The Scariest Thing I've Ever Done

It's both enlightening and a little sad that the scariest thing I have ever done was to give a presentation without Keynote or Powerpoint.  I stood before a group of agency planners and simply read from a prepared speech.

As someone who lives to present in front of others, I found it almost comical that my voice was shaking as I stood there.  It amazes me even now just how much of a change it was to not have my ever faithful crutch beside me on the large screen.

I also started my speech a bit differently.  I arrived on the stage and did not say anything.  I kept this up for a good two minutes as discomfort, confusion and even frustration began to emerge in the audience.  I allowed my gaze to travel the crowd but kept silent.

[following the 2 minutes of unexpected silence, I read the following]

A rather uncomfortable silence.  A place of not knowing what’s going on or what the purpose or intent is. A place I will return to many times in this talk.

I would like to start by being clear in my intent. I do not mean to lecture, but rather to share in a journey; a journey to understand the role of passion and meaning in our lives, our circles of influence and our world.  I don’t have any answers only a narrowing of questions and an emerging sense of curiosity.

If I was to lecture on any topic it would have be what NOT to do as there are few “mistakes” I have not made in my long career in digital.  For example:

• I’ve preached to every client against doing a “viral” video with one hand and then taken their money with the other hand to do just that
• I once wrote off Facebook as a fad
• I’ve built more microsites that you’ve never heard of than you would ever believe
• I’ve devoted way too much effort and misplaced excitement in manipulating the standing of my blog
• I’ve pretended to know what things like Plurk, Profilactic and Qoop were when I really didn’t have a clue
• I’ve put a picture of a senior client into a product demo just to get a bad idea approved
• I believed at one time that everyone on the planet would learn HTML

Jason asked me here today to speak about "The Passion Economy" and so I will use this as a frame for my journey.  It was not so very long ago that I came across a post penned by Saul Kaplan of BIF fame titled "Creating a Passion Economy".  This was the starting point for me.

I’d like to share a part of his post here.  He wrote, "We need to move from a knowledge-based economy to a passion-based economy. Who gets excited about a knowledge-based economy? Where is the passion? I have spent a ton of time and effort to rally the troops. If I am honest, people just haven't connected emotionally. The knowledge-based economy has given us the tools we need but has fallen short in solving the real issues of our time including health care, education, energy independence, public safety, and quality of life. These are all systems issues that will require systems solutions.

Systems level innovation requires passionate leaders and organizations that are committed to a cause. Passion-based organizations stop at nothing to accomplish their goals and are able to attract people and resources to their causes. A passion economy can arise that unleashes both a new era of prosperity and solutions for the big issues of our time."

Saul’s post moved me in a number of ways.  But it also made me uncomfortable and I found myself sitting with a growing curiosity.  Was this a bit utopian?  Does passion alone capture this shift? (could one not say that the people at Enron or AIG were quite passionate about the copious amounts of money going into their own pockets?)  And what if Saul was right?  What would the implications be?  What forces or shifts should we be paying attention to?

So I asked eleven people I respect to write a response to this idea of a "passion economy".  Some of whom are here in the crowd tonight.  The resulting pieces were placed under the caring design eyes of Peter Flascher and the resulting ebook was creatively titled "The Passion Economy".

The pieces we received touched on a pretty awesome range of issues, asked many questions and came at the topic from a variety of angles: organizational behaviour, neurology, social media, and economics.

Mike Arauz wrote, "Brands need to demonstrate that they are passionate about something more important than their product. Brands need to invite their consumers to become part of a movement."

Katie Chatfield explored 3 case studies where brands worked to "engage, enlist, inspire action and make this action a habit."

Charles Frith called on brands to "fix some of the most urgent challenges of our age” at a time when “the tools to do so are widely available to the world’s internet population."

Matthew Milan spoke about defining the role "that passion actually plays in contemporary and emerging economies," and how we need to “resist the urge to frame it as a solution for the brand problem.” And a quote I use often. "Sadly, most organizations have it backwards. Brands don’t empower consumers; people empower brands."

Not everyone was "gung ho" or positive about the idea.

