There are 1,000,000,000,000 + (one trillion plus) unique URL’s in Google’s search index.
Do you have one? If so, you’re lucky.
FACT 2:
Each day there are approximately 2,000,000,000 (two billion) Google searches by people trying to find information, ideas and insights to help solve their problems.
Do you or your business have good answers to offer for some of these problems? Answers that can help create new sales, customers and a hopeful future in these challenging economic times?
If so, you’re lucky.
The Problem
But how can you or your business stand out in a world with one trillion unique URLs and two billion daily Google searches? How can you or your business be discovered and break through in an exploding online world that includes 14 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute? With over one billion views per day? And all of these other weird and wacky Web 2.0 ways to communicate?
How Can You Break Through?
The Answer
Easy.
How?
Think Like a Publisher
Fight daily on the battleground of content. Publish great ideas, information and insights via New Media applications. Publish content that is helpful, educational, unique, specific, credible and –
written in a storytelling way. Content that affects the way the reader (prospect, customer, employee, etc.) does their job―for the better.
The End of PR and Marketing
The latest-greatest buzz calls this concept “Content Marketing.”
“Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. In contrast to traditional marketing methods that aim to increase sales or awareness through interruption techniques, content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action.” Wikipedia
It’s not really “content marketing.” It’s not PR. It’s not marketing. It’s survival―for you and your business. That, by necessity, means a successful collaborative communication effort between Customer Service, Sales, PR and Marketing to create and support new business. That’s what it’s all about; creating, supporting and growing new sales.
Good News!
The good news is that there has never been a better time with more creative, cost-effective ways using New Media applications to do that. You don’t need a $100 million marketing and advertising budget. Real companies are doing it successfully – right now.
Bad News?
It requires successful collaborative communication efforts between disparate business groups. It requires breaking down the secretive silos in businesses that so often strangle breakout success. That smother fresh ideas and disdain approaches by “outsiders” of the business group – even though they’re in the same company. That seeds and sows a reclusive, restrictive, “us against them” mentality.
Collaborative means playing well with others. Successful collaboration means doing it so well that the customer is served, problems are solved and the business makes money. Siloed domain expertise egos need to back off, back up, back out or just get out of the way. Who isn’t tired of hearing “They (insert the favorite hate group of the day – Marketing, PR, Sales, Service, Product Managers, etc.) Just Don’t Get It!”
Times are tough. Hate to go all “Three Musketeers” on you but …
“Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno”
“One for all, all for one“
– should be every company’s motto right now.
Jump in
Below are some of the New Media Web 2.0 (for lack of a better term) capabilities and applications available to support the sales and service I’m talking about. Examples of how real companies are using New Media to help grow their businesses are included. Try them out. Plant your flag in some or all of these new territories if they fit your business needs. But to succeed, know this: They need active, authentic, honest participation to help grow and create new business.
For an Experimental SlideRocket Tour of New Media
For a quick visual introduction to some of these New Media tools, view the SlideRocket presentation below, or come back to it later. It’s best viewed in full-screen mode with audio on.
Also, I have personally used or experimented with all of the New Media apps below―some with great results, others not so good. So, if you have any questions, just e-mail me and I’ll get back with you. I’m not an expert, but I am a prolific experimenter, which means I’ve made way more mistakes than the experts who are focused on one little niche. I’m a multitasking mistake-maker.
BOOKMARKING
Companies use bookmarking sites like Delicious.com and StumbleUpon.com to create interesting and helpful resource and information libraries for customers―and to attract new prospects.
StumbleUpon is also a social bookmarking site. It allows you to vote, rank and recommend interesting websites. You’ll find some spectacular hidden treasures there if you care to take a peak. Though not the darling of the media like Twitter, StumbleUpon’s popularity is undeniable. They have over 7 million members.
The idea behind a YouTube (or other video-sharing site) channel is to create a video learning lab for products and solutions. Short video clips to help educate, entertain and inform customers and prospects.
Cincom: Http://www.youtube.com/Cincomvideo (the company I work for)
Cincom Smalltalk – an application development programming language. The product manager uses it for “how-to” videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/jarober
Quick tip―one thing I learned. Save the video under names of which people are likely to search for. I named my first 25 videos something like DSC145735. Then I wondered why no one was viewing them―well, no one except the people that searched for DSC145735.
Twitter
“Twitter is a free social messaging utility that allows users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.” – Wikipedia.
Twitter is a low-/no-cost way to engage customers and prospects with short, headline-like chunks of content. Twitter, to be most effective, needs a lot of participation, especially from product managers, customer service, sales, PR, marketing and others―real, authentic, helpful and non-salesy or promotional fluff.
Twitter is my favorite. It’s amazing to watch ideas and information explode and ripple through the Twitterverse. For a recent example read, “Tesla on Twitter – Twitter on Tesla.” Take heed though, it’s a challenge to write something meaningful, clear, concise and compelling in 140 characters or less. That’s 15-20 words. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself.
Are there companies using Twitter for business? Yes. Are there sales being generated via Twitter and sites like it? Yes. Dell attributed $1,000,000 in sales last year to its Twitter sites.
Though sort of old hat, blogs are simply the best and most powerful sources of dynamic content to help customers and … your business. Blogs are a way to showcase your thought leadership. To share your information, insights, ideas. See if they resonate. Test the waters. For business examples check out GE and IBM’ers blogs. They have thousands of them. That’s right, I said thousands.
If you want to do some in-depth research, check out Guy Kawasaki’s “All the Top Blogging News.” It’s a one-stop shop of information and resources on blogging.
WARNING! Blogs Can Be Big Trouble
Blogs can be troublesome though. Big trouble. Especially if some employee or blogger goes wacky-wild-west off-the-deep-end on an upside-down triple-gainer-rant of a blog post. Below is my favorite example of an out-of-control blogger. He ought to be fired because …
He simply has too much fun. No one should be able to do cartoon-torials, yuck it up, muck it up, enjoy blogging and keep a job. I mean all seriousness aside … what’s the deal?
WIDGETS
Widgets are embeddable pieces of codethat can be installed and displayed on a website. They’re reusable. It’s a great way to let others promote your website or content, and they will, if … you provide them useful widgets.
Try it out yourself. Create a widget. I use Widgetbox, but Wowzio is excellent too. Watch out though – they’re addicting.
Blidgets
What’s a blidget? A Blog widget. Pretty simple. It captures a blog in colorful, adjustable frames and displays multiple blog post headlines.
