Where the magic lives

Easter weekend, the trash bin at the post office overflowed.

The bin was so full that unwanted supermarket circulars, catalogs and ads from realtors had been left on the counter while campaign postcards, car insurance offers and ads for home security systems had slid to the floor. As I walked to my PO box, a man began sorting through the trash for ads discounts for fast food.

Do any ads make it home from the PO?

So. Much. Information. Had even one person taken the unsolicited mail in their PO boxes home with them?

For the first three months of 2016, I guest-edited a weekly email newsletter that's sent to more than 14,000 people. Analytics for the previous week arrived five days after each issue was published.

 The report listed the top 10 articles; news notes about road closures and ongoing highway construction were always in the top two, while articles about topics that had previously appeared in digital signage or online never appeared.

There is an ongoing debate at work -- is information that is old valuable? Why would anyone care about information published a few weeks ago?

As I studied the analytics report each week, an article that appeared in the list of most-read stories intrigued me. I remembered the article, which answered the question "why are fire alarms so loud." After a little research I learned that it had been published in 2013.

As hard as we try to create new, exciting content, the world wants what it wants.

Readers were searching for the article; had they remembered it as they exited a building during a fire drill? It would be intriguing to place a statement at the end of the article: "Please tell us what inspired you to search for this story?"

While I don't update my blog about storytelling/screenwriting very often, it now has more than 6,000 views. It contains lessons learned in classes I took at USC as well as stories about teaching a colleague at work about screenwriting (we're now working on our second screenplay). If the blog stopped receiving clicks I would take it down, but every week people discover it through online searches.

I read a Bloomberg article published by yesterday titled "Here are the ways companies have failed to markettomillennials. Here's the link: bloom.bg/25GMEKW 

From the article: "...Attempts at wooing the emoji generation are often rewarded with a deafening ho-hum. Tic Tac put out a candy that changed flavors while dissolving (because millennials presumably get bored quickly); sales rose, but less than in the prior two years. Diet Coke put fan tweets on billboards (because Twitter is the millennial’s native tongue, the thinking goes); Americans still drink less and less soda. Banana Republic partnered with Hot Dudes Reading, an Instagram account, to create #HotDudesReadingForACause (because millennials reportedly want products with social conscience); net sales dropped 10 percent."

Hard work and research were put into theTic-Tac, Diet Coke and Banana Republic campaigns, and yet they failed.

The world's most powerful companies and the most talented creatives are challenged when it comes to creating content that is remembered and is shared.

I've learned that the web center where I work collects a list of things people are searching for while they are on our site. While the center had never shared this information with marketing or with public affairs; when asked they forwarded one list. I'm planning to create several articles about topics people are searching for.

I've collected dozens of quotes on a Pinterest board. While I only pin quotes that I think are unique, powerful, creative or funny, two of the quotes have been pinned and re-pinned hundreds of times. Only two. As I see these quotes appear again and again over the months, I sometimes glance at pictures of the people who have repined them and wonder why their message continues to captivate people of all ages and backgrounds. I'm planning to write a short story highlighting the sentiment of each of the quotes as a theme.

Listening. Where the magic lives.