Happy Monday. :)

I would like to use today’s blog post to introduce you to a thinking tool created by Edward de Bono– the word PO. Here is the basic idea (here’s a great book review if you need more):

NO is a tool of logic. You use it to refute and prove things false and to clarify murky subjects.

YES is a tool of belief. You use it when you’re looking to confirm something.

The problem with YES and NO as the only two options is that they present a closed worldview in which every discussion leads to either confirmation or denial of a supposition/hypothesis. A conversation around “is this a good idea” tends to lead to either a YES or NO conclusion.

So far I’m sure you’re with me. Now here’s a third one that we’ll introduce for usage on this blog (and in your life):

PO is a tool of creativity.

PO is neither YES nor NO. Think of PO as being a combination between “consider this,” “what if?” and “let’s follow this train of thought, even though it might make no sense.” We can also combine two different things that might normally not go together at all, then use PO to force us to combine the two in a creative way. This leads to new kinds of thinking and, over time, to a general attitude of openness to new stuff. And openness is the key to success.

Basically, the point of this word tool is to expand discussion, to remind us to stay open, and to lead us to new possibilities to understand or create the future. A new word forces us into that mode when we hear it. It’s shorthand for an open, creative “what if.”

All I wanted to do was introduce this today, but I’d also like to give you guys an example that shows both how to use PO and that you can use as an exercise (leave your response to the PO in the comments below).

PO: In the future, everything can send out status messages (like people do with Twitter now). All social objects/metadata are status messages, including location, mood, “busy-ness” level, “on/off-ness” of objects, and more. For example, the oven sends you a status message when it is left on.

Where does this lead?

If you are afraid of the new, then you are afraid of success.

Seems obvious to us that we can’t follow the career path our parents did, right? We feel so smart when we say that it’s soooo evident, people change careers all the time, you can’t have one employer your whole life, etc. etc. Everythone thinks they’re a total genius when they say this.

The principle behind the statement is true. We just won’t profit using old models. However, we don’t seem to understand how much we rely on old models ourselves.

We still believe in:

- Rising to the top via the usual corporate ladder.

- Becoming self-employed using the same BS methods everyone else uses.

- Following the same relationship ladder as everyone else.

- Taking the popular trips everybody else takes.

Some of these things still work ok, and others don’t. But allow me to make this as plain as I can for you:

The paths in your head are your enemy.

They are paths because they have been taken before by other people, and because they were taken, they are no longer profitable. Someone else found that route. They picked up the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow before you did, and it’s gone now. Get it?

The Tragedy of the Commons means that everything that’s done before is not as good as it once was.

Someone else had that experience you wanted, and you didn’t. It was great then, and now it sucks. Guess what? That’s how things go. That is why I talk about scars.

Some people want you to believe that it’s easy, but it isn’t.

You’ll have to suffer.

You’ll have to break your own programming again and again.

You’ll have to fight everything in your past with every ounce of your being in order to become someone new.

Risk = Reward. There is no other way.

I’m starting to like these little thought experiments.

The other day I talked about luck and acting as if it wasn’t there at all, behaving as if there was no such thing. Let’s see what happens when we do the opposite of this– in other words, if we considered ourselves lucky, how would we behave? (Like Hurley from Lost, maybe.)

Belief in luck (and having it) leads to what I like to call “checkout aisle syndrome.” This is what happens when we start to believe that incredible, out of the ordinary events will just happen to us as we go ahead and behave the way we always have. It’s named after the idea that people think they will be “discovered” by someone in power at the checkout aisle, usually accompanied by the phrase “ZOMG!!! You are the one I’ve been looking for!!!”

In other words, they believe in a prince charming that will sweep them off their feet (career-wise or personally) so that they don’t have to do anything. It’s a belief in destiny that isn’t accompanied by any need to change any of their behaviour.

Of course, people that believe that this will happen to them (they’re more common than you think) also believe that they are special– otherwise this unlikely event that will happen to them would also happen to any number of other people. Since it doesn’t, they must be different.

