One Big Thing by Phil Cooke

Author:Phil Cooke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Published: 2012-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

BECOME A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH

Getting Your Story Out There

120

Every story you tell is your own story.

—JOSEPH CAMPBELL, MYTHOLOGIST, WRITER, AND LECTURER

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.

—MAYA ANGELOU, POET

121

As we’ve seen, getting your story told in a digital culture is tough. The demands, options, and choices your audience faces today are daunting. I was a partner in a television commercial company during one of the most chaotic and disruptive times in the history of the advertising business. During the last decade, in spite of producing two Super Bowl commercials and many national campaigns for major companies, every new pitch for business was still a challenge. Competition from the Internet has forever damaged the business of thirty-second TV commercials, and while the spot format won’t go away anytime soon, it’s facing a watershed moment.

As a result, with every media platform we’re constantly innovating and brainstorming new ways to reach consumers with our client’s message. If they’re not watching TV, where can we find them? If they’re on the Web, how do we compete against billions of websites for their attention? What role should social media play in building that message?

The questions go on and on, because in a digital culture only the messages that actually connect will make an impact.

From that experience, I’ve discovered some important insights to unlocking the puzzle. To get your message heard, these are the elements that most often need to be in place to be successful:

1. THE POWER OF ORIGINALITY

To be original, seek your inspiration from unexpected sources.

—Paul Arden, from his book It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be

122

In a sea of competition, the quickest way to get noticed is to be completely original. Apple Computer got it right when they launched the “Think Different” campaign. In a world of interchangeable ideas, cloned products, and tribal thinking, we desperately long for something new.

As cartoonist and artist Hugh MacLeod says, “The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours.” Stop trying to be like someone else and start looking deep into your life for what makes your message, story, or project unique and different. What does your unique background, education, gifts and talents, life experience, and values say about the originality of your message?

Part of what gives Flannery O’Conner’s stories a unique voice is the fact that she raised chickens on a farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. Had she lived in New York City or London, how different would her perspective on writing and life have been?

Ernest Hemingway loved adventure, and his book, A Moveable Feast, opens a wonderful curtain to the imaginative period during which he lived in Paris.

How did Sergey Brin’s childhood in Russia inform his development of “search” and lead him to cofound a company called Google?

What drove Mother Teresa to the slums of Calcutta or Martin Luther King Jr. to the forefront of the civil rights movement?

What were the personal and spiritual values that made John Wooden

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