a rung.

(And yes, you can be a Z-list blogger and still produce A-list work, and vice versa.  Quality and reach are two separate factors.  In the end, we’re judged according to other people’s criteria, not our own.)

3. I am not required to help you for free.

Granted, some people do it really badly, but yes, social media is a business.  Not for everyone, but for some people.  And no, they don’t have to help you, or give you free advice, or even be nice to you (see above).  Some of the nicest ones do; others don’t.  (Hell, I charge $200 for a lunch.)

Being nice is wonderful, but to anyone for whom social media is a business, what matters to them is paying the bills.  If they have time to be nice, or if being nice is part of their brand — and, therefore, their business — they’ll do it.  And, in general, social media people tend to be overly nice, almost to a fault (usually because they want you to talk about them).

But if you’re waiting for Seth Godin to write a guest post on your Blogger blog that has 2 subscribers because “helping people is the right thing to do,” don’t hold your breath.

Your two readers will be heartbroken if you asphyxiate.

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There’s a gentleman’s agreement in social media that needs to be debunked.

We’re always supposed to judge ourselves by the quality of the conversations we have, rather than the sheer volume of our reach.

Even Gary Vee, who has more Twitter followers than anyone else who’s not “mainstream famous,” preached quality over quantity at #140conf last month.  He believes the number of Direct Messages a person sends on Twitter — thereby implying a true 1-to-1 connection — is a more accurate arbiter of a person’s influence and power than how many generic followers that person blasts with her impersonal messaging.

What Gary wants to know is, how many people are you making time for?

But it’s easy for Gary Vee to say that numbers don’t matter; he already has them.

You don’t.  (Not like Gary does.)

But you want them.

And that’s okay.

Here’s why.

In Our Minds, We’re All Lady Gaga with a Slightly Smaller Wardrobe

First, let’s establish one truth: everybody wants to be heard.*

If we didn’t want to be heard, we’d never open our mouths.  The act of engaging in social media — whether you’re a pro, an amateur or someone who simply tweets to your five actual flesh-and-blood friends — is the act of declaring that what you have to say is worth being heard by someone.

From there, the only place to go is up.

And while it’s true that numbers alone are meaningless, numbers are never alone.  Numbers are indicators.  And in terms of audience, numbers are indicators of your potential.

Dan Zarrella created a graph he calls Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness, which says that in order for a message to be successful, it must be:

1. Noticed
2. Considered interesting, and
3. Acted upon

Obviously, far more messages are noticed than acted upon.  To improve your chances of success, you want to maximize each contact point on Zarrella’s graph — and that starts with maximizing the number of people exposed to your message.

Take iJustine.  She’s followed by over 1 million people on Twitter.  That doesn’t mean everything she tweets is noticed by all 1 million people, but it does mean that what she tweets is, by definition, noticed by more people than what you tweet.

Does that mean iJustine is more important than you are?  No.  It just means she has the potential to be more influential than you do.

But that has more to do with who’s following her, or following you — and why.

It’s Not How Big Your Audience Is, It’s How You Use… er, Inspire It

Let’s say you have a message you believe is worth sharing.  So you broadcast it.

If no one notices your message, you lose.

On the other hand, if everyone notices your message but no one cares… you still lose.

The question is: how likely are people to be interested in what you’re saying and act on it?

That likelihood depends on numerous variables, including:

• What are you saying?
• How are you saying it?
• How reputable are you?
• How difficult is the action you’ve requested?
• What’s the payoff for the person taking the action?
• What’s the payoff for you?

The world would be far more profoundly impacted by three scientists listening to your advice and solving a disease than it would be by all one million of iJustine’s followers donating a dollar to the cause of her choice.

But you probably don’t know three scientists, nor are you likely to provide them with actionable data and convince them to make use of it.

On the other hand, iJustine can direct her thousands of followers to take any number of mundane actions.  And if the composite effect of those mundane actions amounts to something noteworthy, it simultaneously elevates her own public perception as an influencer — which, in turn, extends her reach via expanded awareness.

Thus, although the volume of your reach actually is less important than the quality of your reach, the quality of your reach is dependent on the nature of circumstances.  Yes, your three scientist friends may be able to cure cancer, but they might not be able to help you land a job.  Your million connections, on the other hand, just might.