The blog post titles are live. Each blog headline is an opportunity to attract people to your blog. Each time a headline is clicked it takes the reader right to your blog. Test it for yourself. I’m a big fan of blidgets. The one above has received 20,510 views in three weeks. (That was a shameless self-promotion. I have to out myself on that one.)
Twidgets
Yes, you guessed it. You can even make a widget out of a Twitter feed.
FriendFeed is a social media content aggregator. What’s that mean? Basically all content, images, video, and audio files published by contributors on any of the 49 social media sites it accesses is aggregated into a live feed. Like a Wall Street Stock Ticker–without the associated pain. It is an exceptional place to discover new content from multiple sources and formats. Robert Scoble is big on FriendFeed Vs. Twitter for many reasons. I’d agree with him.
Example?
How Companies Can Use Friendfeed – by Forrester Analyst Jeremiah Owyang. As an aside – Jeremiah, in my opinion is absolutely one of the best, if not THE best, social and New Media analyst around. Class act. If you want to keep up with everything that’s going on in the social computing interactive marketing world, check out his blog or Twitter account – http://twitter.com/jowyang
FACEBOOK
Facebook and other similar social networking sites such as MySpace are powerful opportunities for businesses – if, once again, approached with a helpful attitude. Why? It’s where a lot of the world online population is now. Facebook has more than 150,000,000 (million) active users and is growing at the rate of approximately 450,000 new users per day.
Those kinds of statistics tend to blow the mind. But there are reasons people are flocking there. I like it because it’s pure opt-in. No one can stalk or spam you. A lot of people have found me on Facebook that I hadn’t heard of for years. Of the two, Facebook and MySpace, I’ll give you the best explanation of demographics that I heard from a soon-to-be 16-year-old girl and her brothers in college: “MySpace is for music, Facebook is for friends and business.” That’s concise, clear and short enough to use as a Tweet.
NETWORKING
Linkedin is an online network consisting of more than 30 million professionals globally representing 150 industries (from their website.) It’s a way to find and be found―for jobs, old friends and groups. It’s also a way to investigate a company or potential job. I use it, but am not a “power user.”
Plaxo is also a similar online network of people. They have more than 40 million hosted address books.
ADDITIONAL WEB 2.0 SALES SUPPORT TOOLS:
Featured on the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine, January 2009, Animoto is a video creation platform. I wrote a story with “The Boys of Animoto” in October of 2007 – and have been using their product every since. If you are doing a presentation of any kind that needs spruced up, or might benefit by the use of a “movie-like trailer” to help banish the boring – you need to ANIMOTORIZE.
SlideRocket is a Web 2.0 application, built on Adobe Flex that allows you to create, manage, measure and share secure, online presentations. You can import PowerPoint presentations from offline to online. And, you can export presentations from online to offline. Key? You can create, edit and access your presentations from anywhere in the world. No need to email or carry round a flash drive. SlideRocket has some visually stunning effects.
Examples:
Check them out in full-screen mode. Simply click the screen to advance slides.
Use the new media applications and capabilities to share great ideas, helpful information and insights to connect with and help your customers. Jump in. Test them. Experiment. Find which new media capabilities might be right for you and your business.
They work … but only if you think anew, act anew, and disregard the stultifying and stiflingly destructive “Us Against Them” siloed business mentality.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them.”
“For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon
A Memory Bouquet 2008
At the end of each year, major media outlets run feature stories listing notables and celebrities that have passed away during the year; stories that recount highlights of the person’s life.
Through the Dark Recesses
Sometimes memories connect through space and time linked to your own remembrances of the person. Memories of what you were doing at a certain time in your life, at a certain place.
Special memories randomly emerge from the dark recesses of time. You feel heaviness, a sense of loss, not only for the “notable person” or “celebrity” that you probably never met, but also for yourself. For the loss of time.
That time.
Your time.
The List
Well, here’s my feature story.
My list.
It’s a little bit longer than the major media outlets would publish. Names of people like Troy, Coleman, Ben, Joshua, John, Christopher, Thomas, Stephen, Solomon, Miguel, Christian, Aaron, Armondo, Adam, Stacy, Daniel, Randy, Tavarus, David, Michael, Janelle, Jordan, Jorge, Michael, Brian, Jorge, Andre, Mark, Joshua.
The Loved and Lost
… and on … and on … and horribly on.
Fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, wives, husbands, cousins, nephews, nieces, all.
Not by Accident
They passed on not by accident, not by bodily deterioration brought on by the mean ravages of time, but because they had a special job.
A job that ended a too-brief sojourn on this blue-green magical wonder called earth.
A job they chose.
So Costly a Sacrifice
They were American soldiers.
A step ahead.
A step behind.
A look left, instead of right.
Right, instead of left.
Up instead of down.
Down instead of up.
A blink of the eye at the wrong time.
And … it was over.
What is Life?
“It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
– Crowfoot, Native American Blackfoot warrior and orator
The fleeting flash of a firefly in the night … gone.
But not.
Their Undiminishable Light …
… echoes eternally throughout the music of the spheres like heavenly bagpipes playing Amazing Grace … across the unfathomable unknowable on their way toThe Last Post.
Who Were These Fireflies in the Night?
Who were these shadows that ran across the grass riding a Sonata of Moonlighton an Ode to Joy – to living, giving and life?
Who Were These Fireflies in the Night?
Who were these shadows that ran across the grass into the arms of an …
THE POWER AND POTENTIAL OF SOCIAL MEDIA SITES LIKE TWITTER
Several weeks ago I published an article called “An Inconvenient Genius: The Timeless Legacy of an Untimely Man,” about Nikola Tesla. It featured an interview with Marc Seifer, Ph.D., the author of “Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla.” Marc is an internationally recognized expert on Nikola Tesla, and his book has been highly praised by such diverse sources as the New York Times, M.I.T Technology Review and the American Academy for the Advancement of Science.
Weeks after the article was posted, a fascinating thing happened. An influential and highly respected leader in the technology media industry “Tweeted” (highlighted with a short text message and link) the article on Twitter.com.
Questions
Within minutes of this Tweet, I began noticing a marked increase in blog traffic. I also started receiving emails regarding the article, the book, and the man himself, as well as some questions and pointed accusations.
Answers
Marc Seifer responds to those questions in this article (I deftly handle the accusations). He and his creative partner, Tim Eaton, have also shared some historical footage and short videos for a feature film project on Tesla they’re working on to help illuminate the answers. The video below includes a rare tribute to Tesla by the legendary New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia; the audio was recorded within days of Tesla’s death.
