There are few things* more fun in life than discussing something you’re passionate about with someone you have enormous respect for. I had the opportunity to do just that recently when I was invited to participate in a webinar with my friend Marshall Kirkpatrick hosted by the company he created, Little Bird.
The topic of the webinar was how executives can identify and engage influencers who are important to the success of their organizations. Little Bird makes finding them easy and powerful. The harder part for many execs is what to do with these influencers once you’ve found them. You can listen to the full 30 minute discussion over at Little Bird (free, simple registration). For everyone else, I built a quick list of 10 things you can do today to start engaging:
Use tools (like LittleBird) to identify your most important insiders
Engaging with the influencers in your industry shouldn’t be nerve wracking. Because there’s nothing wrong with having a conversation about something you’re passionate about with someone you (and your customers) respect.
*Craft beer, travel, spending time with friends and family
This week’s collection of random stories I’ve read. Some are fun, some provocative, some informative. All are shared to expand and deepen how we see the world around us.
Do Humans Have An Unhealthy Fetish For The Future?: Listen to any technology evangelist, business leader, politician, educator, futurist, or “cultural influencer” these days, and you’ll hear the same refrain. Anyone who wants to be successful has to innovate, disrupt, and “own the future.” – http://www.fastcoexist.com/3059369/do-humans-have-an-unhealthy-fetish-for-the-future
The future of car ownership that no one is talking about: It has never been more clear that transformational change to one of the world’s largest industries is just around the corner. Car ownership is supposed to change — and when it does, it is predicted to be one of the most monumental displacements of wealth the world economy has ever seen. – https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/13/the-future-of-car-ownership-that-no-one-is-talking-about/
With the Good Life over, how can suburbia regain its place in the sun?: It was where the interwar generation aspired to, but suburbs today are a tale of dying high streets and creeping poverty “Try to own a suburban home,” said an advertisement by the British Freehold Land Company in the 1920s, “it will make you a better citizen and help your family. – https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/09/suburbs-architecture-stagnation
Apollo 11 sourcecode on Github: Though the code for Apollo 11’s “Apollo Guidance Computer” has been online since 2003, when Ron Burkey rekeyed it from the scans that Gary Neff had uploaded, ex-NASA intern Chris Garry’s posting of the code to Github last week has precipitated a widespread interest in the code, along with close scr – http://boingboing.net/2016/07/10/apollo-11-sourcecode-on-github.html
How statistics are twisted to obscure public understanding: Mark Twain attributed to Benjamin Disraeli the famous remark: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.’ In every industry, from education to healthcare to travel, the generation of quantitative data is considered important to maintain quality through competition. – https://aeon.co/ideas/how-statistics-are-twisted-to-obscure-public-understanding
The Weird Nothingness Across the Street From Famous Monuments: Four years ago, cinematographer Oliver Curtis went to Cairo for a freelance assignment. Like any good tourist, he visited the Great Pyramid of Giza. – http://www.wired.com/2016/07/oliver-curtis-volte-face-photography/
A Week of Gun Violence Does Nothing to Change the N.R.A.’s Message: In the language of today’s National Rifle Association, “an armed society is a polite society.” The aphorism, borrowed from the science-fiction author Robert Heinlein, is the inspiration for one of the N.R.A. – http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-silence-and-violence-of-the-n-r-a
Last week I hopped a plane out of Philly to attend what I believe was my eighth Gluecon. In years past, I’ve packed light, since the dress code for Glue doesn’t require socks. But this year, I loaded up my weighty Canon 5D Mark III with the intention of capturing a few of the attendees on video. You can see the non-moving images here.
Those who know me, know my background leans more to the still photo side of the lens, so this would be an adventure into the moving picture capabilities of the big rig. Let’s just say a certain Mr. Spielberg’s empire remains safe. But my goal wasn’t to produce a masterpiece. It was done in the age old spirit of minimal viable product and being at peace looking back someday and being embarrassed at my early work.
So, without further adieu, I present a couple of interviews I conducted over the course of the conference. Huge thanks to my guinea pigs, er, interview subjects, for playing along: Aneel Lakhani (SignalFx), Pat Patterson (StreamSets), John Minnihan (Tincup), Jason Hansen (Deis), Tyler Fontaine (Elastic), William Morgan (Buyoyant), Guillaume LaForge (Restlet), Cody Hill (Platform9) and Theo Schlossnagle (Circonus). And, of course, Eric and Kim Norlin for bringing some of the smartest people in tech together each year.
