The short answer is that I wanted to help people express themselves online and help them to build a blog, a social media profile, or otherwise self-actualize. The question is: why did I spend the time to create a post with more than 20,000 content ideas?
Yes, there’s no doubt that publishing a post like this, which got some decent sharing within social media sites, was a direct benefit to me. But I’m really hoping is that it was beneficial to you. On the surface, yes, you can generate a large number of blog post ideas, topics, articles, etc. by using the Content Idea Matrix. I provided a lot of content that you can use. Just print out the blog post, draw some lines, and you can easily create hundreds if not thousands of your own pieces of content.
However, there are three things that I really hope that you, the reader, got from reading the post:
- The concept that you can mix and match ideas, people, characters, places, facts, thoughts, pieces, etc. to create new and different content, even if it is just a variation on an existing idea.
- You can use a tool like the Content Idea Matrix to mix and match your own ideas together and see what kinds of content you can come up with using your own ideas.
- Lots of other people had great ideas for blog topics and I including links to just a few of them at the end of the 20,000+ ideas post.
This is all about trying to help people do things by equipping with tools. This is the type of thing that a great blogger and writer that Chris Brogan does regularly and so do many others.
What I find, though, is that more and more social media content is focused on the enterprise, the organization, or the business professional. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that: the tools are there and they can be very effective for those purposes. More power to you if that’s why you or your organization want to use it for those reasons.
I just feel that the individual content creator is starting to get buried and ignored by all of this other activity. And that’s not only a shame, it’s just plain wrong. There’s a lot of talk online about how group blogs, as an example, are getting the most traffic, attention, and respect and the individual content creator is losing in the process. Of course, there are contrary examples where individuals are making their mark while organizations aren’t. But there seems to be more talk about the growing power of the groups (or the Collectives, if you will.)
Smart, talented, individual voices that want to make their mark, argue a point, champion a cause, or otherwise develop their talents are not just competing amongst themselves, but against larger groups with better resources, more content, and… you get the picture, right? Now let’s be honest: most people don’t become successful (however you define that) on their own. We all benefit from help. I’m starting to understand the wisdom of collaboration better than I ever have and I’m looking for ways to do a better job of doing that in 2010 and beyond. But, darn it, if you do good, meaningful work and can keep doing it, then you deserve some recognition and whatever rewards should rightfully come from that.
Recognition and rewards aren’t going to find you on their own: that’s a fact. You may have a passion that will not earn you any money and that may be something that you’ll have to come to terms with. Making your mark may make you unpopular and cause some problems, but there could be other amazing rewards as well. Nothing is guaranteed, but many things are possible.
This isn’t a proper manifesto (although that may be coming soon), but for now, I’m taking a step closer to focus things a bit more here at Broadcasting Brain. Different thoughts about thinking differently isn’t just an attempt at a witty slogan – there’s a purpose behind it. Apple was right in their famous slogan “think different”. It’s easy to copy other people’s great ideas – sometimes it’s essential. However, the best things arise from our own spin, take, and improvements. Other times we need to come up with completely different ideas, shake up the status quo, tear things down and build them up bigger.
Sometimes I’m better at thinking differently than acting differently, but it’s always possible to change, even if it’s just a little bit at a time. Maybe you feel the same way.
So my hope is that I can create useful content for people who want to wave their freak flag high and make their mark on the world. I hope I can share content, either my own or other people’s, that will get you thinking differently and doing better work, however you define it.
Let’s keep going.
Image by Marco Bellucci
