Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Claim your 15 minutes!

Andy Warhol said in 1968, "In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes!" By the late 80's it had become a reality for many. Simon Cowell, a.k.a. Spice Girls and American Idol, suggests that with reality TV "everyone can be obscure for 15 minutes". And now with rapidly evolving social media, anyone and everyone can be famous to at least 15 people.

Warhols 15 minutes refers to the fleeting condition of celebrity that is a result of some fickle media grabbing onto some often self-created buzz.

I don't like the idea of celebrity! I don't think those who have it like it very much either.

Most would rather you watched their movies and enjoyed their acting, not their very human relationship issues. I don't like the idea of celebrity and certainly not the light entertainment magazine selling kind. I think it is a consequence of exposure without substance. I'd almost prefer notoriety where I am known for disagreeing with some famous stance. Or "IDEAreity' where I am known for something I said or thought.

When people follow what you wear, you are a fashion celebrity. When people discover in you a way to express an idea they themselves have had but could not explain, that's thought leadership. When people get to entertain an idea that they had not yet considered, that's thought leadership. With thought leadership, you get something far more valuable than celebrity.

Your thinking is more important than your styling, but stylish thinking will win on both fronts. Let's start a magazine called 'The Idea' and replace 'No Idea' on the news stands. Let's make it sexy, full of well-crafted ideas, ideas that contribute to a conversation or contradict a conversation.

Thinking needs an extreme make over. It needs a U2 soundtrack and an OBAMAesque charisma. It needs to inspire not just inform, it needs to engage the right hemisphere and not simply be logic to the left.

We need to popularise ideas. We need to shape them into sound bytes and deliver them Haiku style on a long tail to all who will listen. Ideas shape thinking, thinking will save the planet, change your world and deliver fulfillment on a scale we can't even imagine.

Here are 15 minimums of claim, a prescription for Thought Leadership…

  1. Claim a piece of mental real estate; own an idea
  2. Start a blog on that idea
  3. Create a screencast about your idea
  4. Publish a book
  5. Mentor someone
  6. Give a speech
  7. Start a movement
  8. Write a white paper about your idea
  9. Contribute to an existing conversation
  10. Contradict an existing conversation
  11. Create a conference around your idea
  12. Tweet about your idea
  13. Create a network/community around your idea
  14. Publish a newspaper or magazine on your idea
  15. Invite others to evangelize your idea
Create extraordinary ideas and share them with the world.

Learn. Think. Share.


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