In which case… why are we all so quick to denounce our desire to amass a large audience?

Everybody’s Jealous of a Size Queen

The bigger a person’s audience becomes, the more likely they are to become demonized.  Not because of what they actually say (or don’t say), but simply because they get noticed.

Getting noticed is the first step toward getting what you want.  And when someone else is getting noticed, it usually means you’re not.

The truth is, you don’t actually envy Chris Brogan, Gary Vee or iJustine because they’re popular; you envy them because the size of the audience they’ve amassed provides them with better odds of achieving their goals than yours does.

And while I’m sure Gary would be every bit as helpful, engaging and invested if he “only” had 10,000 (or even 100) passionate fans of his work, I’m also quite sure that if he “only” had 100 fans, he would want more.

Badly.

Because it’s who we are.

We talk because we want to be talked about.

But why?

That’s your own question to answer.

Maybe you want to make a living doing what you love.

Maybe you want to help others.

Maybe you want to meet interesting people, or go interesting places.

Maybe you just want to know that someone thinks you’re interesting.

With larger audiences comes more potential for interaction.  By default, Chris Brogan knows more interesting people than you do, simply because he knows more people than you do.

Ultimately, the size of your audience is important, but it doesn’t matter; what matters is what you want to do.

And the more people you have paying attention to you, the greater your chances of accomplishing your goal.

So: you want to be successful?  Meet more people.

(And then spend at least some of your time listening to them; you might learn something.)

*NOTE:  Maybe “heard” is the wrong word for you.  Maybe it’s “listened to.”  Maybe it’s “influential.”  Maybe it’s “admired,” “respected” or “appreciated.”  Regardless of your specific motive, any action that can be taken by the masses is an action most of us would like to evoke in as many people as possible, until we grow tired of the response.

And if having too much exposure is a problem… let’s cross that bridge when you get there.

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I never accomplish everything I’d like to get done.  And, as a freelancer, I have no one to blame but myself.  I don’t have coworkers and bosses reminding me daily about deadlines like a 9-to-5 employee does.

Therefore, if I starve to death, that’s my fault — and I don’t like starving.

But I have a solution.

Over the past month, I conducted an experiment that was intended to improve not only my productivity, but the productivity of several other Baltimore-based freelancers.  And, after only four weeks, its benefits have already outweighed our initial expectations.

Here’s what we did, and how it might also help you.

The Premise:

For me, any tasks that don’t literally pay the bills are “optional,” AKA “whenever,” AKA “probably never.”

But I also know that I work best under pressure.  So it was time to invent some.

To do that, I approached several local freelancers and pitched them on a simple idea:

Let’s be accountable to each other.

The Process:

Each week, I met face-to-face with my freelance peers, one-on-one.  We’d discuss our business goals, our “must-do” work, and then identify any optional tasks we’d like to accomplish in the next week.

Then, each of us would then make a list of our own goals for the week, as well as the other person’s goals.  One week later, we’d meet again and see how we did.  (And if anyone needed a reminder, a nudge or a mid-week check-in, we could DM each other on Twitter and keep the ball rolling.)

Since the only penalty for not accomplishing our own goals would be the embarrassment of inventing excuses meant to convince a near-stranger that we were busier than expected, I presumed the absurd guilt involved in such an exchange would keep the participants honest (and motivated).  After all, why lie to someone who isn’t affected either way?

And I was right.  But, along the way, we all learned something else completely unexpected.

The Participants:

Initially, I only wanted one partner for this experiment.  I figured one hourly meeting was all the time I could spare.

But when four different freelancers took me up on my offer, I decided to involve all of them, but still meet them one-on-one.  That way, I could compare and contrast each person’s challenges and workflow, while mine would (presumably) remain constant.

My collaborators in this experiment were:

• Katrina Wagner, graphic designer ( @graphicbeans )
• Nicholas Critelli, photographer ( @critelliphoto )
• Molly White, social media consultant ( @mollywhite )
• Daniel Waldman, marketing / PR consultant ( @danieldubya )

We’re all self-employed, we all battle periods of distraction and aimlessness, and we live our days sandwiched between the rush of deadlines and our own long-term life goals.  We’re busy, but we each needed a voluntary reason to stay focused.

