I just read a feature piece on Maurice Ashley, a Chess Grandmaster. He made a TEDed talk about how sometimes working backwards is the best way to solve a problem.
This process is known as retrograde analysis and I’m surprised how little I use it.
Part of the reason I want to write a post about this is to hopefully remind myself to include it explicitly when I am problem solving.
It basically works by starting with an outcome and working backwards from there to the current state of the problem.
I see so much use for this in my own business from project planning to client management.
In some ways it’s similar to setting goals and milestones, but with those I typically set them and then try to build out the steps (forward) to get there.
What I like about the process of retrograde analysis is that I set the goal or outcome and then ask, what has to happen just before we reach this outcome… and just before this, and so on all the way back.
I suspect new insights occur similar to the examples Mr. Ashley gives in his presentation.
Instead of outlining all the skills or steps necessary to cover a topic, how much more valuable is it to identify how the successful student is different from the complete beginner.
What does a successful student/practitioner know? How do they approach problems and what new capabilities do they now have?
This approach makes the planning process less about covering material and more about developing capabilities… getting the right mix of mindset and technical skill (which is where most training falls short).
This is equally valid for client work. What should a successful end game look like?
How about something like this: A predictable content and creative schedule communicated to a known audience producing reliable sales and leads.
Then work backwards!
If you’re like me, then you need paradigm shifts from time to time in order to make progress and overcome the feeling of being stuck in a rut.
This was just the shift I needed, so I thought I’d share it.
If you’re interested in learning more about retrograde analysis and Maurice Ashley’s story, read the full article by Justin Bariso here: http://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/a-chess-grandmaster-shares-an-effective-trick-for-solving-any-problembr-.html
“Find your purpose and fling your life out to it. Find a way or make one. Try with all your might. Self-made or never made.” – Orison Swett Marden
I’ll entertain you with two cautionary tales. One serious and one not so much.
I have distant cousin on my mom’s side who was fortunate enough to inherit a rather large fortune. Enough that she never had to work to provide for herself. She was bright, artistic, and generous. She aspired to be an artist. She looked like an artist, talked like an artist, and had many friends who were artists. But she mostly dabbled.
I don’t know if she had the requisite talent to “make it.” What I do know, is that the vast majority of artists who I see “make it” are makers. They make… and they make… and they keep making. In all that making, someone likes something, and then someone else, and so on.
Dabblers make a little, then hold it up for the world to behold… and if no one takes much notice… well… they’re ahead of their time… their vision is too sophisticated. Time to retire!… How nice!
Second story. My son’s elementary school is having it’s annual talent contest. My son is seven. He doesn’t have any particular talents (beyond being the apple in his parents eyes), but loves being on stage and being the center of attention.
So we go down a long list of things he could do. Sing a song… no… play a song on his recorder… no… or harmonica… no… juggle… no… tell jokes… no. At last he says he knows what he wants to do. He takes his index finger, shoves it in his mouth and makes popping sound with cheek.
I shake my head. Now I’m forced to crush his dreams and explain that this is not a show worthy talent… if a talent at all.
Ok… He’s not detered… He’s got it… He sits on the ground, puts himself into some kind of contortion. More difficult than sitting cross-legged, but no way near as complicated as a Yoga pose or contortionists trick (he’s not really that flexible). But this one gives me hope. I suggest he learn some Yoga poses from his mom. Does he like this idea?… no.
The thing is he doesn’t want to practice. So I sit him down and we have a long (mostly one-sided) talk about how you have practice to get good at anything. You have to put in the time and effort to do something exceptionally well.
I’m not sure he completely bought it. But luckily I’ve still got time with him.
I’m not going to lie though, a good 50%+ of the adults in the “entrepreneurial space” still think you can make money and build a successful business with as much effort as my son wanted to expend on his talent show endeavor.
“Find your purpose and fling your life out to it. Find a way or make one. Try with all your might. Self-made or never made.”
If you create content for social media, then you know it’s a challenge to finding good, affordable stock photos. And as with most things in life and business, you get what you pay for.
The trade off between free and paid is about high quality vs. low quality AND it’s also about the time spent searching – you spend a lot of time looking through dogs to find a winner.
In this post I’ll show you my three favorite sources that have very high quality photos and excellent search functionality.
I’ve used a variety of stock photo sources over the years.
I started with iStockPhoto (2006-2010), before they got too expensive.
I used FeaturePics after that as a cheap alternative, but the quality was fair.
In the past there were few places to find good quality photos with Creative Commons licencing.
Creative Commons is basically a license that allows others to use a piece of copyrighted material subject to certain limitations. This could be a simple attribution or a restriction not to modify or use the work commercially. To learn more about Creative Commons licensingvisit their website, which will explain all the different licensing levels.
