Powered by Passion
This morning I listened to a PodCamp interview of my friend Larry Lawfer. During the interview, which focussed on becoming a Podcast consultant, Larry made the comment “from passion to purpose” and then went on to equate “purpose” with making money. I was a bit surprised by his comments. Is passion not a purpose? I relistened to the interview and it really came across that it was one or the other.
Coincidentally, Andrea (Just One More Book) phoned me within minutes about an idea she had in response to a post by Bob Goyetche. The idea is called Powered by Passion and it means that a “member” project has never collected financial compensation of any sort, nor does it have any plans to do so. These projects can proudly display a Powered by Passion badge (on their website, business card, literature, etc…) which tells others that the motives are rooted in passion.
It’s a brilliant idea and I’ve already started to work on it. The vision statement is being written, a website is being prepared and graphics are being designed. Watch here for more information about the big launch - which should happen in the next few days.
October 13th, 2006 at 12:05 am
[...] Mark has jumped on this too, and is preparing a website, vision statement, all kinds of things. You can keep an eye on that, and I’ll also keep you posted here.. [...]
October 13th, 2006 at 10:56 am
I want one. Hell, yeah. If it looks really cool - I might get a tatoo. Hook me up, Yo. Do what you love - and if it doesn’t pay - you won’t notice.
October 14th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
I hate to disagree with you but I think you can have both. I certainly do with my career. Teaching is my passion, my love, my soul driven desire, and I’m paid a good salary for it. I love podcasting and I hope to be able to make money with it too.
October 14th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Of course you can have both. The comments that I was concerned about were quite clear that passion does not have a purpose. Purpose was explained as having, as an example, a six-month plan to become a full-time Podcaster for hire. I feel that this is short-sighted and undermines what passion really means.
October 14th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Without getting into the psychology of motivation (check out my lecture podcast or that….) I like it. We do Broca’s Area solely for fun. Now we have a donate button and a couple of unobtrusive google ads, but those are simply to defray the cost.
I love it.
Dave
October 15th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Charles,
Hopefully we can all say the same about our jobs. However, the parents of your students are likely assuming that you are not being paid to promote certain brands or to entice your students to consume particular products. Your motives as a teacher are likely clear to your “audience”.
We want the motives behind our hobby podcast to be equally clear.
The opinions we express on our podcast are our own and are untainted (if you will excuse the word) by financial influence of any kind. We have links on our site to Chapters and Amazon pages for each children’s book that we promote (as well as links to independent book store directories and literacy related charitable organizations) and the links are there solely to help our listeners continue to explore and possibly purchase the books we love.
We want our listeners to know that we don’t collect one cent if anyone buys any of the books that we promote and that the service we are providing is completely fuelled by zest for the children’s books that we love and a goal of infecting others with that zest.
That’s why the Powered by Passion distinction is important to us.
As I said on Bob’s site, I certainly don’t think less (or more) highly of a project that involves selling a product or service, displaying paid advertising or asking for “tips”.
Andrea
October 16th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
I often jokingly say in my lectures “This lecture podcast brought to you by google” (or coke or what have you)…..
Now it is certainly possible for podcasts to take ads and not be influenced, TWIT podcasts seems pretty on the up and up about this. That said, I agree Andrea.
October 25th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Andrea,
And they rightly should assume that (in reference to your comment), I have to sign a “moral” clause each year that states I won’t promote products when I teach. It also states I have to maintain high moral standings in the community too, so put me on a pedestal. :)
After talking with Mark some more about this idea I think I finally understand it and I find it very ironic that we’re both talking about the same thing but just using a different set of vocabulary. Passion can drive one person to seek (or to be offered) monetization for his work and yet that same passion could cause the next person to remain a “hobbyist”, or to offer unobtrusive ads to help cover cost. Passion allows us to make the choices that best fit our desires.
Lastly, with podcasting specifically, I think it’s a little deceiving for presenters to talk about “everybody making money with their show”. The history of the monetization of blogs demonstrates (to me at least) that a few people will make good money from podcasting and more will make some money but that most of so won’t make anything at all. I think if a person gets into podcasting hoping to “quit their day job” that he or she will be sadly disappointed and may have negative opinions that could effect the whole podcasting movement.
December 24th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
[...] On October 12th, I blogged about a comment Larry Lawfer had made (”from passion to purpose”) during a PodCamp interview and I elaborated on how it was missing the mark on passion by equating purpose with money. Purpose can be anything the individual values - that was the missing piece of the interview. Here we have a great example of content in a particular context, and content missing context. See… it’s all about context! [...]
January 20th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Great idea! I am a bookseller who writes book reviews for fun, not for profit. I think the majority of today’s best book blogs are maintained by people whose passion for books is apparent in every post!