I head out to Broomfield, Colorado, early tomorrow morning for my annual pilgrimage to Gluecon. It’s a conference I look forward to every year, as much for seeing friends I’ve made in the tech industry as for the great content. This year’s conference now has even deeper meaning.
One of the friends I most look forward to seeing is Kin Lane. He’s one of the smartest humans on the building blocks of today’s modern technology infrastructure. He did time in the White House. Yes, that White House. But, beyond being wickedly smart, he’s unbelievably caring. Like the Grizzly Adams of APIs. His API Evangelist website is, arguably, the single most important website on this topic (a topic of which, without it, there would be no apps on your phone or Uber at your curb or Watson playing Jeopardy).
And, today, it’s for sale. For, perhaps, the most important reason of all: family.
Bidding for API Evangelist starts at $10,000. You have until Friday to put your bids in. If you are a company that has built a business on APIs, this is your opportunity to support one of the people behind the reason for your company’s existence. If you are in marketing or communications, this is the chance to counsel your executives on doing what is right. A drop in your marketing bucket means the life of an extended member of your community.
Kin has put his life on hold to help a member of his family who needs his full attention. It’s not a decision anyone would take lightly, yet, I suspect it was an easy decision for Kin because of the kind of human he is.
Every morning I wake up, pour myself a giant cup of coffee, and power through more news than most people see in a week. One of the sites that’s part of my morning routine is Product Hunt.
This morning, an app called Outplanr that was “hunted” caught my eye. I took a gander at the discussion and something in the way the moderator’s questions were phrased and the way the product’s CEO responded got me thinking: Is moderated discussion a better way to do technology trade journalism?
Most tech trade interviews for new products begin with a core set of standard questions. The discussion thread format (again, moderated for sanity) allows for questions and answers beyond a single human. It’s a transparent model. Could a format like this eliminate the need for useless tech press releases, using a public challenge/response as a new industry PR/journalism standard? Could it free up time for journalists to do deeper reporting than covering questionable new product announcements?
Does it work for every industry? Maybe not. Does it replace other necessary types of journalism? Definitely not. Is it something flacks and hacks should be looking more closely at? Probably.
We all have them. Moments from our childhood that stick with us. Of course, some stick with us more than others. They are part of the narrative documenting our journey through life; the stories that create the adults we become.
Growing up, my brother and I spent a lot of time with two of my cousins. We were all two years apart. Brian and I occupied the middle, bookended by Larry at the older end and my younger brother, Greg, at the other. Their mom, my aunt Kathy, was a prominent character in my narrative.
Aunt Kathy is the reason I never took up smoking. “You think it looks cool? Try it.” We were sitting around the wooden table in her kitchen. That was the first and last time I put mouth to cigarette. A teaching moment in my personal narrative.
I don’t think I ever saw her not smiling or laughing. Except for the afternoon Brian and I didn’t tell her we were going for a walk and her car pulled up behind us on Asbury Road a few miles from the house. That was definitely a moment.
Even as Alzheimer’s took over her life at a way too early age, she found a way to smile. I saw it in the photos my parents took visiting her over the years she lived with this horrible disease. I saw it in the photos my cousins posted to Facebook (where the images from this post came from). My aunt Kathy passed away on July 2, 2014. She was 68 years old.
Her role in my narrative is why I jumped at the chance a little over a month ago to help the Dementia Society of America build and promote a program to raise awareness around dementia and brain health.
More than 6,000,000 people in the U.S. live with a form of dementia. 1 in 9 people age 65 and older live with a form of dementia. 1 in 3 U.S. seniors will die with dementia. Dementia is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. Alzheimer’s and CTE are two of 10 types of dementia
On May 7th, we’re kicking off a grassroots challenge called Step2Raise. People from across the nation will register their FitBits and other health trackers to walk a combined 6 million steps — enough to virtually walk across America — over the 44 day period between Mother’s Day weekend and Father’s Day.
What makes this challenge different than others is that it’s not a fundraiser. There is no financial or fundraising commitment asked of participants. You just need to register and walk.
Walk a mile, walk 10,000 steps. Every step counts.