I loved Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s answer to this– place ourselves in as many “lucky” instances as possible by accepting any party invitation we could (instead of staying home, say) just because the likelihood of meeting a future business or romantic partner is much more likely than if you’re sitting there microwaving Michelina’s. That said, a basic set of skills to find opportunity should still be cultivated.

Are you still waiting? I know I do it sometimes. Usually this happens in some parts of your life, but not in others. What do you think?

The way I see it, there are only two directions– up and down.

I used to say that it didn’t matter how fast you were going, as long as the direction you were going was up. Keep moving up, as slowly as you want, and you’ll get to a good place in your life. Don’t rush past people, don’t get greedy… just be that tortoise, taking one step at a time.

Up means fitter, more successful, more focused, or anything you want it to. (Down is just opposite of those.) But as I think about this I realize that it might not be enough. People can stay in their job for years, waiting for that next promotion, thinking they’re on their way up so it’s ok. But that isn’t up– it’s flatlining.

I used to rock climb a lot with my roommate. We did bouldering– the kind with no rope that requires a lot of strength. One of the things you learn while doing it is that there is a huge energy cost to just sitting there, wondering what the next move is. It’s better to plan ahead– or to try and fail– than to hang there, your energy being sapped away.

I think there’s a lot to be said here about deluding yourself, thinking you’re going up when you’re really not. You think your position is stable, but it isn’t. Momentum is important.

The thing is, we wait for the right time– the perfect time– to take the next step, just like we did bouldering. But there is no perfect time, except for right now. Just like people say there’s never a perfect time to have kids, and if you wait for it, it’ll never happen.

The circumstances will never be perfect. It’ll always be a little harder than you want it to be. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It just means you’ll have to make yourself… a bit uncomfortable.

Have you ever been asked to sign an NDA?

Non-Disclosure Agreements exist because of lack of trust between parties that need to discuss a subject– in fact, that’s the nature of any contract– to provide legal recourse in the case of non-compliance.

Here’s the thing though. You introduce a contract because there’s friction in a relationship. It’s an additional social and financial cost for a situation where trust doesn’t exist. It’s also a result of living in a world where we deal with strangers in everyday life, because when we have trust, we need less contracts.

So let’s talk about these social and financial costs. Stephen M. R. Covey’s Speed of Trust wasn’t a very good book (sorry), but it was right in that sense– things can happen faster and cheaper in tighter organizations.

Turns out that Ronald Coase, a Nobel prize winning economist, talked about this in the 1937 Economica article The Nature of the Firm. The reasons people enter into firms (or purpose-oriented groups of any kind, really) is because it reduces friction– social and financial costs– and improves efficiency. Otherwise, we’d all be free agents.

Now, what happens when your social graph gets massively huge? When the number of strangers around you gets reduced due to their connecting with you en masse through social networks? Friction may not be reduced to zero, but costs are reduced a little with each individual, making it extremely easy for you to get things at a cheaper social and financial cost than almost anyone.

This is the very definition of an Agent Zero– the equivalent of the It-Girl who knows everyone at the party. She gets everything for free because she knows everyone. She may be rich, but she doesn’t need money (except maybe to keep up her It-Girl status). She just needs connections– which, it has been proven, reduce costs.

Further than this– what happens when all people get just a tiny bit more connected? Friction is reduced across the board. All middleman institutions naturally become a little bit less funded, whether they be law firms or PR companies.

We don’t need them, because we’re not strangers anymore.

I hadn’t considered this when we were writing Trust Agents, but damn, does it ever make sense. Do you have connectors in your organization? They are literally like money in your pocket. Damn.

It combines interesting factoids with tons of illustrations. Each page is evergreen content, and will probably still be looked at years in the future.

Remember those Top 10 List sites a few years ago? Well, this is its 2009 incarnation. The perfect linkbait blog, but taken to the next level. In fact it’s probably made by a guy super familiar with SEO (the smart kind). You can tell because every piece of content is designed and targeted to the audiences that love to spread content across the web, through things like Reddit and Twitter.

