tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31670725131526524182024-03-13T21:08:59.960-07:00The Creativity GuyA blog about creating great things, and then spreading them.Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-43792291770584556012012-10-16T09:03:00.002-07:002012-10-16T09:03:37.092-07:00Hegarty on Advertising-part 2 <br />
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Here’s part 2 of my collection of posts looking at John
Hegarty’s memoir “Hegarty on Advertising”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hegarty writes that truth is one of the most powerful
strategies you can employ in advertising. And humour is an incredibly powerful
tool to be truthful in advertising: don’t deny the facts, make a joke about
them. Like in this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWTJ_TPraLQ" target="_blank">Skoda advert</a>. </div>
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Another insight from Hegarty is that you can take a
perceived weakness of a product/brand, realise it is unique and turn it into a
selling point. This is what he did with Boddingtons and “The Cream of
Manchester” campaign. Conventional wisdom said that “creaminess” was not an attribute
anyone looked for in a beer. But Hegarty disagreed: “Here was a beer that was
differentiated by its creamy head…It was and is what made it different. It was
the truth of the brand. So, we created the slogan “The cream of Manchester” and
exaggerated the creamy aspect of the beer showing it as an ice-cream cone, as
shaving cream, as hair cream…we captured the consumers imagination with
irreverent images and, in doing so, turned Boddingtons into a cult brand.” Here’s
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEEU1nQeGNA" target="_blank">one of the adverts</a>.</div>
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The idea of the weakness of a brand being what made it
interesting reminded me of an article I read in the Style magazine in The
Sunday Times this weekend by Stephen Bayley, in an essay on beauty. I have to
admit a philosophical investigation of aesthetics is not what I expected to
read in the Style magazine, which is normally just a series of meditations on
what pants are cool, or whether I should hate myself for not knowing Prince
Harry. I digress. Bayley wrote:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Perfection is always tiresome. In human affairs, variety,
risk, hazard, and surprise are much more interesting than predictability and
order”. He went on “Beauty and ugliness are not opposites. They are part of the
same thing: it’s called aesthetics”. The lesson? THE WORST THING ABOUT YOUR
BRAND MIGHT BE THE BEST THING TO SELL IT WITH.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hegarty writes that great advertisers aren’t just doing a
job, they’re expressing their beliefs. They are evangelists, they believe in
what they are doing. They have belief and passion that what they are saying is
important. And this gives them that secret sauce of brilliant communication:
conviction. You can smell conviction is advertising and in products. They feel
authentic, important, confident. Apple products cannot be separated from the
spirit of Steve Jobs who challenged himself, his staff and the world to “think
different”. This ideology is authentic and bleeds into everything Apple do, and
is best summed up by<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFEarBzelBs&feature=fvwrel" target="_blank"> this classic advert</a>. </div>
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Brilliant ads don’t just try to sell. They try to inspire,
improve, empower. Arguably Channel 4s brilliant promo for the Paralympics did
more to change attitudes to the disabled in this country than the event itself.
Remind yourself of the great work<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuAPPeRg3Nw" target="_blank"> here</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-42701013153463309172012-10-16T08:21:00.002-07:002012-10-16T09:15:48.824-07:00John Hegarty on advertising (and what Nelson Mandela might say)<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Hegarty has been behind some of the most memorable
adverts of the past 20 years. Such as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT4DR_ae_4o" target="_blank">this</a>. He’s the author of the memoir “Hegarty on Advertising”,
widely regarded as one of the finest books on the subject. In a series of posts, I will reflect on some of his ideas and use them as a backbone for some
personal thoughts on advertising.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first quote that sticks out from the book is this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“Creativity in advertising is all about the power of
reduction. Write less, say more.” </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most people would agree that this seems a core principle of
the craft. Brevity is not just the soul of wit, but also of good copy. Consoling
poetry, stirring song lyrics, funny jokes, and great copy are similar in one key
respect: the biggest amount of impact is crammed into the smallest number of
words. Examples of this abound in culture, for example:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the sentence “1984 is not going to be like 1984”, from
their 1984 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhsWzJo2sN4" target="_blank">Superbowl advert</a>, Apple said everything they needed to say about why
Macintosh computers were better than IBM (their main rival at the time). These
were computers for the people, the future is in our hands. Individual
expression will be victorious over autocratic uniformity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When, in Kerouac’s classic novel “On The Road”, the narrator,
Sal, remarks: “The road is life”, in four short words he offers an answer to universal
existential angst. Meaning is found in the journey, not at some destination at
the end of the road. The journey <i>is</i>
the destination. Life is the little moments that we thrive or despair in,
amidst a sea of nothingness and contingency. Life is a frothing, violent sea
that you must dive into: we should leap naively into the moment for that is all
there is, but that is enough. This was a rebellion against the creeping conformity
of 1950s America: where happiness or meaning was to be up found at the top of a
hill somewhere, whether that hill be made of money or God. “The road is life”:
a world of subtext lives in those 4 words.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We all have our favourite song lyrics, lyrics that sum up a kaleidoscope
of emotion in an abrupt flourish. “Slow Show” by The National for me sums up
what it is like to be in love “You know I dreamed about you for 29 years before
I saw, I missed you for 29 years”. And “Sorrow” sums up what it’s like to be
dumped: “Sorrows my body on the waves, sorrows a girl inside my cage, I live in
a city sorrow built, it’s in my honey it’s in my milk”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But back to Hegarty. He writes: “The function of an object is
now taken for granted, so our concern shifts from function to form”. Here he is
referring to <b>design</b> and <b>usability</b>. As consumers we want
something that looks fantastic and something that is easy to use. These are the
extra gifts in the box that make Apple products, for example, stand-out above all their
rivals. What does “the extra gifts in the box” mean? Well, it’s a phrase coined
by marketer Seth Godin and is best illustrated with an example: the iPhone isn’t
just a good phone (there are lots of good phones around), but it also looks
great, is very light, is intuitively simple to use, and is packed full of great
apps. It is full of little gifts to the consumer beyond being a phone, and
those extras are what make it stand-out. The phone bit is almost irrelevant.
Apple obsesses over usability and design, and their advertising demonstrates and
celebrates their comparative advantage brilliantly. Here's an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8oj1-NVe8" target="_blank">example</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apple’s products are so exceptional, so innovative, so stand-out,
that the marketing is built in. Hence the simplicity of their advertising: make
the product the star, and just demonstrate how easy it is to use, and how the
technology is relevant to people’s lives. Like<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McK1YT5R0lE" target="_blank"> this advert</a> for the iPad:
essentially just a series of simple vignettes about how it helps someone live a
full, and exciting life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the biggest themes of Hegarty’s book is the
importance of RELEVANCE. Advertising should reflect how people actually think,
talk and live. Intrinsic to an advert must be a sense of humanity: it must be
personal, it must reflect human values, worries, fears, needs, aspirations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As advertisers we seek to tell stories as efficiently and
compellingly as possible as to how the product is relevant to the consumer.
Here is a wonderfully simply <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtm4ySJQPOc" target="_blank">advert for the iPhone 5</a>. The take-out: there is a brilliant camera on the iPhone, and
it has a great feature that helps you with your family life. The technology is
not redundant, it is essential and useful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This focus on relevance reminds me of a quote from Bill
Bernbach in “Ogilvy On Advertising”:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“Shortly before he died, Bill was asked what changes he
expected in advertising in the 80s. He replied, “Human nature hasn’t changed
for a billion years. It won’t even vary in the next billion years. Only the
superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about the changing
man. A communicator must be concerned with the unchanging man-what compulsions
drive him, what instincts dominate his every action, even though his language
too often camouflages what really motivates him. For if you know all these
things about a man, you can touch him at the core of his being. One thing is
unchangingly sure. The creative man with an insight into human nature, with an
artistry to touch and move people will succeed. Without them he will fail.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While I’m throwing quotes around like an inebriated Stephen
Fry, here’s another corker from everyone’s go to good egg Nelson Mandella: <em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“If you talk to a man in a language he understands,
that goes to his</span></em><i> </i><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes
to his heart.” The take-away: make sure your advertising sings the same tune
the consumer is singing in their head. </span></em></span><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Great advertisers have an inspiring vision for the brand, and for the future in general, they have a point of view,
something to say, an angle on what’s important in life. They want to create a
zeitgeist, a movement, they want to change something. But part of being a
visionary is being an expert in reality.</span></em><i> </i>All comedy, all art, all good advertising, is essentially
observational. Communicating some human truth that we have noticed through
observation or personal experience. If you abstract what we do enough it comes
down to making a human truth tangible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It seems to me that a good question to ask yourself when
trying to promote a brand is to ask “What human good does the product help the
customer achieve?” When you have identified this universal human good, find a
way of personifying and exaggerating that in a campaign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s a brilliant example of this from Wieden and Kennedy,
specifically their Nike account: the “Find your Greatness” campaign. It
reflects the deep longing we all have to be great. Most of us will never be
heroes or legends. But greatness is democratic and relative, we
can all get glimpses at the exceptional in our everyday lives and that is an
inspiring idea. W&K capture this wonderfully <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hEzW1WRFTg" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsXRj89cWa0&feature=relmfu" target="_blank">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People are always thinking about
themselves. They are asking one question: what’s in it for me? You better have
a good answer otherwise no one is going to listen, they are just going to say:
“SO WHAT?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As Hegarty says with characteristic clarity “The key to
great marketing is never to forget about your audience”, he continues “What
makes someone who markets a brand so effective is their bringing the outside
world in”. Let life shine through your copy.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-922365623509066312012-10-14T05:13:00.001-07:002012-10-14T05:13:52.856-07:002 quotes<br />
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<u>Picasso<o:p></o:p></u></div>
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“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<u>The message left on the door of every GB Olympic athlete:<o:p></o:p></u></div>
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“How do you want to be remembered?”<o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-57601104823431601952012-10-12T03:35:00.000-07:002012-10-12T03:35:29.136-07:00What can you learn from the writer of Gladiator?<br />
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Sky Arts are currently showing
BAFTA’s star screenwriter lectures. I saw one starring John Logan on Saturday.