So we started relying on each other to keep ourselves honest.

How It Went:

In my very first meeting, Katrina laid out 5 goals she wanted to accomplish in the following week.  That number was arbitrary; some people only committed to one goal a week, others to more, but no week’s total was ever more than 6.

NOTE: Since I was meeting with people 4 times each week, I kept my own stated goals consistent from person to person.  Otherwise, I’d be making myself responsible for 20 different goals each week, and I’d fail spectacularly.

The first week, I accomplished everything on my list.  My fellow freelancers performed nearly as well, with only a few missed goals in total.

However, the following week, each of us hit a stumbling block.

Personally, I over-committed myself when compared to the amount of free time I ended up having (because I was traveling for 5 days that week).  Others had unexpected family commitments, client complications or new business opportunities that required more time than they’d anticipated.

This setback was actually a bonus, because it prompted each of us to think more critically about how many “minor” tasks we could realistically expect to accomplish alongside our recurring obligations.

Each of us continued to experience our own peaks and valleys of productivity over the following weeks, but we made a point of meeting (or calling) weekly to stay in touch, even if we were slightly off target.  (That way, even if we fell short, we had to own up to it.)

What We Learned:

In the end, I accomplished 11 tasks that I probably would not have completed otherwise.  These ranged from the mundane (backing up old projects stored on my various hard drives) to the opportunistic (getting a month ahead on client blog posts).

Surprisingly (and somewhat embarrassingly), the tasks I tackled took far less time to complete than I’d originally expected.  (One dreaded task took four whole minutes to complete.)   Once I realized this, I felt like an idiot for having postponed so many of them for so long.

For me, the biggest tangible benefit came in the last week, when I finally created my own a daily work schedule.  To do this, I listed:

• my hourly client obligations for each month.
• any recurring tasks (i.e., “editing video,” even if the hours differ monthly)
• any recurring personal tasks (writing this blog, walking the dog, etc.)

Then I broke my week down to hourly blocks and scheduled ample time for each task.

The results stunned me.

I discovered that I have more than enough time to accomplish everything on my list each week.  In fact, if I stick to the schedule I’ve created, I’d even have free time every day.

So where had I been going wrong?

Simple: misunderstanding my time was causing my to mismanage my time, and that drove me into the arms of distraction.

Until this week, I’d been tackling new tasks as they came up, or delaying them under the presumption that I’d have “more time later.”  But once I plotted my obligations against my available time, everything fell into place with time to spare.

And yet, the most interesting benefit of this exercise had nothing to do with efficiency.

What We Were Surprised to Learn:

Along the way, each of us learned a lot about one another’s businesses — and our own.

Hearing someone else’s challenges, exploring their solutions and offering our own suggestions all combined to get each of us thinking differently about how we solve our own problems.

For example, Nicholas told me about his complex system for backing up client files.  I mentioned some of his observations to Katrina, who (coincidentally) had experienced a computer crash the week our experiment started.  She thought her own system for backing up files could use some improvement.  I related both of these anecdotes to Molly, who suggested Katrina should try a service called Dropbox.  I passed that information along to Katrina and Nicholas, and now all four of us are using it.

And while that exchange may not have crossed anything off anyone’s to-do list, it’s information and experience that we wouldn’t have shared if we hadn’t sat down to discuss our businesses with like-minded strangers in the first place.

Summary:

Based on my wrap-up discussions with each of my collaborators, here’s what we’ve taken away from this experience:

–  We each accomplished tasks over the past month that we would have ignored otherwise.

–  We learned while discussing our businesses, and got valuable feedback on our choices.

–  We enjoyed offering helpful suggestions based on our own “outsider” perspectives.

–  We’ve each begun thinking about our businesses in new ways.

–  We have a better understanding of our priorities, and a clearer idea of where our time is spent (or wasted).

Moving forward, we now intend to meet monthly, as a group, and continue to share our observations and solicit each other’s advice.  We’ll also be sharing a web-based project management system, where everyone can post his or her weekly goals and check in to see how everyone else is doing.

And if one of us is falling behind, now we have four people to help pull us ahead.

So… who’s keeping you honest?

