I skipped watching the Oscars last night, and being the annoyingly introspective person that I am, I thought I would share some insights from my award-free evening. Maybe you’ll learn something from my self-reflection, or maybe this will be the final stroke of boredom and irrelevance that drives you from my blog. Either way, sounds like a win/win for you to read on in my brilliant “6 Things I Learned by not Watching the Oscars,” or perhaps better titiled, “What Terrible Awards Shows can Teach About Running a Business.”
1. Trust your instincts, they’re usually right
I was tempted to watch the show last night because I love James Franco, but decided against it because I figured even his amazing charm couldn’t divert the flood of terrible that is the Oscars. This morning, seeing the universal scorn being heaped on both the show and his performance, I’m glad I went with my gut.
2. Haters gonna hate
Is there anything more a giant, tangled mass of bitter complaining than Hollywood award shows? You’ve got the fashion critique shows, pre-and-post snark-riddled “analysis” shows, late-night comedians, daytime comedians, 70 percent of everyone on Twitter, probably 100 percent of major newspapers and online news sites, and a math-defying 200 percent of every entertainment blog on the Internet all jumping on the wounded animal that is the Oscars, looking for their piece of the complaining fun. Of all this criticism, how much of it is legitimate, and how much of it’s people either complaining for complaining’s sake or trying to build themselves up by tearing something else down? As your business grows, how much attention should you pay attention to the critics and the haters?
3. After about two seconds, all congratulatory back-patting becomes a dull, monotonous buzz
I caught a couple acceptance speeches on the radio this morning, and I was stuck by how canned an inauthentic they always sound. It’s not that the speaker is necessarily being insincere, it’s that after hearing for the eighty-millionth time that a movie “was a great project and we’re all really proud of the result,” the words start to lose all meaning. Remember this when writing P.R. for your company. It isn’t enough to talk about how good it is, you need to take special care to write something that sounds authentic, sincere and different just to have a chance of standing out from the rest of the P.R. noise out there.
4. Technology sneaks in change, whether you’re paying attention to it or not.
This year, while I was completing my annual “I have seen none of these movies” Oscars mental-cataloging ritual, I realized something else: I’ve somehow transitioned to watching 99 percent of video content on my computer. I’m not sure when this happened exactly, but now, unless something is available on Hulu or the Apple store, there’s a good chance I’m not watching it. This shift to digital “on-demand” viewing is something that’s been pretty well-documented in the press, but I was still surprised when it happened to me. Of course I can afford to be surprised by digital entertainment trends because I don’t work in that industry, but there are plenty I can’t ignore, like blogging and digital publishing for example. I imagine there are technologies you can’t ignore as well. Are you giving them the attention they deserve?
5. Saved time is awesome time
By skipping the Oscars this year, I was able to make my life 4 ½ hours easier. In that time I was able to make major headway on several work projects and go to bed a little early besides, something that’s rare for me. By cutting out what would have been a procrastinatory indulgence at best, I made my work week significantly less stressful and went to bed much happier than I would have otherwise.
6. Nomination beats victory, but word-of-mouth beats nomination
A movie’s nomination to a major Oscar category grabs my attention way more than an actual victory. Nomination is what puts a film in that magical and ill-defined “probably awesome, you should check it out” category. The actual victory? Who cares? I don’t ever look to watch the “best” movie. I pick among movies that are generally understood to be “pretty good,” then pick out what I think is more interesting based on personal criteria, say picking The Fighter over The King’s Speech because I prefer funny Boston accents over British ones for example.
That said, what really sells me on a movie, or anything really, is the tried-and-true “word of mouth” marketing from my friends. It can’t be faked, but it is something that can be nudged along now and again. I’m sure you know this already though. You’ve long since set up your e-nudging marketing machine on Facebook and Twitter, making yourself available for online praise and conversation for months now, right? Right?
Until next week!
MONDAY MIKE FACT: I somehow managed to rip part of the sole off my left running shoe on the treadmill this weekend. I will be gluing it back on tonight, which makes me feel partially like MacGyver and partially like a Mom.