As time went on the quantity of high quality photos available with Creative Commons licensing grew. I started using CC photos from either Pixabay or Flickr.
However, these are not my favorite in terms of quality and search functionality.
Here my three favorite sources for free, stock photos with Creative Commons Licenses.
Search.CreativeCommons.org
Go straight to the source and use the Creative Commons Search engine (which is not really a search engine, but rather a meta search engine – a search engine that searches other search engines).
By using this you can choose which sources you’d like to search and the appropriate licensing. Then this search will go out to the different sources and do your search with the appropriate licensing.
This great for music and video, in addition to photos.
500px
I believe 500px started out as a photo sharing community for photographers that was an alternative to Flickr.
However, they have since added a marketplace where you can purchase rights to photos, a variety of curated collections, and a huge collection of Creative Commons photos with different licensing levels.
Typically the photos here are professionally enhanced. This gives them a “professional” look… surprise, surprise! Sometimes this is what you’re looking for and sometimes it’s not.
If you’re looking for a more natural, retro look, check out Unsplash.
These are the kind of photos I like to use for my own branding and social media. They are similar in style to the photos from DeathtotheStockPhoto.com.
They have curated collections that are awesome!
And all the photos are made available with the Creative Commons Zero license, which makes available for any use (including commercial) with no attribution. This makes them infinitely useful.
Gone are the days when you could bemoan the lack of good Creative Commons photos. Use wisely and generously attribute to show appreciation to the photographers.
Most of all keep making great content!
P.S. I’m just going to keep adding good sources to the end of this post!
Here is one that is great for svg files, https://openclipart.org/
Better diet, better exercise, more discipline, better organization, take on more responsibility, contribute more to charity, etc.
There are even things not at the forefront of your mind that well meaning friends, family and acquaintances remind you of… Are you drinking too much coffee… diet soda… alcohol?… Are you contributing the maximum to your IRA or 401k?…
There is an endless list of positive things you should be doing.
If you’re lucky you’ve changed some of your behaviors and adopted good, new habits.
But how many good habits lay unused in your big brain?
It’s normal. Everybody has some limit on their capacity to change behavior. The best of us, do our best.
Now, think about how fast you’ve changed when there were bad things heading right for you… or when you had already been hit by them.
I bet you hustled!
You made things happen. You have moved mountains to solve those painful problems. In fact, I bet you were willing to pay cash money to help alleviate some of those problems.
This is why marketers should “Sell Painkillers not Vitamins!”
This saying is very popular in sales and marketing circles, and for good reason.
It’s a fundamental principle of marketing and one of my favorites.
It has nothing to do with pills or products and everything to do with positioning or framing our messages.
It’s far easier to motivate someone to take an action to alleviate their present pain than to prevent a future one.
You have to position your offer as the cure to the prospect’s current pain. The bigger the pain the better.
It doesn’t matter the source of the pain. Physical, psychological and emotional pain are all equally valid.
Even complete luxuries can be positioned as painkillers. They alleviate real psychological pains. It’s the pain in not keeping up with one’s peers or losing social status.
They showed that losing social connections activates the same parts of the brain as actual physical pain. Hence most folks will do almost anything to prevent it.
Another example of psychological pain is found in people who are collectors. Some people feel discomfort when they have an incomplete collection. They need to complete the collection to alleviate their discomfort… to scratch that itch.
Once you’ve identified the pain your offer cures, you agitate the problem. Maybe they are only mildly aware of their problem.As marketers we’re going describe the problem and it’s consequences with such vivid detail they can’t ignore it.
This video does a great job of describing the pain:
Next you’ll educate the prospect on how they came to have this pain… you’ll describe the mechanism that caused their pain.
Then in the terms of this new mechanism, show them how your offer disrupts or short circuits the mechanism, thereby alleviating the pain.
This video does a great job of describing the mechanism of addiction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg
Imagine if you are marketing a recovery center with these types of solutions.
Now describe the promised land… This is what life will be like after the pain has ended. The description of this state should be equally vivid as the description of the pain.
This is a powerful tool that can be used for good or evil, so don’t let me catch any of you twisting your mustache (proverbial or otherwise) at the possibilities.
Did you like this? Did you learn something? If so, please show some love by sharing it on your favorite social media channel… Look down there! There are those conveniently places buttons again. 🙂
Now I’m not referring to the same thing Ron Slater is referring to in the movie Dazed and Confused.
What I’m referring to is the indefinable quality of character called cool.
I’m going to make two bold statements and then show that they’re true:
1) To maximize the effect of social media marketing, you must be “cool”… at least to some part of your market.
2) Regardless of the niche any brand can genuinely earn the reputation of being “cool.”