This is the way to think about your next project– check out the stuff you already love looking at on the web and then take it up a notch. Don’t just copy– level it up somehow.

Update: Hahahaha, oh boy was I right. Good on you Matt, I’m impressed. :)

Taylor Davidson called it “my phrase” at Tribecon, but it isn’t really mine– it’s been used many, many times before.

I started getting interested in it when I began doing Alexander Technique, which attempts to return your body to a natural, relaxed state through re-training (or “un”-training) you out of your bad posture habits.

But there’s more to it than that. The reason Alexander Technique is valuable is because it does a lot more than change posture– it also changes the way people see you, the way you project your voice, and a bunch of other stuff that is really valuable on a human level– particularly to me as a public speaker. (This is why many actors and musicians practice it.)

So I started to think: “If you’re sending non-verbal signals in person, you’re also doing it online. So how can you improve the signals you’re sending that aren’t verbal?”

If body language is a large part of what you’re showing people when you’re not speaking to them, digital body language is what you’re displaying to people on the web without speaking. And trust me, you’re sending a lot.

Let’s take the metaphor a bit further. If body language includes “stance,” what is stance on the web? It’s the way you or your company stand, what you look like, when you’re “in neutral.” What does your stance say about you, if people are just observing?

If being “tense” in real life means you look uncomfortable and frightened (which results in people feeling ill-at-ease around you), then what does tense mean in digital body language? Maybe a defensiveness in your writing and the way you position yourself vis-a-vis your market? That you’re not at ease with yourself?

People that are hunched over don’t look healthy– people with good posture do. What signals are you sending out that people assess as showing illness within your company or yourself?

Think about all of the signals you’re sending out. They’re happening all the time– they’re not just verbal, they’re everything you’re doing (or not doing). People intimate information from what they feel, and you’re making them feel it through your digital body language.

Like our body, which we often take for granted and forget about, we lose track of what our body language is telling people. But it’s vital not to ignore it like we do our body. It really is speaking volumes. Think about it.

Have you guys noticed yet that I love birds?

I’ve just gotten back from a few trips, including NOLA for Tribecon and up North in Quebec for BitNorth. Both were really cool events.

It’s become pretty evident over the time I’ve spent at conferences that your level of achievement is intimately connected to your social circle. I’m reading Connected right now, which strongly proves this with a number of examples, including how your friends get fat if you do, how much happier they are if you’re happy, etc.

In fact, it’s pretty crazy how much your friends (and their friends) influence you, which is why “Connected” is the perfect title for the book. But what can we do about it?

In my speech at Tribecon, what I suggest is that it’s your duty to lead your network to better achievement, whether losing weight, quitting smoking, or building a business.

What does this imply? Well, if you’re influenced by your network, but you’re first to change, it means you’ll encounter resistance, both internal and external. You won’t only make it tough on yourself (by breaking old habits), but other people’s habits will reinforce your old ones.

Second, maybe it means you need to spend more time with people that are already what you want to be like. This doesn’t mean don’t spend time with your friends, but if you want to be a writer, spend time with those that do it often. You’ll be hearing about it from them and it’ll encourage you in a number of ways. Then, you can bring that encouragement to your peer group.

Think of the way geese fly in that classic V-shape. The lead bird always encounters more wind resistance, making it easier to be in the back than the front. But if no one want to take the front, no one will get anywhere.

So all this stuff isn’t easy. Patterns reinforce themselves. Do you have any tricks to help you persevere in your goals?

Hype dies. The channel does not.

The problem with your 15 minutes is that it will end. Especially if you’re renting other people’s attention, it won’t last forever. You’ll become a has-been very quickly if this is all you do.

For a long time, I didn’t blog or podcast very much. I just worked on my own stuff, in private, and didn’t develop my platform. I realized recently that it wasn’t a smart decision.