Quick Backstory
“An Inconvenient Genius” was a short tribute and reflection on Tesla’s life work, now mainly lost, stolen or obscured in the history books. The article posed a couple of simple question: Where does someone like Tesla fit in? How can we nurture, enable and protect such people for the betterment of humankind?
Pretty simple stuff. I try not to aim too high.
Planter of Seeds
Tesla, considered himself “a planter of seeds.” He let others raise the crops. From Tesla’s point of view, he was a creator of new principles. Contrast that with a rival of his at the time, Thomas Edison, who was able to take the ideas of others and construct the first practical machines. Edison was all business. Tesla was a noble visionary – and it cost him dearly.
Dies Penniless
Because of his less-than-proficient abilities at business, Tesla died essentially penniless on January 7th, 1943 at the age of 87. By all rights – he should have been a billionaire. That’s the backstory.
Let’s Start With the Tweet
I started receiving a lot of emails and web traffic several weeks after the article was posted. It seemed odd since it’d been out for a couple of weeks. One comment said, “Oreilly Tweeted your article.”
HOLY @ CRAP!
I ran to the window to see if O’Reilly’s annoying TV producer was going to sneak up and shove a camera and microphone in my face. I was afraid they were going to say “You said you’re a writer – isn’t that over the top? Overstating it? You a quack?” It was a stressful moment. But when I looked out, there was no one there. Then I remembered – Bill O’Reilly wasn’t even on Fox News on Sunday. So I re-read the email, it said “@timoreilly tweeted your article.”
Clueless
I was clueless until I vaguely remembered I’d seen a fellow named Tim O’Reilly speak once at an E-Content Magazine conference. I looked it up. Sure enough, same guy. He’s the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, which according to the website, “spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, research, and conferences.” Tim O’Reilly is also credited with coining the term “Web 2.0.”
The Fascinating Part
So I e-moseyed over to his place on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/timoreilly) and there was a nice little Tweet-blurb from him.
O’Reilly had 18,429 followers (at that time ) on Twitter (he must have the patience of a Saint). So, that made sense, why the traffic to the article increased so much.
IF YOU HAVE THIN SKIN, DON’T COME IN
But as I scrolled up through the tweets on his site, I noticed a few of his followers called the article “over the top,” “out there,” “quackery,” and O’Reilly agreed to some degree. Then the final message I saw from one of his readers called it “a clever deceit.” That did it for me.
NEVER IN MY LIFE …
… have I been called clever. It called for immediate intervention and response.
Anyone that has published anything online knows that you take the good with the bad. If you have thin skin, you’ll quickly get eviscerated, flayed, slung down (in straddle position) a 200-foot razor blade slide – into a pool of rubbing alcohol. That nicety aside, one of the beauties of social network sites like Twitter is, if you’re dealing with knowledgeable and professional people that truly want to learn, to get the facts, you can go directly to the source, correct any mistakes or publicly declare your obvious infallibility – and do it near the speed of light.
TWITTER ON TESLA – 4 QUESTIONS
So I messaged @timoreilly and asked him to clarify any questions or objections to the article. He responded quickly – like in a couple of minutes, with a total of four questions. Not being an internationally recognized expert on Tesla like author Marc Seifer, I contacted him. Marc graciously and quickly responded. Below are questions “Tweeted” from Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) and answers from Marc Seifer.
A Point of Respect First
I do want to point out, before the Q & A, that I have a great respect for all the people I’ve interviewed and written with. It’s always fun. I try to learn from their experiences and share that information. I don’t vigorously attack each point they make. They’re the experts, not me. When I wrote a couple articles with Al Ries, I didn’t question his expertise about PR or “positioning;” or Steven Pressfield, when he told me he structured “The Legend of Bagger Vance” after the Bhagavad-Gita; or Dr. David Abshire, President of The Center for the Study of the Presidency, about his inner White House office dealings with President Ronald Reagan over the Iran Contra affair; or Robert McKee, the screenwriting guru about his knowledge of STORY (I mean he wrote the book); or Dr. Paul Pearsall, a licensed clinical neuropsychologist and an international bestselling author on how he thought the act and concept of “synchronicity” helped him understand and survive his “terminal” disease (which he did – three times). I could go on and on. But now, with sites like Twitter, a whole new panorama of possibilities has opened up. If I make a mistake, omit something, or don’t communicate something properly, I’m immediately alerted (some would say “called out” or “Punk’d”). It makes me better. It makes idea and information sharing better, and it can make you better – if you tap into it.
QUESTIONS and ANSWERS from the TWITTERVERSE
These questions are directly from Twitter, so they are limited to 140 characters. Clear. Concise. It’s a beautiful thing.
Steve: Let me start with the speed of light stuff at the end of the original article, before Marc answers. That reference was actually good. It meant Tim had read the LONG article through to the end. Problem was the speed of light stuff he mentions was a prologue to the next story I’m doing with Marc. I guess you could call it a teaser. I haven’t finished it yet. Nonetheless, Marc answers the question below, although the complete explanation will be in an upcoming article.
Marc Seifer: The speed of light stuff? As George Gamow points out in his book, “Thirty Years That Shook Physics,”
and I point out in my book “Transcending the Speed of Light: Consciousness, Quantum Physics and the Fifth Dimension,” electrons spin at speeds in excess of the speed of light. I explain it more in-depth in my book, but here’s a brief explanation. Gamow discusses the case of Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck in his book. They measured the ortho-rotational speed of the electron and found that it was spinning at 1.37 times the speed of light (Sommerfeld’s number). Gamow says outright that this violated nothing in quantum physics.
What it did violate was Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Paul Dirac, a British theoretical physicist, wanted to reconcile this dilemma so as to combine relativity with quantum physics, so he ascribed the imaginary number “i” to the spinning electron (the square root of negative one) and this got around the problem of violating relativity and won him a Nobel Prize in the process.
I’ve got a lot more on that, the ramifications, which involve resurrecting ether theory and a new view of what gravity is, which we’ll cover in the next article. Some of it involves CERN and the so-called Higgs Boson (God particle), which is not what they think it is because physicists have forgotten that electrons spin at 1.37c. Why have they forgotten that? Because they are so mesmerized by Einstein’s theory of relativity. In other words, there is nothing in quantum physics that places “c” as the upper limit for velocity in certain instances. It suggests that elementary particles interface dimensions, our so-called “physical” dimension with a primordial “etheric” one. The bottom line is, take this fact at its face value.
Electrons spin at speeds in excess of the speed of light.
