Gradon Tripp

26 years ago today, my mother died.

Emma Mae Waters was getting out of work at the New Hampshire state mental hospital, where she was a nurse. While on her way to her car, she was abducted by Robert Bruneau, her estranged and abusive husband — my stepfather. Long story short, she didn’t get out of the car alive. She was 37 years old when we lost her.

15 years ago today, my stepson was born.

Devon came into my life when he was 15 months old. I dated, married and had a son with his mother. Though the marriage didn’t last, I’ve had the chance to see this happy, chubby-faced baby turn into a strong, confident young man. Like his own dad, he’s learning to work with his hands at a vocational high school — he even welded a flower for his mother last fall. He’s a starter on his freshman football team, and will be going out for baseball in a few weeks.

There are only two things that connect these two events: today, and me. But I see it as an extreme example of a situation that exists throughout everyone’s life:

If you are willing to see it — and willing to work at it — there is hope to be found after loss.

Maybe you were laid off and decided to make a movie. Maybe you decided to turn a tragedy around and do something good. Or maybe your company, hurt by decades of decline in interest for your products, reinvents itself to become a leader once again. There are a million examples, big and small.

For every loss, failure, or trouble that a person, family, or company experiences, there’s an opportunity, too. A chance to turn that loss around and build upon it, to create something new. And with that, a duty to remember the loss, but to find a way to find hope and purpose again — if you’re willing, and your eyes are open.

It took 11 years for me to find mine.

What’s yours?

Recently, I had two interactions with two different homeless people, with two very different results. For the sake of demonstration, let’s start with the more recent event first.

This afternoon, I’m standing by the Boylston T stop in Boston Common, waiting for a friend to meet me for lunch. While waiting, I start reading one of those historical-fact boards they put in places like the Boston Common. A homeless man stands next to me, looking at the map on the board. He turns to me and asks me if I know where the such-and-such shelter is. I direct him to the nearest one I know of, but he says he went down that way and couldn’t find it. (This is odd, I figure, since it’s less than a block away and homeless people hang in front of that shelter all day long.) He then asks if I live in the area, if I have a computer (on me, or in general, I wasn’t sure), and if I want to drink or smoke pot with him — all while looking me over nervously. Not that I had any interest in taking him up on his offer, but it felt like, if I did, I would surely lose something. He eventually reasoned that he wasn’t going to get anything from me, and went on his way.

Rewind to around 10:15 this morning. I come walking out of the Apple store, and a woman approaches, asking for enough change to buy a bag of chips. I take a second to see if I actually have any change, and apologize that I don’t. Then something interesting happens: The woman (Michelle was her name) asks if I’d be kind enough to charge the bag of chips on my debit card. Michelle and I start walking towards the drug store, and we start talking. We both come to the agreement that a bag of chips isn’t what Michelle needs –breakfast is.  We continue on to a local shop; Michelle orders up an egg, home fries and a soda to go, and I paid for it. About $8, including tip.

Both people were in similar situations, with relatively similar end goals. The guy in the common was actually more conversational than Michelle. Why, then, was Michelle more successful than the guy?

It’s because the guy (whose name I didn’t even ask for) had a hidden motive, whereas Michelle was genuine. She wasn’t trying to make a friend. She was hungry, and wanted a meal. Once she had the meal, she thanked me and moved on.

It works similarly in social media. It’s often said that companies need to “be more human”. But what does that mean, exactly?

It means that you need to communicate with your audience with honesty. Answer questions. Be helpful. Know your marketing message, and how best to deliver it. When a customer complains, listen to their concerns and respond in a timely manner.

What it doesn’t mean is to be false. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not. If you’re an older, established company, don’t jump on to social media channels and make like you’re a brash, young startup. Conversely, if you’re a startup, let your audience know you’re working your tail off to fix any kinks you have.

If you approach your customers like Michelle approached me — honestly, with no hidden agenda — you’ll be amazed at how receptive they are to hearing your message.

Marketing has often been likened to a race.

The traditional view of marketing — especially that of most short-term campaigns — has long resembled a drag race: launch hard, burn gas, go-go-go!

A lot of what I hear in meetings with prospective clients is directly tied in to this “need for speed”: how quickly will social media spike our sales? Boost our traffic? Increase our donations?

But in my view, marketing — especially social marketing — is more like the 24 Heures du Mans.

The 24 Heures du Mans is unlike any other car race. It’s an old race — the oldest endurance race in the world, in fact — held annually since 1923 near the town of Le Mans, Sarthe, France. There are older races, yes; the first organized auto race was in 1894. There are other endurance races, as well; the Rolex 24 at Daytona is held at the Daytona International Speedway every January.

But what makes Le Mans unique is that is is run on public roads — more slippery and treacherous than smooth, purpose-built racetracks — and, instead of racing to a predetermined number of laps, the winner is decided by who goes the farthest over a 24 hour period.

This means, to win, you don’t just have to beat all the other drivers, you have to make sure you, your team, and your vehicle are equipped to run for one full day. You need to strategize your pacing, your fuel consumption (Audi, above, uses diesel engines for this very reason – and wins), your pit stops and driver changes.

