Margie Clayman

A Bit on Balance

As some of you may have heard, I had a rather up close and personal encounter with vertigo this week. It is hard to describe that sensation if you’ve never had it – walking across a floor that you feel is slanting towards the side is only fun at an amusement park. However, at moments when my sinuses and inner ear are behaving themselves, I have a new and greater appreciation for something very simple – walking around without feeling dizzy.

Balance is something we take for granted in our everyday lives, but in the online world, balance is something we are always striving for. At a recent #tweetdiner chat about getting started on Twitter, the word balance came up a lot, not as something that is enjoyed but rather as something that is greatly desired. This is an important point for online engagement, so I thought we could talk today a bit about the different kinds of balance one can strive for on social media platforms. Ready?

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Dear A-Listers: A Letter from a Little Guy

by Margie Clayman

Hi there,

Let me tell you what this post is not. This post is not an attempt to bash anyone. This is not a cry for controversial attention, nor is it a huge slimy piece of link bait. Rather, you could think of this as kind of a plea from someone who cares.

As for who I mean when I say “A-Lister,” if you think it’s you, then it applies. The plea I have to make would really work for anyone. It’s just a matter of degrees.

With all of the disclaimers out of the way, let me get to the meat and potatoes of the issue.

Four Important Lessons from Jurassic Park

by Margie Clayman

The other day, Dr. Susan Giurleo left a profoundly interesting comment on one of my blog posts. She noted that our expectations in Social Media may have been set based on what some of the original users of the technology set forth as what could be possible. The problem, Susan notes, is that not a lot of those claims had a lot of meat behind them. None of those claims had really been through a rigorous process of testing and evaluation. Now, some years later, we may be in the process of figuring out that yes, you can make money online, but maybe not in the way that we all thought.

Susan’s comment brought to my mind a comment Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm makes in the movie Jurassic Park (the movie has been playing a lot on television…I can’t help it). When Malcolm is first asked for his opinion about the park, he chides John Hammond, the founder of the park for being irresponsible with so much power. “Your scientists were so concerned about whether they could that they didn’t stop to ask if they should,” he says.

This line of thinking led me to other parallels between the world of Social Media and the world the Jurassic Park movie presents, so let me dig a little deeper and we’ll talk about those.

It’s a Matter of Motives

by Margie Clayman

Relatively early in his career, Mark Twain got a letter from an adoring fan. He writes that this letter just really made his day. It made him really feel like he had made it.

Then the person who wrote the letter asked Twain for a favor, and Twain realized why exactly he had gotten such a nice letter.

Twain was reflecting on this early correspondence at a time when he had received another letter. I’m going to type this in, because I think, for those of you who are engaged on Social Media sites fairly often, it will give you quite a laugh:

Dear Sir:-I have written a book-naturally, which fact, however, since I am not your enemy need give you no occasion to rejoice. Nor need you grieve, though I am sending you a copy. If I knew of any way of compelling you to read it I would do so, but unless first few pages have that effect, I can do nothing. Try the first few pages. I have done a great deal more than that with your books, so perhaps you owe me something-say ten pages. I after that attempt you put it aside, I shall be sorry-for you!

I am afraid that the above looks flippant-but think of the twitterings of the soul of him who brings in his hand an unbidden book, written by himself. To such a one is due in the way of indulgence. Will you remember that? Have you forgotten early twitterings of your own?

Maybe it’s just the word “twitterings,” but if I was asked to find a 19th century version of asking a major “influencer” for a tweet of a post, this letter would be my first pick.

The 4 bits of advice people always give but seldom follow

by Margie Clayman

One thing you get a lot of in the online world is advice. Whether it’s rife with buzz words or filled to the brim with wisdom for the ages, advice seems to be everywhere. In every bloggy nook, in every Twitter cranny, there you will find more advice just waiting for you to uncover it and take it to heart.

There’s a little problem though. A lot of the people offering this advice don’t seem to follow their own advice very often. When you think about engagement, this is a significant problem. Not following your advice can make you look like a hypocrite. It can make people think “do as you say, not as you do” when you pop into a chat. None of these things are good.

There are four bits of advice in particular that are handed out again and again and yet repeatedly violated in the online world, at least from where I’m sitting.

What is Your Price For Success?

by Margie Clayman

A few years ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find a comedian hotter than Dave Chappelle. His Comedy Central show was clever, at times completely vulgar and inappropriate, and a huge (HUGE) hit. It was certainly not a surprise at all that he came back with the cast to do a second season. Good money would have placed the bet on the Dave Chappelle show lasting many seasons, in fact.

But that’s not what happened.

When it came time for work and discussions to begin on the third season, Chappelle quit the show, left Comedy Central, and in fact he even left the country. He spent a fair amount of time in Africa, leaving many of his fans (and many other people besides) to wonder what would cause an extremely successful man to drop ship and throw it all away. Was he crazy? Was he on drugs?

Chappelle appeared to answer all of these questions in a rather unlikely place – Inside the Actor’s Studio with James Lipton. This clip, if you skip to about the 4 minute mark, is one of the most memorable statements you’ll ever hear about both Hollywood and success:

To watch the video Click Here

In case you didn’t click over to watch, essentially Chappelle makes the case that Hollywood is really sick. Really messed up. It can take people tough enough to make it to stardom and reduce them to insanity. Earlier in the interview, Chappelle said that when he told his dad that he wanted to be an actor, his father said, “Ok, but set a price you’re willing to pay, and once it goes above that price, cut all ties.” That is what Dave Chapelle did.

Sure, Chappelle had tons of success. Tons of money. But he also had strangers coming up to him quoting scenes with cuss words with Chappelle’s children standing right there. He had too many expectations. He had to give up too much of his creativity. It expanded beyond the price he wanted to pay, even with all of that fame he got, even with all of that money.

Margie Clayman

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