Steve: What about the differences between Einstein and Tesla on this issue?
Marc: Einstein used the Michelson-Morley experiment assumption that the substance called “ether” did not exist, or if it did, could not be detected, and because of that the speed of light would always be constant. Nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.
“If Michelson-Morley is wrong, then relativity is wrong.” – Albert Einstein
Yet Einstein later lectured on the ether at Leiden University where Lorentz had taught. Einstein sent Lorentz a letter agreeing that the ether did indeed exist. However, throughout the 20th century the generally accepted premise is that there is no ether in outer space even though everyone knows that there must be some medium for light to be transmitted in. The particle theory in a sense did away with the need for an all pervasive medium because light could travel like bullets.
Tesla disagreed and said of course the ether existed and the whole idea that space was curved around planets and stars was a nutty idea. How could nothing (space) be curved? After some digging, I uncovered Tesla’s theory of gravity which is essentially that the all pervasive ether is absorbed by planets and that’s what gravity is.
From that I extrapolated and came to the conclusion (after investigating other ether theories in line, all listed in the book) that all elementary particles are constantly absorbing ether so that they can maintain their spin (electrons, protons). I also propose that photons have mass which pairs with Einstein’s statement that photons have energy because energy and mass are equivalent (E-MC2).
So … Einstein saw a relationship between gravity and acceleration, that’s what a G-force is, the faster you go, the more you weigh. What I’m suggesting is that the reason there is a G-force is because the faster you go, the more ether is absorbed. So, we, planets, stars, everything, are constantly absorbing ether all the time. But planets absorb a lot more ether than people. It’s a constant influx of energy which is transmitted into the electromagnetic energy, seen as the north and south poles on the earth and em fields around all atoms, molecules.
When you jump up, the reason you fall to the ground is because you are in the way of this influx. That’s what gravity is.
The problem Einstein had was that if he accepted this kind of ether theory, he would have had to reject relativity (because he said if the ether can be detected, then his theory was wrong). Well, the ether is easily detected. If you are in a car and stop short, the G-force you experience is the influx of more ether.
Question Two:
Marc Seifer: Concerning free energy, you (@timoreilly) asked the key question. It’s not easy to answer.
In 1901, Tesla wanted to transmit electrical power from station to station by means of wireless and then distribute it in a variety of ways. His big mistake was putting the tower on Long Island. He should have put it at Niagara Falls, near the power source. But he didn’t want to live so far from the Waldorf and the high life in NYC. His plan involved creating a receiving tower in England, or anyplace else on the planet restricted to nodal points from the source tower.
Tesla had constructed a small planet earth and figured out where each receiving tower could be placed. Then he could distribute electricity by conventional means, that is, by wires, and also by wireless, particularly for cell phones. He’s the inventor of the ability to create an unlimited number of wireless channels (he multiplied/combined frequencies). Marconi was only sending Morse code. Tesla frequencies are the basis for radio and TV transmission. They are continuous waves.
Later Tesla talked of “free energy.” The question is whether or not he tapped into the etheric field that gives rise to the spinning electrons.
The technology of the times (early 1900’s) was such that it would have been unlikely for him to know how many wireless phone calls would be made and in that sense, the energy was free. But he knew that he would make the money in a different way, such as in the sale of equipment. Also, we never paid for radio or TV, yet RCA, NBC, CBS, etc. made enormous amounts of money.
It was a different model for a revenue stream and J.P. Morgan couldn’t understand that.
Question Three & Four
@Timoreilly: Overstated “he invented particle beam weapons,” Also aircraft never built. Like saying Leonardo invented airplane.
Marc: The particle beam weapon was actually based on the principle of the pop gun – a toy gun Tesla used as a child to take down crows. It uses a repulsive force to pop out the cork. Tesla thought about how to transmit a ray with a destructive force. The problem he realized was that the ray spread out.
Tesla Thinking
Now this is complicated because Tesla also is probably the inventor (in the early 1890’s) of the ruby laser. He talks about a pencil-thin line of light created when he bombarded a ruby in his globe. That’s how a laser works. One way or another, he did not totally realize the importance of the pencil thin line of light. However about 1918, he was bouncing beams off the moon, perhaps to measure the distance to the earth, so he may have still been using some type of laser-like apparatus. I learned this from Czito’s daughter-in-law who I interviewed in Washington. D.C. circa 1984. Czito was Tesla’s assistant and trusted friend.
Tesla realized that a “ray gun” would not work, so he gave it a bit more thought and realized that if he could shoot single pellets, they would never disperse, thus the particle-beam weapon. The way the gun worked (and it was meant to be the size of a Wardenclyffe tower) was to create a belt of charged ions of say a negative charge. As these ran around a circle, they would pass by the cannon. And at that point, small pellets of tungsten electrified with the same charge as the belt would be placed in the path of this ion belt. When the particle hit the belt, it would be repelled with terrific force out the length of the cannon.
Illustration by Paul Frank from Science and Invention Magazine, 1922
Tesla’s idea was to use this “star wars” weapon to take down incoming planes. Since the weapon was so effective, it was Tesla’s hope that if all countries had such a weapon war would be made obsolete. It would make no sense to invade a country because the border would now be impregnable.
Did he ever build one? My guess is that he built small prototypes, probably in the 1920’s and 30’s. He had a patent application for it that was hidden for 50 years until Andrija Puharich unveiled the paper at the 1984 Colorado Springs Tesla conference that I also happened to be speaking at.
Last Question:
Marc: Concerning aircraft, I don’t think Tesla ever built his flivver plane that took off like a helicopter and then flipped into an airplane position. But the Osprey helicopter is a direct outcropping of that device.
Tesla’s “flying flivver,” U.S. patent number 6,555,114
However, I think he probably built a reactive jet dirigible, which was, essentially a flying wing, that evolved into such aircraft as the Stealth and a new shuttle they have yet to unveil.
Tesla on Twitter … Twitter on Tesla
So there you have it. Tesla has been on Twitter and Twitter has weighed in on Tesla.
The Power
The power of social sites like Twitter is the ability to connect and share knowledge, research, experiences and get immediate feedback from a bubbling primordial froth of a “collective conscious.” Sites like Twitter generate a real-time stream of ideas and thoughts that are immediately analyzed, dissected, commented upon and then spit out – for better or worse. It has no fealty to the staus quo. Rich, poor or famous, errors are quickly identified, exposed, corrected and clarified.
