Have been quite satisfied with myself and my conclusion that current social media measures how entertaining you are, as I like claiming I'm not trying to entertain, which I'm not. And then I thought about TED talks, and how much I like documentaries. And those are entertaining, where that isn't the purpose?
Reality is that I've learned a lot I'm sure from people who didn't just focus on information, but also on production values, presentation, and audience reaction, as they taught through entertaining formats.
And I'm sure the purpose of a TED speaker is not to be entertaining but to communicate something important for the common good. And I think the same is true for most documentarians, so thinking as well on that aspect of it.
For an example of a TED talk here's one: Tom Wujec, toast and problem solving
If you do click on the link and watch you may notice he's in a suit. And that camera angles shift in a way that facilitates his talk. Also he uses visuals in a profound way. But reality is that all the information could have been presented in a far less entertaining way, but would I have considered it then?
Probably in this case not, but maybe as he's talking systems and problem solving, two of my favorite subjects! Yet the talk is from 2013, and I'm probably seeing it now because it was so successful and had so many views. I might never have heard of him without it. Maybe I'd have stumbled across his work presented some other way, but now I'm also more likely to web search on him, and am more likely to find it.
Maybe then it's not such a big deal at all that getting lots of "Likes" or tons of followers or whatever other metric on social media requires you to have some ability at entertaining. Maybe that's as natural as needing same to be a good host?
It does mean that if you're frustrated by low social media numbers the focus may need to shift from the information to how it's presented. You may find yourself learning production values. Or focusing on how to order information best for a given audience, or what are the best camera angles.
Like just imagine any boring school lecture or any boring lecture you may have had in your life as a speaker drones on...and realize that social media clicks away from such.
However, the plus side of web reality in my experience is that you can ignore being entertaining completely, and just present information as long as it's important, valid and useful. Which is a HUGE change, but really in terms of accessibility.
Today people can zero in on that information with lightning speed when they need it, as web search is so remarkably good. I puzzle over how good it is.
Like I remember noting with fascination when I'd step away from documentaries to do a web search on the subject, to check info, or find out what happened as the documentary might be teasing it out or something.
In minutes I could have everything I really wanted to know, which was being covered in a couple of hours by the documentary. Though I would usually continue, now seeing it as purely entertainment, as I also checked remaining claims against what I then already knew.
For some that may be a relief, knowing that being entertaining is a choice, as they can just provide the information, without having to worry about such other. And as a result, you just probably will not have a lot of followers, which may be what's desired anyway. Not everyone wants millions of followers. Actually, I wonder what people do.
Entertainers, of course I'm sure. Also I'd guess most organizations. But for most of us, what really would you do with millions of followers? It IS work. Possibly it's just as much work involved as being a movie star. Actually I think it's more from what I've seen, like in studying YouTube stars. It's just a modern addition to the range of ways to be famous.
And make no mistake, those people with millions of followers? They do work for them.
James Harris
Monday, July 13, 2015
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
Follower counts like venue theory
Lately I've been focusing on figuring out certain odd things with my own story, and came upon a theory which I think explains follower counts across social media. I think they're like a venue, which makes sense!
Like imagine you're a young performer who starts out singing mostly in front of family and friends. Smallest venue. Maybe as you work at it, you end up in malls, or at small clubs. And as you build a fanbase you move on to bigger things, and maybe one day you end up performing in stadiums.
Similarly say, your Twitter follower count grows slowly and I'm saying is equivalent to your venue size, so it is NOT necessarily how many people are actually paying attention to you. How many people are in a sense, showing up, depends on your performance.
Which means if I'm right, it's worthless to just want a huge follower count, except I guess for meaningless bragging rights, if you're not actually doing the performance. Like if you have connections who can book you into, say Madison Square Garden, and a few people show but even fewer for any follow-up's as you're just not good enough for there.
Using this theory I've been looking across social media and it works for me. I'll note I have 124 followers as of this post on Twitter which I find does not bother me at all. Of course I like to emphasize I'm NOT an entertainer.
If you say follower counts are measures of how entertaining this particular person is on THIS venue, where a venue is Twitter or Snapchat and so on, then I say they make sense.
Notice then that someone can be MASSIVELY famous, step onto a particular social media venue, and not perform, and have a small number of followers as those things are not connected according to this theory. People don't care how famous you are, I'm speculating, but show up based on how well you perform on that platform.
