Yep, another 2012 Top 10 list…well, sort of…

Lately I’ve been wondering…with all this blogging I’ve done pretty consistently since 2005, will I ever dip back into my archive to re-examine my views from, say, six years ago?

Does what I said, felt, thought, or opined about back then – either fluidly or herky-jerkily – actually have any bearing in the present or for the immediate future? And, moreover, even if this were true, does it even matter? Isn’t it just a glorified waste of time?

With the reams of content being produced by everyone these days– pro-ams and everyone in between those two poles — what role then does your personal archive play in your overall strategic direction?

I’ve considered this as I respond to queries from clients as to the reasons why I constantly ask them to create all this content. If it’s only going to be looked at by a few choice individuals, they quite logically ask, does the copious up-front time investment justify the scant ends, in terms of pay, ad revenue, or audience share?

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There was this bit of business from the summer where I made a point of examining my past twenty tweets, determining how many were self-directed or self-aggrandizing versus how many were for the benefit of my community.

Basically the question came down to: how much did I hoard versus how much did I share? How much did I make it all about me versus how much did I make it (mostly) about others?

Let’s look at my past twenty tweets as of today’s writing. Here’s the tally…

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Conducted a mega-long chitty-chat with His Excellency Ian Kath on ye old Skype last night (I’m there at @gtowna). While t’was Ian’s afternoon in Brisbane, Sub-Tropical Oz, was my late late-y.

Covered a ton of issues, we did, though the bulk of our chinwag was centered around online marketing, something I know a wee bit about, methinks.

We yammered on about ways how Ian might possibly gain even more traction for his mighty 65-episode Your Story Podcast collection, a clever, mostly hour-long, talk show series which has been buried beneath deep sedimentary layers of online silica dust. Obscured, sadly, by boobytraps, reams of bloggy horse feffer, and shredded bus tickets. Fooey!

I, myself, was featured on Ian’s cast twice previously (here and here!), once when I was living 2005-2010 in Prague, Czech Republic (forever former Czechoslovakia to me), the second when I’d already moved back to my hometown of Toronto, Canada’s largest burg.

As I lean back listening to that maiden 2008 episode, it astonishes me how wooden I was. I thankfully got much looser by the second, and little does Sir I-Rock know that I intend on becoming a regular fixture on his show…

Over that thirty-three episode lapse, I keenly observed how Ian grew in strength as an interviewer.

How, during those intervening episodes, he honed his interrogative skills, Stasi-like, and how – as he more aptly described it – he learned how to“cast a spell” over his interviewees, getting them to admit things a la Charlie Rose or Gargamel, which these folks never would quite do in polite company. The sorts of contentious issues you want to face in your life, yet which you never quite find the right time or situation to do so.

Your Story is crunchy, fortifying, and nutritious, yet the show doesn’t benefit from the kind of traction it deserves. So how to fix things, matey? A couple of examples, and not the full arsenal of things we covered last night…

(Disclaimer: Ian Kath of Brisbane, Australia is not a PMD-For-Hire client, as much as he wishes to be. As I don’t take money from friends nor mix beers and business, he will have to sate himself with advice from afar). 

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Jon Reiss, author of indie standout titles Think Outside the Box Office and the upcoming Sell Your Film Without Selling Your Soul (co-authored with Sheri Candler and The Film Collaborative), guest blogs this week at Ted Hope’s web home, the eponymous Hope for Film.

In summary — and I encourage you to read Reiss’ entry –this first post makes the solid case on the need for the PMD/Producer of Marketing and Distribution.

Among other themes, Reiss cites how:

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China and all things Chinese continue to remain abiding interests of mine, even though my participation on various Chinese blogs, forums, and within the Chinglosphere ( = English-language Chinese blogosphere) and associated social media sites has tapered off precipitously since 2009.

Occasionally, though, I do perk up when I read about cutting-edge media activities or shows emanating from the PRC’s expat camp, and Thoughtful China, a weekly interview series brought to you by the people at Shanghai’s Thoughtful Media Group, is one of the new kids on the block I’ve been paying attention to of late.

Their latest episode — "Thoughtful China: Travel Trends: Chinese Heading Overseas in Record Numbers" — is something I’ve got some first-hand experience with following my five-year stint in Europe. Chinese travelers – especially those from Taiwan – made Prague one of their must-see destinations as part of their Central and Eastern European swing-throughs, and you’d encounter them daily on Prague’s streets.

Listening to this mixed panel of both New and Old China hands (Gary Rosen, Pierre Gervois, and Chloe Reuter) speak about latest developments in this area, it brought back more than a few memories.

Here’s the 15 min. presentation if you want to view it before carrying on…(after the jump)

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“Business plans are fiction,” says CD Baby founder Derek Sivers. “Know how you can tell? The graphs are always pointing up after a series of years and no business is actually like that.”

It’s one of things you’ll learn in watching Part 3 (duration: 4m50s) of Siver’s 8-part “Uncommon Sense” presentation, available here.

Part 3 was particularly apt – in what will be a full week of commentaries on “Uncommon Sense” — because it’s a constant reminder to the doubting digerati that absolutely nobody has the answers, and that everyone should be doing a lot more listening and soul-searching than preaching on the righteousness of their cause.

Don’t we all know people like that?

Both types, actually.

People who don’t listen as they drone on, the bane of the civilized conversational world. Then there are the folks who enjoy preaching. They both belie faulty upbringing and the suffering of a strange reaction to living in ordered society with other human beings. Preachers have forgotten that other individuals are around with whom they must engage harmoniously.

But let’s repeat: it’s hard to see how things are going to ultimately pan out. So don’t let peoples’ negativity affect your worldview. If you’ve got a great idea you’d like to exploit, then don’t listen to the experts. Don’t even ask them. If they don’t bash you, they’ll probably steal your idea. Don’t let that happen to you.

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What?! Yet another social media network? Yet another new series of behaviors I have to unlearn and relearn? Yet another series of multiple keyboard shortcuts, posting, and privacy protocols? Another round of trawling through my contact lists to source people to follow and be followed by? More lingo to master? Someone staunch the pain!

Indeed, with Facebook, Twitter, and new kid on the Brooklyn stoop Google Plus added to the overall SM mix, social media fatigue has indeed been setting in for some SME owners, so much so that it prompted A-lister Chris Brogan to opine about this today over at his blog:

For a lot of people, the fatigue comes from that sense that they’re doing all the work, but not seeing the results. For another group, it’s that feeling that we’ve all done this before, so why do it again? For others, it’s just that we’re getting to the point where we feel maybe that we’ve shared all we can think of sharing, and we’re tired of rehashing the same old things over and over again.

Are any of these you?

Now I thought I’d respond…

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