The Potential
Is to connect and meet people you probably, in the normal course of things, would never have met – to reach across geographies, demographics, time zones and social strata. You can go directly to the source of anything that interests you – if they’re hooked in to the network.
Authenticity
I have found in my limited time on Twitter, that the authentic voices of this “collective conscious,” social mental membrane or whatever you want to call it – the people that really do have new and valuable information, ideas, and insights – are also the most responsive.
They actually do what they advocate.
They’re open to engagement. They’re not high-flautin intelligentsia with no idea as to what goes on in the real-world. People like Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang), Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki), David Meerman Scott (@dmscott), and Tim O’Reilly (my complete list here), actually are very open and sharing of their time and knowledge.
Another “Speed of Light” Teaser?
This is an amazing topic – with multi-dimensional, supraluminal legs. While tracking down the facts for this story, I asked Dr. Michio Kaku about the Dirac equation and the speed of the spinning electron. For those of you that might not know, Dr. Kaku is a world famous theoretical physicist, best-selling author, and “popularizer of science.” He’s the co-founder of string field theory (a branch of string theory), and “continues Einstein’s search to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into one unified theory.” (What’s cooler than that? I think we use the same WordPress theme.)
Dr. Kaku is an absolutely mesmerizing storyteller. Anyway, I asked him. Never thought he’d answer but … he did.
However, I’m not going to tell you what he answered in this article for two reasons. One, because he also pointed me to the math for the answer – which means I have to do more homework. And two, I want you to come back for the rest of the story.
End – and a Couple of Thanks
Thanks to Marc Seifer for taking the time to answer the questions from the Twitterverse. We have another article coming up about his latest book, “Transcending the Speed of Light: Consciousness, Quantum Physics and the Fifth Dimension.” The article will also include updates on the Tesla film project, “The Lost Wizard” which envisions Tesla’s life story as a big screen biopic — “a cross between The Aviator and A Beautiful Mind,” with his creative partner Tim Eaton. Tim put the Rabbit in”Roger Rabbit,” the twist in “Twister,” sank the “Titanic” and oh … another film you might not have heard of, he was the visual effects editor in “Forrest Gump.” Tim Eaton’s latest work is on “A Christmas Carol” (2009) with Jim Carrey.
Nikola Tesla, “The Lost Wizard”
Courtesy of Marc Seifer & Tim Eaton
Second Thanks
A special thanks to Tim O’Reilly for the Tweet on “An Inconvenient Genius,” and his ready willingness to engage, respond and follow-up. Never met him. Probably never will. Have no idea how he stumbled upon the article, but that’s also an indication of the power of social networks sharing ideas and information. And REALLY – I have no idea how he does it. When I started writing this article he had 18, 429 followers. Now he has 19,376. 19,377, 19,388, 19389 … quick breath … 19,700 …
P.S. The speed of the original Tweet and the back and forth Q & A was really quick. However, I am really slow. So that’s why it took me so long to do this follow-up post.
P.S.S. I think I’m gonna “Tweet” this and get some more feedback.
The best presentations are always great stories. Stories that invoke clashing images that open your mind. But, the “State of the Business Presentation” today is pretty lame. Boring. Bullet-pointed PowerPoint ad nauseum. How to get adventurous when giving presentations? How to help banish the “boring” from business presentations? To use images and imagery to bolster your story?
Animoto
Animoto is a web application that allows you to automatically generate professionally produced videos using pictures, music and text. Think movie trailer.
The creative ways to use Animoto are limited only by your mind. Below are examples of some different ways you can use Animoto to communicate with your customers, prospects, friends, or anyone else. Animoto videos can be downloaded, embedded in websites, blogs, emailed, burned to DVD’s, and on and on and on.
First – An Inconvenient Genius
This is an intro video to the story “An Inconvenient Genius,” a collage of photos from the life of Nikola Tesla.
Animoto videos upload easily to other video-sharing sites. But what does it look like? Clear or crappy? You decide. Below is the same file uploaded to Veoh.com. I prefer Veoh over YouTube because of the clarity, quality and size of the display.
Animoto ports over professionally with clarity and no degradation of image quality.
“About the Author”
This is an Animoto video from a story I did with Steven Pressfield, the bestselling author of “The Legend of Bagger Vance”, “Tides of War”, “The War of Art”, and many others. Most “about” sections are pretty lame and boring. Whether they’re “about the author” or “about the company.” This one is different. But then again … Steven Pressfield is different. He had plenty of images for me to use.
“Life … Pass It On.”
This was for a charity to help register people for organ donations. It’s particularly poignant. The young man featured in the video, Brandon, was a child of a woman I work with, Vickie Jackson. It was hard to do. Hard to look at now even.
One interesting note on this video. Brandon’s grandmother wanted to see this video but didn’t have a computer. You can create DVD file formats on Animoto. Did that and burned a DVD of this video for his grandmother. The quality and clarity was impeccably professional.
Artists – Photographers?
This is an Animotorized version of the Hal Sherman Blue Jacket collection. Hal’s a friend of mine and was game to experiment with Animoto ( that means he has guts to try new things). Interesting backstory about Hal. He was a banker, but his passion was always painting. So he quit banking. Started painting. Now his artwork can be seen in museums around the United States – including the Smithsonian. This is Animoto video of his artwork, includes paintings of Blue Jacket, Simon Kenton, Daniel Boone, Cornstalk, Moluntha, Simon Girty, William Henry Harrison, Half King, William Crawford, Captain John Perry and others. I screen-capped the images from museums on-line and a few he sent me.
Networking, Collaborative Groups, Associations
Belong to a group, association, or just have a bunch of friends you’d like to memorialize on video? Easy to do with Animoto. Skip Press, a prolific author and well-known screenwriting coach, has an online writing forum with a lot of passionate and dedicated members. We took mixed their photos with Animoto and threw in a few cartoons. It’s a good way to let people know who you are, what you do, and if you have a sense of humor. Cheesy cartoons are courtesy of … hold your breath – me.
Speaking of Cartoons
This is an Animoto video of cartoons taken from my “Shoot the Donkey” column.
How About Sales Presentations?
What better way then to start a sales presentation – or presentation of any kind for that matter – with some bling and punch? A rocking video clip? The Animoto clip below is a satirical look at the current state of the “Sales Presentation”… from the victim’s view. The victim is that unfortunate person that has to watch the standard PowerPoint Gluteus Maximux Vomitus Eruptus because it’s their job. And yes, I know there are spelling mistakes in some of the slides and cartoons. I wanted it to be realistic.