It was a mistake, because no amount of hype will ever carry you forward all the way to where you want to go. You need to own a strong, popular channel. No one will ever give you one forever. You need to build one. To do anything else is to be at the mercy of other people’s whims.

Those of you that are bloggers, think of all the PR pitches you get every day. Why are you getting them? Because people are throwing money at the problem– they’re trying to create hype instead of a platform. They’re throwing money at the problem– buying bags of smoke that often result in nothing.

Even if you do blog about one of their widgets, that hype will die. It’s inevitable. And it’ll leave them needing to throw more money at the problem next time they need more attention.

Seems like a vicious cycle, doesn’t it?

Rather than rent, the real way to freedom and power is to buy everything. Simple examples include buying a house so you don’t have to pay rent, buying a car so you don’t have to pay cabs, etc. Everyone can relate to that.

But the renting you do is leaving you at the same place you started, sometimes even digging you into a hole (in terms of money, favours, etc). The buying, on the other hand, is helping you accumulate advantage and facilitating leverage fore future projects.

The good thing is that the web allows you to buy a platform with your time– what people usually call sweat equity. Potentially, you can do that in real life, too– by building your own house, say. But the web is one of the easiest places to do it.

This is only one of the reasons why working on the web facilitates your rise to wherever you want to go. But there are many, many more.

I give change to pretty much everyone that asks for it on the street. This includes street performers.

It’s a habit I’ve developed since briefly working for Homeless Nation, an organization that has gotten a lot of accolades over the years for its work in Canadian cities on behalf of their homeless population.

Today though, I want to talk about one particular incident– at Plaza l’Enfant Station in 2007, one cold January morning in Washington, a young violinist is playing. He’s wearing a Nationals baseball cap. In one hour, 1,097 people pass him by. He makes $32.

What makes this one different?

“No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin valued at $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold out a theatre in Boston where the price of seats averaged $100.”

Marko sent me the video today. Watch it.

Context Is King

You’ve heard this before, it isn’t news. People rehash “Content is King” into all sorts of phrases to prove whatever point they please, again and again (it’s the mashing-up of culture). But I’d like to take this one a bit further.

The content you’re producing is the same whether it’s on a blog, in a book, on a stage, or being broadcast from space. There are millions of brilliant ideas being uttered right now in the privacy of people’s homes that won’t be written down, and won’t ever be heard again.

You may not think this, but you are in media. Whether you have a blog, use Twitter, or even have a Facebook account, you are part of a media revolution. And as a media personality, your reach depends on one thing only: Sneaking your way onto the largest, most prestigious platform you can find.

If we had written Trust Agents entirely on the web (in the way of the Cluetrain Manifesto, say), would it have reached as many people? Sure, it may even have reached more. But as a book it reaches a different audience and, more importantly, it stands on a different stage.

Either way, the content is exactly the same.

I just finished reading Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety. It was a great read, but was it made greater by the fact that I first heard of its premise on the TED website? Unquestionably.

Would it have had the same impact if it were a blog? What about if he were heard yelling in the street? Think about it.

Last story. I was at the Contemporary Museum yesterday and saw the Francine Savard exhibit. Some (ok, many) people might dismiss her work as ridiculous and useless– after all, in one series, she literally “paints” the visualization of a hard drive being defragmented. In blue.

But it’s in a huge metropolitan city’s museum.

I’m not here trying to discuss the value of her work– only that all of these are credentials. Because we consider people in power to be largely like us, we assume there must be some value in the decisions they’ve made– whether that’s putting someone’s paintings in a gallery, their words in a book, or giving them time on a stage.

In every case, context imprints either a high or low status on each project.

Your work may be good or bad– that’s your business, not mine. But if you value it, you’re going to have to borrow the status of someone else– get their testimonials, borrow their platform, whatever it takes, until you develop your own. Otherwise you’re just another person with another blog, or trying to make a buck on the street.

Doesn’t matter how good you are. Obviously.

God, this makes me mad.