It was reassuring and fascinating for a number of reasons.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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People often say “I want to produce great work, but I have
another job!” Here is something to hearten you: John Logan, writer of Gladiator
and countless other great movies, spent 10 years working in a library and
writing plays on the side. The whole of Joy Division held down second jobs even
when they were huge (genuinely). Michael McIntyre worked in the Carphone
Warehouse for 5 years before turning full time pro. Phillip Larkin worked in
Hull University library for his entire career.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Another thing I found heartening about Logan was his
thoughts on re-writing: he wrote 26 drafts for Any Given Sunday. His first draft he submits for notes is after
dozens of personal drafts. He says:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Writing is easy. It’s the rewriting which is difficult.
Having to put a critical analysis to your work is grinding.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Finally, he says that when he writes films: “you’re always
looking for a visual metaphor” in a scene. And once you have a motif you can
seed it throughout the film.<o:p></o:p></div>
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To conclude, I thought I’d quote a section of that famous
speech from Any Given Sunday which seems relevant to the life of a creative,
and indeed almost anyone:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><b>“We’re in hell right now gentlemen, really, and we can stay
here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the
light, we can climb out of hell, one inch at a time…life’s a game of inches, so’s
football…the inches we need are everywhere around us, they’re in every break of
the game, every minute, every second, on this team we fight for that inch, on
this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that
inch, we claw with our finger nails for that inch. Because we know when we add
up all those inches that’s going to make the fucking difference between winning
and losing, between living and dying…that’s what living is: the six inches in
front of your face.”</b></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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So go and make that first small step, claw yourself forward
that inch, go make something. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Here’s Al Pacino making the point rather well: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4tIrjBDkk"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4tIrjBDkk</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-55589735455378605052012-10-10T04:06:00.003-07:002012-10-10T04:06:48.241-07:00What you can learn from Total Recall<br />
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People, like brands, can be redefined and re-launched.
Choose the right story from your personal history, but a different one to the
one you currently tell (to others and yourself).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Your brand positioning, what you stand for, who your brand
is, is almost entirely arbitrary and created. In the result of a variety of choices you've made about yourself, and a result of a series of determinant factors in your past that are beyond your control.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I watched the remake of Total Recall the other day. The
general story line is that a bad guy has given the good guy a new set of
memories so he doesn’t got back to being the legend he once was, and thus threatening the bad guy again, because he
can’t remember that he ever was that person in the first place.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In it, Howser, the good guy played by Colin Farrell, says an
amazing line to the bad guy as he rebels against him again despite his memory problems:</div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"> “Maybe I don’t remember who I was, but I know who
I am”. </span></i></div>
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THE LESSON:</div>
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You just need to decide in the moment what you stand-for, who you are,
what’s important. Your past, your memories are not important. They don’t need
to define you. We can reprogramme ourselves like Total Recall. Your self is
entirely constructed. All experience is an illusion. For people and for brands.<o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-65558048717987307502012-10-09T05:32:00.002-07:002012-10-09T05:32:47.733-07:00Mark Watson on culture<br />
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The comedian Mark Watson did a tweet the other day which
said “Basically the audience gets the comedy it wants (both at local level and
in more general terms).” <o:p></o:p></div>
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The point is that the gate-keepers of culture: the channel
controllers, the advertisers etc are responsible for guiding public taste. They
set the agenda, the cultural bar, by what they let onto our screens and so on.
Artists must react to that taste and give the audience largely what they want,
otherwise they won’t have an audience. </div>
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Basically: don’t blame the creative for
cultural decline. Blame the gate-keepers that have started this race to the
bottom.<o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-69403380775733887112012-10-08T05:26:00.002-07:002012-10-08T05:26:40.332-07:00A quote worth reading...<br />
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“Champions are comfortable feeling uncomfortable”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Are you pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone every
day with your creative challenges? It’s the only way you’ll get better.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-80901686406036017842012-10-07T04:49:00.003-07:002012-10-07T04:49:45.742-07:00Intuition<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have an amazing emotional brain that makes millisecond
calculations as to whether something is good or bad, dangerous or safe, funny
or unfunny, before our rational brain can even consider the evidence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Your emotional brain is normally right.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thus your intuition is probably the best way to find things
that others will connect to. Because it finds things that emotionally satisfy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Learn to trust your intuition, and find ways to unlock your
unthinking brain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Further reading: Malcom Gladwell, “Blink”.<o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-89496774775441232302012-10-06T13:51:00.005-07:002012-10-06T13:51:51.482-07:00Impact<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
People aren’t moved by logic, or by ethics (by what’s right
or deserved). They are moved by emotion:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Anger.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Dominance. Authority. Power. Energy. Charisma.
Conviction. Power-differentials. Promise of safety. (as in you show these
things)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Surprise/novelty, exciting.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Inspired, hopeful, important, ten feet tall.
Passion. Vision. Optimism. Enthusiasm. Aspiration.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Momentum. Feel good-factor.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->6.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Humour.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->7.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Story.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->8.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Fear. (especially fear of loss)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->9.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Status, competitive.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->10.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Kinship. Group mentality. Hatred of others.
Leverage difference.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->11.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Sentimentality and nostalgia.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Basically make them anticipate experiencing pleasure or pain
in the future, in all their shades. Or tell a story about someone else
experiencing these emotions, and people’s empathy will allow them to imagine
these feelings in themselves.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What makes emotion more powerful? Contrast. Impact is all
about contrast. Something loving followed by something ambivalent and
thoughtless increases attraction. Hot followed by cold makes the cold colder
and the hot hotter. And so on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rule number one: don’t be boring.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rule number two: don’t be right, make an impact.<o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-64181391434072474652012-10-05T07:57:00.003-07:002012-10-05T07:59:18.861-07:00The Hole-part 3<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this final section, I’ll look at overcoming “the hole”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How do you know if you’ve overcome it? People will start
using words like “strong”, “composed”, “poised”, “confident”, “conviction”,
“presence” to describe you.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is an aura. A special energy. It shines out of every pore
on your body when you have it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is about how much you think you’re worth. Not what
society or other people think.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what specific techniques can you use to achieve it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
1.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->For most people, school, sometimes university
too, defines them. If they weren’t popular there, or had experienced some sort
of person trauma (been fat, spotty, nerdy etc), they carry around that baggage
forever. Don’t let failing at a popularity contest once define your decisions
for the rest of your life. Make friends with your past and focus on the future.
Memory management is key: focus on the memories that empower you. What is the
story you tell yourself, about yourself? Make sure it’s a positive one. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
2.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Affirmations can help if you don’t find them too
wanky.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
3.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Get comfortable receiving. Also, promise
yourself to be honest with people about how you’re feeling.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
4.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Your attitude to failure is crucial: Move away
from outcome dependency. Embrace uncertainty and risk, understand it is normal
and exciting. Have an abundance mentality: if this doesn’t come off, then there
are plenty of opportunities round the corner anyway.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
5.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Make sure you have a sense of narrative in your
life, a plan, a feeling of momentum towards a better future, some goals. This
does wonders for self-esteem.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
6.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Glover’s method is as follows, and is basically
a form of CBT:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Have awareness of these ridiculous thoughts you have, and
then get good at interrupting and challenging them. Slowly you can change these
thought patterns, these neural pathways.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Identify how your thoughts are distorted, then develop the
skill of rational responses. This is not positive mental attitude bull shit.