This last one is a collage of clashing images and concepts used for an article titled, “End with a Question … Questions with an End.”
So, there you go – Animoto.
The creative possibilities are limited … only by your mind.
Okay. Maybe a slight fabulist prevarication … but on a nano scale. A miniscule, dissimulated equivocation at most.
I MIGHT HAVE CHEATED!
Yes, I did help write and create the The World’s First Social Media News Release by an Octogenarian!
I know Mark Miller, the writer, actor, producer and director of Christmas Mountain: The Story of a Cowboy Angel ... which the press release was about.I helped write the world’s first social media news release (SMNR) by an octogenarian — for Mark Miller. We’re friends, introduced through each others’ writings. Mark is the consummate pro, his career spans from the 1950’s until today in TV, film and print.
In fact, Mark is 83 years old and just sold another screenplay. Contemplate that for a minute, friends. I wanted great things for him. To plant the “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” octogenarian flag of immortal conquest on the new lands of the social media news release (SMNR).
Mark Miller has earned the right.
What does that mean? Well, let’s see. He went to film school with a lady named Grace Kelly. She called him “Herbie” (don’t ask). Grace later became known as …
Princess Grace of Monaco
and still called him “Herbie” when she saw him.
Mark has acted in the “Twilight Zone,” wrote screenplays such as “A Walk in the Clouds,” starring Keanu Reeves, an award-winning family film called “Savannah Smiles,” and many others.
Mark has also appeared in “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “General Hospital,” “Barnaby Jones,”“I Dream of Jeannie,” “Gunsmoke,” “Adam 12,” “The Waltons,” “Marcus Welby M.D.,” and on and on and on.
On and On and On
When I say on and on and on, I don’t just mean writing and acting. The on and on and on runs in the family.
I’m not sure who that guy is in the picture with Penelope. His name was Carlito in the film she was in with him though. I’ll have to send this picture to Mark and tell him it looks like she is hanging out with an unsavory looking fellow.
Mark is still going strong at 83. Incredible huh? He was an Indie film producer before the term was in vogue. In fact, Christmas Mountain: The Story of a Cowboy Angel was an Indie film. He wrote the story, raised the money, produced the film.
A Really Hard-to-Believe But True Love Story
A couple years ago someone introduced Mark Miller to a screenplay called Acceptance Bridge. He loved the story and wrote by hand (yes, it is still possible to find someone who can actually write a letter – if they have the requisite technology – paper, pen or pencil) a letter to the author telling him what a great story Acceptance Bridge was.
Unaccustomed to Favorable Reviews
The writer, unaccustomed to favorable reviews – waited for an accompanying solicitation from Nigeria telling him there was $10 million dollars just waiting to be deposited into his account for safekeeping … if only the writer send his social security number, license number, bank and checking account numbers asap and all other applicable private financial data to a PO Box number in Nigeria.
SCAM
But the scam email never came. Why? Because it wasn’t a scam. Mark Miller had taken the time to hand-write a note to the author because he truly loves “stories” with heart, spirit, soul and a positive message.
A love story – a true lover of story.
SIT DOWN
Well, that writer was me.
Even a blind chipmunk gets a nut every once in a while.
I was sure, at that point, however, that Mark Miller was off his rocker. Why would anyone write a note of thanks wanting nothing in return? Weird. But, after speaking on-and-off for months with Mark and watching a lot of his work, I came to know him as a genuine classic. A humanistic populist – grounded in real-life. A prolific storyteller for our times. A great person whose word in business was a life and death bond. Whose heart was soft … but strong. Quite incredible person actually. Didn’t know his type still existed. I was blessed to meet him.
This “Internet” Thing
Anyway, we became friends.
One day Mark said he didn’t know much about this “Internet” thing but had heard that he might be able to make one of his out of print films available for sale using this “Internet” thing. “Hmm”, I said, I knew a little bit about this “Internet” thing and would see what might be possible. I was obviously not exaggerating the depth and breadth of my expertise – which ran almost as deep as a …
Parking Lot Puddle
Almost Certain Doom
In short order I worked with a graphic arts person to design a DVD cover (all we had was a very worn, old VHS cover). We created a new image for the cover. I wrote the jacket synopsis and helped with the design … thereby almost certainly dooming the project.
The Only Thing That Could Save It?
The only thing that could save the film was the story itself.
It did.
And does.
“Christmas Mountain” really is a timeless classic, with beautiful scenery, imagery and it evokes a heartfelt stirring of a bygone time. A bygone place. A bygone people.
I found an on-demand video distribution vendor called CreateSpace. Worked the niggly details out and shortly thereafter “Christmas Mountain: The Story of a Cowboy Angel,” was available again.
This “Internet” Thing Again
But how to get the news out – to promote it? I started messing around with this ‘Internet” thing again and soon became aware of a new press release format being designed and tested. A Social Media News Release (SMNR) … or a press release incorporating bookmarking capabilities, audio, visual elements. It also utilized a fundamentally different format and structure from the traditionally BORING press release. I liked it. But then the next question became … how to create, distribute and test the effectiveness of it?
It’s an application and service offered by Shannon Whitley. PRX Builder enables PR & marketing professionals to easily create social multimedia news releases through a series of guided steps.
Easy-to-use. Easy-to-understand.
Really
It really is easy-to-use and easy-to-understand. And that doesn’t mean just for technology geeks … but for business users as well. PRX Builder is the tool I used to create “The World’s First Social Media News Release by an Octogenarian!”
There may be mistakes in it – but if there are, it’s purely operator error.
THANKS!
A hearty thanks to Shannon Whitley and PRX Builder.com. I’m not giving it near the accolades or full review it deserves. But it’s a great and ongoing contribution to helping evolve business communications in a positive manner. And help banish the boring.
Steve Kayser interviews Robert McKee, legendary guru of Hollywood storytelling and the best-selling author of “STORY.”
Competitive Advantage in the Complex Sale.
Everyone wants it. Challengers need it. Losers whine about it.
Winners have it.
How do you get it? And …
What’s love got to do with it?
Read on friends … what follows is an innovative approach to the Complex Sale following the Shoot the Donkey format and incorporating the key Shoot the Donkey principle of: “Taking decisive action to remove all obstacles to success.”
Robert McKee, the best-selling author of “STORY” and legendary guru of Hollywood storytelling, is going to concisely explain in an earthy, easy-to-understand interview, how Story principles can be used to help you stun, dazzle and communicate effectively in the Complex-Sale process.
After that? I’m gonna tell you what love’s got to do with it.
But first … what is a Complex Sale?
