Posted: 31 Dec 2010 01:30 AM PST

youtube collaborations I’m a bit obsessed with Kanye West’s new album, and especially with the song “Monster,” and especially with the verse by Nicki Minaj about 3.5 minutes into the song. (You can go find it. The language isn’t safe for work.) Evidently, I’m not the only one. If the picture didn’t come through with your mail, click here to see the page and see just a tiny sampling of all the various people who have recorded lipsyncs and otherwise to Nicki’s verse. Not the whole song, mind you: the same verse that I thought was so impressive.

There are dozens, maybe a hundred so far. None of them really blows you away, unless, like me, you start thinking about how collaboration and participation have really changed things. At least from the “feelings” side of the camp, this is neat stuff. This is a whole different level to the mixtape universe, where you need a DJ’s level of skills. In the YouTube lip-sync world, you don’t really need much of anything except the guts to post your effort.

Does This Sell More Albums?

I don’t know, but it sure as heck shows a lot of loyalty and appreciation to Nicki and the work of the artists. Does that sell more merchandise and does that promise some potential downstream value? Hell, yes.

Where’s the Party?

You need a campfire. You need that social setting that consists of: object of focus, group experience of that object, and then creative expression thereafter. In literal terms, the party is around a campfire. In more stretched out thinking, the party is around the creative content. It’s content, community, marketplace said another way.

Oh, by the way, I’m not the only one totally into that song. Hackers leaked Kanye’s video yesterday.

The Family Balance

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 11:30 AM PST

I founded Dadomatic a year or so ago, because I wanted a place for dads to be able to talk about parenting. It’s run mostly by Jeff Sass and Doriano “Paisano” Carta, but I still drop in there to write and contribute, as it’s a project that means a lot to me. One thing I want to talk about is the family balance.

The other day, a friend of mine sent me an unfair letter. That was the title. He said that I should reconsider pushing the “work hard through the holidays” message when family matters a great deal and people should be absorbing as much family time as possible. It’s really hard to argue with that message, naturally.

But that’s just it. I don’t disagree.

The Family Balance

On the day I wrote this, my little boy climbed into bed with me in the morning and we read (in exhausting detail) about every Lego minifigure that ever existed via a Christmas present. We named every single one on every single page. Then, my daughter crawled into bed and we read the journal of her Monster High doll, Deuce Gorgon. It’s the journal of a misunderstood 16-year-old monster (his mom is Medusa). And then I got ready for work, kissed everyone, and headed out to work.

I came back home around 1PM and spent some time shooting Nerf darts with my daughter, and then playing a few games with my son, while Kat went shopping for some things she needs for a trip. My job is like that. I can modularize. I work 3 parking lots away from my house right now. I’m not the primary caregiver, but I’m three minutes away by foot.

I don’t write much about being a dad here on [chrisbrogan.com]. It’s not the purpose of this site. I do write about it at Dadomatic, and you don’t have to twist my arm to get me to brag on my kids at conferences. But just because I don’t show you that side doesn’t mean that it’s not very important to me and the way I conduct my business.

More than ever, I’m more home, more connected, and more a part of my family’s life than any time ever before in my existence. AND I work the holidays.

Kitchen Table Companies

Joe Sorge and I are launching Kitchen Table Companies, a community for small business and entrepreneur types, on January 4th. It’s been an idea of mine for almost a year. Why? Because I want to run businesses that can operate from a kitchen table, or that get talked about around the kitchen table, and that get me home in time for dinner. That’s the goal. I want more families to have contact and connection to their family on their own time. That’s why we do WorkShifting with Citrix Online. I believe in the mobile and distributed workforce. I believe that the future lies in giving people back choices like the ones I executed above.

What do you believe?

Packaging

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 08:43 AM PST

Feedback is a very important part of how I do what I do. I count on the feedback of friends, colleagues, clients, critics, and a whole slew of other people to understand how what I do is being perceived. My post earlier today about my evolving brand was very helpful to me. It helped clarify what I’d already started to suspect: I need to build a better core reason for participating here. Oddly, this kind of has roots in my earlier post about magazine thinking.

It’s all in packaging. (For understanding, see also Seth Godin’s great post on the same.)

Packaging HBW and Chris Brogan

The bridge between everything I do is this: I aspire to help people grow and improve their businesses. I show people how to be more human in a business context, and how to get the value from that experience.

When I talk to really big companies like Microsoft or American Family Insurance, I talk about being human. When I talk to small business people like therapists and pilates instructors, I talk about being human. I show ways to use today’s web to build influence, improve reputation, and earn trust. It’s the same thing, with different executions. I get as much pleasure out of both experiences, by the way. I love seeing a solo owner find value in the tools and ideas I share, and I love it when a big company gets something out of my ideas, especially if it means better customer service for others.

Human Business

Human business is sustainable, relationship-minded business. I think that small companies have a much better chance at working from that mindset, in connecting with people at a human scale and forging their missions around that. If you’re coming here, it’s because you’re curious on how to use social business tools to improve your own goals and growth. That’s what I’m doing.

If [chrisbrogan.com] Were a Magazine

If this site were a magazine, I’d say that it needs a bit more of an editorial filter. But it’s not. It’s a personal site that’s grown into a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s a place where sometimes you feel I’m talking to you, and other times, you wonder if I’ve moved on. That must be tricky. I’ll certainly work on it.

In the interim, understand this: what you’re getting here are all my experiments in near-real-time. You get to see and interpret what works and what doesn’t because I share as much of it as I can. I want you to see my good days and my bad days, because that story in business is rarely told. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about family, and you’ll see even another angle of who I am that’s rarely shared.

More on Magazines

Why did I create Dadomatic? Because it’s a great small business idea: a media property that gives a dad’s perspective on parenting. 67% of our readers are women, by the way.

Why did I create Escape Velocity? Because it’s a great showcase of people who love personal development and business growth. They support human business.

My business, such as it were, manifests in a few ways: speeches, consulting, media creation, and community education. But I’m teaching the same stuff in different ways. You can see that they all connect around that theme of helping people improve their businesses and their growth.

Packaging Matters

In 2011, you’ll see even more improvement on what you get when you visit my site and the various projects I’m working on. I won’t let you down. And I’m grateful for your help in seeing myself better, and in understanding your confusion.

Thanks.