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Last week, Chris Penn blogged his 11 Little Secrets to staying happy, healthy, productive and sane.  Fellow bloggers followed suit, turning the idea into a mini-meme.

So I’ll bite.

Justin Kownacki’s 11 Little Secrets to Being Moderately Successful

1.  Don’t Use Your Job as an Excuse for Not Having a Life. Ideally, you enjoy your job.  Optimistically, you love it.  And realistically, you can stomach it for 40 hours a week in order to pay the bills and keep a roof over your head.  The rest of your time is your time.  Live it.

Everyone can live a life that’s filled with amazing moments.  Not all of that will happen at the office.  Don’t feel guilty for not living there.

2.  Create Something You’re Responsible for Sustaining. Maybe it’s a business.  Maybe it’s a work of art.  Maybe it’s a child.

When you’re emotionally invested in something, you’re living a life that no one else has lived.  That’s your story.

When something (or someone) relies on you for its very existence, that gives you a clearer perspective.  Your choices now have consequences.  You can be a hero every day.  Embrace that, because it’s a responsibility not everyone has the opportunity (or the stomach) to enjoy.

3.  Pretend Your Kids Are Watching. Imagine the idealized version of you, the way your kids think of you when they’re too young to realize that you’re just another flawed human being.

Now make the same choices that the idealized version of you would make.  Isn’t it wonderful be to able to look up to yourself?

4.  Observe People. If you only ever live inside your own head, you’re missing the big picture.

Everybody you meet is a litmus test for your own beliefs.  Are your presumptions correct, or are people more complex than you give them credit for?

As a freelancer, I choose to work from cafes every day because a) I like coffee, and b) I like watching people.  I like hearing and seeing the ways they interact.  I learn from the choices they make, and from the way they phrase their questions and answers.

And what I learn from observing others helps me better understand myself.

5.  Surround Yourself with People Who Challenge Your Presumptions. The world is the way we make it, so reminding yourself that people have differing worldviews is helpful when you’re trying to understand why the world doesn’t always work the way you’d like it to.  It can also help you think differently about your own beliefs, and lead you to separate the grey areas from the black and white.

Plus, how you’d solve a problem is not always how I’d solve a problem.  If you know how others would act in your place, your artillery of possible responses to any situation increases exponentially.

6.  Be Comfortable Alone. Ultimately, we live our lives alone.  If we’re lucky, we spend those lives affecting and being affected by others, but that’s entirely external.  The bulk of your life is lived alone, in your own head.

Be comfortable there, because there’s no getting out.

7.  Draw a Line Between Quirks and Flaws. Our irregularities come in two flavors: the quirks that make us individuals, and the flaws that prevent us from succeeding.  Don’t waste time perfecting your quirks when your flaws are what’s actually holding you back.

Your high-pitched laugh or your tragic fashion choices are quirks; others may find them annoying or endearing, but they’re incidental to who you are as a person.  Your chainsmoking, your grudge-holding and your refusal to show up on time are flaws; if they don’t kill you directly, they’ll certainly degrade your quality of life.

Remember the idealized you?  The idealized you doesn’t have those flaws.  Work on that.

8.  Be Specific with Your Language. Words mean something.  Don’t take them for granted.

Like him or loathe him, Christopher Hitchens is one of the most specific writers I’ve ever read.  The words he chooses to express himself mean exactly what he intends for them to mean, which leaves very little room for ambiguities or misinterpretation of his ideas.

Relying on tired metaphors and figures of speech is lazy, and it muddies our ability to understand one another.  When you’re writing or speaking, be conscious of every word you select.  It’s better to use your 1000 word vocabulary well than to sleepwalk through a minefield of ambiguities.

9.  Walk Where You Can, While You Can. America is a car-based culture, which leads us to consider most locations as widespread vistas.  But that’s just one sweeping point of view.

Walking through a neighborhood gives you the time to see the bricks and pavement that comprise the daily lives of the people who live there.  It prompts you to consider the ways our lives are connected, and to marvel at the ways our lives have evolved from the times when walking was the only way we could have gotten from place to place.

It’s also good exercise, great “thinking time” and better for the environment than driving.