Alan Wolk wrote, "While many see this as the dawn of an Aquarian era, where passionate people are building a society based on consumer empowerment, peace, love and understanding, I appear to have left my rosecolored glasses at home. To me, the service sell is just one more trick in the arsenal, one more way to make a buck. Sure, the most successful people are passionate about what they’re doing, but they always have been."

Alan goes on to explore how companies are carving out high margin businesses in previously commoditized spaces by focusing on customer service. There are so many amazing points of view represented that I can’t do them justice here. I can only draw us back to two lines from Saul’s original post.

Saul wrote, "If your organization is determined to resist change, move out of the way because the wisdom of crowds has learned how to mobilize behind a compelling passion. These new purposeful networks will not be stopped."

I look at the amazing, and often disruptive, success of places like Etsy ($90 million dollar market and growing) and Threadless - services built on top of the passions of everyday people.  Or the emerging platform disruption that places like Amazon and Google are fueling by enabling just about anyone to launch a product or service on top of their infrastructure.

Or the rather phenomenal turnaround of companies like Dell and the crazy growth of firms like Lululemon and Zappos - companies that are directly tying into the passions of their customer base and using simple tools to build powerful relationships.

Open any paper and we see that our world as we knew it is under attack.  Everything seems to be in a state of potential change: economies, business models, innovation, technology and models of governance to name just a few.

There are so many new trends “sweeping our nation” that it’s becoming impossible to stay on top of them let alone predict their potential impact on the work we do.

Take twitter – the latest epidemic infecting the over 40 crowd of computer-addicted marketing professionals and geek wannabes at a somewhat ungodly pace. Twitter’s revenue problems are clearly over.  Who doesn’t want this demographic?

But is twitter truly revolutionary?  I set out to answer this question with an informal study of public washrooms – men’s only.  The ladies in the crowd will have to let me know if my data holds up across the gender divide.  My ongoing analysis of bathroom stalls shows that the writing there is almost always under 140 characters.  Not to mention insightful and value-driven. 

“Call MMilan for a good time.” 

“Armano is a good –beep-”

 “Jason O can –beep- my –beep-.” 

All well under 140 characters.  And you might be surprised to know that there’s even re-tweeting.

“No really, call MMilan for a good time at 416… 822…”

Every new social use of technology is belittled, misunderstood and written off at some point in it’s development by someone of influence.  And in a world where there is a new Friendster, Catbook or Ning emerging every day, it’s quite easy to write them off.

So what is so interesting about something like Twitter?  Is it it’s asynchronous qualities?  Or the fact that we require a new type of “virtual water cooler” around which to gossip and gather? It’s use to provide relevancy to relationships that would otherwise be empty or lessened?  Is it the voyeurisitic edge to the service?    And what explicit and tacit needs are they fulfilling?

But to even ask these question requires that we not have written off the service, trend or innovation in question.  

So I’d like to bring us back to that state of awkwardness at the start of this talk.  What I was attempting to create was a state of uncertainty, or what I will now refer to as a place of “Not Knowing.”  “What is he doing?”  “What’s going on?”  From this place, there are a number of emotions or states that can emerge – frustration, confusion, or even anger.  But perhaps some of you also went into a state of curiosity.

It is this potential shift into Curiosity that I would like to call our attention to.  The other states denote obstinance – not necessarily in a bad way, but rather that we are unable to shift our models of thinking or perception to see what is emerging before us.  Curiosity is the opposite.  From curiosity we can access opportunities to re-learn how we see the world.  We can change our assumptions, our modes of thought and, to steal from Otto Scharmer, we can better be present with the emerging future as it is unfolding.

So much of our world is in transition. So much is changing.

I find myself in a world where the most passionate are exposed.  Hell, they are actively working to expose themselves and are leaving a vibrant trail of digital artifacts in their wake.  They are no longer waiting for us to create the change they want to see in their lives, their communities, or even the products they use everyday.  They are innovating and we need to find new ways to both identify and connect with them.

In closing, regardless of what era, trend or even economy is emerging, I once again return to this need to find these places of awkwardness and uncertainty – to define the places of “Not Knowing” for us.  And from this place of “Not Knowing”, to develop the skills and focus to move into a state of noble curiosity so that we can begin to better see and explore the emerging opportunities for ourselves, our clients, our communities and our planet.