If people show up and like it, their decision is what matters, but you do need to deliver. As, if you're to do a song and dance number, does the audience really care how famous you are? Only if that's to raise expectations. If you're atrocious, then it had better be a joke performance or they will be just that much more disappointed.
Each social media platform is a different venue. Twitter is different from Instagram, different from Snapchat, different from whatever. Some people are bizarrely good at performing across many of them. It is freakish. Most struggle on any one.
Performance is difficult. Being entertaining requires work, practice and skill.
Ok, so enough theory. Can I emphasize enough I'm speculating here? But for me these are working theories, as I try to explain my world with them. Also it's rather comforting.
So if you wish to be comforted by these speculations of mine, consider how good of an entertainer your are in any venue. And compare with your follower counts if you thought they mattered by any other criteria. If you realize you can't carry a tune, your jig is not up to snuff, and your jokes tend to fall flat, and hey, who said you had to be an entertainer anyway?
Then you can be free to be you, and drop that chain of an entertainment measure. As have I.
Of course I should also add, I could be wrong! So will see what the real world shows over time.
James Harris
Like imagine you're a young performer who starts out singing mostly in front of family and friends. Smallest venue. Maybe as you work at it, you end up in malls, or at small clubs. And as you build a fanbase you move on to bigger things, and maybe one day you end up performing in stadiums.
Similarly say, your Twitter follower count grows slowly and I'm saying is equivalent to your venue size, so it is NOT necessarily how many people are actually paying attention to you. How many people are in a sense, showing up, depends on your performance.
Which means if I'm right, it's worthless to just want a huge follower count, except I guess for meaningless bragging rights, if you're not actually doing the performance. Like if you have connections who can book you into, say Madison Square Garden, and a few people show but even fewer for any follow-up's as you're just not good enough for there.
Using this theory I've been looking across social media and it works for me. I'll note I have 124 followers as of this post on Twitter which I find does not bother me at all. Of course I like to emphasize I'm NOT an entertainer.
If you say follower counts are measures of how entertaining this particular person is on THIS venue, where a venue is Twitter or Snapchat and so on, then I say they make sense.
Notice then that someone can be MASSIVELY famous, step onto a particular social media venue, and not perform, and have a small number of followers as those things are not connected according to this theory. People don't care how famous you are, I'm speculating, but show up based on how well you perform on that platform.
If people show up and like it, their decision is what matters, but you do need to deliver. As, if you're to do a song and dance number, does the audience really care how famous you are? Only if that's to raise expectations. If you're atrocious, then it had better be a joke performance or they will be just that much more disappointed.
Each social media platform is a different venue. Twitter is different from Instagram, different from Snapchat, different from whatever. Some people are bizarrely good at performing across many of them. It is freakish. Most struggle on any one.
Performance is difficult. Being entertaining requires work, practice and skill.
Ok, so enough theory. Can I emphasize enough I'm speculating here? But for me these are working theories, as I try to explain my world with them. Also it's rather comforting.
So if you wish to be comforted by these speculations of mine, consider how good of an entertainer your are in any venue. And compare with your follower counts if you thought they mattered by any other criteria. If you realize you can't carry a tune, your jig is not up to snuff, and your jokes tend to fall flat, and hey, who said you had to be an entertainer anyway?
Then you can be free to be you, and drop that chain of an entertainment measure. As have I.
Of course I should also add, I could be wrong! So will see what the real world shows over time.
James Harris
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Pondering advertising
One of my personal favorite posts talks about the process of making money, which I think is about what other people want, and key in that process is letting them know you can give it. Which is where I think advertising naturally fits.
That is, if you have something that you know people might want, like a great new something, you need to let them know you have it. But how?
In the future I think most advertising will be targeted to people who actually may want that something which gets into all kinds of important things like privacy, as how do you know they may want it?
But for those who think advertising can go away, just find something they want, and ask them how they found out about it. Maybe a friend advertised it for them, and yup, that's called word-of-mouth advertising, and I thought I'd just link to Wikipedia on the subject like normal. But instead found an article talking about how businesses try to use it.
However, I think few people are concerned about honest word-of-mouth where friends point something out that they like because they actually do like it! And not because some business entity is manipulating them into recommending it.
To me that's like, yeah! Now we can focus on the difference. And to me it's simple: companies try to push things on you to buy because they want you to buy, not necessarily because you want or need something. And they can even try to develop a need, just to sell you something. That can be really irritating.