So, there is this massive selection bias that happens amongst some influencers on the web where they feel that good content will be found on its own. Why do they feel this? The same reason rich people think they deserve their wealth, of course; if they’re on top, they feel that they deserve to be on top– it can’t possibly be accidental!

“I’m up here because my sneaking suspicions are right– I really am amazing just like I always believed!”

But there’s another side to this equation: If some content is not discovered by itself, does that mean it’s not worthy of being discovered? Further, does it mean that all popular web content is worthy of being popular?

Does that seem right to you?

Or is it more likely that some great things are discovered, and others remain in obscurity for other reasons?

Let’s consider the famous JK Wedding Dance video. After all, it just started going viral again this week, so something about this video must be just that great.

I think we can agree that there are probably 50 other videos on Youtube right now that are just as funny as that one. But many of those videos haven’t made it; only the JK wedding dance video did.

What made this one different?

All other things being equal, the only differences between one funny wedding video being found and going viral, and another being forgotten are two things: LUCK and MARKETING.

Luck

Luck is the result of preparation and, well, happenstance I guess. It happens when you prepare for it. If you have someone come to you about a book deal, you may have gotten “lucky” because you were born with a natural ability to write well, or because you’re good at networking and you “prepared” by developing a huge network and you know the right people, say.

But luck isn’t really what we want to talk about here– I just want to include it as a very real, important condition that causes success, to make the argument that it isn’t just the cream that rises to the top, that isn’t always about merit.

Marketing

Marketing is the opposite of luck. It is planned success, deliberately created through strategy and analysis. Obviously it can work– otherwise we wouldn’t have all these systems in place that do their best to ensure a movie, single, or other piece of content gets heard.

Some people feel that some forms of marketing are snake oil and deceptive– they feel you should just let your great content market itself, and “let the rest follow” by telling other people.

Of course, many of these same people know all the web’s A-list influencers, have been on the web forever, or have many other advantages that compound their success.

To them I could ask: “What if you are just starting out, know no one, and weren’t there at the beginning? Do you deserve to be unknown and undiscovered?”

If great content just gets discovered naturally, when does that discovery happen? If your great content hasn’t been discovered yet, does that mean it isn’t worthy, it isn’t good enough? Or do you just have to wait for the right time? If so, how long?

So there’s this guy who keeps praying to win the lottery. He keeps praying every day: “God, please let me win the lottery,” and he does this for years, but he just never wins it. He keeps praying, but one day he gets impatient, and just as he’s about to give up, he’s like “Screw this, I’m done,” and suddenly he hears a booming voice that says: “Listen guy, I’m doing my best, but will you please just buy yourself a bloody ticket!!!”

Those that are successful often feel that they naturally rose to the top due to the naturally meritocratic nature of the web. They want to believe this because it allows them to feel that they deserve to be on top. In reality, they often don’t– sometimes, they’re just on top accidentally. Trust me, I know some of them.

My point is that it’s flawed thinking to believe that your content will naturally rise up. If you wait, you are that guy praying to win the lottery– ie, you’re deluding yourself.

Once you’ve created your great content, please do smart things to market it– go out there and meet people, figure out the systems that will help you get seen, do whatever it takes, please.

Don’t wait to be discovered. Don’t trust what other people tell you. They are not in your position. Only you are.

Only you can judge.

Children are naturally adaptable because that is how humans are born– flexible and curious.

As we grow up though, we become inflexible and rigid in thought. Why isn’t it the opposite?

Here’s my thinking: We should provide a training regimen to keep our minds flexible. It’ll make us better business people and human beings, and will make our world better.

Creativity Training

Edward de Bono taught us that routine thinking destroys creativity. We need tools like Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards and de Bono’s Po to keep us on our toes.

Humans tend to solve problems the same way over and over again, so we need to teach people that the best answer isn’t always the one that comes first. We all need to learn that, once we get one solution, there can (and often is) a better one further along the path… if we keep trying.

