So as someone who fancies himself as a web2.0 geek, I was really looking forward to hear Merlin “43 Folders” Mann speak today at IzeaFest. Kudos to him for tailoring his talk to the audience, which was varied in terms of experience levels, and towards the whole point of the conference — i.e. “how to blog”
What was interesting to me, that perhaps doesn’t come across in video / youtube versions of his talks, is that he is a pretty inspirational speaker. But in a “I’m not an inspirational speaker” kind of way. Sort of techie self-help for the folks who find self-help nauseating and douchy. Like, for example, Tony Robbins.
Some familiar themes, for example, included:
- being passionate about what you do,
- trying to find a unique voice in your published work,
- caring about what other people think,
- avoiding dick-ishness (which Merlin admitted to, was a very difficult thing to do sometimes, and to which I agreed), and
- working every day on being better.
Much like Shoemoney’s keynote yesterday, who’s theme was “work really hard”, the messages were simple and kind of universal in their own way — which made it all the more ironic when he writes posts like this on 43 folders about how he evalutes books, making it quite clear that he steers from motivational populist drek.
At any rate, I appreciated the speech, and found it both entertaining and motivational. My biggest issue and where I disagreed with him the most, however, is that I think that Merlin adopts the usual somewhat-techster-hipster-hippiesh attitude that “if its great, they will come”. Build something cool, be interesting, and that should be enough. Link out often enough and people will find you. Promotional and marketing stuff? Ugh — not cool.
(that’s me paraphrasing)
One of the questions I was trying to formulate in my mind that I never got around asking, for example, was that while I get the intrinsic beauty of having a good great awesome blog with awesome content, for some people that in itself isn’t enough. And I think that’s perfectly fine and acceptable to want more out of your blog than the knowledge that its awesome and you’ve done a great job with it.
As I wrote almost two years ago on Problogger, there are a lot of blogs that are awesome who also have dismal readership. To me, its Ok to not be happy with that, and to want more people reading your stuff, and knowing how awesome it is.
In that vein, therefore, I wished that he talked about the intersection of commerce and blogging, where there is a reasonable expectation of return for the amount of time one might spend on one’s blog. He did not address, therefore, the suitability of *some* blog topics that, while you might feel extremely passionate about (dressing women like horses, for example) are so niche they’re un-monetizable.
Personally, I think its perfectly fine that people want to use blogging as a vehicle to earn some dough. Or, that they want to be compensated properly for the time and energy they put into it.
If you start from that point of view, then I am going to politely disagree — passion, consistency, and the time you invest are all necessary but insufficient for any degree of “success” with blogging, and I think it does all beginning bloggers a bit of a disservice — *if* that’s what they want to achieve with blogging — if you do not acknowledge that.
What do I mean? I mean finding a niche that you find interesting *and* potentially profitable is a good first step. That means realizing that while you might find toe-lint both endlessly fascinating and interesting, it may not be something that is easily monetized by either ads, affiliate links, or from a secondary gain point of view, through the publication of books, or getting hired to write about toe-lint in any meaningful way.
And that’s just the first step.
Successful blogging which gives a respectable rate of return for your time (in whatever currency that is — sometimes its dollars, sometimes its respect, and for others, like me, its in doing stuff like this, i.e. being invited to conferences) is a difficult thing to do.
It requires a symphony of different parts coming together, and it takes time. Good great awesome content is only one portion of the orchestra. Actively promotion and marketing is another — and they are not dirty words.
I mean, like everything else in life, its not what you say, its how you say it.
And for some people, that means the difference between Merlin Mann, and say, Tony Robbins.
(or perhaps, Oprah Winfrey, if you like).
PS … On a completely different note, Merlin Mann is Fast. Like a GHOST fast. I tried to catch him after his talk, and after telling me he just wanted to get his stuff, I turned around, and he literally evaporated into thin air. I guess he really is a wizard. ;)
