The Real Blind Influence

It’s no secret that the protests in Iran would be as hidden as the genocide still happening in Sudan if not for a free tool with a silly name: Twitter.  As hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed a contested re-election victory in Iran, hundreds of thousands of people insisting that the election was rigged took to the streets.  When the government tried to shut down internet access, the people took to their cell phones to broadcast the injustices.

Even with limited internet access beyond cell phones,  You Tube was flooded with Iranian videos sharing the truth of what was happening.  We are in a new era where transparency is rampantly exposing the secrets and dirty tricks of hierarchies.

The statistics of how support for Iranian democracy through the interwebs skyrocketed on June 17th revealed that we had hit a tipping point. The Los Angeles Times has declared Twitter to be ‘Tyranny’s New Nightmare.”

The 21st Century, social media and social networks have had their Tiananmen Square moment.  The symbolism of Iranian’s tweeting and You Tubing what the government wanted to hide resembled the individual man who stood up the tanks in Tiananmen Square during their 1989 crackdown on democracy.

Old hard line systems are crashing faster and harder than ever as communication and relationships move faster on the interwebs.  If the Onion Article, Twitter Creator on Iran: ‘I Never Intended For Twitter to be Useful,’ is true, then Twitter is a massive failure and it’s time to rebuild that wall in Berlin.

Tags: ahmadinejad, berlin wall, democracy, iran, iran election, protest, social network, tiananmen square, tipping point, twitter

Have you heard of Brian Keith Voiles? Probably not, but if you have eyes you’ve seen his ad campaigns and you probably even bought products that he created ad campaigns for.

Would you like to have the formula he gets paid $12,500 to put into use for Fortune 500 Companies?  Are you curious as to how this formula is used to influence your buying decisions?

Well then, today’s your lucky day, isn’t it? You’ll notice this formula whenever you read a sales letter or an ad. Remember that the key to writing a sales letter is that the job of every paragraph is to make the reader want to read the next paragraph.  Now that you know this you may catch yourself thinking of this when you hypnotically continue to watch an infomercial or read an enticing offer.

This is the secret skeleton used to write the most successful ads that grab your attention and motivate you to give out those credit card digits.

1. ATTENTION - Write a headline that GRABS your reader. Fear or curiosity are good places to start. For example: “Ex-Truck Driver Makes $21,815 a Month Doing What You’re Not”

2. INTEREST - List the benefits of your product or service. Acknowledge their problem while showing you have the solution. Show that you’ve been where they are and you can help them.

3. CREDIBILITY - Mention referrals and references of how others have benefited from your product or service.

4. PROVE - Show testimonials with full names and cities or countries. Offer a risk-free guarantee.

5. BELIEVABLE - Give your full contact information. Make it easy for them to buy with no hassles. Let them know why they should trust you.

6. SCARCITY - Have limited offers, special time sensitive sales, discounts on a few products in limited quantity.

7. ACTION - Ask for the sale. Make it simple.

8. WARN - Let them know the pain they’ll experience if they don’t use your product. i.e. If you’re selling a wrinkle cream let them know how dry their face will be and how much deeper their wrinkles will get without your product - if that’s true. Don’t lie.

9. NOW - Tell them why they should buy right now.

That’s it. Now you’ve got the skeleton that the best copywriters in the world use.  If you’re a marketer this won’t be gold, it will be platinum.

If you’re a consumer, this is a platinum shield to help you take a deep breath and question if you REALLY need that product or service before parting with your hard earned cash.  Read the formula a few times and you’ll start to notice it in the structure of commercials, the language of print advertising and the content of major marketing pitches that effectively get you to buy whatever they’re sellin’.

Tags: brian keith voiles, buyer beware, commercial, commercials, copywriting, infomercial, infomercials, marketing pitches, sales, sales letter

The Black Cab Sessions almost won a Webby Award this year but got beat out by a Muppet - tough competition. Beeker’s Ode to Joy (see below) was the winner.

Even without that win, this is a site worth watching.  Bands pile into a London Black Cab where they perform one song for a spontaneous online music video.  Yes, it’s a mini concert hall on wheels.

All of the performances are inspired and feature bands like The Futureheads, Spoon, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Grizzly Bear, Ryan Adams, Richard Thomson, Badly Drawn Boy, Doves, The Walkmen, The Kooks and others.