The Complex Sale typically refers to a high-value purchase of products or services, $150,000 in value and up. It typically involves a Buyer’s Committee, consisting of anywhere from three to 12 people … or more. To be successful, you must be able to persuasively communicate to multiple decision-makers, multiple departments, and multiple organizations.
It’s tough.
Even if your product or service is the best – features, functions, service, cost, value, etc. – if it’s not effectively communicated to the multiple and disparate personalities on the buying committee …
You lose.
Even if you’re good, if your message doesn’t resonate, touch, move, or persuade your audience to act, it’s just a waste of your time and your money. So what decisive action can you take to remove those obstacles to your success to close the Complex Sale?
Three “M’s.”
Make me laugh. Make me cry. Make me move.
Stand out.
Steve, you moron. That’s simplistic. Everyone knows that. The question is how?
Story. Tell a story.
Throw your 58-slide, PowerPoint presentations and reverse-flash, creative swipe/swish, corporate-acronym Bin Laden gobbledygook out the fourth-story window.
Tell a story. Your story.
Enter Robert McKee:
“Universally Acclaimed” – The New York Times
“Near Legendary” – The Washington Post
Robert McKee is the most widely known and respected screenwriting lecturer in the world today. His former students’ accomplishments are unparalleled.
Stories written, directed, or produced by students of Robert McKee include:
“Lord of the Rings 1, 2& 3,” “Iron Man,”“Air Force One,” “Cheers,” “Shrek,” “The Color Purple,” “Crimson Tide,” “The Deer Hunter,” “The Elephant Man,” “ER,” “Forrest Gump” (my all-time favorite – an idiot triumphs!), “Gandhi,” “M*A*S*H,” “On Golden Pond,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “The X-Files,” “A Time to Kill,” “Toy Story I and II,” and more.
Robert McKee knows Story. He wrote the book.
INTERVIEW:
Steve (S): Thanks for taking the time to be with us today.
Robert (R): Sure.
S: How can the principles of Story work in the Complex-Sales presentation? How can it be used to resonate and touch disparate groups with different agendas, goals, and prejudices, while at the same time, connecting the intellect – making good economic business sense?
R: First, why is it so complex?
S: Good question … the complexity of the products and services, and the buying committees have forced salespeople to communicate with a lot of different types and groups of people – users, business types, programmers, etc. To accomplish this, it usually turns into a 58-slide PowerPoint presentation laden with meaningless corporate acronyms to address every aspect of the individual’s wants/needs on the buyer’s committee … too much info.
And, the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of products and services that can solve their problems. There’s really not a lot of difference. The key should be the sales presentation … effectively communicating simply the economic business value and connecting on an emotional level with the people.
R: You know, I’ve been in situations where writers are pitching their stories, right? They’re trying to sell their screenplay. Most executives are so busy that they would rather have the writer come in and pitch the story in 10 minutes before they decide whether they want to spend two or three hours reading it. So the pitch has to go well. I’ve seen writers come in and they’re charming, they’re funny, they do this brilliant song and dance about their story that they have obviously rehearsed and polished and then tell their story virtually tap dancing on your desk. And I have also had writers come in that were not very good. Not good! They were scared to death. They were very shy. They weren’t comfortable around people. They couch and choke their story out and … you know it’s brilliant.
S: But, how, or why, do you know the story is brilliant?
R: Because you listen to the story and no matter how badly the guy performs it, you go “that’s a great story.” You’re fascinated by the sudden story surprises and revelations – although the delivery may not be there.
S: What about the charming funny guy?
R: Mr. Charm? You listen to his story and you know he’d better be charming because his story is a piece of crap if you actually listen to what’s being said. In the great play and the film Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman talked about always having a shine on your shoes and a smile on you face … but he’s a terrible salesman and his family is starving.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 1:
If you’re out to describe the truth – leave elegance to the tailor. – Albert Einstein
R: But I do know, presuming that the people you’re trying to persuade are intelligent and are actually listening and not being influenced by the charm of the speaker, that there’s a powerful, compelling way to present effectively. Story.
S: Story? Can you explain what you mean when you say that? How would you incorporate Story principles into the Complex-Sales presentation?
R: There are two choices or methods of presentation. Rhetoric or Story. It’s all about persuasion, right? You’re trying to persuade someone to buy something. Or in the Complex-Sales setting, you’re trying to persuade a number of people at various levels involved in hierarchy of some organization. Rhetoric is the PowerPoint method where you present evidence in a certain order … or what is known as an inductive argument, right?
S: The difference?
R: Rhetoric is statistics, facts, quotes from authorities, etc. Rhetoric recites this point, this fact, this industry-analyst quote, and then another point, ad infinitum, so therefore, mine is the best, the greatest, the one, the only, product and service that can do what you need.
S: Yes … so what’s wrong with that?
R: They know you’re lying! You lie in a rhetorical PowerPoint presentation by presenting the information in the most favorable light possible. The buyer knows you’re lying, because the buyer is a businessperson who knows that nothing is that rosy. You quote your industry analysts – they’ll refute your industry analysts with theirs.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 2:
I didn’t fib! I made a fable, like Aesop and those other guys.” – Dennis the Menace (noted philosopher Steve quotes often)
R: Why expose your weaknesses? Why not conceal it? Because if you only give the positive side, they instinctively know you’re lying. Because why? Again, nothing is that good. The deep difference between presenting something rhetorically and creating it in a story … is that in a story, it is a dynamic of positive and negative charges.
S: Example?
R: You start up a business and immediately you’ve got problems. You overcome those problems and take a step forward but new problems arise. You find ingenious ways to solve those problems only to discover that you have a competitor who’s got another product that does it better. You improve your product to be better than your competitor. It goes on. So when you tell a story, you can’t just hit positive, positive, positive.
In Story, you cannot hide the negative. In fact, it’s overcoming the negative that makes you powerful. It makes the positive even more positive in the eyes of the person whose hearing the story. Therefore, when you tell a story, admit problems and then dramatize the solution of those problems. Then cause new problems to arise. Dramatize the solution of those problems until you finally get to that positive climax. Because you’re admitting your negatives in front of them, it takes a lot of guts.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 3:
Admit the negative. Overcome. Give yourself the power.
R: They sit there saying: “That’s right. That’s true. That’s what it’s like to be in a business environment. It’s not all positive. But this person is showing me how his product or his service will overcome those problems and how I will benefit.”
As a result, they feel that they’re being told the truth.
S: But couldn’t you be lying anyway?