You come up with an alternative interior dialogue that is closer to reality,
that sucks the power out of negative thought, out of the distorted thought.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
7.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->One of the biggest realisations you can make is
that people in general don’t want you to be perfect. Perfect is robotic, and
people can’t relate to robots. They want warts and all. They want flawed
people. People they can see themselves in. That’s who they connect to,
sympathise with: commonality makes them care. People with “the hole” spend
their lives trying to change themselves for the better, making themselves into
superheroes (or at least hiding their flaws). The tragedy is that this won’t
make them more liked. If you are embarrassed
by your flaws, and find your own human limits undignified and shameful
then you won’t show them. And ironically you doom yourself to becoming unlovable.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
8.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Leverage the pain of your present: how much you
hate how you are, make it vivid. Don’t sell yourself short, denying yourself
peak experiences/moments, by cowering. And leverage the pleasure of being centred
and self-sufficient mentally: imagine that feeling.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
9.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Remember fear is illusory. Fear is a superficial
consequence of a lack of self-worth. Personal value is an antidote to fear, and
a perfect preventative measure. Fear is thinking “I’m going to look stupid”,
but if you’re not worried about looking stupid, if you have a core sense of
self-worth to buffer you against embarrassment, there is no fear.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally: it’s doesn’t matter where you are, what’s gone
before. We are defined by our decisions in the present. Martine Wright lost her
legs in 7/7. The day after, she told herself she was going to compete in the
2012 Paralympic games. And she did, in the sitting volleyball. In that one
decision she took back control of her life, and ripped meaning and purpose from
disaster. She decided to be positive and not let one event define her. What’s
your situation like compared to hers? Probably a tad easer id imagine. There is
no excuse.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Andrew Carnegie, the great industrialist, wrote “A man who
acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take
possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A journalist asked Ian
Poulter how, under the most immense pressure, he made 5 straight birdies on the
last 5 holes of his Ryder Cup match on Saturday evening to win what proved to
be a vital point for Europe. His answer: “It comes from within”. He believed.
He had prepared his mind. Just like you can.<o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-13430432451123207552012-09-30T15:55:00.002-07:002012-09-30T15:55:28.729-07:00The Hole-Part 2<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, how do you know if you have “the hole”?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do you cower in the corner? Are you afraid to lead? Do you
struggle to say no? Are you afraid of intimacy? Do you feel unsexy? Are you
submissive towards aggression? Do you say yes to requests for favours from
people even though you are too busy? Are you obsessed with work? Do you shy
away from social situations? Do you never argue? Does the idea of people disagreeing
with you or not laughing at your jokes fill you with dread? Do you feel sex
needs to last 2 hours and everybody needs to cum a dozen times? Do you assume your
opinions must be wrong? Then there’s a hole.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The biggest example of people with “the hole” is the classic
“nice guys”. I know because I am a recovering nice guy. The dichotomy is not
between nice guys and dicks, obviously no-one wants to be a dick. The
difference that matters is between nice guys and strong guys. Strong guys have
fixed the hole. That is where you want to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I want to look at nice guy syndrome in depth because it is one
of the biggest symptoms of “the hole”.
Most of the stuff below is borrowed from a psychologist called Robert
Glover who specialises in this topic. How do you know if you’re a nice guy?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nice guys believe that if they put other people needs before
theirs, then they’ll get their needs met.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nice guys are a child of their past, which seems a tautology,
but it summarises the key point that inner feelings of not-being good enough,
or low self-worth, of having something to prove, are a result of childhood
trauma. And I use trauma in its broad-sense. You don’t have to be have been
raped for it to affect your future, you could simply have gone to boarding school.
If things have gone wrong in the past, children tend to decide that it was
their fault. And when they take responsibility for things, they come to believe
that intrinsically they are pathetic and lacking in some way. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nice guys think “If I’m a nice guy, then everyone will like
me”, and they think also that being nice will be enough to get women to have
sex with them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nice guys find it uncomfortable to receive, which is why
they have trouble expressing their needs and wants. They feel they are not worthy
of the love of others, and are afraid if they express what they want that if
will drive away other people. Nice guys end up being involved in relationships
therefore which are akin to mother and child relationships: with women, with
their friends, with their colleagues. The love becomes unconditional, but other
people rarely love them back in the same way: they don’t reciprocate because
they don’t know the nice guy wants it because he’ll never talk about or express
what he wants. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At some level, everything a nice guy does is aimed at
getting someone else’s approval or avoid their disapproval. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nice guys find it easier to relate to women rather than
other men, because they have alienated themselves from their own natural
masculinity. They seek validation from women, and external validation from
everyone in-fact, and by being different from other men, by being good
listeners, by hiding any sexual agenda from women they think women will value
them and think they are good people.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nice guys are fundamentally dishonest. If you are trying to
get people’s approval you won’t say what you really think, or what you really
want, or what you really feel, you’ll shy away from conflict. If you’re not
honest you’re never get what you want, because being honest is a way of tacitly
asking for something, and if you don’t ask you’ll never get.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nice guys are secretive because they don’t want to seem
imperfect. But if you aren’t willing to be imperfect then you aren’t willing to
let people know you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The hole” leads to perfectionism: trying to be perfect,
brilliant, hiding ones flaws. Nice guys live in a perpetual state of anxiety:
you aren’t going to get everybody to like you, and you aren’t always going to
do everything right. You will never relax, and if you can’t relax then others
can’t relax around you. Including crowds!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sexual desires are what nice guys tend to hide most. Because
they are ashamed of them, they have somehow learnt culturally that they are
dirty.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Shame is a core component of nice-guy syndrome. Shame is a sense of core defectiveness. That
you are not enough, that you are deficient in some way. It comes from an
inaccurate interpretation of life events: that it is your fault, and the
problem is permanent and pervasive.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Glover talks about the integrated male, the opposite of a
nice guy, who has a strong sense of self, takes responsibility for getting his
own needs met, is comfortable with sexuality, does what he thinks is right,
he’s a leader, he’s expressive of his feelings, he’s nurturing but not afraid
to set boundaries.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s a model of masculinity which isn’t anxiety driven. The
aim is to not be driven by feelings of self-loathing and low self-worth, or
worrying you are not good enough. The nice guy tries to manage his anxiety by
pleasing people. The integrated man has learnt how to soothe is anxiety, to
combat it as source. He is self-aware of his anxiety and manages it from
within, rather than trying to manage it by attaining results outside himself:
by achieving things, or pleasing people. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Becoming an integrated man (or woman) shows you have fixed “the
hole”. You have abolished approval seeking behaviour. You have established a
core sense of self-worth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As soon as you seek someone’s approval you assume they have
higher value than you, you put them of a pedestal and this will make you
anxious. Individuals and crowds are turned off by anxiety, anxiety is
contagious and makes people feel awkward, people are security seeking creatures
and want to be with a guy who makes them feel relaxed and secure in the
knowledge that everything is going to be alright. The crowd, as a group of security
seeking creatures, doesn’t want to feel like the most powerful person in the
room, they want to feel like the man they’re with is stronger and more powerful
than them. There is a dominance factor going on: crowds respond to dominance.
If you’re seeking a crowd’s approval you’ve made them dominant, and they will
assume you have low value. <o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-18787935008507900212012-09-29T05:28:00.001-07:002012-09-29T05:28:40.589-07:00The Hole<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
This article is about improving your mind-set in order to
make you a better creative. It might make you a more successful and happier
person too. Personal development (becoming a better stand-up or whatever) is
not domain specific. It is a holistic process, an ideology, a life philosophy. The
ideas in here may seem tangential to what you are trying to do, but I believe they
are crucial, and I’ll explain why. I’ll post this article in 3 parts over consecutive
days.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Part One<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I saw shows in Edinburgh this year that possessed something
that I don’t have in my locker at the moment: conviction. This was vividly
present in some of the best performers I saw up there: Daniel Kitson, Josie
Long, Alfie Brown. In comparison, my persona and my material is slightly
apologetic, needy, validation seeking. That is, it lacks a deep sense of
confidence in the show or myself. This influences the content (you go for crowd
pleasing, easy laughs) and the perception (conviction is seductive: stand-up,
life indeed, is all smokes and mirrors, it is a magic trick).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In stand-up, people often perform to fill a hole in
themselves. Your aim is to perform to fill a hole in other people. Find
something worth saying, and say it with conviction.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Your hole cannot be fixed by performing. It can only be
fixed by changing how you think about life and yourself. And if you leave the
hole unfixed, you will have a tangible neediness which will affect the
performance, your relationships, your life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What is the hole? It is a lack of self-worth, which results
in outcome dependency. It can be hard to admit to yourself of others that you
have “the hole”, but an honest analysis of your current reality is the first
essential step in self-improvement. This article is my admission, and it has
been difficult to write.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We live in a society which attacks our self-worth pretty
much constantly. Our culture convinces us that personal value and happiness is something
that must be attained, that it lies outside of us, something that needs to be
achieved, bought, worn. But that isn’t true. Who you are, the person you’ve
become and are becoming, your vision: that is enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This all affects your creativity because it negatively
colours your attitude to risk: you need affirmation so you don’t risk not
having it. Therefore: you go for clichés, for the mainstream, you take a consequentialist
approach. You end up with something boring, average, easy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People often say “you must be confident! You’re a performer!”
