Useful versus highly remarkable
How to’s, product recommendations, case studies
These are all examples of being useful: helping your reader, customer, client, student understand something on a tactical level. They provide credibility and social proof, all of which are important.
Sponsorships, start-ups before funding dictates vision, Ted talks, def-jam poetry…
These are all remarkable. They push the envelope, challenge current systems and outdated practices.
They consist of vision, one of the harder things to sell but more likely to be respected once bought.
If you weigh too heavy on the useful side you become invisible: forgettable pop music, recycled blog posts, brands that are painfully safe to the point of being obsolete. But this is exactly where all the no’s, the fearful and the uninterested will push you. There’s a clear path to obsolete and it’s a black hole of small.
Fight that.
But if you weigh too far on the remarkable, then what?
On whatever end of the spectrum you find yourself, you can make a business out of either. But I’d argue that one should aim to create greater depths of truly remarkable and build useful as they go.
p.s. you need the useful to support the remarkable.
Lauren,
I’ve been reading your blog on and off for a few months now. This post really made me think….that’s the point right?
This line resonated the most….”If you weigh too heavy on the useful side you become invisible”
Remarkable isn’t easy or safe. It takes risk and effort. Useful isn’t really that difficult and it gets most people all the “at bats” they ever wanted. Useful is the road to good, while remarkable leads you to great.
Thanks for the post.
Joe
Thanks Joe– it means a lot you read my work, really.