Will Marlow

Many people focus on the content of their message.  They refine and tweak and improve their message, and when they really nail it they may land an op-ed in the Washington Post, or their video may go viral, or some other great thing will happen to get them attention.

But the thing that seems to separate the most impressive modern communicators (people like Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki and Apple and Google and Barack Obama) isn't the content of their message, it's their delivery.  (And they don't use every social media platform or megaphone available.  But the things they do, they do really well.)  Obama maximizes his time in front of the teleprompter, Godin writes a great blog post every day, Guy Kawasaki Tweets 60 times an hour, Apple famously doesn't touch any social media at all, and like Google it has employee evangelists who each have their own style and portfolio.

For these people and companies, the messaging itself seems effortless.  It's the delivery they work on.

Will Marlow is the co-creator of AlumniFidelity, which helps schools and nonprofits improve their online fundraising results.  Email him at will@alumnifidelity.com.  

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I've noticed a number of fairly negative commentaries summing up the decade that's ending on December 31st, which made me want to point out some of the great things that have happened over the last ten years.

1. Wikipedia was founded in January 2001 (something that is useful enough to receive 7 billion page views a month);
2. Facebook was founded in 2004 (350 million of us like this enough to signup);
3. YouTube was founded in February 2005, and I think it will be remembered as a true watershed for changing human behavior and communications in a profound way
4. An African American was elected President.
5. And over the last ten years, Americans donated $2.6 trillion to charity (in the year 2000, Americans gave $203 billion, and by 2007 charitable giving began exceeding $300 billion each year.

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First of all, this post is NOT intended to be a political statement or judgment, merely an observation.  The only provocative aspect of this post is that the title could have been, "One Way the Government Affects the Economy," but instead I chose to use Obama's name because my example comes from his policies.  

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