People think being a performer is a symbol of strength. It is often actually a
symbol of weakness. Performance is an addiction (like alcohol, co-dependency,
or drugs) that we use to fill the hole. Skill won’t fix the hole though, sex
won’t fix the hole, getting bigger muscles won’t fix the hole, stuff won’t fix
the hole: you can only fix the hole by changing the way you think about
yourself and the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>TBC</b></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-64579450420127975762012-09-27T04:56:00.000-07:002012-09-27T04:56:00.967-07:00Perception is a prison: cause a jail break<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Photos show us the reality.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Paintings help us to see it better.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is true of all great art.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Great art gives us new glasses.<o:p></o:p></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-6407052627737636672012-09-26T09:21:00.000-07:002012-09-26T09:27:41.211-07:00Magic<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Seth Godin did a great blog post the other day which I
thought I would share. You can read his blog<a href="http://sethgodin.com/" target="_blank"> here</a>. Here is the aforementioned
post:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 11.9pt; margin-bottom: 6.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: .65pt;">
<a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/08/a-figment.html"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">A figment</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 11.9pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">It seems like the only thing you can be a figment of is
someone's imagination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 11.9pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">Andy Warhol<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/08/06/157776348/in-warhols-memory-soup-cans-and-coke-bottles" target="_self"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">wanted</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">the word FIGMENT etched on his tombstone. He understood that the
only place he actually existed (and will exist forever) is in the imagination
of other people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 11.9pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">No, the falling tree in the empty forest makes no noise, and
your project or your brand doesn't exist except as a figment in someone else's
imagination. The challenge, then, isn't to worry so much about what's happening
in the real world, outside, but to work overtime to be sure you exist in the
figment world, inside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 11.9pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">You don't need proof. You need belief.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 11.9pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
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The takeaway:
people’s perception of you or your product is all that is real.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Life is a magic trick. That’s all it is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If you are trying to win reality, rather than perception,
you will lose.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I read a book by a famous US election pollster once, his
mantra was “it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear”. This reminded me of another
Godin blog the other day about categories…<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/09/i-want-to-put-you-in-a-category.html"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">I want to put you
in a category</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">When I meet you or your company or
your product or your restaurant or your website, I desperately need to put it
into an existing category, because the mental cost of inventing a new category
for every new thing I see is too high.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I
am not alone in this need. In fact, that's the way humans survive the onslaught
of newness we experience daily.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Of
course, you can refuse to be categorized. You can insist that it's unfair that
people judge you like this, that the categories available to you are too
constricting and that your organization and your offering are too unique to be
categorized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">If
you make this choice, the odds are you will be categorized anyway. But since
you didn't participate, you will be <b>mis</b>categorized, which is far
worse than being categorized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 7.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">So
choose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Make
it easy to categorize you and you're likely to end up in the category you are
hoping for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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What’s the point I’m making? The truth about you and your
art is irrelevant. People don’t see the nuance, the texture, the shades of
grey. They see black and white and they make lazy comparisons to what they’ve
seen before.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This can occasionally serve you. But it can work against
you. One reviewer in Edinburgh accused me of being hack. That is a serious
criticism in the comedy world. Why did they do this? Well, I had material on
some topics that hack comedians use. So she put me in the “hack” category,
ignoring the vast amount of material that wasn’t deserving of this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This can work in lots of different ways. Think your one
wanking gag doesn’t make a difference and people will ignore it? Think again.
In one joke they’ve put you in a category with the wanking guys. Think the fact
that you wearing just a t-shirt on stage doesn’t make much difference? Think
again, you’ve been put in with the rest of the pack. They assume mediocrity
because you dress like the mediocre guys. Think girls will see beyond your shyness and see the real you? Think again, you've been put in the category of "gutless loser" with all the other guys who didn't have the balls to challenge them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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You need to care about people’s perception of you, not about
who you really are. That is the only thing that will impact their decisions on
you: to like or hate you, to buy or not buy your product, to hire or note hire
you. The pre-existing categories make it
easy for them to make a category error with you. You need to work to ensure
they don’t do that.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW? THIS IS A FREE POST. RE-PAY ME BY SHARING IT OR BY JOINING THE MAILING LIST. THANKS</span></b></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-39380122714154053202012-08-16T09:54:00.000-07:002012-08-16T09:54:07.229-07:00Brutal Simplicity Of Thought (or what Daniel Kitson may have learnt from the 1979 General Election)<br />
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I have just read “Brutal Simplicity Of Thought” by Charles
Saatchi. It is essentially the training manual for new staff at his advertising
agency. Read it. Here are the first few pages (almost) in full because they are
so brilliant:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>If you want your work
to achieve the impossible, you will be need Brutal Simplicity Of Thought.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>You will need a deep
distaste for waffle, vagueness, platitudes and flim flam-a strong preference to
get to the point.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Your mind will become
a threshing machine, sorting the intellectual wheat from the chaff.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Winston Churchill was
a great believer in simplicity. He liked to quote Blaise Pascal’s letter to a
friend that started:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“I didn’t have time to
write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>He knew that to
achieve simplicity is very hard. He understood that it required what Bertrand
Russell called:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>“The painful necessity
of thought”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Simplicity is more
than a discipline: it is a test. It forces exactitude or it annihilates. It
accelerates a failure when a cause is weak, and it clarifies and strengthens a
cause that is strong.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>When President
Roosevelt wanted to persuade a profoundly isolationist America to help Britain
in her hour of need, he invented a simple phrase to help him to do it. He
called his policy:</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i><o:p></o:p></i><i>“Lend-Lease”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>And he used simple
language to express it:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>“Suppose my
neighbour’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose...if he can
take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help put out the
fire...I don’t say to him before that operation, “Neighbour, my garden hose
cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it”...I don’t want $15-I want my garden
hose back after the fire is over”.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>That’s how it was
done. A simple story of a fire and a hose. The rest is history.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The most powerful
rallying cries are simple and to the point:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“Your country needs
you!”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“No taxation without
representation!”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“One man! One vote!”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>There was nothing
complicated about:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“Liberte, Egalite,
Fraternite”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Nobody had to explain
what it meant when they heard John F Kennedy say:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>“The torch has been
passed to a new generation of Americans”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Nobody needed further
elucidation when they heard:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“Do unto others as you
would be done by”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Or when Martin Luther
King said:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“I have a dream”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>In all aspects of
life, simplicity rules. It means the only possible words in the only possible
order.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Simplicity in poetry</i></b><i>.
John Keats was sitting in a coffee shop with his friend, Stephens.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>He was writing. He
said:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“A thing of beauty is
a constant joy. What think you of that, Stephens?”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>No response from
Stephens. Keats carried on. Half an hour later, Keats said:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“A thing of beauty is
a joy forever”.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>That, his friend said,
will last forever. And it did.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Simplicity in art. </i></b><i>Delacroix
explained:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“If you are not
skilled enough to sketch a man falling out of the window during the time it
takes to get him from the fifth story to the ground, then you will never be
able to produce monumental work.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Simplicity in prose. </i></b><i>Is
it any wonder that Kafka lives forever, when you consider the opening words of
the trial:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“Someone must have
laid a false accusation against Joseph K because one morning he was arrested
without having done anything wrong.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Simplicity in drama. </i></b><i>Hamlet
has become the most performed play in history because Shakespeare captured the
human dilemma in ten words:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“To be or not to be,
that is the question”.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Simplicity in politics</i></b><i>.
During Britain’s darkest hour, Winston Churchill was presented with the
proposal for a Local Defence Volunteers Force, to be Britain’s last stand in
the event of a German invasion. The LDVF. He liked the plan. And approved it.
