This weekend, my 30gb video iPod finally died.  I’m not sure what happened, but after charging it just doesn’t turn on anymore, maybe it will come back to life, I don’t know.  But as I was remembering how I acquired it a package came in the mail.  I brought the package inside and glanced at a card from a friend on the refrigerator.  What do all of these have in common?

Adam Curry

Yes, Adam Curry.  The “podfather” as he was known (Before Ricky Gervais stole the nickname).  The MTV VJ I used to watch daily on TV.  Of course, I knew him from his Daily Source Code, a daily podcast where he also promoted other people’s podcasts.

That is where I first heard of CC Chapman. CC is the author of Content Rules and a podcaster who produced a show called Accident Hash, and also contributed his favorite music to Curry’s show.  I reached out with help on my podcast, and CC was more than happy to oblige.  Eventually we became friends, and I went to Podcamp Boston to meet him and some of the other friends I met online.  A couple of months ago I surprised him with a hand-written card, and he surprised me with a hand-written reply.  CC is one of those people who is totally genuine. I have watched his growth in social media with a smile and give a thumbs up every time I hear he is speaking or when he posts a photo of his latest book translated for a foreign country.

Amy McIntyre was also heard regularly on The Daily Source Code.  Her little segments called “Assercise” were a favorite of Adam’s and his listeners.  Whenever I was depressed about not looking or feeling the way I wanted, Amy replied in email telling me to get up and do something about it.  This past couple of months I sent her status reports on how I lost 20 lbs in April and she encouraged me to keep going.   While I knew her as the Assercise voice, she continued to write books, create videos, and use social media to help people get fit.  Her energy and personality are contagious and it’s sometimes really needed when I am feeling down and out. The package was a copy of her latest book, Fitness Made Too Easy,  and some Mental Blox, which are great

Which comes back to the iPod.  In 2006 I decided to try an experiment.  I was late to the iPod scene, and my finances weren’t the greatest.  So, I wondered if people would help me buy an iPod just because I asked for one.  I set up a web site and elicited donations, and while I got a couple of donations from friends, it kind of stalled.  Then I did a short audio clip in the form of a Star Wars spoof and sent it to Adam for The Daily Source Code.  Not only did Adam play the promo, but it spawned a “hate ad” from a friend of mine who also sent his to Adam.  It turned into the “Troy Needs an iPod” contest which went on for a month and had people buying domain names from goDaddy, with the best domain name as to why you need an iPod more than Troy would receive a video iPod.  The event itself was a success, I finally got my iPod from the Podfather (as well as hate emails to me) and it is a great conversation starter among podcasting friends.

People involved in social media on the national level meet a lot of people both online and virtually.  I am very fortunate to have met Friends who have become friends.  In the world of collecting Friends on facebook, it is your true friends that get you through the tough times.

Thank you Adam, CC and Amy for being my friends.  It’s been a great ride.

Many bloggers, like me, suffer from two different mindsets when it comes to their blog design.  First, a design gets “old” even after a few months.  Second, they are never satisfied with how their blog looks, so they install the latest template they find, or the newest plugin, and the cycle repeats itself.  Eventually they spend more time searching and tweaking templates than they do writing their content.

On December 14th, Chris Brogan launched his new site design based on the Generate template from StudioPress.com. (Affiliate Link) Were you expecting fanfare, sirens and confetti?  You didn’t hear much except a tweet from Chris and Brian. But Chris’s new site design reinforces the difference between design and content.

The Debate

There was some Twitter chatter about how Chris and developer Brian Gardner of StudioPress were fine-tuning the call to action and minor CSS issues on the site in realtime.

@twohourblogger sounded:

@bgardner It’s hilarious that the designer is playing with the CSS on the fly like that. My clients would kill me if I did that.

To which Brian said:

@twohourblogger @socialtriggers It’s all about @chrisbrogan being laid back and understanding it’s easier to do it this way.

Yes, the thought of editing CSS live on a popular website may horrify web developers, but it was interesting to see just how transparent Chris was being with his site launch.

The Perfect Theme Design

Many people search for the perfect theme, endlessly installing, tweaking, then installing another theme trying to find the right theme to convey “professional but fun,” “passionate but soft” or some other kind of feeling through their design. I, myself, have installed countless StudioPress and free themes on this blog alone, each carefully customized then thrown away in a couple of months because something just doesn’t look right or professional enough.

Some people were shocked to find that Chris was allowing his theme to be turned into a template by StudioPress.  But in fact, according to Brian Gardner:

For what it’s worth, Chris wanted to have his new theme based on something he could sell.

And from Chris himself:

The theme before Generate was a bit more custom. I like that I’m using an “almost” off the shelf theme to good effect.

It’s All About The Content

Chris shows us not to be concerned with another blog having a similar design. The subtext of basing his site on a released theme is quite simple: “I’m using a modified theme. My blog may look like hundreds if not thousands of others.  It’s not the design, it’s the content.” (My words, not his.)

As you may notice, I have also switched to the “Generate” template, and am liking it so far.  I know I’m no Chris Brogan, and while everybody running the theme may be accused of “copying” Chris, each blogger has a unique voice.

While presentation is nice, YOU make your blog unique.

In a 2007 blog post on TroyRutter.com I posted an idea.

Send me one of your “techy” T-shirts, literature about your company, and I will blog about it and post a photo of myself wearing the shirt on my Flickr account with a link (thats 2 links) and maybe even podcast about it (3 links!). That will be at least a PR4 (used to be a 5) link from me to you, reciprocal link is not necessary. Again, this is for technology, Internet, web companies only please. Examples include Podshow, Viddler, etc.

Today, Jason from I Wear Your Shirt is on the Today show.

