INBOUND Bold Talks: Christopher Penn "Awaken Your Superhero: Social Media Beyond Business"

Key Takeaways

thank you very much all right in the words of Dave kosac lore designer for World of Warcraft the primordial soup that creats Heroes does not taste of rainbows it's a lumpy gumbo of pain and suffering we live in a monstrously unfair world and it's going to stay that way because that's the way the world is and that's what creates Heroes today we're not talking about marketing if you here for that the door is there today we are talking about Awakening your superhero with the tools that you have Justice is balance of course so let's talk about criminals and villains and heroes for a bit they're actually the same thing in a lot of ways if you watch television crime dramas they talk a lot about how a a hero has to have an anti-hero if you saw the movie Unbreakable very similar idea no villains no Heroes the television crime dramas tell us that we have three things to prove to that someone has committed a crime means motive and opportunity did you have the ability to to commit the crime did you have a reason to commit the crime and did you have the opportunity to do it well the truth is that's not just true for criminals that's true for Heroes too let's examine these areas well we'll play a little game here let's say name the superheroes all right call them out if you know them if anyone hear a comic book nerd besides me you can admit it it's okay good can read minds anywhere in the world Professor X Professor Xavier can alter reality just by projecting his will Green Lantern terrible movie good superhero Flawless photographic memory and ability to learn instantly Jean Gray endless array of tools and gadgets we read about these superheroes we grew up with them comic books movies movies about the movies remakes of the movies about movies because Hollywood can't come up with anything original but the world around us has changed the world that created these Heros has Chang today you don't need to be Professor Xavier to read minds anywhere in the world you have these Powers Facebook and Twitter and the social network of your choice you don't need to be the Green Lantern have a ring and be allergic to a color to change reality you can blog there are countless examples of blogs that have changed the world that have changed the world we live in that have brought down governments or built them up you don't need to be a Flawless photographic memory expert you have the sum total of human knowledge in digital form publicly available anyway the NSA has their own in your pocket right think about that for a second all the publicly available digital knowledge is in your pocket you are walking around with a library that the Library of Alexandria would have paled by comparison an endless array of tools and gadgets of course you have these phones and they're impacting not just the digital world but the physical world too this is a fun little app called studfinder it's not what you think it uses the iPhone's magnets to detect when you run over a wall whether there's Nails in it so you can find studs in your house these phones these devices are impacting the reality around us the physicality around us 50 years ago what this thing can do would have been in a comic book this one here says fantastic the world at my doorstep world's in your pocket now our technology gives us superhero Powers we have the means to be a superhero we'll skip past motive for a moment and talk about opportuni are there opportunities to be a superhero well yes we live in a monstrously unfair world and here's a couple of examples this is a package of software that was created by Kenyan developers in 2007 as a result of unfair elections and they wanted to report where there was misbehavior where there were polling irregularities we could have used it in America not too long ago but they open sourced it they said rather than just collecting data about SMS and Twitter and and things like that about the let's throw it out there to the world and see what happens and they did it's called yahi which means witness or testimony in so this has been repurposed so many times for so many different uses the city of Washington DC downloaded it and deployed it to tell you where plowing end up and done during a major snowstorm this example here is Haiti after the earthquake volunteers set this up and were collecting tweets and text messages to let people know where dangers were after the earthquake and where you could find the basic necessities you can download this software and install it on your website today and just have it sort of laying in the background in a folder and if there's a disaster in your city if there's a problem you can turn it on Step Up lead and build your community and save your community just with this package of Open Source software this is a movement called be more heroic crowdsourced crowdfunded crowd everything to stop bullying 10 years ago this would have been impossible it would have been a mandate from the Department of Education but it's too slow so this movement came together to say let's teach kids that the antidote to bullying the antidote to evil is to be more heroic it's a fantastic campaign check it out if you can a couple of personal examples in 2007 a friend in our podcasting Community had uh a tragedy