Rewarding Adaptability

Those who stay adaptable despite their age need appropriate reward mechanisms that show others that staying flexible is a valuable goal. I don’t know if we can do this financially, but in some ways we’re often doing the opposite– media calling those who change their views flip-floppers, for example, does nothing but start unneeded controversy.

The faster a workforce and a company’s executives is to adapt to a new environment or situation, the faster they can thrive when things are turned around on them. Companies need to incentivize those who move fast.

Overcoming Fear

Humans are naturally submissive in a lot of ways. We habitually look away from people when they look at us, and we shy away from leadership because we fear making mistakes. But mistakes are the stuff of life– it’s how we learned not to touch the burner on the hot stove.

This actually deserves its own post, now that I think about it, but there’s a real problem with the way we’re brought up. We learn by making mistakes, but those mistakes also teach us to fear a lot more than we need to. We need to find ways to absorb the idea that the worst will usually not (or never) happen. How can we do this?

Anyway, those are three ideas to start you off, but I want to hear what you think next– write a post about this and link me, this needs to be talked about.

(Hat tip: Bob Goyetche)

You know, we didn’t always add strangers on Twitter or Facebook. After all, that isn’t the way most people communicate.

There’s always a little bit of apprehension when you join a new thing, but when we saw that this was the way powerful, alpha users started behaving (Scoble, etc), we started copying them. This is natural since we were trying to emulate their success. This has, in turn, shaped the way Twitter is working now.

It’s amazing to watch the innovations of the most influential users become commonplace on the rest of the web.

Another way this works is that those that build the platforms are able to leverage them in a massive way to multiply and reinforce their own future success. Twitter puts its friends onto the Suggested User List– Wordpress put all of their friends blogs on the default blogroll. This is natural nepotistic behaviour that we, as humans, all take part in. But being able to leverage the platform creates incredible success for all people the creators associate with.

If you succeed early, that will lead to further success with less effort, especially if your success involves a platform. If you fail early, you will have to overcome this to eventually get to a good place.

Visible behaviour gets seen and spreads naturally; invisible behaviour does not.

I think the result of this is that one of the most profitable things you can do for any social network is to get the sluts (the promiscuous connectors) to join. Think of dating websites; if they can get them to join, people will get what they are after. This will make the dating site more popular, which will drive people to use it even more.

If everyone is a wallflower, the opposite will happen. Right?

A single tip today, something really easy for you to remember.

There are conferences happening all the time in this space– special events that cause people to be out of their element, rushing around for whole days, and not paying attention to their usual stuff (like email, Twitter, etc.)

I just got an email saying I should become a fan of a particular thing on Facebook. What would have happened if I had been at an event, whether I liked this thing or not? I likely would have ignored it– not out of malice, just because I had to rush through 200 or more emails.

So, when you are sending stuff out and you want a response (especially if it’s direct to one person in particular), try to consider whether it’s a busy time for them– and if it is, send it later. Check their status on Twitter or Facebook– have they been online recently? Are they on a plane?

What information are you giving you that you can extrapolate from to get an idea of their state of mind?

That 5 minutes of research could result in a lot of saved time, or a much better result.

This morning, I did six– count em– SIX radio interviews for the book.

Here’s some stuff I kept reiterating, that I’ll say now for you, except I’ll expand on it, because you already get a lot of it.

Humans don’t change.

Only tools change. We’ve always trusted and liked the same kind of people + channels– those that were open with us, that are amusing and that tell us interesting things.

Social tools only succeed if they function around human needs.

Social recommendation sites like Reddit and Digg work because we do these things naturally; these tools just amplify it.

If you’re creating a social tool, you need to think, “Is this a normal human behaviour?” If it seems off, you need to make it more natural by reducing friction. Seems to me that it’ll get you closer to success.

Some human needs aren’t yet satisfied by technology.

There’s a lot of stuff that can be duplicated today by social technology, such as allowing for trusted networks, finding work recommendations, and so forth. But not all.

Some human behaviours aren’t yet amplified by social technologies. The trick to success is to facilitate the creation of these tools, and reduce the friction around adopting and using them.

