Number 9 of 52 Compelling Communicators: Biz Stone and Others
March 04, 2013Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter is one of those dry, mostly unexpressive speakers that keeps audiences engaged by his incredible ability to weave story lines together. I had the opportunity to hear him live at a one-day seminar “The Art of Marketing Conference” where he was one of a line up of five speakers.
 |
| David Usher |
The conference kicked off with the sultry
singer David Usher (formerly with Moist) wooing
the audience to be more creative. He provoked the 2,000 plus people to cross
the “4th wall”…..that step that would take him off the protection of
a stage and plant him in the middle of the audience. His presentation inspired
one audience member to sing acapella.
She rocked and blew everyone away. It was
only 10am.
Next we heard from Randi Zuckerberg, sister
of the famous founder of Facebook via the same last name.
While she had some good case studies and interesting data to share, I
found myself counting the number of times she said “like”. A reminder that style can impact on
substance. I forced myself to take notes
but also kept a running tally of her use of that iconic Facebook word.
Biz was the post lunch speaker and his
low-key manner had me worried that we might be lulled into sleepsville. Not a
chance. His first story highlighted the
beginning of Twitter and the critiques about its lack of usefulness. But he and
his partner had already uncovered the enjoyment of tweeting and responded with
“just because something is not useful, should we ban it? Should we ban ice cream?, should we ban joy?”
Delightful and thought provoking at the same
time. I was captivated by his every unemotionally delivered word.
He built up to his main message by
reinforcing that change comes from people doing brave things and charity is
what we are supposed to do.
The end of his presentation moved me to
the notion that it would be possible to use social media for public good. He
shared stories that started personal and amusing, then somehow evolved into to
the macro message of humanitarian ideals.
He reminded us all we are attracted to meaning. I felt like we were back
in the 70’s and it was Power to the People all over again but with a technology
twist.
This quick clip gives you a sense of the man and his style:
He is definitely someone to follow. I expect Biz will be changing our world one tweet at a time.
The conference ended with the massively funny
Scott Stratten. Self-described as an
“author, speaker and kind of a big deal on a fairly irrelevant social media
site which inflates my self importance”, Scott gave good edgy advice with
humour.
One of my favourite bits from his diatribe
was “if your product or service sucks, it just sucks harder with social media.”
Great way to end a conference on a high
note. Follow this guy on Twitter to add
a bit more fun to your day.
Out of that line up of five, mostly great, speakers, Biz was the one that stood out for me. Totally unexpected.
Biz was right about us being attracted to
meaning. I am adding that to my list of attributes of compelling
communicators. People who deliver
something meaningful.
Posts
0 comments