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Ignite the Average Joe, One Slob at a Time

January 28th, 2008 | blogtour, christianity, faith and work, highcallingblogs.com, marketing, networking

ignite the average joeAt FastCompany this month, Clive Thompson asks, “Is the Tipping Point Toast?” He makes a good point that “your average slob is just as likely as a well-connected person to start a huge new trend.”

Why should any readers of GoodWordEditing.com care?

Because this means our words matter no less (and no more) than the A-List bloggers. Sure, Guy Kawasaki has more readers than I do, but how many of my readers have ever heard of Guy? (He seems pretty cool if his blog’s public persona is any indication.) No matter how cool he is, Guy can no more easily turn the tide of American trends than the Commander of an aircraft carrier can single handedly turn the ship around.

Sure, the Commander can turn the wheel. But for that wheel to work, he depends on the non-commissioned officers throughout the ship. The technicians who keep the engine running. The engineers who contructed the ship in the first place. The chain of command established by the military over several hundreds of years that keeps everything and everyone operating efficiently.

Mark, you say, quit getting lost in your own metaphors. How does this apply to me? What does this mean for my blog posts and my daily conversations?

It means we are all part of the what makes viral marketing work. Oh great, you say. Here he goes about viral marketing again. But listen, you’re interested in this stuff too.

You’re personally interested. If you are a writer, you’ve raised your eyebrows at the current trend in Blog Tours. Maybe you’ve even wondered if these things are effective at all. Should I pay someone to organize a blog tour when my next book comes out? You might as well ask if you can contact a handful of blogs to create a tipping point in the blogosphere. Here’s the logic of many blog tours: Thirty key bloggers will make your book go viral. Here’s the logic of many blog tour specialists: Hire me and I’ll get you connected with the influential bloggers.

What if one average Joe slob is just as important as every other?

You’re socially interested as well, I’d bet. If you aren’t part of our network at HighCallingBlogs.com (shameless promotion: join us today!), chances are you are part of some network somewhere. Maybe this is just me, but I am a little competitive about these things. I don’t just want to join a network, I want to join an influential network. An important one. I want to be part of the group that sets the trends. The group that has the inside scoop. Well, guess what? Every group has this potential according to Thompson.

…if one average Joe slob is just as important as every other.

You’re spiritually interested. Most of the readers here are Christian, and we share a belief in the great commission on some level. You remember that first century call to viral marketing, right? Jesus says,

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:18-20)

“All authority”–does that make Christ the penultimate influencer? Regardless, the call to spread the message is clear. We are to go–making disciples, baptizing people, and teaching them. Spread the ideas. Spread the love. Share the good news. Be an evanglizer. There’s a reason marketers have adopted this term. And here’s where it gets really fun. As we look to spread the gospel, we never know where the message is going to burn brightest.

One average Joe slob is just as important as every other.

What’s the moral here? I’m not sure, and I’d love to hear comments from readers who have some conclusions to share based on all of this.

But I don’t want to pass the buck either. I’m reminded of the command from Jesus to love one another. And Peter’s advice to respect everyone. And Paul’s advice to be kind to everyone. There’s a sense in which this kind of selfless behavior is incredibly practical. If any average Joe can start the fire, we shouldn’t count one person as more important than any other.

Love them all.

Respect them all.

Be kind to them all.

A few final notes…

First, in case you haven’t read The Tipping Point yet, or heard it discussed ad nauseum, Thompson does a great job summarizing the relevant part in his article.

Second, regardless of what you think about tipping points, hat tipping certainly hasn’t gone out of style. I owe a Texas brim salute to both Guy Kawasaki (via his blog) and Dan Roloff (via an email) for sending me to Thompson’s article.

Finally, people have wondered what we mean by the High Calling of our Daily Work. This does not mean that we earn our salvation by works! It simply means we think about work–marketing, writing, advertising, teaching, blogging, raising a family, etc.–through the lens of our faith. What does my work teach me about God? How does my understanding of God change the way I approach my work?


Viewing 13 Comments

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    I was doing some reading last night for our Mount Hermon seminar, and this very thought was on my mind. Because some people would say that you've got to get "in" with the "right" people. And intuition and some experience does tell me that "gatekeepers" are important for spreading the word, or the love.

    Still, there was this nagging thought in my mind that all of this is bunk. I was considering that maybe the Chicken Soup for the Soul people (perhaps surprisingly) may be onto to something. Each person influences about 10 people who influence 10 people who influence 10 people. So influencing just one person powerfully could be better than influencing a gatekeeper at about the wet-noodle level.

    Though I suppose that influencing a gatekeeper at the Fra Diablo level could have its rewards. (So, hey, how do we get on Oprah?)
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    L.L., yes, but getting on Oprah is not about being with an influencer. It's about having a moment of mass media influence--through the television show Oprah.

