Lessons from the Dead
I wonder how many web content producers are old enough to remember personally the experience that was the Grateful Dead. Now that David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan (I’m not sure they can count themselves amongst the elders – ?) have exhumed the Dead’s philosophy in their soon to be published Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead, perhaps we can all begin to appreciate the legacy of the 60s/70s as productive in many ways.
After all, half a century later, we are realizing the marketing brilliance of those musical prophets. We have even developed technology to facilitate their ideas. Though we may have thought that the internet itself forces change, perhaps it’s more true that soul and society have changed, and the internet was created in response to those transformations.
It’s evidence of his superior intelligence that 26-year-old Dan Schawbel celebrates the coming launch of the Scott-Halligan book on his Personal Branding Blog, providing an excerpt for his audience.
The given chapter celebrates the Dead’s love for their work.
“We are taught as children that work and play are opposing forces in nature. This teaching is incorrect—it is possible that your work can be like play! In fact, if you do what you love the way the Grateful did, you’ll never ‘work’ a day in your life.”
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re undergoing an enormous re-calibration of work, all over the world. All facets of employment and career are being renovated, morphing because of pressures from the economy, society, and acts of God and mammon. Mine is the first generation in a very long time to believe that life should be personally fulfilling, and work should be more than drudgery.
The Dead shocked us with their simple being-ness, no excuses, no pretending. They gathered their following through happy sharing. A micro-economy still revolves around their heirs, descendant bands, and ever-living fans.
The most famous Dead takeaway for marketing: let your customers sell for you.
The Dead invited fans to record their concerts, rather than fight costly battles over copyright. This meant that their fans were the record producers, and thus they were the marketing department as well.
I don’t know if this was sheer prescience on someone’s part; maybe Gerry Garcia thought it up. But it’s certainly likely that the Dead’s tactics were a result of their conviction that going with the flow is the right way to live. When you run into brick walls, go around them. The Dead, in an ironic sense, gave us a new way to live. Heroism transformed, through their culture, from monster bashing machismo to loving peacemaker.
So now we’re experimenting with inbound marketing, because
- the establishment of relationships is clearly so much more profitable than yelling at crowds;
- erring on the side of generosity brings our customers closer to us and gives them the tools to become our advocates;
- giving equal value to work and play in our lives allows us to become the best we can be, instead of trying to fit in molds.
I thank Scott and Halligan for paying this tribute to the Dead; and also for reminding us that the internet did not spring full grown from the head of Google or anyone on our current cutting edge. Rather, it’s been a long strange trip, and its origins go back 50 years, at least.
