A friend sent me a copy of an article “Death by Information Overload” from the Harvard Business Review. I think the headline says it all.
It canvassed the usual complaints of living and working in a constantly connected state.
A study of Microsoft workers found that:
“…once their work had been interrupted by an email notification, people took, on average, 24 minutes to return to the suspended task… and more than half that time was spent after people were ready to return to their work: cycling through open applications; getting distracted by other work in progress; and reestablishing their state of mind.”
There are certainly plenty of productivity gurus now urging us to turn our backs on the evil of multi-tasking and go towards the light of perfect offline focus.
What I found more interesting was another aspect of information overload that the author, Paul Hemp, touched on in passing.
“…it’s not just the incoming tidal wave of email and RSS feeds… it’s also the vast ocean of information I feel compelled to go out and explore in order to keep up… we’re drawn toward information that in the past didn’t exist or that we didn’t have access to but, now that it’s available, we dare not ignore.”
I’ve suffered from this information anxiety.
Feeling compelled to research and research again other people’s experience, advice and 5-step programs before making a decision myself.
Worrying about systems for managing all this information gathering (AKA hoarding), and being so overwhelmed by the task of synthesizing the data to generate something actionable, that I freeze up.
And the comparing! The relentless consuming of other people’s words leave me wondering if I’ll ever have anything useful to say that hasn’t already been said a thousand times before.
It’s a creativity killer
The secret of life may be hidden in one of those many ebooks or bookmarks languishing in my ‘to read’ folder, but I probably wouldn’t recognise it if I saw it – I’d be too busy trying to process the next bit of information.
There’s no space to reflect, to absorb, to create my own connections and ideas.
That’s the bottom line. For better or for worse, I can’t create* in this barrage of STUFF. And if I can’t do that then what I am doing?
* For more on the create, consume, connect relationship check out Charlie Gilkey’s excellent article of the same title. He says:
…you can’t breathe in and breathe out at the same time. Taking in information is breathing in, and creating something is breathing out.
A new definition of useful
For the practical stuff, the how-to stuff, the build your business and change your life stuff, it’s not enough that it might be handy someday, it really must be something I can use now.
And that judgment involves not only assessing the content, but also assessing my capacity and need. Truth is, I’m sure I could spend at least a year simply going deeper into, and taking action on, what I already know.
Which is why, for at least the first part of 2010, I made a conscious decision to shut off the flow of how-to for a while. To turn inward and mine my own resources.
I suspect you probably know a lot more than you think you do.
When you next feel that moment of uncertainty, you might want to take a moment before you google, read the latest expert advice, buy another product, or check out what your colleagues are doing. Take a moment to call upon your own resources.
Refilling the creative well
Although I have mostly shut off the flow of how to information, I’m not actually on an information fast.
It’s more a matter of avoiding the pre-processed, pre-packaged stuff that’s produced to provide fast fixes.
I guess, to jump onto a popular trend, I’m trying out ‘slow’ information.
I still read blogs, but blogs written by thoughtful people I like. I find myself avoiding the ones I know are ‘laser-focussed’ and prescriptive – the ones that seem to consistently point out what you’re doing wrong and offer a 10 step process to fix everything, all in 350 words or less.
I’m savouring books. Books with broader themes I can digest slowly. Stuff that invites me to make my own connections. And podcasts with interesting people.
This isn’t a prescription for you
More an observation of how I interact with information, and an experiment in modulating that flow.
It seems to me that maybe there is something shifting here – from an initial stage of using productivity hacks to better manage the information overwhelm and do more in less time, to developing deeper relationships with information (and the people that share it) that better serve our individual capacities and needs (and so deal with the underlying anxiety).
I don’t have a neat, 350 word how-to for this process. But I think it may start by knowing yourself.
10 Mar 10 | Read more on Life, Learning etc. | Join the conversation (12 Comments) »
Last week I experimented with a TV free week (loved it and want to keep doing it!) and unsurprisingly found a whole bunch of time for podcast listening and reading.
Much of what I was tuning into was about recognising resistance, and how to overcome it (or move through it) to release your creativity and get on with doing that thing you really want to do (or thought you wanted to do before the horrible, hulking monster of resistance showed up).
