Black Swans and Ground Hogs: Communication, Not Prediction
Happy Groundhog Day, WUL readers!
If you are anything like me, you’re a big fan of the once famous Bill Murray movie surrounding one of the littlest celebrated holidays in American culture.
It’s a day when a small number of people in Pennsylvania wait to see whether or not a rodent of the family Sciuriade “thinks”certain meteorological conditions will persist for six weeks or if inhabitants of the northeast US will be able to break out their flip flops a little early.
This annual ritual, if taken seriously, leaves a slew of questions for any hard-nosed reporter who can’t take a joke:
- For starters, how do we know if Punxsutawney Phil is afraid of his shadow or something else?
- Have scientists developed some unusual way of communicating with groundhogs or translating their grunts or gibbering into language as we know it today?
- And who exactly are the top hat-donning handlers, known as the Inner Circle, who take care of Phil?
Why Customers Are Generalizing Your Business
It’s not a good idea to search for a doctor online.
I told my mother that when she asked me to. She agreed. And I began my search.
After three days, I handed over a grand total of two name-and-number pairs. “They had good ratings,” I said, somewhat helplessly. My mother nodded at the strange syllables and locations.
And she still hasn’t called them.
This is what is happening to most of your visitors, buth online and offline.
They discover your name, your shop, or your number somehow. They note your information. And they leave, never to return. Yes, even if you have “good ratings.”
You see, you have this vague idea that you want to be known as “fast,” “smart,” “caring,” or “cutting-edge.” I know because you put it on your business card. Plenty of your customers say you are, too.
6 iPhone Accessories for Almost-Professional Photos/Videos
I saw a post from Chris Brogan a while back, talking about how it’s ok to not be an expert and, in fact, we shouldn’t wait until we’re experts at something to do it.
Sounds about right to me. After all, I never trained in public relations (fuhgeddabout social media), and my background is in Economics (probably why I like numbers so much) and drama, but I think I’m doing ok.
To me, non-experts doing things very well is one of the beauties not just of our profession, but a gift that the social Web has given to us.
After all, you don’t have to be an “expert” to blog well, to excel at online marketing, to take great photos and/or videos… right?
I don’t know about you, but I’m drawn more to the “non-expert” versions of these things (and so much more), because they have a “realness” (I don’t know if that’s a word, and if it wasn’t, it is now, and it is so much easier to say than verisimilitude) to them that a lot of “expert” content doesn’t.
