One Day After I'm on Oprah, Picked Up By Miramar, Distributed by Wal-Mart. Are You Waiting to be Discovered?
"The curious shall inherit the earth." - Jim CoudalI just got back late last night from nearly five exhausting days at my first SXSW.
For a few days I wondered what I was doing among the code wranglers and web designers.
But the conference is packed with creators - comic strip cartoonists to videobloggers to entrepreneurs - that may be holding a day job today but... not for long.
Oh, yeah, I remember I'm not a marketing consultant any longer. I walk back to the hotel after an evening of short punctuated two-minute performances with Erik Hansen, of TomPeters.com, and Todd Satterson, of 800-CEO-READ. Erik says that Jim Coudal (I missed the keynote, but thanks to the wonders of the 'Net we can catch Jim and Jason here) he noted again and again at the conference this theme: "Forget clients, build your own business." Coudal's talk stresses that in business-building you continue to stretch yourself and learn.
I nodded in agreement, "Yep, I'm done with clients. I only have partners." (A partner has a stake in a business.)
The next morning, I met John Moore of BrandAutopsy who lives in Austin for coffee. He told me he gets inundated with requests for an "in" with Starbucks or Whole Foods (both former employers, his eagerly awaited book on Starbucks Tribal Knowledge should be out this fall). "I've got a great idea for organic cupcakes," the enthusiastic spam begins. "They're looking for the home run, rather than building an endearing, enduring brand."
"If it's such a great idea, why don't you do it yourself?" John muses. We talked about if you had the loads of cash that getting distribution into Starbucks or Wal-Mart, on the Oprah show, or picked up by Miramar what do these folks think they'd do with it? There's still focus on the big bang, flipping, the IPO, the acquisition, the jet in the hangar. But, something else is emerging and it's not isolated to the blogosphere. We're not content to defer life to "AFTER" (after Oprah, after IPO, after sale, after the record label signs us up, after we're a mommy, after {insert here}...).
"I see creating a business as a way to build character," said John.
I'm starting to see artists enjoying the process, the journey itself more. No after, just now. So one day when you are off in Tahiti with or without your laptop you can perceive and recognize contentment.
Another related recurring theme was spouted by the last keynoter and machinima filmmaker, Burnie Burns:
"You don't have to sit around and wait for someone to notice you're talented. We didn't get into SXSW. We didn't get into Sundance. I have rejection letters from the most prestigious film festivals in the country.We found our audience online."
p.s. I'll be writing more about DIY 'art', creating your own thang, lessiness, storytelling (triggered by SXSW) and how that relates to customers (hint: they're independent creators too). Plus use these themes for the tsunami anniversary stories I'll chose to share over the next week or so. And I'll explain why sometimes stuff like the 37days challenge may not work for all creators alike. It's not exactly like falling off a diet commitment, it's all about intrinsic motivation.
Thats right - the Internet is the right media for a lot of people that wants to share their talent, their ideas or works to the public, without having to deal with publishers and their rejection letters. I have two different comic sites and getting my revenue with the Adsense program. One is http://www.magic-knight.com and the other http://www.danstrip.com
The Internet. Go figure.
Posted by: Carlos Sisi | Mar 16, 2006 at 05:22 AM
You're right. These themes were very prevalent at SXSW. I found the conference so invigorating because I saw so many other people there who WERE willing to enjoy a small part of life now without wanting to flip their companies. They were just like us; happy to have the opportunity to create and not worried about making mega-millions.
Posted by: Laura Moncur | Mar 16, 2006 at 06:19 AM