10.  Take Naps. Few things in life are more pleasurable than pressing the pause button on your obligations and recharging.  Don’t let a puritanical work ethic rob you of the freedom to disconnect on your own terms.

11.  Have Extremely Few Inviolable Principles. Life is a grey area.  People, situations and opportunities are constantly evolving.  What’s “right” for one person may not be “right” for you, and it all may be “wrong” tomorrow.

The fewer filters we invent to ignore other people and discount their opinions — or to judge them into categories, instead of as fellow complex humans — the richer our lives and the greater our potential will be.

Plus, the less you believe in, the less often you’ll consider yourself a hypocrite.  And then the idealized version of you will have a lot less explaining to do.

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Tiger Woods cheated on his wife.

We, the morally upstanding public, are supposed to hate him.

Michael Vick murdered dogs.

We, the morally outraged public, are supposed to hate him.

Bernie Madoff made a fortune scamming people.

We, the innocent victims, are supposed to hate him.

But Tiger Woods is also a dad.  Do we hate him for that, too?

If we hate Mark Sanford for cheating on his wife, do we also hate the way he governed?

If we hate Roman Polanski for his sexual transgressions, must we also hate his films?

We’re a public that celebrates the athletic feats of people we’ll never meet…

… unless those people play for a team we hate.

We love our artists and entertainers when they delight us…

… but we hate them when they make mistakes.

Is Tiger Woods “a golfer”?

Is Tiger Woods “a womanizer”?

Is Tiger Woods a human?

What are you?

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If you’re a fan of complexity, you (like me) were probably disappointed by the Boston Globe’s recent report on why most humans believe easy = true.

If we’re wired to seek out the simple, this puts the real power of communication in the hands of whomever can frame complex issues as matters of simple choice.

In other words, we should believe that humans can create the Internet, but we shouldn’t realistically expect anyone to be able to use it?

Bullshit.

If all we ever embrace are the basics, how will we develop the skills necessary to solve more complex problems?

If your business is faltering or your economy is collapsing, wouldn’t you want the people solving those problems to be able to process more than just the basics?

Probably.

But that person can’t do all the work herself.  At some point, she needs the help of people who can only process the basics.  And if she can break complex problems down to the basics, that’s a skill all itself.

So maybe the real issue here isn’t that we need to choose between simple or complex.

Maybe we just need to change the order in which we process information.

“Less Talk, More Rock.”

That’s the advice of the Superbrothers, who used their platform in Boing Boing to rally against the problem of overcomplication.

Go right from the inspiration — the vision — to actually making [whatever your idea is]. Don’t think it through. Don’t talk about it. Don’t plan it. Dive in and start making it happen.

If you do that — if you can start rocking — you’ll get some momentum, and when you have some momentum then the project has a chance… Sure, you’ll still run up against problems to solve and decisions to make, but you’ll approach these in the moment and solve them in the moment. You’ll solve them so you can keep moving.

The take-away here is: rock before talking.

In other words: do something.  Then investigate its impact.

This approach doesn’t remove the element of complexity; it just shifts it to the end of the line, when the information you’re processing is based on experience instead of presumption.

Maybe the Superbrothers are on to something.

Buy This.

The Ad Contrarian (AKA Bob Hoffman) is a devotee of simplicity.  But he also fears that we’re now living in the age of the complicator, and that makes the life of an advertiser hell.

As he tells it:

Next to talent, the most important quality an ad person can have is the ability to simplify.

There are a million things to say about any product or brand. A simplifier understands the difference between what is essential and what is peripheral.

To a complicator, on the other hand, everything has equal weight. He is unable to do the most essential of all strategic tasks — eliminate the unnecessary.

Like the Superbrothers, Hoffman has a point.

As an organizer, I can always appreciate the need to simplify.

As a communicator, I know that simplicity is the way to connect quickly with lots of people.

And as a marketer, I know that the path between your eyes and your wallet doesn’t include a detour into your brain.

But what happens when opposing sides each cling to their own simplicities?

If Easy = True, Does That Mean Complicated = False?

When President Obama gave his annual State of the Union speech back in January, the Harvard Business Review’s Roger Martin analyzed Obama’s language and found something compelling.