Helpful stuff.
The real surprise was the connection between the nature of resistance and the work I do, which is helping people market (otherwise known as getting the word out about) the wonderful thing they have to offer to the world.
Enter the lizard brain
In this great conversation between Seth Godin and Merlin Mann*, Seth said that he appreciates his resistance (AKA lizard brain) because it so clearly shows him what not to do.
See, the lizard brain wants you to fit in, to avoid potential failure and embarrassment.
What the lizard brain doesn’t realise is that the rules have changed. If you want to survive now, fitting in is that last thing you should do.
The lizard brain doesn’t realise that the cost of creative failure is NOTHING. You can just try again (and probably be a little wiser for the experience).
Choosing creation over safety
So, whatever the resistance tells Seth to do — like omit from one of his books a contentious section that would probably anger a bunch of people — he does the opposite.
Seth and Merlin talked about Bob Dylan and how he consistently made choices driven by his own creative inspiration, choices that often alienated his fans and got him booed off stage. The man obviously has no lizard brain.
How does this gel with traditional business marketing strategy?
You know, the process of identifying your customer’s needs (or pain points) and then delivering what they want? Of being completely customer focussed?
It doesn’t.
Seth himself says in the interview that the calculating, the ‘close-to-the-customer bullshit’, the focus grouping, the mindset of typical marketing is all about indulging the resistance — how can I avoid being made fun of?
I think you can dig within that and find many passionate business people who know – deeply, quietly know – what they want to bring to the world and how they want to bring it. But their lizard brains are spewing out all the online marketing guru mantras: magnetic headlines! engagement strategy! be accessbile! be an expert! highlighter sales pages! sales funnels! the almighty list!
I’m not saying that all of those tools are inherently bad. That you can’t put them to some good use.
But the lizard brain is screaming that you have to do all this stuff and that you have to do it NOW. And it completely overwhelms that deep, quiet knowing within you.
Which is exactly what the lizard brain wants, because if you follow what everyone else says and fail, well at least it was the pack that got it wrong and not you.
How sad is that?
Which is why I talk about marketing taking place at the core of your business, which is the meeting place between you and your ideal people. Meaning you are absolutely present.
My own lizard brain gets antsy when I go further down this path.
It’s antsy right now.
How can I be thinking this stuff that seems counter to, or at least not aligned with, the mainstay of the marketing and copywriting world?**
And, perhaps even worse, how do I dare say it out loud when I cannot even articulate a neat 7 step process that encapsulates my reasoning and proves how it works? How can I talk about this when my own ideas are still forming and changing?
Shouldn’t I just stick with the pack, where it’s safer?
This is a gut thing. Not a logic thing. I feel in my bones that this is the right direction. That this is how we get the word out about whatever great thing we are doing. That this is how we do our great thing.
And if I’m wrong?
Well, I don’t think this idea can be completely wrong – because I see it working for people who are doing great things. (And ‘great’ doesn’t necesarily mean big, it means things that are done with care and creativity, to make a genuine contribtuion, to help others.)
But if I am proven to be a raving idealist with no concept of how success actually happens in the ‘real world’?
(Thanks for jumping in there lizard brain. You’re a peach.)
Then I guess my idea will have failed in the ‘real world’. And I’ll learn. And I’ll dream. And I’ll create again.
*The interview is about Seth’s new book Linchpin which I haven’t yet read (it’s on order). But I have no doubt it will break my mind open even further about all this stuff.
** Yes, there are notable exceptions to the traditional marketing mould – like Mark Silver’s Heart of Business.
3 Mar 10 | Read more on Sleaze-Free Marketing | Join the conversation (6 Comments) »
In the world of marketing and copywriting, ‘What’s the benefit?’ is a mantra. It’s the question every service or product has to answer, in one way or another, to convince us to hand over the cash – What’s this going to do for me? Why should I care?
The buzz cut queen of marketing, Naomi Dunford, has a typically to-the-point post explaining the difference between features and benefits (the two are often confused), and how to work out the benefits you deliver. In brief:
If you don’t know [if it's a feature or a benefit], drill down. Ask why whatever it is you’re thinking about is important to your customer. When you arrive at an answer that even a three-year-old could understand, you’ve found your benefit…
Web design
Feature: Knowledge of PHP, AJAX, JavaScript, etc.
