The Usual Suspects and Starting up a Nation

So after a multi-year crusade of opening much needed dialog and getting his mug and opinion everywhere in the industry and beyond, Rod has thrown in the towel on blogging. Many/most love him to bits, some are sick of him being the centre of attention, Rod long accepted this when building a public profile, thats what goes with speaking up and making a stand, some get along side and behind you, some stand on the fence whining. Some of the conversations I’ve been hearing peak through the otherwise very progessive movements are showing me this less appealing side of being public, so as someone who gets a reasonable amount of media love for your average bear, I thought I’d open it up from my perspective.

Self Promotion, The Usual Suspects and my ugly face

Part of me feels a bit funny promoting a party to launch a mag with myself splat bang in the middle of it, believe me, I’m as sick of my own face as probably plenty of others are. I have a whole slide that I discuss when I present at marketing and entrepreneurial conferences - get sick of your face… Really sick of it… Like it or not, there’s a reason I’m starting to become a usual suspect that some people believe they see too much of in this relatively small web industry, so here’s what I think is the key to make me just one of a growing many.

The Key to growing out past the usual suspects

Get comfortable with yourself. If you don’t like what you see - look inside and evolve until you do. Then create, speak, spend, grow from the depth of your heart. Promoting yourself and your business doesn’t make you arrogant - it could - but thats up to you. If you come from a genuine base, promotion is tool you can learn how to roll with, and in New Zealands case, it makes you someone with a reasonably rare talent in much need of sharing and development. We’re up aganst some of the biggest powers in the world here, and we don’t always have everything on our side, so we need to know how to stand out in a crowd, and find and be comfortable with our own voice even if we also like just quietly blending in and standing along side everyone. These are not mutually exclusive.

I’m happy to help anyone who’s doing real stuff get better at getting profile if I can, I spend enough time on it, mostly naturally now, so probably have something to offer. And I’m sucking up the best I can off others. I have no intention of being a sun, just a smiling star among a milkyway of people with a sparkle in my eye is fine with me. I lean on many others, and expect to do much more of this, the article on Silicon Welly in the StartUp mag is all about just this, the leaning that goes on in a community, this is the fabric of a strong society.

So I’ve kinda got over it, and realise that there are the people who see the bigger picture of what we’re doing, get it, challenge it positively, change it, add to it, be it but better!!! and… there are those who sit on the fence watching what just doesn’t look good enough… And they’re right, its not good enough, we’re just learning.

I Feel like a baby…

And I’m just enjoying learning to crawl and walk, and occasionally sticking my wet finger in a wall socket… Ouch! But you live through it, just with slightly spikier hair, and I really beleive movement creates movement, which creates decisions and outcomes which together creates momentum… Momentum lets us create beyond our dreams, something completely different!

So you’ve just got to do something and make it happen. You can’t stand still in life, when you do, it hurts to look out and see whats happening around you, because you know you could do different, and better, and you can! But until you do, you’ll see others rocking around with less time to think, and more time doing making calls and makng mistakes, and taking us all forward.

Starting up a Business or 2, and a Nation

I’ve been learning, like others willing to give it a crack and learn how to work the media to raise the profile and bar of my company, myself and an industry. Number 1 is You’ve just got to get in, put your name on the line and Do Stuff. I’ve had and continue to have my fair share of quiet behind the scenes ground work. Most of my long days are still just beavering away, getting stuff done, stuff that no-one sees, but as a company, an industry, a country, a world, we’ve got to develop a voice, a profile, the start of a consciousness, so that people out their taking action or starting something but feel a bit isolated can reach out and go, Yeah… I’m in that space too, I want to connect, I’ve got something to throw in the mix! Starting up a Nation

And in our online space, where we’re starting, connect they are, so watch this space as the community that is unfolding across the country behind the scenes takes centre stage. We’re all doing our bit, and it is getting somewhere…

We’ve only just begun, the best is yet to come… Enjoy the close of your week, make it whatever it can be.

Random phrase from a promotional master: When talking about YAOOS (Yet another opening of something), Sesei Rod once said, “I’ll do the opening of anything, even a door…”

Comments: Comments are on but are a bit rough on this site, have your say and ping me at tim at planhq dot com and bare with me until we migrate to whats going to be a big next step.