Think Seesmic Desktop. Its main purpose its to reduce friction; as long as it does that well, it succeeds. That’s a smaller job than to duplicate a human behaviour, but it’s still a big enough job that it’s capable of sustaining a company.

The ideal social technology duplicates all human behaviours.

If you can duplicate one social behaviour that we humans have, you’ve got a real success. Think Digg, Facebook, Twitter, even PlentyOfFish– all hugely successful sites that facilitate a natural human behaviour.

If you can do many of them, you’ve got a… well, I don’t know quite what, but something crazy.

Your job, then, is one of three things:

a) Build a tool that facilitates natural human behaviour.

b) Reduce friction in facilitating one of these behaviours through an existing tool.

c) Become a master at one of them.

Each of the above is a bigger job than one of the one below it– so if you just want to relax, choose a simpler one lower on the pyramid, it’ll be easier and you’ll have more time to ride your bicycle with your family or whatever you do.

Anyway, I’m thinking these are the only 3 ways to succeed with the social web. What do you think? Make sense?

I’m from Manila, Philippines [...] I was wondering if you can share with me how I can build my expertise on the web, specifically social media? There are no experts here yet and I’m thinking I could be it. I love the new media.

Here’s what happened to me in Canada, and how living here (instead of the US) helped me get where I am today.

One of the great things about living in another country than the US is that you can take advantage certain things to get you to the top faster. Here’s how:

1. Find out how you can compete.

For me (Canada), that might be population– at 30 million people, there should be 10 times less competition to get noticed in the US (300 million). Your angle could be currency– you can make a lot of pesos for every US dollar you make, making it easier for you to free yourself from a job.

Another angle could be adoption rate. Podcasting was a bit slower to get picked up in Canada (there’s always friction/time in adoption of technologies by other countries), so being one of the first people to use it provided an angle of differentiation (”first in Canada”). It can be the same with you and any new thing people on the web are doing.

2. Build the Community

If the people in your country aren’t making it happen, you need to start right now– it can make you huge.

When you build the local community, you’re naturally putting yourself at the top of it– not by saying so, but through your leader-like behaviour of creating events, etc. As that group grows, you’ll naturally still be at the top of it.

Think of a pyramid: You’re at (or near) the top. Layers get added (newbies, at the bottom), and before long you’re at the top of a much higher pyramid. You didn’t do anything, you just stayed put and kept active.

You’ll also get known as the Agent Zero– read the book to figure out what this means. You’ll become the person who connects people, and everyone will know you. This will increase your visibility and apparent success, which will in turn increase actual success.

3. Differentiation and Status Quo Bias

This is what we say about Greg Cangialosi all the time. He’s the email marketing guy to us, so we always go to him when we need something like that. He’s the status quo. You need to be too.

Blogging is an important part of this– showing your expertise as much as possible in a public forum, and connect it to people in the Philippines (or wherever you, the reader, come from). Be the cutting edge Filipino social media guy is a lot easier than being that same guy in the United States, because you’re the expert on both social media *and* the Philippines. The network will be smaller, so becoming an important part of it is easy. And be more helpful than anyone else, put more time in than anyone else. You’ll have all the relationships you need for years to come.

Read this great Scott Adams’ post for more on differentiation.

Anyway, I hope this helps some people! Does it make more sense now?

I was asked to do a last minute speech for my local Toastmasters group this week since there was a slot open. What I decided to tell them about in 5-7 minutes, was how to get a book deal.

Here are the steps I outlined. They’re vague, but I think they nail it pretty well.

1. Get a platform.

Book publishers loooove to talk about platforms, because platforms help you sell books by having a built-in audience and way to sell to them. If you’re on CNN or you have a popular blog, you have a platform. That’s why all the newspeople who write books, or those that have their own TV shows, always get on bestseller lists.

If you have a platform, they’re like a half-convinced audience that you alone have access to. That sells books. And that’s powerful.

