Pinko from a non-marketer
mrs deedop
I hope I'm not too much of a fish out of water here because I am not a
marketer, but I'm very much digging the conversation and the concepts I'm
seeing here.
I come at this from a different angle: I'm a freelance artist/writer and
what I see amongst my freelancing friends is a sad adherence to the old ways
of doing things. In other words, artists trying to market themselves the
way ad agencies marketed products ten years ago. It's like the cluetrain
never reached them and they're either doing the abrasive hard sell or
they're sitting on their asses waiting for the Big Break from the Powers
That Be. I'm exploring Pinko ideas, Hughtrain ideas and so on to try and
formulate a new way of reaching out and marketing as a freelancer, and to
help/encourage other freelancers in my particular creative community to do
the same.
So far, I'm just making lots of notes -- haven't really gotten much out into
the world yet, but I'm eager to do so, even if I've never been in marketing
and the last thing I know how to do is speak marketing speak! (And to be
honest, reaching independent artists works better when one *doesn't* use
marketing speak -- or Web 2.0 speak for that matter. I try it and my
friends' eyes glaze over.)
I love love love Henriette's Desti:nation thing -- that is so crazily close
to how my mind's been working on these things. In fact, I'll be signing up
to participate shortly. My husband and I run a food blog and if we can
schedule it right, we'll be doing a day of cooking where I photograph it,
mess with the images, and --I hope! -- create a 24-hour online photo/comic
with art/recipes/storyline, etc.
Anyway, I just thought I'd break my silence and say I'm glad to be here!
-Robin
www.belly-timber.com
Tara Hunt
This is amazing. Thanks for piping in.
My first thoughts are Cold Mountain and The Cluetrain Manifesto. Both
very different stories, but both are examples of using Pinko
Principles. Of course, Cold Mountain was eventually picked up by
Hollywood and blown up, but the launch story is quite gorgeous. When I
get to my computer (on the Blackberry), I'll dig it up.
The beauty is that Pinko is far from being new...but is just a way of
naming a movement that has always been there and is picking up
momentum.
Tara
--
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
agent provocateur
Citizen Agency (www.citizenagency.com)
blog: www.horsepigcow.com
phone: 415-694-1951
Beth Kanter
Thanks for your post! I thought I was the only lurker coming from exactly
where you are coming from - an independent who works exclusively with
nonprofits/social change orgs - and a non-marketer. I'm also an artist too.
Robin, I'm glad you jumped in and opened the door ... I joined this list to
learn more about it and delighted to listen on the conversation.
With that said, there has to be a chapter or whatever on how
nonprofits/social change orgs might apply the principles of pinko marketing
-- and how to leverage/integrate these conversations with those that are
taking place in ngos circles like netsquared.
Beth
Beth's Blog: http://beth.typepad.com
Cambodia4kids: http://beth.typepad.com/cambodia4kidsorg
Sharing Foundation: http://www.sharingfoundation.org
Blogher Contributing Editor/Nonprofits and NGOS
Global Voices Contributor: Cambodia
Ranvir Gujral
I can certainly relate to the non-marketers. In fact, as a former finance/investing guy, I even found my past self casting an evil eye in marketing's general direction from time to time. Now, as an entrepreneur, I'm realizing that every conversation is marketing and these conversations provide the only authentic means to get others to adopt one's vision. And selling the vision is the first step in selling the product and building a lasting enterprise (nonprofit or for-profit).
Beth, as for your chapter, I certainly agree with the sentiment, though I think in some cases it actually may be the other way around. Many of the fundamental principles of Pinko and other similar methodologies have actually been honed in the NGO world. After attending Winecamp and Netsquared, I penned an entry for my yet to be launched blog entitled "What startups can learn from nonprofits." Without wasting too much time promoting a post that doesn't yet exist, the basic premise is that nonprofits have strong experience in doing great things with few resources. The Netsquared/Compumentor introduction to the conference program described nonprofits' strength as "enhancing the ability of communities to self-organize." Some terms that have historically described this strength include grassroots and people power. Sounds Pinko to me.