befall his family his 16-year-old niece ran away from her mom possibly went to Florida and disappeared she had met a 38-year-old boyfriend friend on the internet on MySpace which was still relevant at the time he is and his family went to the authorities they said she's missing we need some help the authorities said well you know kids disappear all the time if she's not back in week she's not coming back sorry not much we can do oh and she we think she crossed state lines so we're not even going to try because our jurisdiction ends at the state line so my friend approached the podcasting community and said this is unacceptable I can't just give up what can we do so a few of us outbound marketers sorry went out found this girl's Myspace profile and spammed every one of her friends have you seen her where is she have you had any hints found out she got a bus ticket somewhere where is she going we think maybe one or two cities in Florida loaded up the city of uh I think it was Coral Gables Florida on myace spammed all of them said have you seen this girl she's missing what the authorities couldn't do in 3 weeks we found her 48 Hours 72 hours later the SWAT team came knocking on the door with the battering ram that'll wake you up and two weeks later she was home with her family this is the power that this stuff gives you the ability to do it's not just about selling crap it's about saving lives or changing lives for the better I used to do a podcast called the financial aid podcast talk about a the most boring podcast you could possibly imagine and Not only was it boring but I did 937 episodes of it once a day every day for 5 years but it wasn't just some guy you know sitting at a desk talking to a microphone for fun it actually had an impact a year after I left the job while I was doing that or more accurately it left me I got an email from a guy who said hey I just want to let you know that my daughter is graduating from Western Illinois University this may she's graduating a year early and she's graduating debt-free as a guy who never went to college you know a lot of hard work and a lot of credits she got out so one person sitting at their desk toying around the microphone trying out this whole podcast thing gave someone else the ability to go to college without graduating with $100,000 in debt you have that power to create the same kind of content opportunity is waiting for you there out there right now there are opportunities right now if how many people have Twitter open right now okay good go open the search window I want you to search for One phrase I just want the pain to stop search right now I'll wait I just want the pain to stop look around this is your community these are your people this is your tribe and there are people online right now saying to the world I just want the pain to stop you don't have to be a hero to a million people you don't have to try and lift the Brooklyn Bridge all you have to do is ask somebody hey are you okay you're not alone you can change the world you can be a hero you've just done it you've identified opportunities they are waiting in the palm of your hand heroes are born from Darkness because we desperately need someone to light the way you are holding that opportunity to light the way for someone and like I said it doesn't have to be a million people if you are a parent all you really would care about is if someone lit the way for your child if they were lost and they couldn't get you right so you have the means you have the opportunity it's waiting in your hand let's talk about motivation they're enemies to being heroic one enemy is corruption taking these tools and using them for evil or even just mediocrity every time that we Market some cheap crap for stupid people we are corrupting these Powers right if You' ever remember the uh Superman 3 movie was forgettable except for the scene when Superman faced off against a corrupted version of himself we use these tools for uses other than they're intended for they are corrupted we can restore them it's an antidote more dangerous is apathy this is an incredibly dangerous enemy of being heroic oh it's just Twitter oh it's just Facebook oh it's just phone oh it's a phone that was expensive right imagine if Clark Ken decide yeah I don't really need to go save the world I'll just stay here in the wheat fields and just farm right I can push the tractor a little faster than anyone else that's apathy and that's so dangerous because it's what prevents us from believing in ourselves and from Awakening our inner superhero to say look I can go save somebody I can go help somebody I can go do something of Merit apathy is the enemy the enemy is cynicism this is probably the most Insidious of all this is the voice that says I can't do that this is the voice says I'm not a hero I'm a marketing guy I gotta go sell crap to stupid people no no you're more than that if you want to be this is I don't believe this stuff works even though the evidence is right there in front of you it's you're holding in your hand the evidence is in front of you cynicism says Nah doesn't really work beware of these three enemies as you approach the potential of your superhero Powers you have the means you have the opportunity do you have the motivation are you ready to awaken your superhero thank you very much [Applause]