Broadcasting Brain

Could a magician make a living if she had no secrets?

How about you?

Could you make a living if everything you did was simple, easy, and completely open to the public? What if anyone could do the things that allow you to make your living?

Zatanna is a property of DC Comics.

Don’t show everything you know

One of my favorite business books is Advantage Play by David Ben. Ben, who I’ve mentioned before, was both a tax lawyer and a professional magician. The title of his book describes a technique used by magicians, and professionals, whereby a combination of preparation, practice, and creativity is used to perform amazing and difficult things with seeming ease. By keeping people in the dark as to your methods, you can seem to perform magic.

Social media, of course, doesn’t work that way.

Show all, share all, give more than you get.

One of the hallmarks of social media, Web 2.0, blogging and new PR is transparency, openness and candor. Like the principles of open source software, you give, give, and give and contribute into a public repository (either centralized or distributed). Secrets disappear as we strive to follow the new rules of engagement.

There’s no doubt that this method is working well for some people. Doing stuff for free makes you look generous. People like generosity. It’s a good way to become famous and popular

If, on the other hand, the Amazing Mumford explained how “A La Peanut Butter Sandwiches!” really worked:

1. his magician peers would shun him because he’d be cutting into their livelihoods
2. his fans would gradually disappear because they’d know how to do his tricks, so they wouldn’t pay for him to do them

(On a lark, I tried searching for “open source magicians”. The only one that I found was this guy and he had some interesting things to say. FYI.)

So why is it that some professions keep their knowledge, methods, and ideas under lock and key with high barriers to entry while others seem to facilitate sharing as the means to success?

Because here’s what would happen if you reverse course and keep things too close to the chest in social media:

1. your social media peers would shun you because you’d be seen as being greedy, aloof, and out of step with the rest of the pack.
2. your fans would gradually disappear because they’d also see you as being greedy, kind of like the kid at daycare who refuses to share his toys and then finds out that no one wants to play with him.

Free things aren’t always simple or easy. It’s one thing to be given a solution - it’s another thing to be able to execute the solution. There’s talent, skill, knowledge, discipline, and effort.

The real trick of social media, open source, and free stuff

Remember open book exams? You can walk in to the examination room with textbooks, notes, etc. and use them to help you write your exam. It doesn’t get much more free than that! You can walk in with the answers!

This is, of course, not quite true. The grading standards on open book exams can be higher than closed book exams. Moreover, unless you have a good understanding of your subject material, the textbook won’t help - you won’t know where to go to find the answers that you’re looking for.

It’s quite cool that a number of bloggers and writers like to share thoughts and ideas with the rest of the world. It seems like they are giving away a lot for free. Thing is: there’s a cost. There’s always a cost.

By giving things away, you are removing barriers to entry - anyone can get started.

However, like the example of the open book exam, unless you already have some mastery of the subject matter, free stuff won’t help. Linux is free, but a very large number of people would struggle with trying to install it and make it work because we don’t have the background knowledge to do the work.

Does that mean that social media sharing types are frauds and master illusionists? Do they just give away the free stuff, much like a drug dealer does, to hook you for more?

Like many things in life, I don’t think it’s a clear cut answer. Most people, including myself, would agree that this fine gentleman, and this fine lady, just as examples, are genuine, talented, hard working people who share their knowledge for love of the craft as much as anything else. I believe there are a lot of other people like them.

I also believe that there are shills, swindlers, frauds, and phoneys who peddle social media, as Greg Davies once noted. Paradoxically enough, I think that you do need to beware of many of the folks who want to charge you for social media magic, at least up front. That kind of thinking is out of step with a large portion of the industry; it suggests a short term profit motive that sometimes doesn’t have much substance to support it. Take the money and run, so to speak.

Others build relationships and gain permission to ask to help in bigger (and more costly, but effective) ways as the relationships develop.

Closing thoughts

Is it magic, illusion, or slight of hand? Is there enough substance in any of this to warrant charging for services on how to use social media to better interact with clients, peers, or fans? Is it immoral or wrong to do so? Is it all gimmickry that hides some pretty banal stuff? Are there times when transparency is not warranted?

What do you think?

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