Andy Ihnatko presents at Penn State.
This evening, I had the privilege of attending a lecture from Andy Ihnatko on “Being a Content Maker in an Increasingly Discontented World.” I had never heard of him before, but I was following along with the campaign to bring him to campus via Twitter and I was interested in attending. Andy is a nationally syndicated technology journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times, a technology author, and a regular host of the TWiT MacBreak Weekly podcast. In addition, he has made guest appearances in tech segments of shows such as CBS’s The Early Show. Tonight’s lecture addressed the challenges of working as a journalist/creator in a down market, as well as the opportunities available in a world where an individual can use the Internet to build his or her own brand.
Let me begin by saying that I am not a journalist or interested in public relations. I am a technology scholar who has chosen blogging as a way of sharing my intrapersonal experiences. I still found myself connecting to Andy on many different levels. He too is a nerd, which was made rather apparent by the numerous anecdotes throughout his lecture. He also was a computer science student, who ultimately chose a different career path.
The part of the speech that I cannot emphasize enough is building your own personal brand. This theme resonated throughout almost everything that was discussed the entire evening. In being a freelance writer, everything that you do brings value your other work. Working with MacBreak, The Chicago Sun-Times, appearing on TV, using Twitter, blogging, and everything else he does each adds something unique. This credibility can then be transferred to other things that he does. As he said, “I’m the only one with Andy Ihnatko style writing”, and if someone is looking for that there is only one place to go.
Another important theme in the talk was that society gets what it wants. It’s why MySpace was only popular for so long, and why Facebook is on the decline and Twitter on the rise - it’s what people want. I laugh, because Andy suggested that people must have a twitter sized hole somewhere in our bodies that we must fill, thus explaining the popularity of Twitter. But on a more basic level, things that don’t evolve will go by the wayside. Newspapers will be around until society changes what it wants. Newspapers offer a product that people know and that people want. Citizen journalism has not met with parity of professional journalism, and blogging will not replace the need for other news sources.
This furthered the belief that “the web is a big, stinky wreck.” Anyone can post anything online. Newspapers should never have began to give content away online for free. When attempting to compete with bloggers, they reduced their content to that of bloggers. You do not derive any value from something you get for free. By giving away content, they are losing money that could be made. But that doesn’t mean that newspapers shouldn’t embrace the web. Every small town newspaper can be a national newspaper because of the Internet. It’s simply a matter of finding your market.
Andy also touted some interesting stories, such as the “$141 Tweet”. For those of you who don’t know, Amazon has an associate program where you can get a certain percentage of the sale for referring customers to buy products. Andy tweeted a $5 collection of classical music, and later found out that the 140-character tweet brought him $141.
Some other interesting things that came up:
- “Hunt rodents, not mastodons” - this means that smaller pay in greater numbers is better than having one job pay for everything. Keeping all of your eggs in one basket is a bad idea. When newspapers go under, Andy is one of the people they will keep because they don’t have to pay a lot for his work. This makes him less vulnerable, especially if one source of his income disappears.
- “Establish your presence; keep in the landscape” - this means do what you do and stick to it. Do it well, and do it regularly. If that means you post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday then so be it. But that means that people know when to get fresh content and that it is always there.
- “You gotta lose money to make money” - perhaps one of the hardest things to understand. Sometimes posting free content gives you exposure that is immeasurable comparatively to the money that could be gained.
- “Get the first dollar, not the last” - they music industry is backwards. Artists pay all of the costs of the record up front and may not even make money off of an album. It’s no wonder you hear so many complain about piracy. When you get the last dollar, or whatever is left, you cannot always depend on it being there.
- “The web leads you, but does not give loyalty” - oh, how very true! Google may guide you to an answer, but chances are that once you find what you need from a site you won’t find a need to go back. I know this is the case with many things. The sites I visit regularly are unique. They offer something that others don’t. They are consistent, fresh, and do well what they set out to do.
For those of you that missed it, the lecture is available on http://live.ist.psu.edu.