I consider this site a great example of creative social media. No, it’s not social media in the sense of connecting people for conversations.  But it is sharing information, fun and music with society.  And it’s more wholesome than HBO’s Taxicab Confessions while still being as entertaining.

The site was meant to be an out-of-the-box online tool for promoter Hidden Fruit to promote gigs.  It has blossomed much further than that concept to share live music with the world on the interwebs from the most intimate setting possible (besides maybe a shower.)

It would have been cooler if they would have set the site up to have comments on the video pages and included a search feature to see all the bands that have been recorded, but you have to give them points for creativity.

Do you think the bands have to pay cab fare?

Fleet Foxes

Lykke Li

Tags: Badly Drawn Boy, beach boys, beeker, black cab sessions, brian wilson, Doves, Grizzly Bear, muppet, ode to joy, Richard Thomson, Ryan Adams, Spoon, The Futureheads, The Kooks, The Walkmen, webby awards

Twitter spam got you down?  Tired of being flooded with auto direct messages trying to sell you on things you don’t want?  Sick of getting direct messages thanking you for following people while they pimp their blogs, eBooks and products to you?

Then today is your lucky day.  Jon Bishop wrote a great simple blog post that will show you how to stop receiving auto DMs on Twitter.  Go there now and stop auto DMs forever.

There are two main websites responsible for the auto DM epidemic, SocialToo and TweetLater. Both are great sites that have just been abused by their users.

Thankfully, both sites recognize the auto DM problem and have provided ways to opt out from receiving further communications via automated direct messages from their sites.

For more information on stopping Twitter spam check out StopTwitterSpam.com.

Tags: direct message, direct messages, dm, tweet, twitter, twitter spam

Startup Weekend is a conference bringing together developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects.  Sounds cool, right?  It is.

The concept grew from an idea by  Andrew Hyde in 2007 and now there have been over 49 Startup Weekends with 65 cities and 11 countries signed on to host more.

Rather than your typical conference of watching speakers and panels, these conferences are designed to facilitate learning through organically forming teams and getting into immediate action.  It’s a conference with some unconference elements that facilitate cumulative collaboration creating community and companies.

It kicks off with all the participants sharing their backgrounds and answering the question, “What’s your problem?”  Over the years I’ve discovered what a crucial question this is to ask for any business or proposed project, product or service.

A classic mistake most entrepreneurs and companies make is that they get excited about an idea and invest valuable time and money into creating a product or service they think is great.  Then they take it to market and try to convince the public to be interested in it.  This is why so many of them fail.  If people aren’t interested in what you’re offering then you don’t have a business.

It’s much more effective to ask people what they want and provide that.  Or even better, ask them what problems they currently have and provide simple and powerful solutions to those problems.  That’s where the sweet spot of helping people and making a profit lie.

Jason Janelle, Tom Markiewicz & Harry Love build an internal media sharing solution; Ron Bronson makes a Twitter-based baseball application; Neil Simon creates Wordpress Plugins

In the case of this Startup Weekend, after identifying problems we all broke into teams to immediately start building the solutions.  Through conversations covering design, development and marketing things moved very quickly.

Within the first 3 hours of meeting this morning one product was a ‘fast fail’ (Rosetta Stone already has a similar version of how to connect people who want to practice their second languages with people of equal levels of skill), and a name and Wordpress Plugin were created for SpotGrab - a product to connect renters with available apartments.  And that’s just what happened for two of the projects.

Though products, projects and companies are birthed at Startup Weekends, the first focus is on community.  Regardless of any outcome, the conference provides an environment for internet creatives to meet and share their skills with one another.

About a month ago I volunteered to help with business development, marketing and PR for iVolunteer which is a product born from the last Boulder Startup Weekend.

We’re developing a website, iPhone app and Wordpress plugin that enables you to find local volunteer opportunities aligned with your interests easily anywhere.  There are over 30 volunteers working on this.  Most of us found out about it after two guys met at the last Boulder Startup Weekend and saw an unfulfilled need.

I’m wondering how similar conferences can be created outside of the tech world to generate collaboration and community.  The registration fee goes entirely to the food budget and the space rental (unless it’s donated like it was this weekend.)  Aside from this, participants are welcome to drop in and out as their schedules demand.  This makes it easy for people to contribute in whatever ways work for them.