Good for him!

It would be easy for me to sit and whine about “But I thought of that first!”  Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. (He says he came up with the idea in 2005.)  But the undeniable fact is this:

He took action.

Those who take action are 100% more likely to accomplish a goal than those who don’t.   It’s true. The leading cause of  thousands of businesses never being successful is the inability to start.

Fear is a great un-motivator.  What if I fail?  What if I lose all my money?  What if my parents think I’m crazy.  What if my friends say its a stupid idea?

What if you never take a chance and DO it

As I was driving home from Minneapolis Sunday, something was going through my head. I had heard time and time again that “The bigger the chance, the bigger the payoff.”  As I was thinking about this, I passed a casino.  It is one of the smallest casinos in Iowa, and when I went in, finding a slot machine I liked was difficult. People say the slots are a waste of money, but I kept thinking, “the bigger the chance.”  I put $20 in and played all “lines” on the machine.  $20 gone in 10 seconds.  Another $20.  Same deal.  Finally, I realized what I had to do, I slipped the $100 I had into the machine, played all lines. First pull, nothing, second nothing, third… it wasn’t a jackpot, but I made the initial $40 and then enough for gas money for the road trip. I cashed out.

Risk Does Not Equal Money

Not all risks have to be monetary things, it can simply be stepping out of your comfort zone. In 2005 I had just published a book on acting, with an entire chapter dedicated to auditioning. The local community theater was havign auditions for “The Fantasticks” – a musical, and I thought about trying out.  Not because I wanted to, but because I thought “I wrote a book on acting – how hypocritical would it be to be scared of auditioning.  So I did it.  The next year I was on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee, and then served 2 years as President.  I have seen a lot of great shows, met a lot of great people and have made a difference in a few people’s lives.  That’s my “big reward.”

Consequences of never starting

If you have an idea and never start it, you will always be on the lookout for someone who “stole your idea.”  It’s human nature.  In reality, for every new idea you think of, chances are somebody else thought of something similar.  What makes your idea unique is simple.  You! Never underestimate the unique value that you, yourself, bring to a seemingly simple idea.  The trick is taking that idea, making it yours, and doing it.

Otherwise, just sit back and tell your family and friends “I thought of that first!”  They are the only ones who will listen.

I first heard of Scott at the 2010 Blogworld in Las Vegas when he leapt (almost literally) onto the stage to give one of the keynote presentations. Having never heard of him before, I quickly wondered how I had gone so long without hearing of him, as his presentation was full of a kind of energy and electricity that completely filled the auditorium.

I bought his book at the Wiley booth, and at the end of the conference vowed to read it, “Get Seen” by Steve Garfield and “ATTENTION!” by Jim Kukral as quickly as I could. Well, things didn’t quite happen as I predicted and they sat unread on my shelf for almost a year, until this week.

I’m a skeptic. If you read through these blog posts you will find that I am very critical of the “hype” certain “social media experts” tell their followers. Followers is actually a pretty good term for many Twitter users, by the way. Just saying.

Anyway, I started reading the book, which I expected to be the same, dry social media book I am used to. I was again surprised and delighted to find the book was not only entertaining, but a quick read. When writing this post I hesitated on using the term “quick read” because that should not at all be linked with “unengaging” or “useless” information. I got it. And it was clear Scott “gets it.” The tone of the book had me curious, and later I found out he partially used a text-to-speech program to write the book. I could tell, as the book closely resembles his in-person personality.

The chapters are short, but memorable. There are several parts I immediately related to. First, it may sound like something simple, but if you aren’t going to promote and be a cheerleader for your brand (or yourself – or maybe you are your brand) then nobody will. How true! You can’t expect the disgruntled employee in cubicle 512 to be your social media presence and be engaging if they hate their job, hate talking to people and hate hearing people complain. If you aren’t willing to speak up for your company 100% or 200%, then just don’t do it. Don’t expect others to refer you if you wouldn’t even refer yourself.

Another comment that I identified with was one I have posted here on my blog and causes a ruckus every time I mention it – that a large percentage of the social media experts make money only by selling a product on how to make money. Every time I mention this to my friends who have IM products, they get all fidgety and say I’m just paranoid, or Im just a natural skeptic. But its true. “For only $5 I can tell you how to make a million dollars on the Internet, $5 at a time.” that is the subtext of a good majority of information on how to make money on the Internet.

I have bought ebooks, online teleconferences, attended real-world conferences, and even spent close to $1,000 on a series of DVDs – and I am still in the same boat as I was before I bought them. The exception being Joel Comm’s Elevate Seminar, which is always valuable and inspirational to watch. It isn’t on the elevate seminar DVD’s, but if you haven’t yet, you have to see Joel’s “penny” demonstration from back in the day when he was talking about Adsense. Classic demonstration, and there is also a sub-story about Wells Fargo and ACQUIRING the pennies for the demonstration that is valuable in and of itself.

If there is a downside to this book, and many others it is that it assumes the reader is actually empowered to make changes at a company. In fact, many of these types of books are written for entrepreneurs or solopreneurs (when is that going to be in the dictionary?) and are not written for the average worker pulling the 9-5 at a company.

I highly recommend “Unmarketing” if you are serious about rethinking your social media mindset. I know that sounds like a pitch or the back of the latest guru book, but it is true “Unmarketing” will get you to reconsider all the “push and pray” marketing your company is doing. Goodbye yellow pages, goodbye trade shows with flyers on the counter, goodbye 30 second spot, goodbye mass mail (or even email). We’ve all heard about engaging customers, this is about engaging fans.

Get it.

(note, I have been an Amazon affiliate since 1996, and I will receive a small, minuscule commission if you buy the book through my link.)