Success for nearly any nascient company depends largely on a community of users advocating and evangelizing its product or service. Clearly passion builds around social causes more naturally, but surely very few social campaigns gain great success without an enormous amount of focused energy. The "best practices" manual for startups should answer the question, "where do we focus this energy to build passion around our product?" This manual would do well to copy a page from the NGO guidebook.
Maybe the chapter could focus on the exchange of ideas between both sectors?
Ranvir
http://insightpath.com
Ranvir Gujral
email: ran...@gmail.com
mobile: 650.799.4734
Beth Kanter
Ranvir:
You are so right on! I hope you publish your blog post soon – I’d love to point to it…
B.
mrs deedop
Wow - great stuff -- I'm glad I posted!
Tara, I hope you're able to dig up the Cold Mountain story. I'm intrigued.
Beth, I have a bit of a non-profit background as well, although in the
artist sector. I was a board president for a regional playwrights'
organization for a year (before the playwrights who were all about taking
without giving drove me nuts, but that's another story for another time).
I think there's much that can be learned both ways. (Depending on how
...er... functional the non-profit is.)
Ranvir, your non-existent post sounds great -- especially learning to make
do with few resources. (I was in theater for years; I know how that goes).
I hope you write it soon!
I'm in the middle of getting the under-the-hood stuff done on my second
non-food blog, which I will be rather nicheless (defying common wisdom
deliberately), but I'll be delving into artist marketing there as best I
can, or I hope, at least ruminating a little on a few ideas I've had from
reading here and around & about.
One such thought revolves around Barcamps. I'll admit, I'd never *heard*
of Barcamp until just a month or two ago, but the format is *exactly* what
I've wanted to do with artists and writers for ages. A F2F version of some
of the online communities that are closest to writers salons, but without
the absurd fees just to get in the door. I'm so tired of the old paradigm
of the $400 writers' conference that's all geared toward the 10 minute pitch
session wherein some poor writer has a 1 in 100 shot of getting their Big
Break from a Big Name agent or editor.
Gah. I'm ramblingly off subject, I'm sure, but the whole peer to peer
approach is just so tremendously better than what so many of my old school
artist/writer friends are doing these days to market themselves. It just
gets me revved up and a little giddy! :-)
--robin
www.belly-timber.com
Tara Hunt
Check out Woolf Camp:
http://www.socialtext.net/woolfcamp/index.cgi
:)
T.
Pete Prodoehl
> Robin,
>
> Thanks for your post! I thought I was the only lurker coming from exactly
> where you are coming from - an independent who works exclusively with
> nonprofits/social change orgs - and a non-marketer.
I too have been somewhat of a "non-marketer" so...
Pinko: Marketing for non-marketers
I like it...
Pete
/pd
For NGO stuff, take a look at this. James has some interesting works in
the Pipeline. He's a TP fellow;
mrs deedop
Now that's what I'm talking about! I recognize some of the organizer names
from Blogher.org. I'd love to take that out of just the blog writing realm
and into other writing & other arts. In other words, merge the online
barcamp style with brick & mortar -- so artists in non-digital media benefit
as well. (I have many brilliant writer friends but they'd never attend an
event about *blog* writing because that's not their focus.)
Okay. That's it. I'm starting a Wiki. Soon as I get off this
technologically impaired rock and back to Portland, I'm Camping it. :-)
--robin
At 11:20 PM 6/26/2006, you wrote:
>Robin,
>
>Check out Woolf Camp:
><http://www.socialtext.net/woolfcamp/index.cgi>http://www.socialtext.net/woolfcamp/index.cgi
>
>:)
>
>T.
gregoire
And I'm also curious to see how *pinko-able* insightpath.com is!
David Rogers
Ranvir Gujral
David, I'm hoping what Gregoire was refering to was the application or company behind the curtains, not just a landing page with a big logo and an email signup form. I would say there's a low chance of a community forming around insightpath.com in its current iteration. I'm sure you know this.
I would also say that if you have no idea of what you're getting into then please don't leave your email address at any site like this, leave alone mine. If I have zero knowledge of the relevancy of a product or product creator to me I wouldn't sign up. I put it there because I have conversations with folks all the time who have an interest in what I'm doing and want to be notified when there's an update. Also others may hear of what I'm doing and want to be notified when there's an update. It's opting into a conversation, and I don't see what's wrong with that.