How could you create an event like this in your community based around your interests to share your influence and bring people together in fun and productive ways?  Or an easier way to look at it is, ‘What’s your problem?’  Just asking.

Tags: andrew hyde, boulder, boulder startup weekend, conference, designer, developer, entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, hary love, innovation, iphone app, jason janelle, neil simon, ron bronson, startup, startup weekend, tech, technology, tom markiewicz, unconference, wordpress plugin

Technology has rocked our world repeatedly in profound ways. This will happen many more times and is about to happen again with Google Wave.  It’s going to be a tidal wave!

Imagine email, instant messaging, document sharing and much more integrated into a real time platform.  Or don’t imagine it and just wait a few months because that’s when you’ll be using Google Wave. TechCrunch has a great overview explaining why this is a game-changing product.

With Google Wave being announced it seems like a good time to shine a spotlight on how our world has changed from the release of disruptive technologies.  Some of my favorites have been:

• Smart Phones - before them we actually used a phone for making calls.  Now we use our phones as watches, computers, Rolodexes, calendars, cameras, alarm clocks, jukeboxes, photo albums, yellow page directories, news resources, email clients, video game consoles and a hundred other devices-in-one.
• Pagers - First drug dealers used them with pay phones (remember those?  …pay phones, not drug dealers) and parents used them to get their kids to call home.   With their arrival we began to move into a world where we could be found at any moment aside from being in the shower.
• Mobile Phones - Remember when phones were used connect with a specific location?  Now they are used to connect to a person in any location.  This created a major shift in how we communicate.
• Satellites - Before 1957 there were no satellites.  Fifty-two years later we use them for many purposes across industries as varied as radio, television, telecommunications, navigation, meteorology, land mapping, business & finance, climate & environmental monitoring, space science to name a few.  When is the last time you used a paper map instead of Google Maps on your phone or computer?
• Cable news - I don’t watch it, think it’s moronic and a tabloid distraction, but when it first debuted it was a positive revolution to have 24 hour news.  It killed the habit of tuning into the evening news and broadened possibilities before imploding into itself and beginning to be killed by my favorite disruptive technology so far…
• The Interwebs - Also know as the intertubes or the internet.  Since you’re reading this on the internet you probably know how transformational the internet and personal computers have been.  Pause for a moment and try to remember what your life was like before owning a personal computer, much less a laptop or smart phone.

Some technologies that were revolutionary and became extinct include the betamax, laser discs, vinyl albums, Polaroid pictures, PDAs, 8 Track tapes, cassette tapes and floppy discs.  The thing is, they were all necessary bridges to our modern world of digital convenience.  Much like how email and verbal voice mail may be out of use in 10 years, but they are necessary and interesting to us today.

The key to new innovative disruptive technologies is to look for the opportunities rather than being afraid because the old ways are passing away.  Dinosaur industries like music, TV and newspapers could have done much better than they have in the last 10 years.

They are still blowing it by blaming the world for changing rather than blaming their antiquated hierarchical business models.  The old models had large overheads and made a ton of money for few people while taking advantage of many others.  The new models value human, social, financial and environmental capital equally while collaborating to benefit many through innovation with low costs of entry.

There are tons of great examples like Amazon that have changed our personal and professional lives in deeply profound ways by unleashing innovative products, services and distribution models to an unsuspecting public.  Google Wave is just the next best thing, but lets welcome the changes it will bring to help us to do life in better and more collaborative ways.

Tags: amazon, current events, disruptive technology, google, google wave, mobile, mobile phone, mobile technology, satellite, smart phone, tech, techcrunch, technology

Last night I was on a panel for the Davinci Institute’s Startup Junkie Underground event.  Inevitably there was a question about how social networking appears to be a waste of time.  It is; but only for newbies who haven’t been taught how to use the tools efficiently to get the most benefit out of them.

This question for the uninitiated has gotten even worse since the Oprah Effect hit Twitter.  Now people start off thinking  it’s a popularity contest and everyone with over 10,000 followers is worth paying attention to.

Yesterday there was snake oil and today there are programs selling you Twitter followers.  This isn’t incredible news since it’s been happening for over 6 months, but it’s getting out of hand.  Every day more internet marketing affiliates are spamming people with these offers.