But he didn’t like the name. He changed it to:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“The Home Guard”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>And so it became.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The post war 1918
general election was won by Lloyd George, with five words:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“A land fit for
heroes”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>In the post war 1945
general election, Clement Atlee defeated the war hero Winston Churchill with
nine words:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“We won the war. And
now-win the peace.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The Conservatives were
helped to win the 1979 general election by three words:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“Labour isn’t working”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>You hear it said that
this search for simplicity is insulting the intelligence of the general public,
or treating them like morons. On the contrary, it is a mark of respect for the
listener. The world is always short of time, so précis is a form of good
manners.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Furthermore: words
spell money...<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Simplicity in business. </i></b><i>Every
day, a blind man sat on the pavement in Central Park. He had his hat in front
of him, begging for money. A sign read:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“I am blind”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Passers-by ignored
him. One day, an advertising man saw his plight. He altered the wording on his
sign and cash started pouring into the hat. What had he done? He had changed
the sign to read:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“It is spring and I am
blind”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>When William Proctor
and James Gamble started Proctor and Gamble, they only had one insignificant
product-Ivory Bar Soap. Until they added the slogan:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“99 44/100% Pure”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>That was the beginning
of the Proctor and Gamble legend.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Simplicity rules. </i></b><i>Consider
the three iconic documents of Western civilisation. There really are only three
of them. And they really did change the world. Their aim was revolution. Their
effect was revelation. You need only look at them to be inspired. You will be
deeply affected by all three. To read them afresh is to understand the power of
simplicity. You don’t need a Harvard PHD to follow any of them:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Their opening and
closing words say it all. They are of course:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The Sermon On The
Mount, by Jesus Christ.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The Declaration of
Independence, by the Founding Fathers of America.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The Communist
Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The first founded perhaps
the greatest religion ever seen:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Open: And seeing the
multitudes...he opened his mouth and taught them, saying...<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Close: And it came to
pass...people were astonished at his doctrine.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The second made one
country into a superpower:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Open: We, the people,
hold these truths to be self-evident.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Close: ...we mutually
pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>And the third launched
what Isaiah Berlin called the greatest organised social movement of all time:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Open: The history of
all previously existing society is the history of class struggle<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Close: Workers of the
world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Nobody can resist that
kind of simplicity. Its reach is global. It strikes a chord in humans
everywhere. Nobody is immune.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Their Brutal
Simplicity Of Thought allowed them to change the world.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>With Brutal Simplicity
of Thought nothing is impossible.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Happy ending. </i></b><i>There is an
unexpected by-product of this process; it makes people happy. It enables the
human mind to function at its best, and to be supremely effective.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>It allows you to have
a romantic belief in your ability to change the world by an act of
breathtakingly brutal simplicity. It is a licence to reject the status quo. It leads to a determined conviction that
you, acting alone or almost single-handedly, can make what seems highly
improbable, in fact happen.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>So that even the
meekest can meet life with the possibility of mastering its difficulties. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The people who do not
have such beliefs are miserable. They are mere men of commerce: non-believers,
empty suits.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>By contrast, such men
and women as you, find happiness in transforming one form of life into another.
You know you can permanently and radically alter the outlook and values of a
significant body of human beings.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>You will have power
through what John F Kennedy called:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“The mastery of the
inside of men’s minds”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Particularly your
own...<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Maurice Saatchi,
September 2011.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Good huh?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m at the Edinburgh festival doing a stand-up show. It’s
good. But not on the same planet as Daniel Kitson’s stand-up show, which is the
best show of any kind I’ve ever seen. Just phenomenal. Kitson understands the
power of simplicity. He can provide whole worlds of insight in dense
one-liners. He reminds me of Samuel Beckett in this respect (e.g. on habit “we
are like dogs chained to our own vomit”). The phrases I remember from his show
this year include:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The result is an imposter in football” (quoting the Spanish
player Xavi on how outcome doesn’t necessarily reflect objective quality or
effort); “Life is the incremental death of hope”; “Life is a series of
impossible things that slowly become inevitable”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are many more simple but evocative similes, metaphors
and one-liners too. But these are the phrases I remember most clearly. I only
remember them because I listened to them. And I listened to them because they
were contained within compelling and hilarious stories. We must sugar the pill.
But the pill must be easy to swallow on its own terms i.e. SIMPLE.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Creativity, originality, insightfulness: these are all
difficult. Complexity is not. Do not mistake one for the other.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kitson is the master of observation, or the minutiae of
human life, or the “quiet dignity of unwitnessed lives”, of the divinity of the
everyday. Observational material gets a bad name, people see it as simple,
easy. But visionaries are necessarily masters of reality. We all wander through
life almost in a coma, blinded by an anaesthetic of familiarity (this is a
Richard Dawkins line). What we see most is the hardest to see. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So look for what everybody else is blind to, and open their
eyes to it with poetic simplicity. They will think you a magician.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think I’ll finish this post with another example from
Saatchi’s book. It is a quote from Picasso: “It took me a whole life-time to
learn how to draw like a child”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Complete essentialism is beautiful. Kitson does it, Picasso
did it, let us all aim for it. It will be rewarded by impact.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-42419915492225882392012-07-16T07:17:00.000-07:002012-07-16T07:17:09.295-07:00Why Batman is a role model for you, but Bruce Wayne is a chump<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
A thing you hear a lot in comedy (and in life) is “just be
yourself”. But what if people aren’t that interested when you are being
yourself? What if you could do more of the things you wanted to do if you
actually behaved in a different way than perhaps is natural for you to do?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I read an interview today with Dale Steyn the magnificent
South African fast bowler who will be leading their attack against England in
the Test series which starts on Thursday. It was pointed out that he was shy
and relentlessly polite and humble off the field, but aggressive, cocky and
outgoing on it. He was asked why. He said “Once I step over that white line I
become The Bowler”. He is pointing out that he in fact has two independent
selves, two characters that he employs at different times. He is himself (shy,
self-effacing, quiet) when he is off the field, but he turns on a special
persona that helps him get results when he is performing on the field of play.
He knows that by being The Bowler he will intimidate batsmen, fire up his team and
himself, and take more wickets. He is not religiously wed to the mantra: be
yourself. Here’s the new mantra: be yourself, unless you would get better
results being someone else.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why are people wedded to their “selves”? There is nothing about
their current self that is intrinsic to them: our self is a blank slate when we
are born, an empty vase, that is filled by factors we have no control over
throughout our life: our family, friends, teachers, life experiences. We are
everyone, but no one. So why not change it? Get control over your “self”,
rather than leave it to the random forces of fate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Showmanship is one of the most crucial components of a world
class entertainer, yet it is one of the hardest qualities to foster in yourself
because it rarely comes naturally. And showmanship is not necessarily a
character trait you want to have at all times: socially, for example, it is
over-bearing and irritating. So we programme ourselves to be modest, quiet, to
not rock the boat, to shun attention or pass it on quickly if we receive it. We
try not to lead people socially either, because we don’t want to be bossy and
people don’t want to get told what to do. But showmanship is about leading a
crowd, and crowds want a leader. Showmanship is about uber-confidence, showing
off, energy, charisma, exaggeration, outrageousness. It’s about revelling in
the attention and putting on a show that makes people excited. It’s about not
being you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s up to you to create this unforgettable persona. Russell
Brand quotes the Simpson’s creator Matt Groening who said that cartoon
characters should be recognisable in silhouette. He said that having read that “At
that point I made the decision to be distinctive looking”. He created an
artifice. It was an artistic and career based choice, it didn’t come from his
own “self”. The performance persona of the person doesn’t really exist, it is a
carefully created and presented fictional package (although the performance
persona and real person may eventually over-lap in time: for example, Brand
says he feels more comfortable in his performance persona because the rules and
expectations are much simpler). Having a separate performer self is freeing:
criticism is no longer personal, and you are without the constraints of your
previous identity so you can express yourself in a different ways. The
performance self is simply an entertainer, a concept, a separate thing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On this subject, I read an interview with Lady Gaga once who
said that “to be famous, you have to act famous”. She went on:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I was interested in the idea that if you carry yourself in
a certain way people will wonder who you are. The way I dressed and talked
about music, art and fashion, people said, I don’t know who she is, but I want
to know who she is.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Being “you” may not be enough to be famous: to attract and
lead a following, in any walk of life. You may not want to be famous, fair
enough. But surely you want to have impact in some way?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No one is saying you have to have this big persona, this
stand-out showman front, all the time. If you have created it then it can be
something you can turn on and off. Marilyn Munroe could turn herself on and
off: she could walk down the street as Norma Jeane Mortenson and nobody would
recognise her. But if she walked down the street as Marilyn she would be
mobbed. She knew the rules of that persona, and she could inhabit it in a heartbeat
when she needed to have impact. Both personas manifested themselves totally
differently, and had different aims and domains. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s time that you became schizophrenic. Leave you in the
dressing room: when you walk on that stage you are someone else. All the rules
are out of the window. You are Batman now, not Bruce Wayne.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-10409863071083546522012-07-13T06:06:00.001-07:002012-07-13T06:06:47.497-07:00Why being clever isn’t going to cut it (Or what you can learn from the History Boys)<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s what I learnt last night at my preview. It’s one of
the most important things I’ve learnt in my career:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
IDEAS DON’T MOVE PEOPLE. STORIES ABOUT REAL PEOPLE DO.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Making logical arguments, presenting ideas, just bores
people. They feel they are being lectured. They turn off. Or even if they are
interested in what you are saying they can’t take it all in because they are
focussing on listening and interacting with your show.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So don’t bother with the clever ideas, the clever arguments.
