This week I have been engaged in numerous discussions of the organ donation system in the UK, mostly spurred by my appearance on Channel 4’s 4Thought.tv strand which asked, “Should Organ Donation Be Compulsory”.
Over the week, the show has featured a variety of views both for and against presumed consent and organ donation as a whole. One of these was Derek House, a Jehovah’s Witness who believes that all organ donation is fundamentally wrong.
While his views raised ire among the transplant community, it struck me that Mr House isn’t the man we need to be targeting. His religious beliefs preclude him from supporting organ donation: we’re not going to change that.
If we want to see the number of organ donors in this country increase, we need to tackle the vast disparity between the 75% of people who say they would be willing to donate their organs1 and the 26% who have signed the organ donor register. Those people don’t need convincing of the merits, they just need to be drawn out of their apathy.
Focusing our energies on a battle we’re already winning seems like a better use of resources than fighting one we will inevitably lose.
The same goes for any kind of battle you may be facing as an artist or entrepreneur: look at the fights you face and work out which ones are worth your energy.
Picking your battles is not the same as taking the path of least resistance. It’s about using your focus and energies on strategies and tactics that will make a difference, not banging your head against a brick wall.
the oft-quoted figure of 90% is, infact, the people who support the idea of organ donation; 15% of people support the idea, but say they wouldn’t donate their organs [↩]
Today, I want to pick up on his phrase, “everything is exposed”.
Using the ‘net as extensively as we do, it’s so important to remember that every single act of ours in the public arena, from social networking sites to job sites to personal blogs, is being followed, copied and archived around the world.
We no longer live in a world where mistakes simply disappear, confined to the annals of history and remembered only by those most directly involved. Now, if you make a mistake, it’s everywhere.
Facing the reality of the permanence of our online interactions is key to making sure we always consider carefully what we’re saying, doing and thinking out loud. Posting a Tweet, updating your Facebook, uploading some photos? Think. Look before you leap.
Do you want your great, great, great, great grandkids to see what you’re about to put out there? Because they will.
Following on from yesterday’s post about faking it and how your inner confidence shines out through your actions, today’s post continues on the theme of perception.
I’ve just watched this video from Gary Vaynerchuk1 and it’s hard to do so without being inspired:
This is a guy who knows how he’s perceived, knows what people expect from him when they first encounter him, but flies in the face of it with wit and confidence.
Knowing how people see you is key to finding your personal – or corporate – brand. I’ve written before about the importance of recognising your place in the market to help drive your growth, but it’s just as important to know not just where you see yourself, but where others see you, too.
no, I didn’t really know who he was either until turned onto his stuff by Adam Baker [↩]
After the travails of the last three weeks1, it’s time to get back to the business of blogging and creating top-quality content for all my readers again.
#Trust30 is a month-long commitment to create something new every day for 30 days, whether it’s blogging, writing, painting, filmmaking or anything in between. The aim is simple to create.
I’m committed, are you? If you’ll be taking part, leave us a link to your site in the comments so we can all help to hold each other accountable.
detailed in 3 posts on my Journal Blog here, here and http://www.olilewington.co.uk/smilethroughit/2011/05/31/the-sage-concluded/ [↩]
It’s a very badly hidden secret that I’m a loyal supporter and devotee of Seth Godin, the man I can most single-handedly credit with re-energising me in my low moments and helping me believe that anything is possible.
Never more so than with the latest free eBook from his Domino Project publishing company. Not only is it a great example of using something you give away for free (the ‘SXSW Pokes‘ eBook) to promote something you’re selling (the full-length ‘Poke the Box‘ book and eBook), it’s also full of stories that help you realise that anything really is possible.
The single most important element of SXSW Pokes is that it’s not just a few people telling stories that make you think, “Well, I could have done that if I’d thought of it first,” but instead contains 50 stories from people who make you think, “If they can do that with their lives, just think what I could do with mine.”
I cannot stress just how important I think this book is for anyone to read. Go get it.
If you are the only one getting in your own way of going after your dreams, stop and realize that you are the last person who should be doing that!
What’s your lifelong dream? As you step out to make it real, reach out to someone you’d like to know and emulate. That one phone call may change your life forever!
The initiative I took for myself will always remind me that I’m teh one driving this train, and that I’m accountable to ther person in the mirror most of all.
You’re right, you can’t actually make ‘The Hobbit’ as your next film, but you can learn a huge amount about creating and nurturing your audience from the get-go from Peter Jackson‘s latest adventure in Middle Earth.
Yesterday, production began on the two-film adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkein book and no sooner had the press release hit the wires than Peter Jackson himself had launched his new Facebook Page. Yes, it’s a personal one, but you can be sure that it’s going to be used almost solely to promote his current flick up until its release in 2012.
This early-bird establishing of connection and communication with the audience (which is something PJ excelled at with both ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and his 2005 ‘King Kong’ remake) is crucial for filmmakers across the budget range.
While Jackson and the Hobbit team may be walking into an audience of millions of eager fans across the world and you may be staring at an audience of less-than-eager family members at the start of your journey, focusing on and starting your social media and marketing efforts from Day 1 is a key principle in audience building for independent filmmakers.
Just ask your friendly local PMD, a post title created by Jon Reiss and being exemplified by the sterling work of Adam Daniel Mezei over at pmdforhire.com – creating your film with your audience in mind is crucial to your success and the more (and earlier) you can connect with them, the more successful you will be.
