Jun 30th 2005
Tags:
Blogging
I was talking to one of the Rogue Artists a couple of weeks back about marketing / organizing this outreach program they’ve started. (I’m currently working with them on a SOSE/RAE collaboration - HYPERBOLE: epiphany.) We got to talking, and it became clear that I was up on a lot of things that he was unaware of. When questioned, I had to admit that most of my knowledge came from many hours of hard-core blog reading, and I promised to share the love so that he could do some more digging on his own. Well, I’ve finally gotten around to it. In the spirit of the thing, I decided to post the list here, rather than in a private email, so that I can point others to it, as well. And the more times I have to send footnote emails full of links to Nikki after our conversations IRL, the more I think they should just be blog entries instead. So this is another way to test that idea.
Without further ado…
Tyler, here are a few blogs (and one non-blog site) that might help you conceptualize and market the Rogue Artists Company so that it’s most useful to the members and the Ensemble. I’ve pulled out a few recent/favorite posts as a place to start, too.
Creating Passionate Users
Kathy Sierra and the Headstart books crew blogging about how to make software that people fall in love with and want to use. Funny thing, all these notes and observations easily port to just about anything - creating passionate audiences at SOSE, for example. If you’re involved in making or creating anything this blog will help. Plus it’s just fascinating to read about how our brains process things like learning new skills and interface design, and the signature style (and their swanky b&w photo-toons) make it some of the best reading I do every day.
Current trend: Empower people to learn something new, and they’ll be yours for life.
Recently: Who’s in charge - you or your brain?
All-time fav: Kicking ass is more fun
Crossroads Dispatches
Evelyn Rodriguez talking about life, marketing, and finding your way. Some days are more focused on sussing out an individual path, some on the new new marketing, and some on art, but all of it has an undercurrent of life after she survived the tsunami. Powerfull, brilliant, and you never know what you’re going to get.
Current trend: Don’t settle. Don’t wait. Do it now, yourself.
Recently: Don’t Settle
All-time fav: Worldview Disrupting Lives, Marketing Pornography and Proper Art
The Cluetrain Manifesto
Quite simply the most important thing written about marketing in the Web 2.0 era. It’s become a bit dated already, but it’s the foundation that nearly everyone else is working off of.
Hugh MacLeod’s Gapingvoid
As someone who actually put his money where his mouth is and followed his own blogvertising principals to set up shop with a bespoke tailor, you have to respect Hugh’s practical experience. How to Be Creative had me hooked (I still find that it’s well worth the long read on a regular basis), and I consistently find that Hugh has great insight on marketing to ever-shrinking nitches. Once again, this insight is so good that it’s universally applicable to getting people to do what you want, in an honest, open, humanistic way.
All-time fav: How to Be Creative (HTML | PDF)
All-time fav: The Hughtrain (HTML | PDF) - “The market for something to believe in is infinite.” Hugh’s indispensable add-ons and updating of the Cluetrain
Seth Godin’s blog
Seth writes short, funny posts that are from the perspective of someone who’s more tied to real-world / Madison Ave / skyscaper style marketing, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less insightful or relevant. As someone who’s published a shelf full of books on how to make yourself stand out and provide actual value for your customers/users/readers/etc, he’s a useful read. Plus he’s done cool things like ChangeThis, which was (sadly, in the past tense) a great resource for insightful articles.
All-time fav: The New Digital Divide
||UPDATE||
Hot on the heels of all this marketing-speak, Kathy wrote this super post on the role of t-shirts and passionate users. As a big t-shirt fan, I really appreciate this idea - most of my numerous Threadless purchases in the past six months have been “I HAVE to have that!” reactions to a design or idea that I connected with on an emotional level. That makes me love Threadless all the more, and all the compliments I get on my swanky tees makes me happy to share the love with other people. Okay, that’s more about making me a passionate consumer of t-shirts than any specific thing on them, but I think it correlates…
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