2. Build a network.

Why is knowing a lot of people important? If you have a wide network, you have a huge leverage point to get things done really effectively. You probably know someone in publishing, and if not, you at least “know someone who knows someone,” as they say.

A wide network is important because you then have the ability to get in contact with all sorts of people– agents, publishers, other authors, etc. All of these will give you a piece of the puzzle, which will help you get closer to your goal.

3. Change the game.

We talk a lot about changing the game in Trust Agents, and that’s because I consider it a huge part of differentiating yourself, which is important for all sorts of reasons.

One reason it’s important to change the game is because books have been written about pretty much anything you can think of. No matter what your specialty is, it’s likely a book has already been written about it. But putting a different angle on it can change that dramatically and help you become the leader in your space.

When we saw that people were able to start using the web to develop influence and trust really effectively, we didn’t just write a book about it– we named it. We called those people trust agents. We made it a new idea, a phenomenon that was unique to this moment in time. This made it memorable. As Chris says, it gave the idea handles.

Anyway, don’t get me wrong, I don’t really think it’s that easy. In fact, each of these steps is in fact really challenging and will take you a long time to do right. But once you’ve gotten them, I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to get a book deal.

Do we have any publishers in the audience? If so, I’d love to hear your take.

A few months ago I got together with David Segal of Davids tea, a chain of tea shops around Canada. They’re opening up stores all over the place these days– tea is the new coffee, I’m told.

We talked about what they were doing on the web, got along well. I came and did a consultation with them about how to improve web sales and augment word-of-mouth. I didn’t see David again, though we continue to drink the tea he gave me to try out (it’s actually very good).

Fast forward to the other day, where I saw David is opening a location on Mont-Royal street– right next to Starbucks– nice job, giving Sbux clients an alternative. :)

So here’s the thing.

Let’s say you’re a decently-funded company (one that can open a nice retail store or chain, say). I think it’s almost worth it to engage with, and maybe hire, any social media person that is in the environment they’re in. Not to bring them out to lunch and “pick their brain,” but to say, “I will pay you for this advice.” That way it’s clean.

So if you’re in Montreal, hire everyone locally that does that kind of work, even if it’s just one hour. Montreal is actually great, because it’s such a cheap city, but it could be done anywhere.

That cost will give you good advice, but more importantly, a relationship with every one of them, all sneezers to a certain degree. They may blog it, they may not. They may love your tea, or hate it. But they’ve tried it, and you’ve created an intimacy with them by being in business with them.

It’s a shotgun approach, but I think it would still be effective. What do you think? It’s got to be more effective than “blogger outreach.”

I saw Duncan Moore at a café the other day. We chatted about bootstrapping and some new projects. He looked excited, and I offered up a great presentation on the subject I had seen by one of the 37signals guys*.

Later he left, and sent this out to his Twitter stream, below.

Here’s the great thing that most people don’t do: If you’re ever thankful for something, it’s great to put it on paper like Duncan did for everyone to see. The person who helped (me) will see it, and the broadcast (tweet, blog post, whatever) will be an added benefit that will be seen by others.

Those of us that are online, those for whom the web is an important place, where we try to do business, these references matter to us because they’re seen by everyone. A public reference is worth a ton, especially when it’s accompanied by a link (which is hard to get these days). If you can tweet AND link, that’s even better.

So if you’ve ever done this for me (or anyone else), thank you. Really. And let me know if I ever should have done it for you! :)

* (BTW, hat tip to SEOmoz for pointing out the video in the first place.)

Apple just announced the release date for OS X 10.5, Leopard, and guess what? It’s right in the middle of Podcamp Boston.

I have a lot to say about this, but let’s keep it brief instead: Don’t let this company, the one that took a cash-grab at podcasting, bring the hype into our community event.

Yes, we’ve been waiting forever, and yes, it’ll have great new features, but please. So many people have worked hard to make this event huge and successful– so, I beg of all of you, during this weekend, let’s talk about us, and what we can do, not them. Ok?