The all-volunteer, non-profit Dementia Society of America is underwritten through the generosity of individual donations and corporate supporters. 100% of any donations that come into the organization during Step2Raise will go directly into a program called Ginny Gives Grants. The program was created to enhance the quality of life for those living with dementia, their caregivers, and the public at-large, by underwriting events and activities in places like nursing homes and continuing care residential communities. It accomplishes this by providing small grants to musicians, artists, therapists and performers. This year alone, Ginny Gives Grants recipients delivered life-enriching art, music, movement and touch programs to more than 600 people living with dementia.
The Ginny Gives program was created to honor the life of Dementia Society of America founder Kevin Jameson’s wife, Ginny, who died shortly after my aunt Kathy after a valiant struggle with dementia. I recently interviewed Kevin to learn more about Ginny and her namesake program. You can here her story in his own words below.
Like my aunt Kathy, Kevin and Ginny have become part of my own narrative. If you have a fitness tracker, I encourage you to register and support this valuable program to help those living with dementia (and share it with your family and friends on Facebook).
I’m a media junkie. I grew up devouring the New York Daily News and Morristown Daily Record. And, of course, I read my hometown paper, The Star-Gazette (click that link to see a younger me on the pitch). As my career moved into tech way back before bubble was a word and internet was still spelled with a capital I, I gorged on the trade rags — everything from Inter@ctiveWeek to SD Times.
What I didn’t realize was that it wasn’t the media fix I was after, it was something more intoxicating: the stories.
Never before have stories — and the ability to spin a good one — been more important. Tech trades have seen a decimation the like of which was last seen when dinosaurs saw that fiery rock barreling down on them from outer space. Companies today need to be their own storytellers.
Good storytellers read. Sure, they keep up with industry news in the trades, but the good ones — the really good ones — spend just as much time reading for pleasure. They have an insatiable appetite for heroes, villains, conflict and opportunities for an author to transport them beyond the page.
Ask your current PR team what they read at night. Listen closely to what they tell you. Are they filling their brain bucket with industry content or are they expanding their storytelling arsenal reading works by authors like Hemingway, King, McCullough, Philbrick, Bryson or Poe?
What does it take to be a friend? At a minimum, you need the following qualities:
A general common interest
Mutual respect
Comfort to be one’s self
Honesty
Fairness
Open communication
I have no illusions that I’m probably missing more than a few qualities that should be on this list. But a tweet from LittleBird founder (and friend) Marshall Kirkpatrick caused me to think about what it means to truly develop relationships with the influencers that matter most to your organization, as well as those who may matter in the future.
The best “influencer relationships” are the ones that are actually friendships.
Building friendships with influencers is something that doesn’t come naturally to most organizations or the marketers telling their stories. Part of the reason is that the ratio of marketers to influencers is skewed kind of heavily in the marketers favor. It’s like putting lead on one side of a scale and helium on the other. No influencer is going to have that many friends, nor should they.
Another reason, and I think this is the one where a lot of people start to find out how difficult influencer relations is, is that being a friend means stepping out of your marketing skin and, well, being a friend. There aren’t a lot of people who can do that. There are fewer who do it well. The ones who rock obliterate any wall between being a friend and engaging an influencer. It’s a thing of beauty to see in action (one of the humans who does this the best is IBM’s Amy Hermes).
Building influencer relationships is not easy. It takes time. It means coloring outside the lines and on the fly of what might be on the existing marketing plan. It means less reliance on hard metrics and more acceptance of knowing you are doing what’s right for both the influencer and your organization (do you keep an ROI spreadsheet for your other friends?). It means being an actual friend to a small group of people you deem worthy of being part of your organization’s circle of trust.
If you need help identifying who your influencers are or need guidance on how to start developing relationships with them, give me a shout.
Hamilton is a popular play on Broadway. It will have a long run and make a lot of money for its investors. If that was all it did, Hamilton would leave a lasting memory as a certified hit and leave a lasting impact on theater and entertainment.
But someone in the Hamilton machine is thinking beyond the musical’s core product. Someone sees opportunity to use the show’s influence to play a larger role in improving other human’s lives. And they found a way to do it while staying true to the production’s brand.
“The Eliza Project” has been in the works for months. Curious about the lasting impact of the strong, progressive woman she portrayed on stage, Ms. Soo visited the Graham School and spent hours talking with its students. She wanted to offer them the kind of ‘‘teaching artist” program she saw when she studied at the Juilliard School.
Mike Maney 
