Laura Fitton (right) connects with a member of the audience following her keynote address at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Oct. 15, 2009. (Photo by Micheal Foley)
I have to cheat a bit on this one. I didn’t wake up in time to make it to Laura Fitton‘s morning keynote at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo on Thursday, Oct. 15. Luckily, a video of the entire keynote was available online.
Laura (@pistachio) gave everyone a really good pep talk about not holding yourself back when you have great ideas.
“If you are holding yourself down, you’re cheating us,” she said.
What she means is that by hiding your true self and your true ideas down inside you, or hoarding them just for yourself, you are cheating the rest of the world. The entire world would be a better place if people just shared their ideas, and tried to make them work — no matter how harebrained they may seem.
“Awesome shouldn’t be a private street. Don’t be afraid to get it out there,” Fitton said. “Don’t be afraid that people are going to laugh at you and think you’re goofy. The goofier I get the nicer people are to me.”
One example of how sharing the awesome can lead to good things is the Awesome Foundation in Boston. Fitton shared a story about a group of 10 or 12 people, none of them wealthy or influential, who pool their money ($100 per month) to make something awesome happen. Every month they pool their money to award a $1,000 grant to someone looking to do something awesome, such as build a giant hammock in the Boston Common or a handheld cotton candy gun.
Now these examples are rather silly and some people might think they are a waste of time and resources, but it doesn’t matter. To the 12 people in Team Awesome and the people who receive their grants, it is AWESOME.
Fitton went on to explain how social media tools like Twitter are rewriting the laws of influence. As a guy who works for a PR agency, this got my attention.
“We have a global sensing and signaling mechanism now — millions of people walking around with handsets walking around looking for what is remarkable around them, absorbing their environment, scanning the horizon, and reporting it. … It kind of shitcans the influencr model. You can’t make the message go on Twitter. I don’t have any control over people on Twitter. Most of the time … crickets. It’s the message; it’s not me.”
This totally makes sense to me. It speaks to the phrase “content is king.” If the message carrier doesn’t mean anything anymore, the idea or message itself has to be really awesome in order to travel from person to person.
Fitton gave another example of how she attempted to leverage her 12,500 Twitter followers to raise $25,000 to build wells in Africa. She asked each follower to give $2. She didn’t get it from every follower, but she did reach the $25,000-mark with the help of some corporate matching funds to do her awesome thing.
A couple weeks later, Amanda Rose did something similar, only more awesome. Long story short: More than 200 cities around the world held Twestivals and raised $250,000 for charity:water. She didn’t have 12,500 Twitter followers or any kind of super human abilities, she just decided to bring the awesome.
Here are Fitton’s secrets on how you can bring the awesome:
- Super power. Find out what you’re good at, or what you can provide that no one else can. Most of all, just be who you are. If you fake it, you won’t be motivated to follow through. (For Fitton, it’s luck.)
- Believe. Believe in yourself. Find others who believe in you. Find others to believe in and let them know. Having someone believe in you can make the difference between you going for it or sitting it out.
- Connect. Overcome human isolation. Social media, especially Twitter, is a great way to tear down the everyday isolation people experience. Twitter can bring us together despite geography and help us share our awesome ideas and messages.
“The big brands do not get it,” Fitton said. “You know who gets it? — the barbecue truck in L.A., the coffee shop in Houston, the creme brulee dude in San Francisco. If you’re a street vendor and your job is to walk around 10 hours a day selling wares from your cart, how much more awesome is your life when you can develop your following on Twitter, show up at Delores Park, tweet and sell out within an hour or two and go home? That’s a much more efficient business model. That’s a much more awesome existence.”
Now, I just have to figure out what my super power is and find someone to believe in me before I start connecting people around my awesomeness. Can anyone help me out here?