They will go in one ear and out of the other.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People rarely remember the message, but they do remember the
holistic effect: how they felt in the show. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Always put the stories first, and the takeaway last. The
story grips and moves, putting them in the palm of your hand, when they are
there give them the gift of the idea as pithy as possible before their mind
wanders off somewhere else.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s another thing I learnt:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
WHAT YOU THINK IS IMPORTANT/INTERESTING DOES NOT
NECESSARILLY EQUAL ENTERTAINMENT.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If people have come to be entertained, and you present
yourself as someone who provides that, then make sure you do your job. You are
a showman, not a preacher. An artist, not an academic. A comedian, not a
philosopher.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remember people aren’t judging your intellect. They are only
asking themselves one question: is this an enjoyable experience or not? Don’t
let your own intellectual insecurity, or pressure from snobbish “artists”,
crowd this fact.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s the paradox: by not trying to be too clever you are
being clever. Because the message will hit home. It will be simple, it will be
wrapped up in an authentic story that moves people, and therefore people will
remember it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clever doesn’t have impact. Clever doesn’t change people.
Stories do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before I go here’s something I thought about walking home
from my preview last night. No one cares about clever people who know lots of
stuff, not really. They don’t change things. They don’t have impact. They aren’t
memorable. They aren’t fun, or the sort of people you’d like to hang around
with. The key to life is to:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">1.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">Be Authentic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">2.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">Stand-out. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;"> (</span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">Don’t be right, be different.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s a quote you should print out and put above your desk.
It comes from Hector in the History Boys by Alan Bennett:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; padding: 0cm;">“The wrong end of the stick is
the right one. A question has a front door and a back door. Go in the back, or
better still, the side.</span> Flee the crowd. Follow Orwell. Be perverse…History
nowadays is not a matter of conviction. It’s a performance. It’s entertainment.
And if it isn’t, make it so... truth is no more at issue in an examination than
thirst at a wine-tasting or fashion at a strip-tease.”</em><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-8745484637057277172012-07-11T15:02:00.003-07:002012-07-11T15:02:39.201-07:00Believe<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">Some people aren’t going to get what you do. They will
totally not understand and think you are either mad or bad at what you do. They
are ignorant of three things in my experience:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -18pt;"> 1. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">Your domain: comedy, painting, music etc</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -18pt;"> 2. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">Your talent and vision and plan, and the
underlying reasons.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">3. What it takes to be excellent at something.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You must ignore these people, but it can be hard: they say
things that hurt. It is often people who are closest to you. For me it’s my
mum. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These people are stuck in a traditional ,straight down the
line understanding of what a good life is, a myopic view of what success looks
like. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Success is having a nice flat, a car, a wife, nice holidays,
money for stuff. And you should have better versions of these things as you get
older.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How do you get them? You do well at school and then go to a
good university to do a solid course with a view to getting a traditional job.
Whilst at university in your holidays you do work experience, and you may make
some token gesture of some cynically chosen extra-curricular activity that
looks good on your CV.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When you’ve left uni you join a traditional firm, in a
traditional industry, and apply yourself well. After successive promotions at
the same company, or perhaps a different one in the industry you retire at 60
with a nice pension.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You don’t question anything or rock the boat. You don’t
challenge yourself or others. You don’t explore your potential, follow the
meanderings of your passions and signature strengths. Dreams are for hippies
and children.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These people will patronise you for the rest of your life,
constantly misunderstand your ambitions and art, give you advice even though
they have no idea what they are talking about.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They will try and run you down. Put you off. Make you doubt
yourself. As life drains fr<span style="background-color: white;">om them as the banal monotony of their choices take
effect, they will grow jealous, feel empty, and this personal hurt will manifest
itself as criticism of you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Often they aren’t even doing it on purpose. They are
ignorant. They find it impossible to emphasise or understand. You are both
operating with different maps. And the map is not the landscape, but that’s a
hard principle to grasp: our perception of the world is all we have.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Excellence is a lonely journey. Dreams are expensive. Often
it will feel like nobody believes in you, they probably don’t. Even your family
and friends. Put you need to hold onto hope: faith is a key skill you must
foster. And remember faith is a work ethic, something you must practice. Have a
vision. Believe in your talent, and your plans. And remember to source your
happiness and self-esteem within yourself:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I am proud that I am following my dreams, my own path, that
I’m challenging myself constantly, putting myself out there in the arena. I am
proud to be the kind of person I am: dedicated to improving myself, being the
best version of me, living my best life and always looking for a better way. I
am proud to be a leader, to take initiative, rather than following the herd.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Keep going.</div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-17167331019134340022012-07-11T10:25:00.000-07:002012-07-11T10:25:04.387-07:00The incredible power of delete<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The “delete” button is the most important button on your key
board.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Often less is more. Simple is best.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By cutting stuff out, the things that remain have more
impact.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve learnt this from putting the finishing touches to my
Edinburgh show. <span style="background-color: white;">I’ve had to cut jokes that work, jokes that I like because
they don’t fit into the show. Perversely by losing the laughs I have made the
show better.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Delete is the hardest button to press, so get help doing it:
get notes from a director (like I did), do a draft and give it to someone else
to edit. Other people have a distance from your work that you cannot have. They
can give you rude truths that you might not see, or choose to ignore because
you don’t what to throttle your baby.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve not just cut jokes but also simplified the message. You
can say too much, diluting each message, and also confusing the piece. By
saying everything you say nothing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The takeaway: your editing is as important as your writing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another part of the power of delete is your decision when to
jettison a creative project, an idea, a joke. You should be ruthless in what
you cull from your output. By getting stuff that is crap off the slate you have
more time to come up with something better. Don’t waste time on something that
is average: kill it and come up with something else. When a joke I do dies at a
new material gig I don’t view that as a creative failure, I view that as a
creative victory: I know that joke is rubbish. I can let it go and try a
different one. People are slow to chuck stuff they have made away, but they are
just slowing up their progress. Put yourself under pressure to produce.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">1. B</span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">e prolific.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">2. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">Be ruthless. Delete your way to excellence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You shouldn’t just delete stuff that isn’t working. Delete
stuff that is working brilliantly after a set cut off point. Create a creative
obis to force yourself to come up with something new. You only get better by practicing,
by raising your bar, by putting yourself under pressure. How do you put yourself
under pressure? Take away the comfort zone of your body of work, prove yourself
all over again. Louis CK was meandering along, an average club act, but got
massive by deciding to turn over an hour long show every year. At the end of
the year he throws it away and starts from scratch again, working up stuff in
low level clubs. He is like an open-mic guy again, and his bravery is rewarded:
he gets better and better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s why I chose to do my first solo show this year. I was
totally unprepared in terms of material and skill-set in September 2011, I knew
that if I wasn’t ready it was going to be a month of embarrassment. So I have
got myself ready. Other comics say “I’m going to wait till I’m ready”. How about
forcing yourself to be ready? If your ambition was to be physically strong, you
wouldn’t say “I’m going to wait until my strength gradually improves naturally”
you would get in the gym and do weights that were too heavy for you until the
muscle got bigger.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s enough preaching. My show better be good after that!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">ENJOYED THE POST? Please subscribe for FREE on this page (as many have already). And why not share the blog on Facebook or Twitter? Thanks.</span></b>
</div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-39535017879712868402012-07-09T10:42:00.000-07:002012-07-09T10:44:00.200-07:00Killing cliché<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve been listening to the Comedians Comedian podcast, a
fortnightly podcast hosted by the stand-up Stuart Goldsmith where he interviews
excellent comics about their writing process and careers. It is always terrific and you can get them <a href="http://www.comedianscomedian.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The most recent one was with comedy legend Arthur Smith. He
said something great about cliché.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He says that writing is always about killing clichés to some
extent, to describe a thing in a way that it has never been described before.
Rather eloquently he describes cliché as a pre-digested thought put into a
pre-digested phrase. It is unanalyzed, un-broken down, not fully understood,
not the crux or the essence of the idea. It is an unexplored emotional response
to the world. It is lazy thinking vomited out in a lazy phrase. <span style="background-color: white;">He goes on to assert, correctly, that you want your thought
to be original, not to be filtered through somebody else’s perception.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Smith goes on to quote Alan Coren, via his daughter Victoria, saying
that if you’ve got a subject don’t write down the first thing that comes into
your head because that’s what everybody else will think of. Don’t write down
the second thing, because that that’s what clever people will think of, but
write down the third. Because the third thing will be entirely you. Finally, ask
yourself: is this something someone less talented than me could have come up
with?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Resisting the cliché is difficult. It’s about delaying
gratification. As we write we live with this fear that we will not produce
anything, so we grope around for anything at first, and we find something that
works: it may be structurally sound and reliably funny because we know that
similar things have been known to work in the past. We receive this rush of
dopamine into our brain, a rush of creative joy, we are relieved. And when we
have achieved this it is easy to feel satisfied and stop, or to move onto the
next easy dopamine hit. But to create something truly worthwhile and new we
need to push through this first phase, trawling through the arid dessert of the
creative process, until we eventually solve the problem. That is hard, painful, and often goes nowhere. But there is no other way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remember the goal is this “create something that no-one has
created before, something new, something that only I could have come up with”.
