A man locked in a steel box for 30 days with cameras showing his every move to the Internet public will give away 30k GBP / 50k USD if you can find him. He does not even know where he is, but he is given periodic clues to help you determine his location.
The appeal seems massive so far. Viral, even! What do you think? Is it total madness or is it creative social media marketing genius?
A part of me wants to say that he is totally nuts, but that is coming from the guy who Webcasted a live stream crossing 6,000 miles in nine days during the 25th Cannonball One Lap of America from the confines of a Corvette with huge stickers that said CopMagnet.com all over it.
I say “Bravo!” to the Man in Box. I hope he survives the 30 days with his mind intact.
View the live video stream below. Just click the play button to see what he is up to now.
Is This Transparency?Decorum is defined by Wikipedia as “Appropriate social behavior; propriety” or “A convention of social behavior”. Since it is a social topic, the standards of decorum are different depending on the social group. Yes, the people count, and what may seem completely innocent to you could be a great offense to another person with a different imposed expectation of decorum. It is more important than ever to be aware of the standards of decorum as it applies to your business, particularly due to the vast mingling of social media in business.
A lot of people talk about transparency in business these days. It is a really fantastic thing, but it can also backfire. I don’t just mean “backfire” like clients finding pictures of the CEO passed out with a couple of strippers. It can be a lot more subtle at times. Transparency and decorum in business does not just have to do with hiding things you want to hide and letting fly with things you want people to see about you. Transparency and business decorum meet when you present the person or company you really are, while also actually being what people expect and deserve of you.
Transparency and Business Decorum
So what about transparency? Some people think that transparency is the latest and greatest new invention, but some of us have always known the importance. Making transparency and decorum play nicely together is even more important.
When you walk into a doctor’s office, you expect to see people in scrubs and suits, behaving “properly”, but if you go to Hooters, you expect to see people wearing tight shirts and helping people get drunk. The same people can be found in either place, but there is an accelerating shift in the sense of what is proper.
I am clearly not the only person who has noticed changes in our world. What defines decorum today is not what defined it in times past. We see examples of business decorum changing all around us. Some of it we like, and some of it we despise. I like wearing blue jeans, and I don’t give a damn what my clients or peers wear. You see, there goes my decorum in a big wreck, but it matches who I am and also my readers’ expectation, which shows transparency. I am a creative geek who thinks stuff up. I am not the guy greeting people at a grand ball.
Business Decorum and Attire Are Not the Same Thing!
Business decorum and attire are not entirely the same thing, although attire is a part of decorum. Since it is an easy way to visualize, I’ll go with it. I am reminded of a funny thing I saw while I was speaking to a group of marketers a couple months ago. It was a great event, with over twenty speakers on different marketing topics. At the speaker’s reception afterward, I visited with Jamie Turner of Bennett Kuhn Varner, Inc.
Jamie gave a great talk about marketing. While we bellied up to the bar and prepared to answer questions about our respective talks, I joked with him that it looked like we were at a coroner’s convention. Everybody was wearing a dark suit, while Jaime and I were the only guys with enough good reasons to come in blue jeans and sport coats. We were the best dressed guys in the whole place by a long shot! Everybody else looked like the guy you saw when your sweet aunt Crystal passed away. Did our blue jeans and more relaxed attire make us less desirable to clients? If so, I suspect either of us would thumb our nose at a pretentious client without ability or sense to read into the numbers anyway. The real mystery is in who could see the market, and who grasped the shift in expected decorum. My bet is that if you walked into the same group of people in another city, you would see a different outfit on both attendees and speakers. We were on the front of the shift for Midwest USA.
That same night, I also saw attendees doing things that were so entirely opposite of the propriety their business suits suggest that I went back to my room and called my wife to remind her how much I love her. OK, here goes my decorum flying off the hook again when I say “Who is proper now, bitches?”
