just DO something

I saw a friend at lunch today and our conversation centered around business, the economy, and the fact that everyone seems to be on hiatus. They’re waiting for things to change before they get back into full gear.

Our talk reminded me of this quote that my junior high health teacher made me memorize (don’t ask):

Upon the plains of indecision lie the blackened bones of countless millions, who at the very brink of victory stopped to rest, and resting there died.

(btw, my version of the quote is actually inaccurate. See Adlai Stevenson’s actual quote here.)

There are too many businesses sitting and resting. People seem scared to either expand operations, do intensive marketing or start new businesses because of uncertainty. But whether its high gas prices, healthcare turmoil, anti-business politics, or other factors, it will always be something.

In reality, now is an excellent time for you to make your move because everyone else is standing still.

In the future, will you say “My business idea failed because of X” or will you say “My business idea failed because I sat on the sidelines for years waiting for the perfect moment which never came”?

Hopefully, you will be able to say “It was a rough time to jump in, but we overcame X and we were very successful”.

TED2012 Full Spectrum Audition

Probably a heck of a long shot, but I’m throwing my hat in the ring for the TED open auditions.

These crowdsourced TED talks are MUCH shorter versions of the regular 18 minute TED talks. They are also supposed to utlilize a different type of story telling. For my one minute TED audition, I went with a combination of a few of their suggested ideas and came up with a ‘blizzard of images’ (new slide about every 3 seconds) that are choreographed to my point.

And I do have a point. It’s a kind of a different riff and new take on my “marketing in the collective consciousness” work.

Overall, the basic idea of my TED audition is:

• For the past 75/100 years, society has been “learning” a huge amount of knowledge from the media, marketers, and others.
• You’ve retained more of this meaningless pop culture knowledge than you realize.
• You can quickly communicate a large idea with others in our culture using seemingly meaningless phrases and ideas because you’re both working from this basic pop culture framework.
• The definition of “the media” is changing from “them” to “us”
• Will “we” do a better job than “they” did?

(Think of it as a less musical version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire“)

Obviously, the final version of the talk will be longer than this so I can get the whole point across. I would love to present it in Long Beach at TED2012.

(I could also present it to your event! Contact me)