Not “to create something”. The tyranny of the blank page often scares us to
hiding within the comforting walls of cliché, but we must run screaming into
battle against the creative obis, the unknown. We do this knowing that most days we will
be obliterated in a storm of arrows, but that one day we may make it through,
slay the beast of mediocrity, and create something truly memorable. The take-away is simple: be a
warrior.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is hard to resist the easy creative task. That’s why
people love “brain storming” so much: you generate huge volume of ideas and
feel like you have done a good morning’s work. But most of these are first step
ideas, aka clichés. The hard work that brings true innovation is found in the
second, third, fourth steps as you explore the initial idea and nose around in
the nooks and crannies, the shadows, until you find something hidden from the
view of mere mortals. Then you show it to the world, and they think you are a
magician. But you are just a bloke in a cafe with a pen who didn’t stop when it
got hard.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I struggle with doing the tough creative work. I view the
first few years of stand-up as getting all my shit jokes, clichés, out of my
system so I can start writing something that is actually approaching new and
interesting. I decided in September 2011 that I was going to do an hour long
show in Edinburgh 2012. At the time I had about 7 minutes of material after a
ruthless cull of stuff I wasn’t happy with. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be
able to fill the time, so I set about writing loads and loads with the focus on
volume not ingenuity. I had no creative filters, and I wrote a lot of pap. But
the journey has been worth it: I’ve
learnt that being creative, and creatively prolific, is as much about what you
delete as what you produce. It’s about setting your filters, defining the
creative problem with some constraints. Fill the first page with clichés, use
them as starting points to focus on more interesting angles, and then burn the first
page. You’ll have more time to focus on the good stuff (don’t waste 8 months of
new material gigs on a load of clichéd shit), and you’ll develop a voice, and
an act that stands out from the beige crap that plenty of other people are using.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally, Arthur Smith made another good point: if an
audience has laughed a lot at a line, there is almost certainly room for more
jokes, a topper, hopefully a whole routine. It’s almost free laughs. This is a
good principle: spend longer looking for something truly original, and when
you’ve found it make sure you milk it for all its worth. </div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-36571681671017269822012-07-08T16:29:00.000-07:002012-07-08T16:29:13.362-07:00Why you should be more like a goth (and Stuart Baggs from The Apprentice)<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
A friend who works in marketing tipped me off about this guy
called Rory Sutherland who is an advertising expert, and a phenomenal speaker.
He has done three TED talks, they are available <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are lots of lessons we can draw from what he has to
say:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
1.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>Two types of value</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are two types of value: so called “real” value (the
objective quality of something), and intangible/tangential value (the value we
get from a product over and above its objective contents). Advertising’s job is
to create intangible value.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sutherland argues that there is no such thing as “real”
value. We find it impossible as human beings to differentiate between objective
quality and the holistic experience we have when consuming something.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perspective is everything: things are not what they are,
they are what we think they are. And things are what we compare them to. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yet we make psychology subordinate to everything else, obsessing
over improving the objective quality of the product rather than creating
intangible value. As he says: Eurostar spent about 5 billion quid taking 40
minutes off the overall journey time by investing in new tracks etc. But,
instead (and with plenty of spare change), they could have spent the money
hiring the world’s best male and female supermodels to walk up and down the aisle
serving free champagne for the duration of the journey and people would have a
more enjoyable, memorable experience and actually ask for the trains to be
slowed down. Psychological value is often the best kind, for example: the value
of a brand. I saw a couple with Louis Vuitton luggage outside South Kensington
station yesterday. That luggage is not better made than something half the
price. But it has psychological value: it is a status good. It says to the
world: I am successful. (It also says: I am needy and have no taste, but that’s
another story!). Symbolic value is real.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
THIS HAS HUGE RELEVANCE FOR HOW YOU COMMUNICATE YOURSELF TO
THE WORLD: take responsibility for your brand. Your brand is not who you are,
it is who people think you are. “People don’t understand me, they don’t get me,
they don’t know who I am, I don’t get the chance to show how great I am”: these
are problems of communication, of image, that you can solve. It is a problem in
picking up women as much as it is in stand-up comedy. Your hidden shallows, may
allow you to communicate your hidden depths. And in advertising these depths we
invite other people to explore them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The psychological enjoyment people get from an experience is
how they attribute value, not the objective quality of it (a 7 minute wait on a
tube platform with a countdown clock is better than a 7 minute wait without
one). It’s pointless improving the product with changing people’s perception.
They will be getting a better product but be ignorant to the improvement. Like
the Royal Mail: people think the Royal Mail is shit. But actually 98% of mail
gets there on time. To improve the Royal Mail, they don’t need to work on the
98% figure but actually show people how good the service already is. We cannot
tell the difference between the quality of the product and the context within
which we consume it: if the restaurant is fantastic fun to be in, we just
assume the food is good. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So you’re product has improved? Great. Now re-launch it with
a new image. The novelty will get people to take notice and realise that it’s
got better. Incremental improvement in the objective value of a product as
little IMPACT.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Intangible value is created through fashion, how you wear
your hair, your online presence, how you send your e-mails, your answer phone
message, the gifts you give, your business card: your brand. “Brand” gets a bad
name, because we associate it with faceless, cynical business. We also
associate it with that awful man from The Apprentice who repeatedly asserted
that he was “Stuart Baggs-the brand”. Bizarrely, by standing out and being a
dick, he was memorable and created a brand that created him lasting value even
a few years after the series was broadcast (spanning books, media appearances,
an Edinburgh show, and a consultancy business). Now, I am not saying you should
be an idiot deliberately to make yourself memorable, but you should appreciate
the legacy of being memorable in some way, of standing out from other people,
and also appreciate the value of your “brand” in achieving this.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It can be as simple as having a memorable and strange
haircut. I know people criticise a lot of young stand-ups for being nothing but
a haircut. Sometimes they have a point. But here is the important take-away: if
you blend into everyone else, if you communicate you are average, then human
nature is to assume that is what you are, REGARDLESS OF YOUR OBJECTIVE QUALITY.
They will put you in the pile “solid, but uninteresting”. That is where
mediocrity lives and careers die. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fashion contains messages and you need to control these. For
example, you can identify the tribes people are in from the way they present
themselves to the world. People with loads of piercings, awful pony tails,
leather capes, eye shadow and so on don’t dress like that because they think it
makes them look good. It is because they want to be a member of the tribe, let’s
call them “Goths” (although this is a simplification), the tribe that says: I
don’t agree with this society, or the pressures of it, and I want to
stand-outside of it. Appearance is a great way to communicate this. It is a low
level protest that they can make all day every day. It is political,
subversive, but in a very low level way. What does your appearance say about
you? The truth is: we don’t want to stand-out really. We seek simply mild
differentiation between very narrow variables, because we are all social
cowards. Social cowards hug bland mediocrity like a warm towel. And no one
knows who they are.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
2.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>Sweat the small stuff: Virgin Atlantic when it
launched had salt and pepper shakers made from silver that looked like dogs.
People thought they were cool and they were immensely memorable: they providing
a talking point that helped the customers spread the news about the brand. Of
course people thought about nicking them, but on the bottom Virgin wrote “stolen
from virgin atlantic upper class”, another hilarious talking point. You
remember this experience for years. Small detail, low cost, huge effect.
Imagination is everything. Small innovations in your image and user experience
make a massive difference in memorability and getting your brand to spread. The
detail of your brand, your image, your product, your clothes can have a huge
impact. What do you remember of someone’s clothes? What do you comment on?
Usually an accessory. These are critical non-essentials.#</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
3.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>The interface determines the behaviour. If you
had a large red button in your living room that if you pressed it it would
automatically transfer 50 quid into your pension, you would save a lot more.
Marketing has done a very good job of creating opportunities for impulse
buying. You change your decisions by changing the interface, but structuring
the options differently.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
4.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>“Poetry is when you make familiar things new,
and new things familiar”. He says that’s a good definition of what advertising is
about, and it’s a pretty good definition for whatever art form you’re
passionate about is.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
5.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for
want of wonders”. Has your product got some magic in it? Something that will
make them go “wow”. That will make their brain’s fizz, and their hearts ache?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-18844508462749101412012-07-08T16:23:00.000-07:002012-07-08T16:23:10.016-07:00Offering more than they expect<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Seth Godin is probably my favourite thinker at the moment.