A friend just sent me a link to a company selling 1,000 followers for $87.  The offer balloons to 10,000 followers for “only” $497.  I’m not posting the link here because I don’t want to give them any promotion.

No matter how many followers you buy, you probably won’t have as great of a following as Rudy, the cat who got 500,000 Twitter followers without paying a dime.  And you may not ever be as cute as Rudy either, but that’s another story.

Having 500 Twitter followers who find value in your content, enjoy reading what you say and engage in conversations with you is infinitely more valuable than 100,000 followers who don’t read a thing you write.

Appearing to be popular on Twitter with only empty content (i.e. talking about your opinion of the latest summer blockbuster) is a waste of time and money.That said, there are people with tens of thousands of followers on Twitter who are great to follow because they influence beneficial conversations.

Quantity + quality content = massive influence.  Quantity - quality content = wasting time.

To be fair, Twollo and Hummingbird are two services that have some good reviews for delivering targeted followers.  If that’s true then there is some value in the service, but you still have to know your keywords, provide interesting and entertaining content, etc. or the followers mean nothing.

The value of social networking is in building relationships.  This happens by authentically sharing yourself, what interests you, what happens in your business, connecting to people in your city, collaborating with others, etc.

It’s called social networking because social without networking is just opinions, gossip and fluff.

And finally, there’s the fact that 60% of Twitter users quit after a month.  Most people who don’t seek out a friend or ‘expert’ to show them how to get value out of their time on Twitter won’t use Twitter.  If you don’t ‘get it,’ you’ll leave it.  If you don’t have followers engaged in conversations with you then it was all for naught.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it at least it impacts the ecosystem.  If you buy thousands of Twitter followers who aren’t your target audience (personally or professionally) and don’t care about what you have to share, you’re just an idiot with a lighter wallet.  And really, who wants to be that guy?

P.S. Hilariously, after I wrote this post Adsense put ads on the post selling Twitter followers.  I have no control over these, so lets just laugh at it together.

Tags: hummingbird, twitter, twitter followers, twitterers

‘Tis the season for spring cleaning.  It’s a great time to reassess what matters and to purge the things that hold you back.

Yesterday I killed the auto-renew on 15 domains I own but won’t be using and don’t think will have much value for others to buy.  In the last 2 weeks I sold a treadmill and a shiatsu futon on Craig’s List.  A few months ago I returned the DVR/digital cable box after realizing I hadn’t watched TV in 6 weeks.  This weekend I’ll probably go through clothes and donate the ones I haven’t worn in at least a year.

It’s amazing how liberating it feels to get rid of stuff that’s clogging up life.  I think it even feels better than picking up new bright shiny things that I’ll end up tossing later.

Everything in your life influences you in positive or negative ways - including clutter and what you do with your time.  I invite you to write down what you really want in your life.  Then look around at the stuff, people and circumstances in your life.

If they block, slow down or negatively impact you having the life you want then start purging.

This includes gossipy conversations, complaining friends, people who don’t ‘get’ you,  jobs that suck your soul, cities to live in that don’t feel right for you and  time wasting activities along with exercise equipment that became an expensive coat rack …after paying only 5 EASY payments of $49.99!  If it’s superfluous it goes out of your life.  Set the $*&t free.

The more crap you liberate from your life, the more space you make for all the cool people, stuff and experiences you really want.  So love it or toss it.  You’ll thank me later …if not sooner.

Tags: cleaning out, spring, story of stuff, stuff

A UCLA study revealed that 93% of communication is non-verbal.  Counter-intuitively, we spend much more time focused on the words we say than the ways we say them or on what our bodies are saying.

Don’t be fooled – actions speak louder than words every time. Outside of body language, the truth is revealed in what people do (or don’t do), not by what they say matters to them.  Actions reflect our real interests and priorities because we give time and attention to the people, events and circumstances that nurture, support and feed our souls.

As far as body language goes, when you’re talking to someone and they  have their arms crossed or they are looking away from your face, they aren’t listening to you.  When someone’s interesting to you and making you feel good you’ll automatically lean into him or her without realizing it.

The person with the strongest presence will naturally influence the energy of the room and the conversations people have.  When you’re on the phone or in a conversation the same is true.  It’s good to remember this in situations like dating or high-level business meetings where you may start to doubt yourself.

