So I guess this is a beard blog now

Most of the comments on my first ever video post (how exciting and modern!) were about my facial hair. And there were lots of tweets about the beard, too.

I'm not entirely certain how I feel about that (yes I am, I think it's rad), but in any case it brings up an interesting thing to consider.

Nobody gives a shit about your video post, or about the content. The only important thing is whether people want to talk about it.

Sure, people didn't talk about precisely what I'd hoped they would, but they (you) talked.

It gave people something to talk about on a Monday. The conversation about my horrible beard probably made a few people chuckle. Not the video, not the beard, but the conversation.

That's interesting, that's cool. And maybe that makes this blog a little bit more worth coming back to.

Conversation is the point, after all. Rad.

EDIT: See Anonymous's great comment (2nd one down) about this. He/she makes some great points.

My first video post

I'm not going to apologize for how crappy this video is.

The best blogs tell stories

So I’m helping a friend get a little more social with the marketing of his art. And some of the advice I’ve been giving him is that the best blogs tell stories.

They give you something to follow and care about, not just something to return to. The best blogs aren’t easily replaced by another blog talking about the same thing. They make a stronger connection than that. And they tell you that, by reading this blog, you’re doing something. You’re learning, you’re laughing, you’re getting closer to where you want to be, or closer to someone you want to be like. Or someone you just plain like.

So my artist friend is going to take this approach with his blog. It’s going to be about what they don’t tell you in art school. Namely, how to actually make money. It’s just not something that comes up.

It’s going to follow the story of a man trying to figure out how to make money from art. By reading his blog you’ll be following his story. Oh, and you’ll be learning about what works and what doesn’t if you’re an artist. Or if you’re not, you’ll learn about how you could be one. It tells you that if you read enough of his blog you could quit your shitty day job and take up that artistic endeavour you’ve always dreamed about. It tells you that by reading this blog you’re getting a little bit closer to it everyday.

The No Impact Man blog is the very compelling story of someone trying to do the right thing. And it tells you that, by reading this blog, you’re learning about how you can do the right thing, too. In fact, you’re doing the right thing right now by reading it. You’re a better person than the people that don’t read it.

Chris Brogan’s blog isn’t about marketing, it’s a lifestyle blog. It tells you that by reading about Chris, and by learning from Chris, you’re becoming a little bit more like him. You could be just like him one day if you keep reading his blog every day. If you're a mid-level manager at your company and you read Chris's blog, you're reading it because it tells you that you could do the sort of thing he does where you work.

So what about my blog? What’s the story, what’s the point?

I don’t rightly know. Still working that out. Maybe a 20-something working in a fun but flawed industry trying to make sense of it all? Maybe. I don’t know.

So apparently I'm on vacation

From work, and from this blog. I'd like to think I'll actually be having a vacation from work, and I'd like to think that I'll be ending my vacation from this blog.

Because, you know, writing a couple short posts a month is so hard...

I've been sitting on a post for a while that referenced something Hugh had written about how 95% of advertising sucks.

My thought was, well, if someone came into an ad agency and explained that their business produced 95% crap, but that they banked on maybe, hopefully, producing 5% of something that was actually worth paying attention to the agency would tell them they're in the wrong business. Right?

So what are ad agencies doing?

What they've always done, I guess. Monkeys in a cage.

So what now? For this blog I mean. I don't know about the agencies thing. I haven't figured that bit out yet.

Should probably start with, what am I doing? What do I need to be writing about?

Vacation's over, time to figure that out.

Why I unfollowed a couple people this weekend

They weren't posting much that I was interested in. So I didn't feel like following them on twitter anymore.

That is all.

My interview about unfriending and unfollowing

I was interviewed earlier today over at Haligonia.ca about unfriending, unfollowing, and managing your social network contacts. Please check out the video here.

Thanks for having me on the show, Giles!

Superbowl half-time shows suck

The music acts are so uncontroversial now that nobody cares enough to be able to hate them, which means nobody loves them.

You only watch it because it's on.

I was reading Stuart's blog yesterday about the personal/professional separation and he said that you have to put yourself into your work. You have to have enough personality that people can actually like you, which means that some people are going to hate you.

Most of us get that in our day-to-day lives, but how many businesses will see it the same way? If you want people to love your company you have to accept that some people are going to hate it. If nobody hates you then you're probably boring. And you're giving people nothing worth loving.