IN essence, a business entity may just want to use and abuse you for their own profit, and rely on advertising to trick you into buying at their benefit and not your own.
That is despicable behavior.
To me that kind of covers it: your friends can have genuine interest and appropriate knowledge about you, and make a desired recommendation. Even if it IS off you know their intent is good.
But a business can try to exploit you, and trick you into buying something for their benefit, with no real concern or interest in your benefit.
So I conclude that advertising in and of itself is not a bad thing. Without some kind of advertising, how can you know some entity has something you want?
But pushing things on people that they don't want is irritating.
The web can chase a different model though because the scale can be so huge. If you have a product that people in a dozen countries might want and can get from you, then it hardly pays to irritate lots of other people. And is actually kind of hard.
Marketing in the US for instance could be national for lots of products. But marketing to the world is a formidable challenge. It hardly pays even if you could to show an advertisement to lots of people globally who have no interest in buying that something.
My guess is there is a sharp difference between marketing for global products versus local ones where national or smaller is local.
And had to come back and edit and add, as I'm like, but what about web search? And reality is, yeah, it's great if people can search on things they want and get sent to something you have out there saying you have what they want. But what are the odds, really?
Other people have to DO something for you to get there.
It's open source and freely available, so not something for people to buy, but maybe still it's informative that back when I first put my project on SourceForge over a decade ago, it somehow began to appear in thousands of directories. I just put it on SourceForge, sat back, and lots of other people did things like putting it in those directories. And I'm very thankful they did.
So yeah, web search doesn't change the dynamic: to get to a high enough level for web search to get people to that something you have they might want, something has to be done by you, which I'm thinking has to be some kind of advertising to get that something noticed, or done by others, which I'm sure involves some kind of referral.
Been discussing on this blog various ideas about social media based on referral versus what I think are content based ones of today, and that may get closer to friendly referral, and let you punish for what I will call predatory referral.
Interesting. Will ponder further.
James Harris
That is, if you have something that you know people might want, like a great new something, you need to let them know you have it. But how?
In the future I think most advertising will be targeted to people who actually may want that something which gets into all kinds of important things like privacy, as how do you know they may want it?
But for those who think advertising can go away, just find something they want, and ask them how they found out about it. Maybe a friend advertised it for them, and yup, that's called word-of-mouth advertising, and I thought I'd just link to Wikipedia on the subject like normal. But instead found an article talking about how businesses try to use it.
However, I think few people are concerned about honest word-of-mouth where friends point something out that they like because they actually do like it! And not because some business entity is manipulating them into recommending it.
To me that's like, yeah! Now we can focus on the difference. And to me it's simple: companies try to push things on you to buy because they want you to buy, not necessarily because you want or need something. And they can even try to develop a need, just to sell you something. That can be really irritating.
IN essence, a business entity may just want to use and abuse you for their own profit, and rely on advertising to trick you into buying at their benefit and not your own.
That is despicable behavior.
To me that kind of covers it: your friends can have genuine interest and appropriate knowledge about you, and make a desired recommendation. Even if it IS off you know their intent is good.
But a business can try to exploit you, and trick you into buying something for their benefit, with no real concern or interest in your benefit.
So I conclude that advertising in and of itself is not a bad thing. Without some kind of advertising, how can you know some entity has something you want?
But pushing things on people that they don't want is irritating.
The web can chase a different model though because the scale can be so huge. If you have a product that people in a dozen countries might want and can get from you, then it hardly pays to irritate lots of other people. And is actually kind of hard.
Marketing in the US for instance could be national for lots of products. But marketing to the world is a formidable challenge. It hardly pays even if you could to show an advertisement to lots of people globally who have no interest in buying that something.
My guess is there is a sharp difference between marketing for global products versus local ones where national or smaller is local.
And had to come back and edit and add, as I'm like, but what about web search? And reality is, yeah, it's great if people can search on things they want and get sent to something you have out there saying you have what they want. But what are the odds, really?
Other people have to DO something for you to get there.
It's open source and freely available, so not something for people to buy, but maybe still it's informative that back when I first put my project on SourceForge over a decade ago, it somehow began to appear in thousands of directories. I just put it on SourceForge, sat back, and lots of other people did things like putting it in those directories. And I'm very thankful they did.