I’ve seen this pattern of “integrative thinking” employed by a number of highly successful business leaders — so much so that I set out to study it. What I’ve found is that these leaders, rather than defining their job as choosing from between opposing ideas, are inclined to reject the choice and instead seek a new and better model.

So, instead of being forced to choose between two seemingly exclusive options, Obama (and the other leaders profiled in Martin’s book The Opposable Mind) prefer to seek a third solution that satisfies elements of each argument while still accomplishing his end goal.

This seems wise.

But considering the easy = true theory, it also seems politically dangerous.

Isn’t it easier (and faster) to polarize an audience, accomplish what you can with the friends you have, and view your opponent as The Other?  Doesn’t that simultaneously define your boundaries, limit your expectations and provide you with an excuse if you fail?

Sure.  But it’s only satisfying if your goals are easy.

Before You Can Grab the Brass Ring, You Have to Board the Carousel

Getting rich personally isn’t the same thing as fixing the economy.

Getting laid isn’t the same thing as raising a child.

Being happy isn’t the same as staying happy.

They’re the basics.

Getting rich is easy.  Getting laid is easier.  And being happy is just flipping a switch.

Fixing a complex system is a lot harder, and it requires a person to bridge the gap between the easy and the complicated.

If you have goals, you also need a system to achieve them.  Sometimes, that system is one step: “Go.”  Other times, that system is a labyrinth of weighted choices and collaborative responsibilities.

Either way, your ultimate goal (AKA “the hard part”) is a matter of solving the easy problems in front of you, step by step.

And the more clearly you see how the basics connect, the more you’ll be able to do with them.

Less talk, more rock?  Absolutely.

Just be aware of what all those rocks are building.

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If you’re good at what you do, (some) people will like it.

If you’re really good at what you do, (some) people will hate it.

This is good.  It means you’re conveying ideas in a visceral way that makes people react.

But if your end goal is to be loved by everyone, it’ll never happen.  And this means you’re in for a life of misery.

Don’t believe me?  Take it from Shakespeare.

“A Nashville Audience Is Not a Toronto Audience.”

A few months ago, Nashville was drubbed by art lovers for requesting that Toronto’s Classical Theatre Project “tone down” the sexuality in their performance of Romeo & Juliet so as to not offend the sensibilities of a Nashville audience.

Ultimately, the performers rejected the request, which left some parents quite displeased.

[A] woman who identified herself as Val, a home-school teacher from Hermitage, “struggled being here with my son. The sexuality was too much. Our children need to be more pure.”

As expected, the comments from the newspaper report of the incident ranged from blind support of the actors to enraged support of the parents, including denouncements of Shakespeare himself as being “too lewd” for any tasteful audience.

So, if we can all agree that even Shakespeare can’t please everyone, the question you need to ask yourself is:

What kind of audience are you trying to please?

Approach #1: “I’m in It for the Money”

If you do what you do because you want to get paid, then you probably want to get paid by as many people as possible.

Suggestion?  Offend as few people as possible.

The less objectionable you are, the easier you are to hire.  The fewer excuses your boss has to make for your behavior, the longer you’ll remain employed.

Safe?  Yes.  Interesting?  No.  Fulfilling?  That depends.  Would you rather be admired or pay your rent?

Approach #2: “I’m in It for the Experience”

If you’re not worried about starving to death, you can afford to take chances.

You can afford to piss people off.  You can afford to define yourself, rather than allowing yourself to be defined by others.

Suggestion?  Be extreme.

Anybody can push the envelope, because it’s easy to push the envelope right back.

So set that envelope on fire.

Sure, you might get burned, but flames attract an audience.  And you’ll immediately know who’s on your side.

Once you know who your friends are, you can decide whether or not you want to bridge the troll gap and form a consensus, or if you’d rather keep forging ahead on your very own path.  One can be lucrative, the other can be memorable, but if you go big, you’ll never go home alone.

Approach #3: “I’m in It for Myself.”

This is the hardest path to advise because, really, you’re entirely on your own.

Nothing anybody else says at this point will convince you that you’re wrong, and no amount of ass-kissing will make you feel any more right.  When you reach this point, it’s all you.

And by then you won’t care if you’re surrounded by trolls because nothing they can say or do would distract you from pursuing your own goal, whatever that goal might be.

