I was just browsing my Twitter feed of friends and came across a great blog post twittered by Chris Brogan. Here is the link http://gobigalways.com/10-fantastic-ways-to-fck-it-up/. Excuse the inferred language my apologies if that offends you but this is a fantastic post that follows a theme near and dear to my heart, AUTHENTICITY.
Enjoy.
Marty, thank you for your payment
You just paid without exposing your financial information.
I just bought a template piece and at the end of paying through paypal I noticed the statement that I don’t think that I had noticed before. They give you a free prize. Paying without exposing your financial info. Now, its a free prize but you didn’t really get anything new or did it cost them anything, they just provided me with a feeling of security and that I did something right.
It’s kind of like when you are at a restaurant and you order from the menu and the waiter/waitress says, “Oh, that’s a good choice. A lot of people have liked that!” Makes you feel good. We all like to be told that we made a good choice.
But, if this is just used soley as a tactic and you are telling someone they are making a good choice your authenticity will shine through.
We had a waitress tell my wife and myself we had made a good choice when we ordered the Mussels. We had a larger group and she had went away and came back and we overheard someone at the other end ask about the mussels and she looked at them and said, “Ya don’t order them, people complain about them all the time.” Suddenly that “good choice” doesn’t feel so… good. Nor do I have the very same inherent trust for the “that was a good choice” givers.
And she was 100% authentically right about what she said… to the other people.
The mussels sucked.
Tell me that I’ve made a good choice only when I have truly made a good choice.
Anyone else with a similar experience?
As marketers and I guess as people in general when we hear cool ideas I think that we need to be pay attention to the origins of intent behind the idea. In being careful and paying attention to those then can we come up with our own ideas or improve upon existing ideas.For example:
A number of years ago I was in charge of directing a play and of course in the midst directing actors (and being the main actor myself at the same time - busy times). One of the things that would come up is my actors’ desire to not want to memorize their lines but to improv the part. I would instruct them that they first needed to memorize the original lines and practice that way and from that feel free to improvise. If they didn’t it would be too easy to miss the original intent of the lines or the dialogue, therefore “muddy” the meaning behind the whole play.
If we take an idea that is cool and try to just make it work for us without looking intently in why it worked and the “heart” behind it that made it effective we will risk looking shallow and unoriginal… or at the very least we will muddy the meaning behind the entire play.
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