I don’t want to pour more scorn on the much-derided Spider-man: The Musical, enough of that has been done by commentators and citizen reviewers across New York, the US and, increasingly, the world. I make no comment on its artistic merit; I’ve not seen it and therefore am in no position to judge.
I did, however, see a lesson for all artists and creatives in the development and re-development of the show following this piece in the New York Post this week. The key phrase for me:
[Phil] McKinley’s going to turn the show into a shorter, special-effects-driven family spectacle more suited to the world of Steve Wynn than Steve Sondheim.
For me, if you’re creating a musical from a comic book, the tone and the feel of the show needs to reflect that of the book itself. The same holds true for making movies and TV shows of comic books, too. What I don’t understand about Spidey is why have a short, special-effects-driven family show is a change of direction – that’s exactly the sort of show it should have been in the first place.
As any social media and marketing expert will tell you, knowing your audience is key. And the audience for Spider-man: The Musical surely wants to see something breath-takingly spectacular with a simple, familiar storyline that they don’t have to concentrate on too much. From the reports abounding on the ‘net, that’s not what they’ve got.
Knowing your audience and knowing exactly what it is you’re making is crucial to the artistic and commercial success of any artistic project. Even for little indies who don’t want to think about “commerce” and “business”1, it’s vital to understand who is going to consume your eventual product, even if they’re not paying for it.
What else would you want from a Broadway/West End show based on a comic book? I can’t think of anything other than good fun and spectacle. It’s the old K.I.S.S. message: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
In one of those strange pieces of serendipity that come along now and again, no sooner had I Tweeted out yesterday’s blog post than I came across this Tweet from friend and fellow Twitterer, Jeanne.
A Twitter pimp extraordinaire, screenwriter and black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Jeanne is an inspiration to many, from her Twitter feed and blog to hosting the weekly US #scriptchat sessions.
And what wonderful timing as I resolved to give up fear for lent, for Jeanne to link through to her blog post about doing exactly the same three years ago and never looking back.
In 2008, I gave up fear for Lent. It changed my life forever.
Welcome to another new LOWDOWN, that part of the Production Office that brings you tips and tricks on all the tools you need to enhance your career as a filmmaker and creative.
Today, it’s Productivity.
Anyone who follows my blog will know I’m pretty hot on productivity. For far too long I spent my days being busy, but rarely productive. Since harnessing some of the tools I’m talking about today and putting some best practices of getting things done into place, I’ve become much more focused, much more productive and much more successful.
Let’s have a look, then, at some of the tools you can use to make your life easier.
EVERNOTE
Evernote comes at the top of the list today for two reasons: number one, it’s the tool I was most recently introduced to and two, it’s the tool I now find the most invaluable.
Evernote is a desktop and web-based app that you can also get for almost all smart phones. It’s free to get started, but if you go over a certain storage limit you have to start paying. That said, I’ve used it quite a lot and still not exceeded my free allowance.
What Evernote does is to collect together all those bits and pieces of things on the web that you want to take note of, as well as allowing you to compile your own To Do lists, projects and other notes. It’s the simplest, cheapest and easiest way of keeping track of just about everything you need to remember. The Evernote logo isn’t an elephant for nothing.
THINGS
The second tool that works hard to keep you on time and on-topic is Things. The biggest down side? It’s Mac-only. So all you Windows dinosaurs can’t take advantage of it. You also have to pay around £30 for it, which puts it a step below Evernote to begin with.
Once you get past those elements, though, Things is brilliant for tracking To Do’s, project files, notes and reminders. Most usefully, though – and what helps to elevate Things to a point worth paying for – is it’s interaction and syncability1 with iCal and iPhone. If you use Apple’s MobileMe syncing solution to share your calendar across all your home computers, like I do, Things swaps and shares data seamlessly with not only all of your computers, but your phone as well. An invaluable way of keeping track of everything you need to know when you need to know it.
BASECAMP
There are numerous online project management tools that help you and all your collaborators to keep track of all the strands that make up your project, but the best one I’ve found (and used) is Basecamp.
Unlike other, equally useful online tools like Huddle, it’s Basecamp’s pricing structure that really makes it stand out. You pay a flat monthly fee from $24 (£15) and upwards that allows unlimited numbers of people to join your project and work on things with you. Huddle, by contrast, charges you per user per month, meaning a major film or creative project would quickly rack up sizable fees.
Basecamp2 is best used for sharing documents and keeping track of project timelines and goals in a way that everyone involved can see. Not only is that a great motivational tool – if everyone know what you should be doing, you’d better be doing it – but also a great way of making sure key things don’t get missed and that everyone knows the timeline their working to and the goals their aiming for.
There are hundreds of different tools of productivity for you to explore, but I’d suggest you limit yourself to trying one or two at a time, otherwise you risk undoing all their good work by spending all day getting to know them and setting them up as opposed to using them to help get your work done.
For more o productivity, keep an eye on my blog here, as well as checking out the99percent and lifehacker, my two online bibles of productivity tips and tools.
Psychology Today ran this article last week suggesting that acknowledging other people’s unhappiness is the key to making them feel happier. Sounds odd – backwards, even – since our usual response to someone telling us they’re unhappy or stressed is to be positive and encourage them.
When you think about it, though, how annoying is it when you’re feeling gloomy and someone tells you to “cheer up”? It certainly doesn’t cheer you up, does it?
I’ve found, too, that when other people deny or ignore my feelings, I tend to keep repeating myself (i.e., whining), because I think my feelings haven’t registered.
Have you found that acknowledging bad feelings allows them to dissipate better?
