Vintage video footage of the day I got to sing with Amanda Palmer and Matthew Ebel can be found here on YouTube. For me, in retrospect it was the turning point in how I viewed sales, service, marketing and communications……….
Back in 2010, in the early days of social media, pioneers Amanda Palmer, Matthew Ebell and I were selected to present at Jeff Pulver’s 140 conference in Boston Massachusetts.
The 140 conference was started by Jeff, a wonderful and warm entrepreneur and early investor in Twitter, to explore “the State of Now.” This was to be the opportunity to talk about using the web and Twitter, a hundred and forty character communications tool, to leverage real-time communications and change the world. Today, we more clearly see how social and business have merged to disrupt old ways and old rules of sales, marketing and service, but back then, we were just beginning to see the amazing changes brought by speed and access.
I planned to reference Marshall McLuhan and Sesame Street and talk about sound bites and their impact on communications but I soon learned that I was to follow Amanda Palmer and Matthew Ebel and their music panel and mini concert. Indeed, A hard act to follow.
Real Time Twitter lesson Number One: reach out immediately and call for help. People will respond. I tweeted to Jeff Pulver backstage and asked for all my new friends to come out on stage and help me. I was scrambling because the only thing I knew for sure at that point was that most everybody knew the Sesame Street song and Marshall whoever – was long ago interred in history. My new need was immediate, real and compelling.
I salvaged the rest of my presentation in the transition and while the talk may be lost to history, these most memorable moments, where I got to sing with Amanda Palmer and Matthew Ebel, live on.
Today, I continue to explore the power of social media and community building and I often reference Amanda Palmer’s famous Ted Talk
and newer work The Art of the Ask http://youtu.be/4SeLGDboyhI
along with proudly pointing to Matthew Ebel’s successful alternative marketing with his robot army. They are both great examples of what is possible. Back then, using social media and asking for help were new to all of us.