Decorum Guidelines Are Blurry Lines
I work in a very diverse group, in many cultures, and with many varying expectations. So, in my case, my clients know that I can be as prepared in marketing a medical supply manufacturer to hospitals as I am marketing burritos and beer bongs. That is just me. I am a quintessential marketing guy. I do what is best for my clients, while maintaining their transparency and business decorum at the same time. It is like magic how it all comes together, and I love this about my job. I am expected to be a little quirky and occasionally pop off with something unexpected and sound like I suffer from Tourette syndrome (shit). Yes, I am expected to be unexpected, but for many people and companies I would suggest: “Do not follow my example!”
Something I find astonishing is how often a client will be just as quirky and unexpected as me and do something totally stupid in their marketing. I can do it … I am supposed to! Unrestrained expectations of what works for one company automatically working for your company is like testing cyanide to see if it works. It is best to send it to a lab.
In reality, we are all collectively the ones who make decorum exactly what it is. It is a social standard that is bestowed upon us by those around us, and carried on by each of us. When there is a great disparity between your sense of decorum and that which people expect of you in business, you have the making of a marketing failure … or success. Knowing which way to go is where the lines are very blurry, and if you are not up to proper research, you could end up on the wrong side of the cyanide test.
Business Decorum Changes Over Time
Standards change, as they always have over time. It may happen too slowly to notice the change until you see extreme instances. The video below gives examples from a supreme court nomination floundering for smoking marijuana, President Clinton being teased, and then the rush for politicians to talk about their marijuana use. Today USA has a president who spoke to a group of high school kids about getting high and doing blow. That is change! It should also speak to the importance of transparency and decorum working together. Transparency for transparency alone can be very off-putting to many people.
The standards of decorum for one person may be completely repulsive to another. With enough exposure to a change of standards, the repulsion weakens, and we take a “since we can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach. Considering this from a business standpoint, it can take a whole lot of branding to overcome and win people over. Sometimes this works, but sometimes you are better off to stop trying to beat your market and join them. First, you should know who you are, who they are, and what is proper in your instance.
Tell me what you think about the marriage of transparency and business decorum. That is why my blog has a comments form.
Should social media be renamed to “friendship media” or does that kill the business?
There is something really bitchy about social media. People tell people how to “do it right” and then a bunch of people hash it out and poke fun at the ones who “screw it up”. It is all just so confusing. Am I supposed to be social or not? What is social? Does social equal personal? Is business anti-personal? Get your thoughts moving and join this discussion of social media.
Here are three important questions to consider about business and personal interactions as they relate to social media.
Are you less likely to buy from somebody who is too personal? If this is the case, then why do so many businesses using social media keep believing it when others insist that social media is strictly friendship media?
Are you less likely to buy from somebody who is too “business”? If this is the case, then why do people feel awkward about doing business with friends?
What is the tipping point, and how do you view the balance?
Social Does Not Mean Anti-Business!
I hear a lot of people talk about social media as if “social” means that it should not include anything relating to business. That is quite laughable, really. If it has to do with how you achieve your food supply, I would say that it is pretty downright personal. Perhaps a few too many people do not understand the fact that social, although it applies in many ways, is not the opposite of business. Social means “relating to human society and its members” and that includes many things. That does not mean it is all a party and that we do it just for friendship. Yes, it even includes business. So how do we relate this?
Having something to offer in exchange for something is not a horrible thing. Kids in a lunchroom learn bartering early by trading a cookie for pudding or a ham sandwich for peanut butter and jelly. Sure, there may be conflict from time to time, but just because it includes items does not mean the interaction is less personal.
I witnessed an example of this in my own home just moments ago. We had a guest overnight. It was my son’s lifelong friend, Jacob. Our families are friends. At about 10:30 this morning when his mother was picking him up, she told my wife that she needs a birthday cake for Jacob’s brother, Caleb. Caleb is turning four. He wants a Star Wars cake.
What is the Relationship and Where Are the Boundaries?