Before I begin, we have to define what we’re talking about when we say, “cool.”
I remember when I was a teenager complaining to a particularly smart aunt of mine, that I wasn’t “cool.”
She responded, that the word cool was stupid and didn’t mean anything. To this day, in my heart of hearts, I think she was right.
But how could this be when I’ve decided to write an entire post about it and make the claim that being cool is fundamental to successful social media campaigns? (And if you’re friends with me on Social Media, why my most common comment is “Cool!”?)
It all depends on the definition you use.
When Slater asks Mitch, “Are you cool, man?” Specifically, he is trying to find out whether or not Mitch smokes pot, but he phrases it in a very commonly understood teenage question, “Are you cool?”
This question is really asking will you salute and adopt our customs, traditions, beliefs, and appearance in order to be initiated as a member of the group?
Cool, in this context – as a judgment of appropriate inclusion, is pretty stupid and adolescent because it allows the user to pass judgment without naming the criteria on which the judgment is based – very convenient.
Stupid or not, it is powerful for the person who uses it, because it carries the power include or exclude. Moreover it is always undefined (I know it when I see it).
Now this matter of inclusion and exclusion is also involved in the managing of social media communities, but I’ll talk about that in a future post.
What is Cool?
The cool I am referring to is the characteristic we identify in fictional heroes.
James Bond, John Wayne, The Marlboro Man, Bruce Lee, Superman, Batman, Rocky, Conor McGregor, Muhammad Ali, Paul Walker, La Femme Nikita, Thelma & Louise, The Fonz, The Most Interesting Man in the World, etc.
These are all examples of characters who are/were considered cool by someone, or a caricature of cool, in the case of The Fonz or The Most Insteresting Man in the World.
The award winning ad man and author of The Advertising Effect, Adam Ferrier produced a graduate level thesis on the definition of cool and here are the common qualities he discovered:
They have self-belief and confidence – self awareness and more importantly self-acceptance are seen as cool.
They defy convention – having the conviction to follow their own path.
They are successful achievers, but understated – they don’t have to tell you that they’re good.
They care for others, humanistic – … listening to others … broadminded … non-judgmental … they are have a caring respect for others.
High connectivity, great with people – … magnetism … a strong personality that attracts others.
So finally we have a set of criteria for cool! Thank you Mr. Ferrier!
Using these let’s revisit my assertions.
1) To maximize the effect of social media marketing, you must be “cool”… at least to some part of the market.
Let’s use proof by reductio ad absurdum, which is a form of proof in math and logic where you assume the exact opposite and look for an impossible consequence.
So let’s imagine the social media presence of a fictional entity, the ACME Corporation.
The social media presence of the ACME Corporation has none… zilch… nada… of the qualities of “cool” mentioned above.
This means they…
They have NO self-belief and NO confidence – They are constantly communicating uncertainty and insecurity.
They are completely conventional – They are as plain jane as they come. If it hasn’t been done before, they don’t do it. Their ideal response from audience members is, “Of course I’ve seen it before, but it doesn’t offend me.”
They have little genuine evidence of success, but they embellish and boast about what little they’ve done – they DO have to tell you that they’re good, because no one else will.
They do not care for others, their engagement is robotic and mechanistic – … They don’t really listen to others… smallminded… judgmental … they display blatant disrespect for others.
They don’t connect – people feel repelled … they have a weak personality that turns people off.
Now after reading this description (and I’m sure you recognize a few accounts like this… ha ha), does the ACME Corporation have any chance growing their business on social media?
Consciously cultivate these 5 qualities in your social media presence:
Self-belief and confidence – have self awareness and be self-accepting.
Defy convention – be a trailblazer!
Don’t hide success, but don’t boast – let your customers communicate that you’re good. (Casey Neistat does this well)
Care for others and be human – listening to your audience… be broadminded … non-judgmental … have a caring respect for others.
High connectivity, be great with people – accept your magnetism… display your true self, a strong personality that attracts others. The key to this is being vulnerable – see this TED Talk.
Any brand, personal or corporate, can cultivate these qualities.
Here are some niches where I’ve engineered cool…
Tire Stores
Auto Repair Shops
Medical Skin Care
Window Washers
Janitorial Firms
Spiritual Self-help Authors
Business Consultants
Trust me, most of these were challenging, but if I can do with these, it can be done anywhere!
Don’t let anyone tell you Paper Crafts can’t be cool… I have a proof for that!
Go out and be the James Bond of your corner of the interwebs.
There you have it…
Engineering Cool for Social Media Fun and Profit in 5 Easy Steps!
If you enjoyed this post or otherwise found it useful, I’d be much obliged if you’d share it with your audiences on social media. Look at all those cool buttons below… 🙂
