Merlin, Marketing and Mental Health
My guru in the content creation space is no doubt Eric Kavanagh. He’s a media icon with unparalleled insight into what makes the tech industry tick.
Often on Mondays and Thursdays, you can find me live-tweeting his shows “Inside Analysis” and “DM Radio.” Between Eric and his guests, there is never a shortage of sound bites to capture.
On today’s episode of Inside Analysis, Eric and his guest Josh Constine of Signalfire reached back through the roots of humanity to describe current opportunities and challenges taking over the creator economy.
Though the whole interview is available right here on Libsyn, I’ve teased some of the standout moments below.
Creativity <=> Magic
When Eric first mentioned Merlin today, I never thought he’d use fairytale magic to poignantly illustrate the burnout creatives face. But he did. And here we are.
Eric alluded to the fact that Merlin, after doing a tough spell, has to rest and recuperate after. Isn’t that the same for content? Sometimes I get into a flow and feel like I can create in a never-ending loop. In these times, I try to get as much done as I can because there are so many days when I feel burnt out and exhausted. What if I was more intuitive about my creating magic - enough to be able to ration energy as if it were currency. Would the rest days feel so desperate? Would the powerful days feel so out of my control?
In essence, we creators are magicians. We are using our energy to breathe life into something that didn’t exist before. There’s definitely a lot of wisdom in celebrating each piece of content as if it were a magic spell. Maybe its main purpose is to help us recognize the value this rare ability has.
King of the Rising Hill
Eric’s guest today, Josh Constine, has a resume that gives me shivers. Not only is he a venture capital hero, but he’s also done marketing work with - I’m not joking - The Killers.
And though I tend to look on the “Brightside” when it comes to Twitter, Josh made a good point about investing in newer platforms for content creation. Citing his own experience creating on Clubhouse, Josh insisted that anyone who over-invests in new platforms will be “King of the Rising Hill,” as later adopters look to their earlier counterparts for guidance and leadership.
But what if you invest a scary amount of time into a platform that ultimately fails to gain traction? Josh says it doesn’t matter. Any knowledge you learn and following you gain while adopting a new platform can be transferred to your next adventure.
I find, in summary, that Josh’s advice to invest in newer platforms can also apply to new features of existing platforms such as Twitter Spaces. Twitter was always my favorite platform. But when Spaces and Communities were introduced and I dove right in, I upped my engagement just by playing around with the novel capabilities.
As for Eric’s comparison of creating content to magic, I am so glad that this clever comment opened up the gateway to discussing mental health. Though I’ve been publicly advocating for mental health since 2010, I’ve never experienced the topic arising so seamlessly in a professional environment. This makes me feel optimistic that our collectively growing openness can bring forth more meaningful content into our shared ecosystem.