So yeah, web search doesn't change the dynamic: to get to a high enough level for web search to get people to that something you have they might want, something has to be done by you, which I'm thinking has to be some kind of advertising to get that something noticed, or done by others, which I'm sure involves some kind of referral.
Been discussing on this blog various ideas about social media based on referral versus what I think are content based ones of today, and that may get closer to friendly referral, and let you punish for what I will call predatory referral.
Interesting. Will ponder further.
James Harris
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Considering pressure to be successful
There is a way I think the web can impact negatively when it comes to its connectivity, which lets me get into the subject of Internet trolls, as reality is it can take a while for things to work out for someone. But you can get feedback from people from the start who may become aware of your dreams or passions long before you've broken through to real success!
That's where the web can be a bit harsh unless you shift your perspective, and realize that for most people, real success as most understand it, takes several decades, as in, about 20 years.
That's not entertaining though.
What people want to believe is overnight success, and yes, there are people who are achieving celebrity at least, rather rapidly, where the web is a big factor.
But they're not typical.
However, feeling the need to not look like a loser can make one susceptible to people, yup, calling you a loser! Which they will actually do even if you somehow manage that rapid rise to success. But at least then they can be counterbalanced by vast numbers of voices cheering you.
Early on though you can find yourself hearing nothing but negatives. And yup, will admit I have heard quite my share about me and my work. So yes, I need the perspective I'm giving here. It's actually how I manage it all myself. My view is focus on what's important to you, and ask yourself, do you wish to be ruled by others?
Why should their opinion matter more than your own? Who are these people? (Yes, literally, find out if you can. If they're anonymous it's just useless.) And why are they so interested?
One of the strangest things I've pondered is when people loudly proclaim your work is absolutely not of interest though by doggedly voicing their opinion they're declaring their own interest! And they can stalk you too! That's so irritating, and weird. You know like there are plenty of things not of interest to me in this world where I can't name a single one off-hand, because those things do NOT interest me enough for me to remember. Not like I'm going to stalk someone on the web who is doing, um, I'm reaching here...still pondering...giving up, got nothing. To me not interesting means, not interesting.
My own view is that control is often the actual aim. And reality is, you shouldn't be controlled by jeers, or cheers. You should be free I firmly believe.
However, if you DO draw attention then there may be people who can see value in trying to control you, and one of the classic things they may try is to tell you that you're worthless. Weird, eh? Find someone you think is of great worth to you and begin manipulating them by telling them they're worthless? So harsh. If you can be so convinced then that person may begin ordering you to do things.
Never let anyone else convince you anything about your own intrinsic worth, as human beings we are all equal in critical ways. We all get here the same way, from a mother, and eventually we all go, in death. In-between people will tell you things, but who told them?
Finding your way regardless takes effort. And we must rely on other people.
You can't just figure it all out on your own. Believe me, I've tried. Failed utterly. It can't be done. So much is given to us by human beings like us, who build on what was learned by human beings like us, over thousands of years. They were all for the most part trying to do their best, working to learn, and live.
People succeed all the time. It's why we're here. Others had to succeed before us.
And remember people keep moving the benchmark. The more you do, the more they will expect of you, as they know what you can do! That's great and can push you higher. You don't get to the major leagues by just being ok. You have to be one of the best of the best.
So yeah, these are things I tell myself. Sharing to see how they sound. You can say all kinds of things to yourself, which doesn't make them true. Somehow talking them out seems to help.
And yeah, for people who wonder how I keep doing things, yeah, here in this post is a lot of the answer. These are the things I tell myself, over and over again.
And expect success. Early on is frustrating as failures may be typical. Eventually you can get to kind of ok, and maybe muddle along with doing decent most of the time. But at some point you should be winning most of the time.
At which point you will know. Takes about 20 years to get there for most. Yes there are people who get there much more rapidly but do they have as much fun? Maybe. I don't know. So I do pay attention to such people to see if that question will get answered. Reality is where it matters. Which is why it's important to study successful people in the real world, and check things! Don't just trust what people tell you on the web. Verify.
The web helps you there too, thankfully. So yeah, those connections can be for good or ill, so it helps to think out how you can get the most good out of them, and avoid the negatives.
Positives are SO much more fun.
James Harris
That's where the web can be a bit harsh unless you shift your perspective, and realize that for most people, real success as most understand it, takes several decades, as in, about 20 years.
That's not entertaining though.