    And thanks for giving me the title of my next book: Wet Noodle Marketing. It'll be the next Tipping Point!
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    Good, good point about mass media. Hey, great book title!
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    This whole marketing thing is a bit of a mystery to me. Of course, I do my best. I give copies to inflential folks. I have blog tours. I speak. Part of the whole phenomenon, though, gets back to God's sovereignty. I have to rest there.
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    Mary, I think you are doing everything right. Sowing seeds. Building relationships with lots of folks. One big problem I think we have in publishing is the hit mentality.

    We see someone who wrote a bestseller and we forget all of the regular books they wrote prior to their runaway hit. C. S. Lewis is a good example of this. We all point to Narnia's success, but we forget that he was 52 before the first Narnia book was even published.

    Not any writer should plan on waiting until he or she is fifty before finding publication success, mind you... But our role as writers is to produce good stories. Good stories will eventually sell.

    That's what I like about Thompson's article. He says the environment in which something goes viral is more important than the people who spread the virus. Instead of thinking about who can help our books go viral, we need to think about what books will speak to our culture.
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    Grassroots. That's what this makes me think of. A grassroots movement.
    Or alternative. How is it that what once was "alternative" has been mainstream for years?
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    I've done a lot of musing on this subject - how trends start. If you watch flocks of birds or schools of fish, I think it must be rather like that. One bird turns and suddenly the flock turns. But lots of birds are turning. What causes one to be the tipping point? Maybe it isn't just one. Maybe it is a moment where the collective unconscious comes together. I don't know.

    But I do know that if this is true, our network is more powerful than we thought because we are more powerful than we thought.

    I also visualize this as a hammer trying to drive a nail into a piece of plywood that is held in someone else's hands. It doesn't matter how big the hammer is, that nail is NOT going in. The blow is absorbed by the breadth of the plywood and the movement backwards when the person can't hold it still.

    But there are times when our collective energy comes to a point and forms a base behind the plywood. And in that moment, even a small hammer can drive the nail home.

    What I'm saying is, it doesn't matter how big the blogger if he or she isn't saying the right thing at just the right time. On the other hand, even a relative nobody who says just the right thing at the right time can become a 15 minute star.
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    Good discussion Marcus. It ties into one of my favorite non-fiction books, "Made to Stick," by Chip and Dan Heath. The authors make the point that there's a reason some stories, facts and concepts take on a life of their own, and some don't survive. They use the example of how many people can recite "facts" in the urban legend about visitors to a big city who wake up in a bathtub of ice with a kidney missing. Yet many people can't identify the year that Berlin wall fell, an event that many of us lived through. (Unless you are too young to remember..."Uh, there was a wall in Berlin? Why did it fall down? Was anyone hurt?")

    The authors assert that things that "stick" are
    1) Simple
    2) Unexpected
    3) Concrete
    4) Credible
    5) Emotional and (something that should excite all of us writers...)
    6) Stories.

    And I find it very interesting that Jesus utilized all of those attributes as He introduced the Good News on earth.

    Take care! Tom
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    He also used exponential multiplication - one Jesus, a few loaves and fish divided by 12 disciples multiplied to over 5000 - just the way a good virus is supposed to work - a good sneeze should innoculate way more than the one sneezer!

    the tipping point was interesting - made me think about what it takes to motivate and move small groups of people too.
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    I struggle with self-promotion and pride -- two things that I have been guilty of in the past.

    I don't know how to separate those out.

    I love to see my name in print -- and it's sad that i can be so vain. Often when I write, I want people to say "wow, you are so insightful and smart."

    My tipping point should be the work of God and not because of my own vain effots.

    Is that possible?
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    Not to thread jack Marcus, but I lost your e-mail.

    Do you know why the High Calling Banner is messed up? Look at the one in the upper left corner of your blog, and the one on mine. It is the same code and they are not showing. I have confirmed this on multiple computers.

    Any ideas?
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    Heather, the thing about grassroots is that you can order a palate of pre-grown grass. Then some guy comes out and lays it down on top of dirt. Water it twice a day for a few weeks and viola-- grass. Is there some social media equivalent of that?

    RLP, the ideas about birds and fish really intrigue me. If our community is developing a collective unconsciousness--or even a collective consciousness--what does that look like? And how does it change the way we lead the community?

    Tom, it's always good to hear from you. The Berlin wall fell down just a few months before I went to live in Germany as an exchange student! It was a really exciting time. I like the success acronym. #2 was, well, unexpected.

    Susan, I like your reminder of the miracle of feeding the 5000. Does that mean social networking is really an activity of faith? Are we really asking God for miracles of marketing when we do this stuff? Interesting idea.

    Carl, thread-jacking is okay when the dumb blogger doesn't have a contact field anywhere on the blog. We fixed the problem. Thanks for pointing it out!
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    David, your comment got caught by my spam filter for some reason. I just rescued it.

    And it really struck a chord with me. I've often wished C. S. Lewis had written a book titled, "The Problem of Pride." Alas, he didn't.

    My friend John Lewis pointed out something interested in Romans 12, though. It says, "Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to think."

    I've always read that to be another ego squashing edict, but John reads it a bit differently. We should think highly of ourselves. Just not too highly. We should view our God given gifts, talents, and responsibilities with sober judgment.

    It sounds so easy, right?

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