The world wants what it wants

The world wants what it wants.

Being led by analytics as a person or an organization tries to decide what to create can lead to inauthentic content being shared. Not only does the world wants what it wants, it easily can tell what is forced and will respond with a click or a hostile response.

A great danger is to think that increasing the amount content that is posted will be helpful.

Creative teams may be expected to triple the amount of stories they write or videos they produce in the same amount of time. Staff can easily become fatigued, creativity and joy diminished as they have less time to work with each other.

At work I often hear the editors asking for help with facts, contact and background information. The entire team responds, sometimes in ways that surprise and delight, adding information from their experience. With each comment, the stories become stronger. When the writers are under pressure I hear, "I'm going under the headphones," creating isolation and diminishing what the content could be. 

Our organization uses an amazing outside company to create photographic images for special projects. If the amount of stories for a project are tripled, the photographer's bill increases from $10,000 to $30,000.

The numbers and toll taken on a creative internal staff is much more challenging to measure.

Something to consider: increasing content may decrease the audience. 

There are now more than 400 scripted series and more than 300,000 books are published annually  As one of my mentors, Gina Nahai, often asks new writers, "who is going to read all of these books?"

A powerful strategy would be to post less, but better content.

During a documentary filmmaking course I took at USC, the professor emphasized that on day one of film school each student uses his or her own camera to complete assignments, but by the end of film school, they work in teams, on complex projects.

How fun would it be to work on a team to pursue an idea, with input from a smart, talented team with many combined years of life experience? Carefully chosen topics with sharpened headlines or openings could be developed; words and images that make viewers stop clicking or scrolling immediately with stories and ideas so powerful that they are immediately shared?

One of the most meaningful things in my professional life happened when I introduced myself to a matriarch of the community where I live and work. Before I was finished she said, "I know who you are. I read everything you write. When I see your name, I read what you've written even when I don't like the topic." I thought to myself, "I don't like everything I'm assigned to write either, but I find something about it that intrigues me, and lead with that."

Don't be buffeted, scared or driven by analytics. Run your race with joy, from your heart. Others will take notice, be curious and doubtful but when trust is established, they will want to invite their favorite people to be a part of what you are sharing.

The next post will be about some helpful things analytics have shown me, including a posting of an image that resulted in a story going mini-viral.