R: Yes, you can lie in a story just as well. But when you tell stories, if you lie, the lies become evident quickly because of the interweaving of story and fact. When you tell it in PowerPoint, they know you’re lying. They just don’t know where. There’s a more important lesson here. You realize, well, that’s a lie! That’s crap. I wouldn’t buy that.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 4:
“The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.” – Oscar Wilde
R: Preparing to tell your business case in a story forces you to confront the lie and search for the truth. You will catch yourself as you prepare for the presentation sloughing over certain problematic things. If you’ve really got guts, you won’t slough over them. You will admit them.
S: Why?
R: Because then you will show how even these very difficult problems are overcome. When you tell your story honestly and you don’t hide the negative, you tell it well. People sit there with their mouths open going, “my God, what guts.” Put them in the position to see how the negative is overcome. You’ll gain their trust. And, you will have also impressed the heck out of them because you’re an honest human being who knows the reality. A person who deals in reality, but has honestly dramatized the way in which these problems, that we all, as business people, know exist.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 5:
Impress them with your honesty. Expose the negatives. Gain their trust.
S: In STORY, you say Paddy Chayefsky told you once that when he’d discovered his story’s meaning he’d scratch it out on a scrap of paper and tape it to his typewriter so that nothing going through his typewriter would in one way or another express his central theme. A clear statement of Value and Cause. That seems like a logical first step in any story.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 6:
Discover your story’s meaning. Make it your clear statement of Value and Cause.
R: Yes. From there you’d take that same rhetorical presentation and dramatize it. Within the story there is rhetoric, there is information. The actual facts get woven into the story. Weave the information dramatically within a story. Leave them hanging. If you tell them a story that’s predictable, they’ll get ahead of you and lose interest. Tell a story that pits expectations vs. realities, and the struggles to overcome them. I believe great salesmen are by instinct, storytellers.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 7:
Pit expectations vs. realities. Tell the struggle to overcome. Leave them hanging.
S: And the foundation of a good storytelling Complex-Sales presentation is?
R: Research. The key to winning the war is research, taking time and effort to acquire knowledge. Understanding their problems …
S: Is that what you mean when you describe it as “storytelling from the inside out?”
R: Yes. You want them empathizing, you want them saying, “my God he’s telling my story. That’s me.” It’s got to be very personal for them.
S: Could you talk a little about “The Principle of Creative Limitation?”
R: It’s exactly the subject we’re talking about. The PowerPoint presentation is easy, that’s why people do it. Creative limitation means instead of doing something the easy way, you do it the hard way. You take a method that is much more difficult to accomplish. As a result in your struggle as a salesman to accomplish the presentation in the form of a story, you are forcing yourself to be creative. The more difficult you make it for yourself, the more brilliant the solutions you will have to come up with or you fail. And when you come up with brilliant creative solutions to the presentation, the results for the people, for the audience, are stunning.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 8:
Force yourself to be creative. It will stun your audience.
R: The principle of creative limitation forces you to do it the hard way. Story is more difficult than PowerPoint there is no question. You have to have a real talent for this and you have to do it really well or you will look like a fool. That is why people avoid it, because they don’t have the talent, they don’t do the research. They really don’t have the knowledge, they don’t know how to present it in a living way it’s difficult.
Why is whistling not a Beethoven symphony? Because whistling is easy. A Beethoven symphony is hard. But when you take on the challenge of writing a symphony, the creative solutions are amazing, overwhelming. Whistling is something you can do on the street. The more difficult the technique, the more brilliant the solution. Another analogy … golf is more difficult than ping-pong. It’s not that ping-pong isn’t good, it’s a lot of fun and at the highest levels, it’s wonderful. But ping-pongers are not Tiger Woods, why? Because the golf swing is infinitely more difficult than hitting a ping-pong ball. Touch football is not tackle.
When you make things easy, the results are boring. When you make things difficult the creative solutions, the concentration, the practice, and the work that has to go into it, forces you to be creative. The results are all the more stunning. PowerPoints, of course, are the natural choice because people do not want to work and they don’t want to fail. And so they take what is easy and they think it will be successful. And then, they don’t get the sales.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 9:
Are you a whistler … or a Beethoven?
R: And so, when they fail, they blame the product, they blame the buyer for whatever reasons they rationalize they’re crazy.
S: In your book, you talk about the “GAP” … what is it, and could this be an effective tool in a Complex-Sales presentation?
R: The world does not react the way you thought it would react. The GAP is between expectation and reality. What do you do? You’ve got to gather yourself and find another solution. When the gap opens up in life, it’s because the negative side of life that you could not anticipate suddenly erupted in the face of your action. Every day you walk into an office expecting cooperation and then one day you get antagonism. The deep difference between Story and PowerPoint is that Story admits to the negative. Admits to the fact that life does not react the way you expect and that is a fundamental difference. The gap is the essence of overcoming the chasm between expectations and reality. PowerPoints pretend that gaps don’t exist. PowerPoints pretend that the world will react exactly the way you predict.
But what guides you, of course, is that you’re ultimately trying to leave with the buyer one, clear, simple idea you want them to all understand. Not just understand intellectually, but also understand emotionally by the time you’re done.
Shoot the Donkey Insight 10:
A good story connects one simple idea – intellectually and emotionally.
S: Okay, close to wrapping it up here. In your book, you said from the ’20s to the ’50s storytelling was common knowledge. Now it’s a lost art. Is Story really a lost art or is it just not being taught anymore?
R: We went through a terrible cycle of very, very bad education of the writer. Education of the writer/storyteller was turned inside out from the ’60s on, but now finally, the light is dawning on people and they see that there’s a difference. The fundamental difference is between criticism and creativity. What’s been taught to writers for the last 40 years was not creativity but criticism. The methods of speech and literature and writing at universities may have been extremely valuable to people who want to be critics, but useless to the writer/storyteller, and in fact, detrimental to the writer.
S: Thank you for your time Robert.
END OF INTERVIEW
Now Steve, you ask, what’s love got to do with it? The Complex Sale?
Do you have one? If so, you’re lucky.
In 1901, Tesla wanted to transmit electrical power from station to station by means of wireless and then distribute it in a variety of ways. His big mistake was putting the tower on Long Island. He should have put it at Niagara Falls, near the power source. But he didn’t want to live so far from the Waldorf and the high life in NYC. His plan involved creating a receiving tower in England, or anyplace else on the planet restricted to nodal points from the source tower.
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Lessons Learned from Hollywood STORY Guru Robert McKee