A Long Day With Great Takeaways

Not a slide you usually see at a corporate event!

As I alluded to a couple of days ago, I spent the first part of this week away from my family on a business trip. I don’t travel much during the year but the spring usually brings about at least a couple of flights to various parts of the country with the most recent airport jaunt bringing me to Austin, Texas. And while there were many meetings during my day and a half in this interesting town, there are a couple of presentations that really made me think about some of the topic that I routinely encounter every day… money and public relations.

The first presentation that I attended was the keynote for the event by Peter, Lord of the Skies, Shankman. Over the years I have heard various opinions about this person from a plethora of people throughout our common industry. Some of those thoughts have been less than favorable while other endorsements have been, to put it mildly, glowing. Personally, I have had only the occasional correspondence with him over the years going back to the early days of HARO, so I never was really able to form any sort of strong opinion.

However, having now been present for one of his presentations I must, at the very least, give him a tremendous amount of credit for his ability to deliver a concise and easily digestible message. When it comes to PR, marketing, branding, and customer service there are great presentations and there are lectures that have you looking for the door, or the bar, about ten minutes into the talk. He was definitely in the former category. In fact, I can relate to much of what he said including the simple mantra to brand everything… I guess you could say that this blog goes a long way in achieving that goal. The other simple lesson gleaned from his ADOS style was that there is always a means to accomplish your goals as long as you are willing to put forth the effort and make time work for you.

The second session during the event that has left me with lingering thoughts was toward the end of the day when David Wolman, Contributing Editor of Wired, who spoke about “The End of Money”. His book by the same title is one that I will certainly have to pick up some time soon but the presentation was definitely enough to get me thinking. While the main impetus for this exploration was the simple fact that is costs the US government more to produce certain denominations of currency than the actual face value of that same coin, the historic as well as present perceptions of currency where a fascinating juxtaposition to the commonly accepted norms of money.

This immediately had me thinking about the value that information and access to information has in today’s society… a return to a norm not seen in nearly a hundred years. Also, given the publication for which he writes, another topic that kept forcing its way to the forefront of my mind is the simple irony that a publication named “Wired” focuses more on wireless and mobile rather than actually wired technology. I know, random thought.

Both Shankman and Wolman proved to be very engaging both from the stage and when I spoke with them one on one after the spotlights had dimmed. However, more importantly, they were engaging to a wide array of people in the audience and also provided me with many thoughts to process, posts to write, and projects to start. It was a long day on a short trip but one that was definitely successful and productive both personally and professionally. Don’t know if I could have asked to accomplish much more… well, a few more hours of sleep would have been nice and having my family with me would have been great.

I really had an early flight home.

You Have Been Wheatoned!

There have been some moments from time to time when I have considered submitting a blog post or two to other publications for consideration. The impetus for these thoughts has always been quite simple… exposure. Because I keep this blog as a hobby and simply enjoy writing the posts, sharing my thoughts, and generally keeping track of life that is all I have really been looking for in the placements. This has always been my motivation with regard to all of my creative endeavors regardless of the genre or medium in which I seek dissemination.

This has always been my choice and when the tables have been turned, the few times that I have been asked for permission to reprint, I have gladly given that permission under a couple of standard contingencies… I retain the copyright and future reprint rights and that the article/blog post is properly cited to reflect the correct name in the byline or, as had been the case recently, the link back to this blog. Nothing groundbreaking or unreasonable. Would it be nice to get paid? Of course it would but, again, this is my hobby not the means by which I support myself and my family.

That is my mentality regarding the writing that I have produced and published in one form or another over the last decade and a half. No surprise, this is not a view that is shared by everyone which what drew me in to reading a blog post by Wil Wheaton, yes that Wil Wheaton, that was shared in my Facebook feed. In the post he writes about a recent encounter with a Huffington Post editor. The basic back and forth can be summarized simply in that Wheaton was contacted by the editor to request permission to republish a recent blog post for no pay but a lot of exposure. As Wheaton points out, it would be one thing if he submitted the article but they reached out to him in this case. Needless to say, he doesn’t need the exposure and declined their offer.

He then took to Twitter and posted a few tweets in quick succession:

The two above were also followed by the following tweet: 

“This advice applies to designers, photographers, programmers, ANYONE who makes something. You. Deserve. Compensation. For. Your. Work.”

This is something that I personally agree with and don’t agree with at the same time. I believe there is a fine balance when your creations are the source of your livelihood. One should get paid for that which they create but there also needs to be a means of advertising your creativity. Sometimes it is well worth forfeiting the nominal pittance that would be offered by a publication such as the Huffington Post in order to showcase your creative skills and gain greater exposure. Of course, I would still push for retaining the copyright along with the contributor byline.

Keep in mind that this applies to a wide variety of publications, situations, formats, genres, and skills. I say all this not ever expecting to have a blog post picked up by the Huffington Post (many of my views and posts don’t play well with the ideologies that are regularly on display on the site) but if I were ever asked I would stick to my usual requirements. In the end, whether you support yourself with your creative endeavors or you pursue them as a hobby, exposure can be more valuable than the pennies that would end up in your pocket if you hold your financial ground.