Are you an expert or a connoisseur?

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Apr 30, 2010 in Awakening | 5 comments

Are you an expert or a connoisseur?

Being an expert in something is one thing, but being a passionate connoisseur of a subject is a completely different level. The expert gets to a level of proficiency and tends to stay there until their area of expertise is rendered obsolete by change.

The connoisseur is ever adapting, ever growing, ever learning, not necessarily because they have commercial demands to meet as much as they want to have the best possible experience for themselves.

This is an important distinction. Experts tend to be externally driven, usually by commercial motives. Connoisseurs tend to be internally driven, demanding the absolute best for themselves. The connoisseur will chase down knowledge, materials, and experiences to extreme ends for a better experience for themselves. The connoisseur is obsessed with having that perfect experience.

Given a choice between hiring an expert on a subject matter and hiring a connoisseur, I’ll take the latter any day, because I know their self-motivation and relentless demand for the perfect experience in their area of passion will keep them growing and changing with the times without any prompting from me.

Here’s the million dollar question: in your chosen profession, in your chosen hobbies, are you an expert or a connoisseur?

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What World of Warcraft's Patchwerk Can Teach You About Recovering Morale

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Apr 29, 2010 in Awakening, World of Warcraft | 0 comments

What World of Warcraft’s Patchwerk Can Teach You About Recovering Morale

Last night, our guild downed Patchwerk, a giant abomination in Naxxramas, for the zillionth time. Patchwerk isn’t a challenge any more – in fact, he hasn’t been a challenge in a really long time. We bring our 10 man team in and in about 11 minutes from start to finish, we crush Patches, loot his swollen, bloated corpse, and move on with our evening…

… and I love him for it. I love that he’s absolutely no challenge whatsoever because sometimes, you just need some easy wins to rebuild your momentum. When life throws you challenges, you get to step up, learn more about yourself, explore and go beyond your limits, and ultimately become a more powerful, better person.

That said, challenges that are never-ending can grind you down. They can, if you’re not careful, wear you out. Going 120% all the time means you run out of fuel much faster, and that can create significant gaps in your personal momentum and progress from burnout.

That’s why non-challenges like Patchwerk are useful, productive, and essential to you. You absolutely need some stuff that’s easy-mode, that’s a sure-fire victory to bolster your morale, provide some mental breathing space, and give you perspective. What was once a hard fight, what was once a hard battle, is now a walk in the park and that change in perspective can be incredibly reassuring. You can measure and see objective results about how far you’ve progressed by how easily you crush your formerly difficult enemies.

If you’re pushing the boundaries of your personal or professional life, who’s your Patchwerk?

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Make your own Facebook Like decal or sign

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Apr 28, 2010 in Marketing, Social networks | 26 comments

Facebook’s been mailing “Like” signs to small businesses to encourage use of their fan pages. But suppose you didn’t get one from Zuck? Or maybe you need more than one? Rest easy! This Photoshop template will help you get rolling – just download it, edit in Photoshop, and be on your way.

Facebook Like Sign Template, PSD file, 700K

Facebook Like Sign Template, PNG file, 29K

You will need the Lucida Grande font to match as closely as possible Facebook’s font for consistency’s sake.

If you don’t have Photoshop, use the image editor of your choice to edit the PNG file version, just trim out the yourfanpage section and substitute with your own fan page address.

Examples:

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What your personal brand can learn from the legend of the ninja

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Apr 27, 2010 in Marketing, Ninjutsu | 5 comments

What your personal brand can learn from the legend of the ninja

The ninja warriors of old were greatly feared by their adversaries – shadowy operatives with superhuman powers that could single-handedly turn the tide of battle or bring clandestine death to their enemies. The ninja were capable of nearly any feat, from vanishing in a cloud of smoke to mind-controlling their enemies. Facing a ninja on the battlefield without a lot of backup meant a nearly guaranteed defeat, if not death itself.

Of course, like most historical legends, there’s a little more to the story. In many cases, there was far more than a single, lone ninja agent at work. To a guard at a fortress, however, one masked ninja looks just the same as the next, a misperception the ninja were all too happy to take advantage of. Assuming that a soldier survived the encounter, the ninja they faced off against yesterday wielding a sword might in truth be a completely different agent with different skills than the one they’ll face today with a battle-axe. The ninja fostered the legend of the ultimate warrior to serve them well, making opponents fear them and mentally defeat themselves even before the battle started.

What’s the common thread with your personal brand? Look behind the scenes of any major persona that you follow and you’ll find a veritable army of folks that make up that persona. You’ll find secretaries, marketers, assistants, organizers, agents, and others working in the shadows to make the public persona as successful as possible.

In many cases, the people who make up the machine behind a popular personal brand aren’t seeking any particular fame for themselves, or are at least willing to subordinate their own desires for the success of their employer. Their background work gives the public persona a perception of being far more skilled and competent in a variety of practice areas than the person behind the persona may have.

How do you make this work for you? If you’re looking to build your own personal brand, start looking for opportunities to collaborate and work with others, especially with folks who have complementary skill sets and skills in areas where you have significant personal gaps. Think of it as your own personal ninja clan of sorts. Contribute your own skills to their areas of need and you’ll strengthen your clan and every member in it. Like the ninja clans of old, you don’t actually need to be a master of everything – just be excellent at a few things, and turn to fellow clan members for the areas in which you lack strength.

Ultimately, the goal is for each member of your clan to appear to have the skills of the whole, for you to be seen as a consummate expert alongside your fellow clan members – and the general public may have absolutely no idea that you’re all working together.

Who’s in your ninja clan?

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What's your glass sword?

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Apr 25, 2010 in Marketing | 7 comments

Gamers old enough to remember Ultima’s role playing game back in the 80s and 90s will remember one of the most treasured weapons of all, the glass sword. This powerful weapon was both incredibly strong and yet incredibly weak. It held one promise: use it on an enemy for a guaranteed kill, but shatter it in the process, rendering it useless. It was the ultimate one-shot weapon, and it was indeed a rare treasure that you’d only use when things got dire. Certainly, you’d never use it for something mundane.

Think about all of the tools, strategies, and tactics you have at your disposal as a marketer. What’s your glass sword, your one unbeatable weapon that you save for the rainiest of rainy days, knowing you’ll shatter it in the process? What resource do you hold back until things are really dire, knowing that there probably WILL be something worth invoking it for?

If you as a marketer don’t have a glass sword somewhere in your arsenal, why not?

If you as a marketer do have a glass sword, how can you get more than one?

What is your glass sword? Love to hear about it in the comments!

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