(NOTE: It bears noting that “trolls” and “cops” are not the same thing.  If your personal path leads you to be surrounded by the cops, you may have pushed that envelope farther than anybody else appreciates.  Sanity is a treasure; guard yours.)

A Word About Being Needed vs. Being Needy

Audiences are tricky things.  Without them, you’re no one (other than who you already were yesterday).  But with them, you may become someone unrecognizable.

You want to be wanted, but you hate being reliant on someone else.

You want to be loved, but you never want to get hurt.

But having an audience is not a one-way street.  (Even Julia Allison knows that.)

If what you do becomes popular or profitable, you’ll want it to remain so.

Thus, if you become needed by others, you’ll become needy by association.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does limit your ability to experiment.  It does mean your choices will be judged.  And it does mean you may someday have to make a choice about what you really believe, and who you really are.

Are you Toronto or Nashville?

When the time comes, you’ll know.

In the meantime, enjoy the ride.  And when in doubt, remember: trolls like fire.

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In response to my blog post about popularity vs. relevance, Gradon Tripp mentioned his own quandary: he’s not sure if “being himself” is costing him money.

This is a doubt we all suffer on a regular basis.  Social media is supposed to be freeing and profitable, so we do our best to split the difference.  This means we’re forever studying our own public behavior to ensure that we’re being “professional enough” and “personal enough” at the same time.

But what if the real dichotomy isn’t “personal vs. professional”?

What if it’s “personal vs. practical”?

The Truth Is Only Half of the Story

You don’t get far in life without solving problems — first your own, then someone else’s.

The more problems you can solve, the more relevant you are, and therefore the more popular you become.

But not all problems are created equal.  Some are a problem of function, and some are a problem of perception.

When I recently tweeted my take on the vicious cycle of how Baltimore’s crime rate drives affluent workers (and their tax revenue) to the suburbs, resulting in budget shortfalls that force the city to cut police jobs, Dave Troy insisted that my view was inaccurate.

But whether or not my view is flawed, that’s only half the story.

The full story is Baltimore’s economic issues + people’s perception of Baltimore’s economic issues.

You can fix one and still have a problem with the other.  But you can’t fix both simultaneously.

So which would you choose to fix?

That depends on your personality.

Plumbers vs. Jugglers

Some people are plumbers.  They fix tangible problems.

Some people are jugglers.  They fix aesthetic problems.

You wouldn’t hire a plumber to entertain you, and you wouldn’t hire a juggler to fix your pipes.  One is good at improving function, and one is good at altering perception.

The problem with social media is that we’re led to believe we can do both.

I’m not so sure that’s a wise plan.

Let’s Be Reductive.

What’s the primary reason someone should pay attention to you?

What’s the secondary reason someone should pay attention to you?

Break your work down to an adjective and a noun, and you’ll get your answers.

Are you a “witty instructor”?

A “perverse artist”?

An “opinionated guru”?

The noun is what you do; the adjective is who you are.  Combined, they’re what you bring to the table.  Make sure they can coexist.  (Does anybody buy from an “opinionated salesman,” or hire a “slacker photographer”?)

You can be great at what you do, or you can be great at who you are.  Figure out which half of the equation you choose to define yourself by, and proceed accordingly.

You Can’t Be All Things to All People

If Baltimore has economic problems and perceptual problems, they need a plumber and a juggler.

Maybe Dave Troy is a plumber, and he’s focused on fixing Baltimore’s tangible problems.

Maybe someone else is the juggler who can teach people to see Baltimore differently.

But expecting one person to do both is asking too much.

What do you offer that someone needs?

Why should people care about you?

Because that’s what you should do.

And nobody needs a juggling plumber.

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Do you know Bryon Sheffield?

Probably not.  He has a blog, but it doesn’t exist yet.

But you can help.

See, Bryon’s a smart guy.  He knows the web is full of white noise, and he doesn’t want to add to it.

But he does want to blog.  He has interests, and he has expertise, but he’s not yet sure where his voice fits into the big picture.

So he’s looking for a reason.

And if you have ideas, he’s encouraging you to leave him a comment on his site.

In a way, this is the equivalent of walking into a magazine while the staff is still being hired and having a say in the direction of the publication.  Anything could happen.  Your suggestions might be ignored, or they might trigger the idea that creates something never seen before.