What people want to believe is overnight success, and yes, there are people who are achieving celebrity at least, rather rapidly, where the web is a big factor.
But they're not typical.
However, feeling the need to not look like a loser can make one susceptible to people, yup, calling you a loser! Which they will actually do even if you somehow manage that rapid rise to success. But at least then they can be counterbalanced by vast numbers of voices cheering you.
Early on though you can find yourself hearing nothing but negatives. And yup, will admit I have heard quite my share about me and my work. So yes, I need the perspective I'm giving here. It's actually how I manage it all myself. My view is focus on what's important to you, and ask yourself, do you wish to be ruled by others?
Why should their opinion matter more than your own? Who are these people? (Yes, literally, find out if you can. If they're anonymous it's just useless.) And why are they so interested?
One of the strangest things I've pondered is when people loudly proclaim your work is absolutely not of interest though by doggedly voicing their opinion they're declaring their own interest! And they can stalk you too! That's so irritating, and weird. You know like there are plenty of things not of interest to me in this world where I can't name a single one off-hand, because those things do NOT interest me enough for me to remember. Not like I'm going to stalk someone on the web who is doing, um, I'm reaching here...still pondering...giving up, got nothing. To me not interesting means, not interesting.
My own view is that control is often the actual aim. And reality is, you shouldn't be controlled by jeers, or cheers. You should be free I firmly believe.
However, if you DO draw attention then there may be people who can see value in trying to control you, and one of the classic things they may try is to tell you that you're worthless. Weird, eh? Find someone you think is of great worth to you and begin manipulating them by telling them they're worthless? So harsh. If you can be so convinced then that person may begin ordering you to do things.
Never let anyone else convince you anything about your own intrinsic worth, as human beings we are all equal in critical ways. We all get here the same way, from a mother, and eventually we all go, in death. In-between people will tell you things, but who told them?
Finding your way regardless takes effort. And we must rely on other people.
You can't just figure it all out on your own. Believe me, I've tried. Failed utterly. It can't be done. So much is given to us by human beings like us, who build on what was learned by human beings like us, over thousands of years. They were all for the most part trying to do their best, working to learn, and live.
People succeed all the time. It's why we're here. Others had to succeed before us.
And remember people keep moving the benchmark. The more you do, the more they will expect of you, as they know what you can do! That's great and can push you higher. You don't get to the major leagues by just being ok. You have to be one of the best of the best.
So yeah, these are things I tell myself. Sharing to see how they sound. You can say all kinds of things to yourself, which doesn't make them true. Somehow talking them out seems to help.
And yeah, for people who wonder how I keep doing things, yeah, here in this post is a lot of the answer. These are the things I tell myself, over and over again.
And expect success. Early on is frustrating as failures may be typical. Eventually you can get to kind of ok, and maybe muddle along with doing decent most of the time. But at some point you should be winning most of the time.
At which point you will know. Takes about 20 years to get there for most. Yes there are people who get there much more rapidly but do they have as much fun? Maybe. I don't know. So I do pay attention to such people to see if that question will get answered. Reality is where it matters. Which is why it's important to study successful people in the real world, and check things! Don't just trust what people tell you on the web. Verify.
The web helps you there too, thankfully. So yeah, those connections can be for good or ill, so it helps to think out how you can get the most good out of them, and avoid the negatives.
Positives are SO much more fun.
James Harris
Monday, June 22, 2015
Trying to define entertainment
One of those things I like to do is find what I call functional definitions, which are functional in that I can use them all over the place in the real world. Like to me, a functional definition of science would mean I have a process for determining if something is a science or not.
And recently I realized I wanted a functional definition for entertainment.
Talking things out helps me critique them, as hey, it could be wrong. And this one has me a bit more fascinated than usual.
entertainment (noun): any socially accepted activity chosen in order to alter mood in a desired way which is unlikely to bring harm in any way.
If that's not what you expected, good! To me my functional definitions tend to head off in a direction different from others, like where's the fun?
And recently I realized I wanted a functional definition for entertainment.
Talking things out helps me critique them, as hey, it could be wrong. And this one has me a bit more fascinated than usual.
entertainment (noun): any socially accepted activity chosen in order to alter mood in a desired way which is unlikely to bring harm in any way.
If that's not what you expected, good! To me my functional definitions tend to head off in a direction different from others, like where's the fun?
Trying to go more formal from the start in a prior post.
James Harris
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