Similarly, with social marketing, your goals will take time to achieve, and require similar endurance and long-view strategies. Where should we put our resources to ensure we don’t run short? What metrics are going to be most vital to monitor to keep our engine running smoothly? Who’s going to create our strategy (race captain)  and who is going to execute our plans (driver)?

Keeping on the automotive theme, when Ford hired Scott Monty to run their social media efforts, they weren’t just hiring someone who could write a blog post or send a tweet (believe me, he can do both). They were hiring someone to develop achievable, long term goals, and then manage a team to achieve those goals. In the year and half or so he’s been there, he’s seen ups and downs.

Surely, the day of the RangerStation fire felt like a get-it-done-NOW kind of race. But throughout, Scott has maintained concrete goals for what he wants his team to achieve — and worked with the understanding that it takes time, stamina, and determination to see it through.

Take a look at your goals with social media. Are you trying to win on a 1/4 mile dirt track, some smooth-as-glass speedway, or are you turning into the Tetre Rouge, ready to hit 200mph on the Mulsanne Straight for the first time? Are you prepared to go on and on, through the smooth and the bumpy, until the ultimate victory?

(photo via

Some bloggers are difficult to pitch. I hear stories about how some bloggers won’t write about a product or service unless someone they’ve already met in person, or have a relationship of some sort through social media, suggests it to them. If you’re new or relatively unknown, good luck getting their attention.

I’m not that hard to pitch. If you send me an email that matches the niche of my site — in my case, Boston-area architecture and design — and shows some degree of originality or something interesting about you, I’m probably going to write about you.

An email I received today breaks even my generous threshold for what’s acceptable.

First, and most important, he got my name wrong. If Andrew even bothered to read a post, or the “About” page, he would know who he was addressing in his email. Do just a little homework and you’ll be in an infinitely better position than Andrew here.

Second, he gives no information about his company beyond a name and website. How are you going convince someone that your product is worthwhile if you don’t tell them anything? It’s an old saying, but it’s true: Tell a story, explain how you’re unique, better. If you don’t tell people, how are they going to know?

Third, he tries to bribe me. I have no problem with reviewing a product (so long as any prior arrangement is properly disclosed), or even arranging a contest, giveaway or other such benefit for a blog’s audience. But to just throw out “I have cash and merchandise available” reeks of a lack of class.

I know this isn’t the norm. This isn’t what the top speakers in public relations and blogger outreach promote. But I can only guess at how many similar emails Andrew sent out, and fear for what that says about the company he represents — and the industry he works in.

If there’s any single benefit of what Chris Brogan offers to the social media world at large (and let me say, there are many), it’s that he makes you think.

Recently, after prodding from Robert Scoble, Chris created a second Twitter account. The guise of @broganmedia (that’s the first tweet, above) was to share a “more pure stream” of Chris’s content. The account, so far, follows no one, doesn’t converse and only shares links to articles, either Chris’s or those that he likes.

The idea of Chris separate from his content — or vice versa — is a strange one. In my mind, producing vast amounts of social media content is a big part of the brand that is Chris Brogan. Where’s the value of the content, if it’s separate from the man who makes it?

This, of course, is something that Chris is going to have to figure out. But what this scenario did for me was, it made me start to question the approach I’ve taken to Twitter for my various pursuits.

On Twitter, I have separate personalities. Of course, I’m @gradontripp, freelance content and social media strategist, online do-gooder, and indie rock junky. And then I’m @designboston, a stream utterly obsessed with all things architecture, furniture, and other design elements.

What value am I creating by having them separate? Would there be more value in combining them? After all, they’re two sides of one person. Me.

(I’m also one-third of @sm4sc, the Twitter stream of the organization that Matt Knell, Meg Fowler and I started in 2008 to help nonprofits use social media tools. Since SM4SC is all of us, it makes sense that the Twitter account remains separate from either one of us.)

On one hand, @gradontripp is ME. I ramble, talk nonsense, espouse my thoughts on the state of marketing in the online world, share news, music and video links, and  tweet sweet nothings to Meg, much to the chagrin of some of our following (tough for them, I say!).

Having @designboston separate, it seems, makes that stream “more pure”, as Scoble puts it, but it intrinsically becomes less conversational. It becomes more about links to content, retweeting other relevant information, and be generally more distanced from my community.

But this isn’t true to who I really am. In “real life”, I’m a father, boyfriend, design fanatic, and marketer, in that order. I’m the person people go to when they want to know about a building in Boston (something Leslie Poston stumped me on last week). I’m the guy that can tell you who made what chair, and when. I continuously think of ways to improve my apartment, from storage to furniture to cookware (well, Meg helped with that one) and more.

Why am I not letting that side shine through on @gradontripp?

Would the people that connect with @designboston be willing to put up with all the non-design stuff I talk about on @gradontripp?

Would those that follow @gradontripp care to hear about my furniture obsession?

To all of these, I don’t know. What are your thought?