2010.01.05

CrushIt!, passion and the AE formula

If you’re not familiar with WineLibrary.tv, you need to know something. Gary Vaynerchuk is wildly passionate about what he does. I’m talking truly stratospheric passion. He’s harnessed that passion to his energy and drive to turn his family’s wine business from a $4 million to a $50 million dollar business. And, he continues to build that business everyday using social media as his main platform.

There’s no denying you need some form of passion to achieve any degree of success. In fact, I’d agree that passion serves as the foundation of success. It’s after this that Gary and I diverge in our thinking about the formula that’s led to his success as he describes in his easy-to-read and very insightful and entertaining book CrushIt!

Gary spends a lot of his time pushing the need to create lots of content. He notes that content is king in all forms: text due to it’s power when indexed by search engines, audio because almost anyone can speak without needing to be seen, video since it’s amazingly popular these days, and live streaming because it’s an oft overlooked way to engage with your audience. Gary suggests tools to use for each of these delivery mechanisms and then urges his reader to get out there and start producing content everyday.

I believe that content is one-third of an important equation for audience engagement, a dependency of media success. The other two-thirds are:

  • Context: the elements that determine the meaning of the content. Context can be the descriptions that support all forms of media, the ambient sound of an audio recording and the visuals that create the setting of the video. Without context, the content is just words that anyone can read.
  • Delivery: the way in which the message is delivered by the speaker or the media. Gary makes no apologies for his delivery which he describes the way most people describe a used car salesman. His style is certainly unconventional for the world of wine. Yet his delivery works because it’s a strong contribution to the equation, and while it may seem obnoxious to some, there is an authentic and relatable charm to Gary’s style.

There’s a catch to this equation; it’s not a sum of its elements. The audience engagement (AE) equation is a product of content (C), context (X) and delivery (D):

AE=CXD

If any of C, X or D have a zero value, then AE will be zero. Meaningful audience engagement depends on a positive value–even a decimal value–for each of the three elements.

“We” use this equation everyday without actually substituting the elements with numerical values. This is the equation that determines which actor made us connect with their character and the story, which news anchor we trust to tell us what’s going on in the world and which author writes the books we always want to read. And, for each of those scenarios, a casting director, producer or editor made a similar decision to select the best candidate for their needs.

It’s also the same equation that has made WineLibrary.tv a huge success, landing Gary lucrative speaking engagements, appearances on CNN and ABC news (among many others), the Ellen Degeneres Show and Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and countless appearances in newspapers and magazines.

CrushIt! is a great read. Gary did a fantastic job weaving his own personal story with the story of his family, WineLibrary.tv and how to cash in on your passion.

2008.11.19

Passion your podcast

Since the dawn of the medium, the mantra has been podcast your passion.  As a result, many thousands of podcasts have been launched by content creators eager to share the excitement they have for their work, hobbies and other interests and distractions.  That’s how I got my start and that’s how I’ve maintained my momentum and interest in producing audio and video content for the web.  This has worked very well for me.

It’s only recently that I’ve realized podcasting has actually propelled my hobbies and interests to new heights.  It’s motivated me to experiment with new production styles and explore new possibilities.  In fact, in immersing mself in the pursuit of new ideas, I find that I’ve become a strong advocate for the subject of my podcasts.  That means taking on new challenges

Last week, Andrea and I and our two daughters piled in to a car for a six-day, whirlwind roadtrip which served double-duty as a family vacation and a chance to gather video and audio recordings with some of the biggest names and exciting new talent in the children’s book community for our Just One More Book!! podcast.  We had the priviledge of being the guests of Lane Smith and Molly Leach for two nights during which we had the chance to interview Lane about his illustration process and the artists and illustrators that have influenced him the most.  When we weren’t holding microphones and video cameras, we went on a hike with Lane to a small cabin on their property, ate meals with Lane and Molly (including an amazing meal prepared by Molly and served on a beautifully decorated table) and watched some videos of Lane’s books and the movie School of Rock.

We stopped at the Dr. Seuss Memorial Gardens in Springfield, MA on our way to Northampton where we had the priviledge of spending three nights at the home of Jennifer and Richard Michelson.  Jennifer and Richard were also amazingly gracious, helping us find our way around town, joining us for meals and having us in their home for a fantastic dinner on Saturday night.

Our Northampton schedule was packed and included studio visits, painting, computer drawing, interviewing, museum visiting and socializing with too many children’s book creator names to be mentioned here (click here for a summary of the things we did and people we hung out with).

Back to passion… it’ll take a few weeks to go through the 25 hours of audio and 13 hours of video recordings, and the 1,183 photographs we took while on our road trip. In the meantime, we’ve uploaded a small number of photos as a teaser of the content yet to come.

Our trip has inspired me to think beyond the work we’ve done, beyond the ideas we’ve considered and beyond the limits of promoting children’s book that I’d imagined — all because of our podcast and how it’s amplified our passion.

Thank you very much to everyone we encountered on our trip.  We had the most amazing time with the most gracious, supportive and talented group of people we have ever met.

2008.07.12

You shall know us by our velocity

The Just One More Book children’s book podcast will publish its 400th episode this evening, and on Tuesday will celebrate its second anniversary.

How is it possible that a hobby podcast has the momentum to hit these milestones in such a short time? It’s not just because Andrea and I publish four shows a week.

There are two magic ingredients: passion and partnership. Andrea and I are both very passionate about children’s books, promoting great books and literacy in general. Some might say we’re obsessed about the cause. We may be. And, while passion alone may be enough to drive the momentum of Just One More Book, the show would never succeed if it weren’t for the way Andrea and I share the funload and activities that go into each show. We’re very invested in the project and can’t imagine giving up what we do.

Most important, we have fun doing it.

What drives your velocity?

(tip of the hat to Neil Gorman for the post title)

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