June 25, 2004
validation marketing (tm)
Nightmare. I posted something yesterday, and somehow doing so fried my machine. Bzzzzgggttt!!!! So gapingvoid was offline there for 24+ hours.
Luckily, my webmaster had a backup, or else all that content would’ve been lost forever. Can you imagine? Three years worth of gapingvoid gone, like it never existed? Oy…
However the backup didn’t include the posts I made since June 10th (the day of the last backup). They, sadly, are gone forever. I’ll get around to reposting the drawings eventually. The written content I’m less concerned about. My view of the world is changing so fast at the moment… what one says today may no longer apply in a couple of months. I’m sure you know the feeling.
Speaking of changing-so-fast, I just got done reading Tom Peter’s new book, "Re-Imagine!"
I liked it a lot, in spite of the exclamation mark in the title. It’s the usual high-spirited greedcandy from him we know and love. Ooh, gosh, hierarchies are dead. Now we have virtual networks yak yak yak… I love reading his stuff, I really do, but…the guy’s the capitalist equivalent of monosodium glutame.
One thing I noticed… all the pages have sidebars with content. In other words, it looks like a blog. He’s gotten with the program, geddit? Wink wink?
The guy makes a living flying round the country rallying his clients’ troops, giving them his particular brand of Neuromancer-meets-Grey-Faceless-Corporation "Go Team" schpiel. Not a bad way to earn a buck.
[UPDATE: Since I've been spending time re-reading his work and blog my opionion of his work has shot WAY up. Mea culpa.]
Kevin Roberts over at Saatchi’s tries to do the same with their Lovemarks schpiel. It’s not about changing the world. It’s about giving folks PERMISSION to fantasize about changing the world, even if they never get round to it (Gotta drop the kids off at softball in the minivan, dont’cha know). Similar to what Martha Stewart did, at least in her heyday- giving people PERMISSION to fantasize about buying that old abandoned sawmill in Vermont and turning its interior into a yuppie paradise. Or Oprah Winfrey, giving her fans PERMISSION to fantasize about one day getting over their personal baggage.
NOTE TO SELF: Coin a new term for this kinda thing ("Permission Marketing" is already taken)... Hmmmm…
OK… "Validation Marketing ™"… that works. For now.
Posted by hugh macleod at June 25, 2004 5:40 PM | TrackBackhttp://bloglines.com/public/firas
Click on 'Art and Language', 'gapingvoid', and get the posts you need (scroll down on the right-hand frame and click Display all items)
(Yeah I know I have you in a wacky category but I had the cartoons in mind when I subscribed.)
(Also, you should use Movable Type's export function.. weekly!)
Posted by: Firas at June 25, 2004 10:03 PMThanks =)
Posted by: hugh macleod at June 26, 2004 2:19 PMWhen I first read this I thought you were being sarcastic - that VM is making people feel better about doing nothing because at least they can tell themselves they're *thinking* about it.
But Evelyn Rodriguez interprets it "straight".
http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/2004/06/propelling_selv_3.html
Which one is it? :)
Bill, I'd go for the 'straight' interpretation, but that's just me =)
Posted by: hugh macleod at July 7, 2004 12:46 AM