Benefit: You get a pretty website.
Seems straight forward…
What if you’re talking benefits, but your ideal customers just aren’t getting it?
One possibility is that you are stuck in a reality distortion field, a term I lifted from a post about the Apple iPad (via @gwenbell):
[There's a] reality distortion field at work, though, and everyone that makes a living from the tech industry is within its tractor-beam. That RDF tells us that computers are awesome, they work great and only those too stupid to live can’t work them.
You know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of this, don’t you? To be the one who doesn’t ‘get it’?
What if I put it like this:
You’re in a reality distortion field. It’s created by your intimate, direct knowledge of how and why the thing you do is so awesome. You’re talking about benefits from within that field. And your ideal customers who aren’t getting it? They’re on the outside.
That doesn’t mean your benefits aren’t real or valuable
Let’s be clear about this. Because as a passion-driven entrepreneur you might become very disheartened at this point and conclude that if people aren’t getting it, there must be something wrong with what you’re offering.
You may think that people just don’t want it.
Maybe they don’t.
However, I spend a great deal of time talking with clients who are offering something wonderful and useful, and who do have very satisfied customers, so they know they’re delivering something that their right people want. But, the value is being lost in translation when they try to communicate with potential new clients.
What’s going wrong?
Honestly, there is so much to be said about communicating benefits and your value in a way your people can hear and understand. I expect to come back this topic again and again in the future. For now, let’s focus on just one translation problem that arises from your reality distortion field.
The benefits you’re talking about are important to you, but not to them.
With any service, particularly those provided by coaches, consultants and creative professionals, clients are likely to experience a bunch of great benefits. You really want to focus on just a few to create a clear and compelling message.
But what you perceive as the most important (from within your field of knowledge and experience), isn’t necessarily the ones that are most valued by your people.
Hint: Most often, they respond best to those benefits that are immediate, significant and easily understood.
Again, it doesn’t mean your other benefits suck. More likely, your people simply can’t relate to those benefits from where they are right now.
Very. Common. Disconnect.
You’re talking about how at the end of the process (or even beyond) they will have, or be able to do, x, y and z. Right now, their mind is tangled up with pressing problems. And from that place of pain and stuck they can’t even imagine, much less care about, x, y and z.
You’ve got two options here:
Stay in your reality distortion field. Dig in. You know that this particular benefit is the most important. Try to convince your people of that.
OR
Step out. Find the meeting place at the core of your business. Give information you believe will be useful to them right now. Don’t get caught up in your own narrative. Be absolutely present, but present without ego.
Give your right people enough to hang on to, without overwhelming them
It’s not about showcasing your skills or expertise for the sake of it. Don’t overwhelm your people with everything you could possibly achieve together.
Use your awesome knowledge of what you do, and your interactions with your ideal clients, to focus on what’s really important to them. So they can hear it, relate to it, understand it, and get excited about it.
Be willing to let go (not entirely, but enough to meet you people where they are) of your ‘pet’ benefits. The ones you really care about, but that your ideal clients simply aren’t able to see right now.
These benefits might continue to happen in the background whether you talk about them or not, and they may even end up being really valued ‘surprise bonuses’ that your clients recognise and appreciate by the end of the process. Excellent – who doesn’t like a surprise bonus?
The key to breaking out of your reality distortion field
Listen.
Make sure you are listening to the right people – your ideal clients.
Let them tell you what’s the most important benefit. Listen carefully. You will rarely hear what you need to hear in a formal way (in a testimonial or otherwise) like this:
Client: The thing I valued most about our work together was…
Instead, listen carefully for moments of spontaneous exuberance and clarity that emerge throughout the process. Such as:
Client: Wow, I’ve never thought of that… This is fantastic because now I can…
Or they may say nothing specific. You may just notice their energy level lift as you explain a particular approach, or work through a particular problem.
Pay attention to these moments! Really. Listen. All the information you need to connect with your ideal clients is there – offered up by your own people – don’t allow it to get lost in your reality distortion field!
11 Feb 10 | Read more on Featured, Writing Connections | Start the conversation!»