My wife is a fantastic baker. I mean, her cakes are really something special, and I would put her up against any pastry chef for the best tasting and beautiful cakes. Our friends have known her talent for a long time, and always loved it when she brings a dish to the party.
When Rebecca asked her to make a cake for Caleb’s birthday party, does it seem odd that Peggy quoted her forty dollars? Does that seem impersonal? Does the tone change when I tell you that my wife and I own a cakes and confections company. Did something change here? Are we any less personal? Are we still friends, or did we just switch hats and become all-business?
Do We Change Hats to Do Business?
I guess for some people it can seem uncomfortable to do business with friends. The strange flip side of this is the fact people want to do business with people they like and trust. Where are the boundaries and how cynical is it to believe that we should not be friends because we do business or do business because we are friends?
Some people would see it that Rebecca should have gone to the grocery store for a cake. After all, if Peggy screws up the Star Wars cake, Rebecca will probably hate her forever. Strangely, Rebecca would probably not hate the grocery store for screwing up the cake, but with a friend, there is a different expectation.
Maybe she only came to Peggy because she feels obligated. Maybe not. Maybe she would have asked Peggy to do it even if she was not in the business.
The Relationship of Friends and Business
This is a question and not a dissertation. What do you believe about the boundaries of friendship and business? You want to know, like, and trust the people you do business with, right? Is there a level of closeness of the relationship that takes you out of the market for that person’s services?
Consider the three questions I posed earlier and tell me what you think.
Who isn’t tired of the “Johnny Come Lately” type of Internet marketers who put hype over substance? These are the creeps who give Internet marketing a bad name. Sadly, many people who encounter the “Johnny Come Lately” Internet marketer come to believe that Internet marketing just doesn’t work.
If Johnny is convincing, he will take enough of his victim’s money that they often become too cynical or cannot afford to fix what Johnny broke. Worse yet, Johnny may hurt their reputation and get their Websites penalized in Google and other search engines.
When you think Internet marketing comes with a high price tag, just consider what happens when you go with Johnny Come Lately.
Johnny Come Lately is back with a remix. I am just having a little fun at the expense of those who pee in my industry pool. I hope you enjoy the video!
Have You Met Johnny?
Please share your thoughts or any encounters you have had with Johnny Come Lately Internet marketers. I appreciate your comments!
I recently wrote an article titled “10 Really Good Reasons to Blog” and if the reasons blogs fail caught your eye, you should really read the one on good reasons to blog.
I got to thinking about how there is another side to the coin. There are some common reasons blogs fail. This is the short list. I am not going to keep you long. Read it, think about it for just a moment, and do what you will with it.
The author gets “too busy” and realizes that they do not have the same amount of time every other successful blogger has. They were robbed at birth by a debilitating disorder called “busy” and their day only has 23 hours.
The author is greedy, and since this Internet thing isn’t paying out like they were so sure it would, they are taking their remaining money and heading to the casino.
The author writes poorly and had no business trying to author a blog in the first place.
Nobody is interested in the subject matter (I saw this once, but then even the blog about Strawberry Shortcake and the Flying Green Monkeys had a few readers).
The readers, although plentiful, did not take the time to participate in the discussion.
5 Solutions to These 5 Common Reasons Blogs Fail
Stop being lazy. You still have 24 hours every day like the rest of us … go buy a new watch and see for yourself. If you feel like you have less time, you are probably just not using it wisely.
Stop listening to liars. The Internet is not your mother. Getting fed takes effort. Make more effort.
Hire a second grade student. Seriously … at least then you will have a good excuse for not knowing the differences between two, too, and to; your and you’re; it’s and its; or their, there, and they’re. If you don’t think the second grader will work for you, then you are probably smart enough to hire a better writer.
Everything has an audience. Do you recall that Charles Manson guy who got in some trouble for killing? Yes, even he has fans!
Add your comments here on my blog. Anything else is on the verge of criminal abuse of my thoughtful work.