Bryon Sheffield.  A blank slate, with ideas.  Help him put one foot in front of the other and who knows where he might end up?

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When you’re surrounded by strangers, it can be hard to strike up a conversation.  Presumably, things would be easier if you already knew something about some of those people.

But what if that knowledge actually made you more reluctant to start a conversation?

That’s what I’m wondering about Meet Gatsby, a Foursquare-related program that connects you with fellow users in your proximity who share the same interests you’ve divulged to the program.  It’s basically an icebreaker service for complete strangers sitting in the same room who happen to share a common interest.

For example, if you tell Gatsby that you like comic books, and someone else who also likes comic books checks into your location on Foursquare, Gatsby will introduce you.  You’re under no obligation to speak to each other, but you now have that opportunity.

In theory, this should help us all leapfrog over our fears of meeting strangers.

In reality, I can already think of several potentially awkward scenarios — including:

• What if one person is an expert in a field, but the other’s just casually interested?
• What if someone’s trying to work, but they’re accosted by a bad conversation?
• What if someone’s already in a conversation with someone else?

But while those examples might be disappointing, annoying or uncomfortable, they’re also beside the point.

The real power of Gatsby is in the way it makes you re-evaluate a central question:

What kinds of people do you really want to meet?

Hi, My Name Is ________.

In order to meet a wide array of people, your instincts might lead you to supply Gatsby with lists of incredibly obvious interests.  “Music.” “Movies.” “Sports.” “Blogs.”

But this presumes you’d be happy to meet anybody.  If that were the case, you wouldn’t need Gatsby; you’d just ask the nearest stranger if they’ve seen any good movies lately.  Supplying Gatsby with ultra-common criteria is like supplying it with no criteria at all.

You could also program Gatsby with all sorts of hyper-specific interests that are extremely personal to you… except they’re immediately obvious to anyone looking at you.  Trust me, if your interests are Skinny Puppy, Joy Division, The Cure, and The Crow, I can probably figure that out without consulting Gatsby.

So what does that leave us with?

The future.

I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On… Mentally

To me, the real hook for using Gatsby is the opportunity to meet people I’d want to talk to because:

• they know a lot about something I want to learn more about
• they’re experts in something I know nothing about
• our shared interests are likely to yield new discoveries for each of us

For example, if I said I liked “movies,” that would be nearly useless.

But if I said I was a fan of Whit Stillman or Atom Egoyan, two lesser-known indie directors with very unique storytelling styles, I’d be less likely to find people who matched that interest but more likely to have fruitful conversations with anyone who did.  Because if we both like Egoyan, we can probably each suggest half a dozen amazing films that the other’s never seen.

To accomplish this, we need to rethink the words we use to identify our interests, like…

• Would the people we meet differ if we were fans of “movies” versus “films”?
• Are your interests “politics,” or are they “liberal politics,” or “Libertarian”?
• Do you like “blogs,” or do you like “blogging”?

This isn’t just semantics; this is SEO for your personality.  The more specific you (and others) are, you the more likely you are to find conversationalists who matter.

But this still leaves one loose end: how do we bridge the gap between “students” and “teachers”?

Single White Male, in Search of Enlightenment

Meet Gatsby is still in its earliest stages of development.  (As I type this, their Twitter account only has 61 followers.)

And since they’re currently accepting suggestions from users, I have two:

• Subdivide interests into Things We Know About and Things We’d Like to Learn About
• Allow users to rate their own expertise, and the expertise of others

Why would this matter?  Context.

Let’s say two people with interests in social media happen to meet up through Gatsby.

If Person A knows enough about social media to rate himself a 7 out of 10, he can probably offer advice to someone who’s only rated her own expertise a 4.  But if she disagrees with his suggestions (or thinks he’s making it all up), she should have the same opportunity to affect his credibility rating as buyers and sellers do on eBay.

Ultimately, Gatsby is positioning itself as a marketplace for human interaction.  And people will always want to interact with others who offer them the most value for their time.

The more ways we have to find the people who matter to us, the more valuable every Foursquare check-in will be — and the more relevant our own accumulated knowledge becomes.

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