| Marketing, Sales, and the Art of Persuasion |
| More things change, the more people stay the same |
Last week on Thursday April 22, 2010, Erik Deckers participated in the Strategy Session called Mistakes Small Business Makes in their marketing. Erik was responsible to talk about “The 3 Mistakes Companies Make with Their Blogging and Social Media. He will discuss the following:
I think he did a pretty good job.
Check it out:
For the past 6 years, I have participated on an online forum that covers the state of Hungarian Football. There are a 
small number of “hopeful” Hungarian Football fans that are waiting for the resurrection of the “Golden Team” of the 1950s. We religiously follow our beloved Hungarian National Team only to be disappointed every 2 years when they fail to make a major tournament. The last time Hungary participated in a World Cup was in 1986 in Mexico.
Football is passion and passions brings out the worst or best in others. The forum is going through the changes that often occur in groups where a choice is asked of its members to be with the forum leader or not. Members come and go, but now there is a come to Jesus with the remaining members to pledge allegiance to the Forum Manager.
Now, if we follow the pattern of what is happening, it is a common in offline communities for people to become divided. There seems to be a life cycle that starts with the following steps:
1. Mutual Respect
2. Cooperation
3. Division
4. Power Grab
There is a “Lord of the Flies” effect that seems to take hold.
Division leads to power grabs by individuals that leads to potential dictatorships for order.
I am going to explore this phenomenon further. This behavior is not limited to online forum behavior but permeates our lives. I have seen it in how organizations work too. Competition breeds cooperation that denigrates into division which ultimately leads to a new congregation forming at another Church.
This common offline behavior can be seen occurring in online forums also.
More to come on this subject…
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Ok, so my wife tells me, “I got you and Andrew concert tickets for “Star Wars in Concert” for your birthday.“ I have to admit, I did not jump up and down. “Ok”, I said with a one eye brow raised.
If you have kids and you have kids that love music, take them! It is kind of expensive at $65 a ticket, but it was worth it.
We saw the concert at Conseco Field House. Surprisingly, the sound was excellent. I leaned over and ask my son, “Is this live, or is this Memorex?” He gave me a puzzled look of course because he is not familiar with the old Aretha Franklin commercials from the 1970s-1980s.
The real point of this post is, “Community Orchestras can learn something from the Star Wars in Concert series.” The concert combined visual montages with the music. People were clearly entertained. (I am still shaking my head at the quality of the sound. The orchestra was so tight).
I remember when classical music was taught to me. I finally learned about classical music while on a study abroad program in Austria. Our Professor taught us the significance of Mozart, Beethovan, Hadyn in the context of their time. He was so enthusiastic about the music that I finally go it.
John Williams film music is very easy to get because we have the visual support of the film to help convey what the music is saying.
What if Symphonies started applying some of the same techniques to traditional Mozart, List, or Beethoven pieces. After all, we are an easily bored society. People want to be entertained by our standards today which include video or visual stimulation. Maybe we should have a video running that accompanies the music being played by the Orchestra.
Think I am crazy? Well, Conseco Fieldhouse was full. So, something tells me people are ok with orchestrated music. They just want to be entertained with it.
It was a great concert. I recommend it to anyone.
Two Face - Character from Batman comic book
What is it about being in front of a computer that can sometimes bring out the worst in people?
In the office, email is the weapon of choice. How often have you received a nasty email from a co-worker who says things they would never say to your face? I had a boss that used email to say what he really thought, yet he had a hard time communicating it in person. After reading it, you would scratch your head and ask, “What was that all about?”
Back in the day before all the electronic communication, if you had a problem with someone, you would spar with them in some form to settle the dispute. Today, we hide behind email.
I like my wife’s rule to my kids. If you can’t say it to their face, then don’t say it at all. She can’t stand the “hide by email” effect. She is a direct person and tells it like she thinks it is.
Another phenomenon I have been observing is what I call “Message Board Rage”. I participate in several boards and blog discussions. There is another guy in some part of the country or world. He has never met the other person, yet he is spewing a vitriolic hatred for the other person. In many cases, it is because the other person just does not agree with what they are saying.
Growing up as a 1st generation Hungarian boy, respect is a very important concept in my family. I grew up in the era of respect your elders. Now that I have reached my mid-40s, I understand what experience really means. There is an absence of this long held value in message board culture. Not only can you show disrespect, you can down right destroy someone you do not really know.
Which begs the question, what drives this behavior? Are these individuals so unhappy in their real lives that they feel power to take it out on people half a world away? As my wife says, would these people do it in person? Chances are not.
Recently, we observed some Twitter rage. An individual did not like something another person said, so he attempted to totally destroy the credibility of the other person. It was not an intellectual banter of professionals. It was a vitriolic dialog akin to something seen on the Jerry Springer show. Is there no professional respect in the world?
The individual tried to engage me. I pointed out, this will become a circular argument. Why even have it?
The individual that was getting the rap is guy anyone would like to have a beer with. He is funny, witty, and just a decent human being. Yet, this guy from another part of the country had no qualms about trying to destroy this person’s reputation online.
Everyone today is right and the other person is wrong. Convictions are so important that basic human communications have degraded into a disrespectful shouting matches. The current economic situation does not help matters, as people are full of fear. The anger out there certainly does mask that fear.
So, what should be done to change the bad behavior in electronic communication? Simply, start with your own behavior. Ask yourself, why am I allowing this person I don’t really know, pissing me off? Is what I am writing, what I would say to him/her in person? If not, don’t write it. It’s a start.\
“If you can’t say it to a person’s face, then don’t write it in an email, message board, blog or twitter post.”
Let’s bring the concept of mutual respect back into our dialogs. We can solve more problems this way. Maybe even help one another in the process.