You are influencing others and being influenced by these unconscious factors all the time.  So why not make them conscious?  In every interaction you have with another human being you are telling them how to treat you.  They learn by:

How you dress
How you carry yourself
How authentically confident or insecure you act
The quality of people you surround yourself with
How you set boundaries
How well groomed you are
How you talk about other people
How you handle stressful situations
How strong or weak your voice is
How busy or bored you seem to be
Whether you generally seem to get results more than have excuses
How interesting the content of your conversations are
How you talk about the world and other people
Whether they feel better or worse after interacting with you
…and a myriad of other factors.

These assessments are part of our hard wiring.  It’s how we inform ourselves about how safe we feel in environments and how much we trust and like people.

There are many excellent books to go deeper into these subjects, but here are some highlights you can use immediately to be more conscious of how you influence and how you are influenced.

Influential Confident Body Language

•    Posture – (Your mom probably told you these thing a million times.) Pretend there is a string on the top of your head being pulled up.  Drop the tension in your shoulders and pull them back so that your chest moves forward.  Straighten your back.
•    Presence – Lean back and take up space.  This is how people who are strong, in control, confident and happy naturally carry themselves.
•    Face - Smile.  You’ll look and feel better and you’ll be more inviting to people.  Drop the tension in your jaw.  Most people clench their jaw most of their waking hours without knowing it.
•    Eye contact – Look people in the eye, but not in a creepy way.  No staring contests unless you want to give off a stalker vibe.  When you make eye contact you make a deep connection and take in deeper levels of people’s personalities.
•    Arms and hands – Crossing your arms and legs don’t necessarily mean you’re closed off, but if that’s your usual way of holding yourself it’s not good.  Keep your hands out of your pockets unless you want to be weak and submissive.
•  Leg Stance – Stand in a manner that’s open with your weight on one leg.  This stance communicates that you are both confident and approachable.

Voice
•    Tone – Deep voices command attention more easily.  Soft voices are harder to hear though they also cause the listener to work harder to hear you, which makes the listener more attentive.
•    Pacing – Speaking slowly has a similar affect to speaking softly and shows that you’re centered and calm.  Speaking fast conveys feeling off-center and reactive to outer circumstances.

All of these suggestions begin with your attitude.  If you have a positive, passionate, confident, happy attitude your physical attributes will reflect those characteristics.  Ditto for a mindset that’s depressed and complaining.

Don’t get it backwards though.  Your physiology is MUCH stronger in informing your attitude and moods than the other way around.  So even if you don’t feel great, take on some of the body language above and watch how it shifts how you feel.

Tags: attraction, body, body language, communication, nonverbal communication, physiology, voice

Sexy time.  It’s not always at the same habitual time like breakfast or teeth brushing time, right?  Or is it?

Researchers at the University of Texas did a study in 2007 with 2,000 participants that revealed 237 reasons why people have sex.  (Really, they couldn’t stretch it to 250 to get a good round number?)  But, you won’t find much published information on when people have sex …unless you’re a marketer.

We all know that sex sells and subliminal advertising sells.  Therefore one would expect marketers and advertisers to be all over research on sex, and they are.  If you’d like to know when people have sex it’s very easy to find the answer.  Just open a magazine.

If you choose any magazine randomly and flip through the pages you will notice that most, if not all, of the ads for watches feature prominent watch faces set to 10:10.  Why?  Because statistically most people have sex at 10 pm.

Some of us are morning sex people, and some of us prefer sex earlier or later than 10 pm, but the research in marketing circles says that most of us like our sexy time when we turn the lights out at 10 pm.

The question is, “Does it work?”  Well, I’ve never looked at an ad for a watch and become aroused or felt compelled to buy a watch much less look at the one on my wrist.  But maybe I’m the exception.  What happens to you when you see a big, handsome bold-faced watch set to 10:10?

I bet you didn’t know you could learn so much from a watch ad in a magazine.  When they pay that much attention to try make a watch sexy just imagine what goes into trying to sell you a pair of sexy shoes or a brand new car.

…and after you open a magazine and see this, the answer is “Yes, I am psychic and I’m reading your mind.” (It’s a side effect of studying psychology, influence and persuasion.)

Tags: consumer, consumer behavior, magazine ads, magazine advertisements, magazines, sex, sex in advertising, sex in marketing, sex sells, sexy time, subliminal advertising, watch ads, watch advertisements, watches