Hello there:
The people part is the hardest to get right.
Whether you're building a team, a company, a community, a product, your list of subscribers, or your connections in social networks. When I talk to leaders, founders, and professional peers, they all say a version of this: I'd like to connect with the right people.
Because there are phases of growth. Who works well in one phase, won't in another. But how do you ladder up or down? Who should you trust at any one point? At some point, you'll need to trust someone. But the problem is that meeting online is not the same as meeting a person. You miss all kinds of non verbal cues. Hard to know fit when there's no feel for someone.
There's a bit in Apple's WWDC '97 where Steve Jobs, not for the first time, answers a snide question.
His answer (remember, it's 1997):
I'm sure you've had this experience. Where you change. You're growing as a person. And people tend to treat you like you were 18 months ago. And it's really frustrating sometimes. When you're growing up and you're becoming more capable and you've solved, maybe you had some personality quirks you've gotten over.
Whatever that may be. And people are still treating you the same way they were treating you like a year or 18 months ago. It's very frustrating. Well, it's the same with a company.
It's the same with the press. The press is going to have a lag time. And the best thing we can do about the press is to embrace them, do the best we can to educate them about the strategy. But we need to keep our eye on the prize.
And that is turning out some great products, communicating directly with our customers the best we can. [more here]
That's how it goes. There's always a lag time between a change and the world noticing and catching up to it. The hardest part is the people who think of you in a certain way—from an early impression, or association. This is a two-way street, of course. The same happens to you. When you change, your colleagues, network, friends, and family are the last ones to notice.
Well, we don't choose our families, so it takes time and conversations to keep reconnecting as your new self. But we do choose our friends, colleagues, and networks. With more of our lives online, who we follow and friend makes a big difference.
Algorithms are a challenging part of The Social Dilemma. The documentary was broadcast on Netflix, breaking records right after a 20 percent increase in subscription to the platform. Tristan Harris, one of the repentant members of the team that gave us social networks, talked about his role and the rollout at the NYMedia Summit.
Do I stay on [insert your favorite, time-sucking, social network here],
or do I leave to pursue other interests?
May seem like a binary choice, hence the word dilemma. It's not. As I explained last week, there are ways to tweak the settings in the social network to fit your needs. People do matter. Pick deliberately.
On Twitter, signal for me means creating lists: some C-Level titles useful for reading the temperature in the room, so to speak, industry lists for trends, etc. Done this way, Twitter is less performative—followers/following counts—and more substantive—ideas, links to projects, some news.
LinkedIn is interesting, because now you really need to connect with the right people to make any kind of impression. If you're connected with lots of former colleagues and people who aren't active on the platform—liking, commenting, sharing articles and posts—it takes a ton of effort to get little yield. In this case, cull your network and find people who are enthusiastic about connection. Pick your people. I've been culling with intention.
I choose to create and risk connection. To me, people remain people whose attention is a privilege and a gift, no matter how we link. If we create and consume with a holistic attitude of contribution, we'll amplify a different kind of message.
This is what grows and shapes your circle. What you put out (or not), will come back to you. Literally. So watch what you share, like, comment on... or ignore.
"Keep your eye on the prize" is good advice.
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Internet's opportunity machine
This is a trend that started 10+ years ago. If you're a creator and are willing to put in the work, you can take advantage of two parallel or complementary opportunities:
1. Building a media company
This makes money through advertising and affiliate marketing (Tim Ferriss), book sales and paid speaking gigs (James Clear), paid content and online sources (Adam Watham, Ben Thompson), or a combination of these methods. Digiday's Brian Morrissey has been writing about the process in the Rebooting.
- Tim Ferriss makes tons of money in advertising for his show, $54,000 for a single slot.#
- Analyst Ben Thompson with Stratechery brings in over $2.5m each year from tech investors and entrepreneurs who pay for a subscription.#
- Adam Watham sold $4m worth of PDFs/videos to developers since I started working on my first book in 2016.#
2. Increasing your career market value
If you're an expert in a certain are or industry (i.e. you've done the work), and can create compelling articles, visuals, or stories online consistently, you can establish yourself.
- Holly Whitaker leveraged her blog to close a $10M round of funding for her sobriety school, Tempest.
- Dan Li's newsletter about venture capital in the pacific northwest took only a few months for VCs and entrepreneurs to read and start following his work.
Neither is easy or fast, but doable with a considerable amount of work. Most of it comes down to execution.
Below I have more focused ideas about production, distribution, and community impact to adapt to your own case. You can create a successful product, find your thing. But that knowledge is hard earned. Thinking+doing has been my mantra for this reason.
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Media Production
While decentralized, independent thinking has become more important, especially in niche content, group discussion and depth are now pillars of media production.
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Media Distribution
Word of mouth is still a powerful force in media distribution. The new thing here is to have a crew of people who will help kick start the process. They have your back on minute 1 on LinkedIn, liking or commenting, helping your story spread.
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Community Impact
There's an art to community building. You need to balance the needs of early members with those of new members, knowledge levels, spreaders with creators... and keep everyone engaged while new people join.
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Was this a buck worth of sustenance? Hit the button below to show your gratitude.
Grazie mille.
“If you think that deciding which job you want when you grow up
automatically means finding a job, you are wrong.
One has to carve out one's own space
with passion and obstinacy:
society does not give it to you.
Rather. It tends to reduce every impulse
to autonomy as much as possible."
- Enzo Mari
noted Italian modernist artist and furniture designer, RIP
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