You really should read his <a href="http://www.sethgodin.com/" target="_blank">blog</a>. He wrote one last week that was so brilliant
that I would like to reproduce it in full here:</div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 11.9pt;">
<i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">People
don't care how much you offer them.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 6.25pt 0cm;">
<i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">They care about whether you exceeded their expectations.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 6.25pt 0cm;">
<i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">If you want to delight, if you want to create a remarkable
experience, if you want people to talk about you or buy your stock, the secret
is simple: give them more than they expected.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 6.25pt 0cm;">
<i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">If I walk into your store and it looks and feels like stores
I've been into before, my expectations are locked in. Now what? But if I walk
into your showroom and it's like nothing I've ever experienced before, you get
a chance to set my expectations, right? Marketing isn't merely bragging.
Marketing creates a culture, tells a story and puts on a show.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 6.25pt 0cm;">
<i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";">In our rush to get picked or get noticed or build buzz, the
instinct is to promise more. Perhaps it pays to promise less instead, to
radically change expectations and to reset what it means to deliver on the
promise of delight.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Are you offering more than they expect? Be more than just a
comedian, be a poet, be a master of pathos, be a showman.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Godin’s advice reminded me of a letter that Teller (from
Penn and Teller) wrote in reply to a rookie magician:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Love something besides magic, in the arts. Get inspired by
a particular poet, film-maker, sculptor, composer, you will never be the first
Brian Allen Brushwood of magic if you want to be Penn and Teller. But if you
want to be, say, the Salvador Dali of magic, well there’s an opening.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I should be a film editor. I’m a magician. And if I’m good
it’s because I should be a film editor. Back should have written operas or
plays. But instead he worked in 18<sup>th</sup> century counterpoint. That’s
why his counterpoints have so much more point than other contrapuntalists. They
have passion and plot. Shakespeare, on the other hand, should have been a
musician, writing counterpoint. That’s why his plays stand out from the others
through their plot and music.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the comedy world this reminded me of the legendary Daniel
Kitson. Kitson should have been a song writer or a poet, that’s why he is
probably the greatest stand-up that has ever lived.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What are you offering that goes above and beyond what people
expect?</div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-28764031298618256152012-07-03T09:10:00.001-07:002012-07-03T09:10:12.790-07:00What’s your plan for getting better at what you do?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s been a lot of debate about why England are so bad at
football. Everybody seems to agree that our players are technically inferior to
their counterparts on the continent and that this is because of our lack of
suitably qualified coaches, and poor youth football set-up. Everyone’s heard of
the 10,000 hour rule. The idea that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to get
good at anything. But practice doesn’t make perfect, good practice does. It’s
called “deliberate practice”: these are specifically designed practice routines
that focus on very specific technical aspects of a skill and push the player
outside of his comfort zone until he builds new neural pathways in his/her
brain that allow them to be successful. These routines are usually designed by
a coach. It is crucial that you are forever focussing on your weaknesses,
pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. Most of the practice that most
people do in their chosen domain yields almost no effect, because they repeat
what they know rather than confronting their weaknesses, at which point progress
plateaus.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Spain their famous “tika takka” style play is possible
because their players were brought up playing rondo (high-intensity, circular
passing at speed) and Brazilians were playing futsal (on tiny pitches with a
heavier, smaller ball). Both approaches force players to think quickly, to
develop passing accuracy and to learn close control.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The idea is to find REPEATABLE drills that focus on SPECIFIC
areas of technical and mental ability, ideally designed by an expert coach.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The key to skill acquisition is feedback. You need data to
get an idea of whether you are doing it right.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In English football, young players play on big pitches. They
touch the ball maybe once or twice a minute. That is a small amount of feedback
as to how good your close control technique is, compared to if you touched the
ball 8 times on a much smaller pitch. So we need VOLUME of feedback, so we need
to practice a lot, but we also need QUALITY and SPECIFICITY of feedback, otherwise
it can be hard to isolate the problem in performance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Coerver Coaching, one of the leading coaching systems in
world football, has come up with 47 different ways to take the ball past an
opponent. They have deconstructed each separate way of doing this (step-overs
etc), and created a set of exercises that help you learn how to do it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem in comedy is that we don’t have a model of
technical excellence, of best practice, because the literature is poor. So we
cannot isolate a series of different skills, and then break these down into a
series of steps that can be taught using specific practice drills. And we don’t
have many expert coaches, especially expert coaches that can help with the
higher end skills of comics who have gone beyond being open-mic performers.
This is because stand-up is a relatively young art-form. Stand-up as we know it
is maybe 30 years old. Football is hundreds of years old. But it is an intriguing
idea about what might be possible when we have this base of knowledge. The
closest thing I have heard to deliberate practice is Second City Improv in
Chicago where performers improvise an hour long show every night of the year
(give or take) and perform a two hour sketch show too. They are working all
their comedy and performing muscles for three hours a day at least. They will
become great in ten years if they do this. And they do: pretty much every
American comedy star has come out of this factory of comedic excellence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Immersion seems an important part of learning. La Massia,
Barcelona’s vaunted academy, has students living there. They think, talk, and
play football every day. And they are in the process with other players, and
lots of coaches: they have accountability partners and people who they can
compete against and benchmark themselves against. This is front of mind every
day, almost every second. That is why they are unlikely to duck out of
practice. Anecdotally it is amazing to me how many great comics grow up in
small peer groups. They learn off each other, subconsciously compete, and also
are their own accountability partners/encouragers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is an excellent article here on deliberate practice <a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/08/six-keys-to-being-excellent-at.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what to do now? Over the coming months I am going to interviews
experts with the aim of coming up with practice drills to encourage excellence
in stand-up comedy. I will publish in an e-book called “Deliberate Practice for
Comedy” which you will be able to get for free from this site if you join the
mailing list. So why not join today?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Footnote:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of you are thinking “Gigs are deliberate practice”. Sort
of. If you are doing gigs in nice clubs, with your good club 20 every night,
you aren’t really practicing at all: you’re just doing the same thing again and
again. If you were doing new material every night, that would be deliberate
practice. But that isn’t always possible, especially if you are a pro. Anyhow,
there are surely higher end skills, and habits of thought, that we can isolate
and train in a variety of ways. This is a debate we can have: I would love to
hear your ideas on this, especially if you have drill ideas. Tweet me <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/maxdickins" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-86305976711966091442012-06-26T08:23:00.001-07:002012-06-26T08:44:17.401-07:00The Hack Trap (or why I have thrown away lots of my material)<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am finishing writing my <a href="http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/max-dickins-this-will-only-take-a-moment" target="_blank">Edinburgh show</a> for this August. I
have been going through the 3 notebooks I have filled this year with jokes and
ideas, with the aim of writing another 10/15 minutes of material. And I have
been crossing most of them out, 4 weeks before the festival starts. Not only
that, I have also culled some material from my set that works, that’s tried and
trusted (self-service check-outs anyone?).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why have I done this? Because these jokes/ideas are “hack”
or easy. I define “hack” as topics that have been covered before by other
comics (or are being covered now). I define “easy” as Padlovian jokes where the
structure is good and will get an audience response, but the contents are uninspired
or dirty. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why would I throw way almost a year’s worth of work? Why am
I getting rid of material that works and will work in Edinburgh? Simple: it is
effective but not unique. It is good enough but not outstanding. Being very
good is not enough anymore in a competitive market place. You must be
remarkable. You must stand-out. I am taking a short-run risk in order to make a
long term impact. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>It is riskier,
dumber, in the long run to be similar to other people.<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">ENJOYED THE POST? Please subscribe for FREE on this page. And why not share the blog on Facebook or Twitter? Thanks.</span></b></div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3167072513152652418.post-30362301093154049642012-06-24T05:23:00.002-07:002012-06-24T05:24:58.323-07:00Why I cried when I saw a car this week<br />
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Advertisers have discovered stories. There is an advert
about a Volkswagen Golf at the moment that I can’t watch because for some
reason it makes me cry. This is a major trend (the use of story in ads, not
things making me cry. I’m OK guys.). The product is often not featured until
the last second. As we have gotten better at ignoring adverts, so advertisers
have tried to get better at keeping us watching them. Advertising is becoming a
true art. They use stories to hook us in immediately: as curious humans we are
truly fallible to narrative. They provide a compelling, emotive narrative
featuring characters we can associate with and care about because they are
vulnerable. And then at the end, when they have provided all the value, they
try to sell us the product. Two conclusions:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">1. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -18pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">As an artist (or entrepreneur/marketer) you may
have a great product but no one will care about it unless you can package it
and sell it as a compelling, authentic story. This principle is applicable to
everyone: screenwriters with great dialogue and hilarious characters that are
wasted because of a flimsy plot, stand-ups with great jokes that are presented
as an unconnected mess which reduce their impact and lose people’s interest,
businesses with a great product but who can’t convince people why it is
relevant to their lives and how it will fit into THEIR narrative.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -18pt;">2. Marketing is no longer about interrupting people
to tell them to buy your product. It is about giving them a great experience for
free and then suggesting they might get more of it they buy what you have to
offer. You’re going to have to be creatively prolific and generous. But there
is no other way.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Max Dickinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769163732562993389noreply@blogger.com0