Momma didn’t raise no fool philosophy

Here is a long insight into the mind of a madman…. Or perhaps something planned and executed very well?

I have written about this at great length and how we arrived at this very point in time is an incredible mixture of planning, luck and fortunate coincidences. The SBS Show is one of the most widely distributed podcasts on earth and among the principal influencers of small-to-medium business IT managers and IT solution provider owners. Here is the past, present and future.

Roughly about a year ago two friends got together on Skype and one bad voice check after another came up with a format and a way to distribute the many fortunes of the SBS community to the wider audience. The problems in the community at the time were:

• Limited Audience
• Limited Expression
• Lack of Portability
• Lack of Entertainment
• Lack of Credibility
• Lack of Globalization

We saw the SBS Show as an opportunity to break through those barriers and to pat my own back, I believe we have! SBS Show is downloaded on the average of 40-60,000 times during the first week and some of the more popular episodes have been downloaded more than half a million times, distributed through numerous venues and have spread like a virus. SBS Show engulfs the SMB technical and business expertise of consultants that are in it every day and provides it in a portable and entertaining way that is as encompassing as a four week thread on a newsgroup.

The benefit of the model is two fold. Experts and business leaders are willing to come on the SBS Show because of the tremendous audience and a friendly format that associates little pressure or committment, from people that make a small fortune doing what they are talking about. In turn, the audience is willing to give these folks an hour of their time because it is convenient and gives that inspirational push to get the audience started and thinking about the topic at hand. In the end both the contributor (guest) and the audience mutually benefit. Third intangible and unaccountable benefit for everyone is that the loop feeds on itself – the guest sells more books / software / solutions, raises profile in business and community, works with more people on a higher level and now has a brand new perspective to share with the audience that has grown yet again.

Rue Congdon

As Chris mentioned on his blog, he has decided to leave the SBS Show. He has listed his reasons for it but I’ll offer you mine as well.

I explained the model above to Susanne and Chris at the Microsoft WWPC. I explained the kind of impact we have been able to make with it and I further explained the kind of benefits we can expect if we worked harder at it. Although we have never directly benefited from the SBS Show, nor was there ever a financial incentive to do it, the show and the audience have certainly benefited all of our careers. The better the show, the more important the content, the bigger the audience, the more attention…. the more attention we get as its facilitators. Does that extend to job offers, insight at a higher level, powerful business and community connections, book deals or speaking engagements? Who knows, the bottom line is that anyone that listened to all 24 SBS Show episodes is ammasing a collective intelligence that spans dozens of books and hundreds of years of combined experience. How would you like to bounce ideas off someone that has that kind of access to some of the very best. Keep in mind that what you hear on the show is just a tidbit of what goes on in the discussions… because thats all the SBS Show really is. It’s a discussion.

The SBS Show is not for sale – but individually we are.

I feel this is where Chris got the raw end of the deal. You see, his business card does not read Chris Rue, Hee-Haw Hick Comedy Relief. It reads Chris Rue, MCSE, Master CNE, CCNA. If you spent 5 minutes with the guy that would become very apparent, but in the condensed format that the show takes he is more of a comedic relief than an expert.

I have to say this very feature is of a particular (emotional) problem for me as well. I get access to some of the brightest people at Microsoft but instead of talking to them about things that interest me the most I am reduced to questions like “Guy, tell me about expanded licensing rights” or “Peter, tell me how you walk someone through a support call if they panic.” Because the audience is the main beneficiary here I have to stoop down to the level that most of the audience is at. After all, we do it for the audience, not for our benefit. If it were for Vlad & Chris the discussion we’d have with the top level engineers and managers responsible for direction of products in a multi-billion dollar industry would be far different.

Even in the more socially friendly environment it is difficult to ask the questions that are on my mind. Instead I am left with “So Amy, what is a firewall” and at the end of the day it is hard to respect oneself.

But I am not complaining. The show is a lot of fun to produce and promote and it has brought in a lot of friends. It has also done a tremendous amount of good for a lot of people. 

This is where I, Chris and Susanne have to make our park in the snow and decide for ourselves whether the future benefits of the show to our personal careers are justified, whether they lead in the right direction, whether time is well spent, whether this is a community service or a service to the community, what level of growth both personal and professional is going to make sense. Chris had to make that call for himself.

Momma Didn’t Raise No Fool

There is a mad rush on the Internet to sell… everything. Every ear, every eye ball, every conference ticket, picture, blog entry and vlog frame has a monetary value attached to it. And as a result a lot of hacks are trying to jump in and cash in with the minimal of effort.

This is where the whole model falls apart.

If the SBS Show was for sale in terms of advertising, sponsorship, payola-style incentives from people to come on the show… it would lose credibility, fast. Listen to the SBS Show #23. What would you think about us if Karl Palachuck gave us even $20 to do him a favor and pump his book? You’d stop reading this post right about now because I obviously would be a sellout who no longer believed in the value being created for the community as a whole but as a greedy personal grab. Truth is, we promoted the heck out of Karl’s book because we loved it. Karl didn’t send us a book with a plea, a tshirt, a personal note. He just sent us a package and I couldn’t stop reading it. I kept on saying in my head “Holy s***, someone finally dumbed it down for everyone to take advantage of it.”; I told Chris, Chris came back and said let’s do the show.

I do not write about this a lot but there is a nearly endless line of people looking to give me a book deal or sponsor one thing or another. When I share this with others I do see dollar signs in their eyes, an opportunity to cash in. I got one such offer just yesterday, here was my rejection letter to them:

Thank you for the offer.

 

I am really flattered that you’ve taken your time to offer this to me. I love Exchange and love writing about it but fortunately I already have a real job that I love in running thousands of SBS/Exchange systems and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

 

Again, thank you for the offer. Very kind of you.

That is the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. I love what I do. The SBS Show, despite the audience, is just an extension of who I am and what I do. It is not another product line. It is not another asset to be leveraged, measured and sold. If and when it becomes that it will become as worthless and pointless as it can be.

I had this very conversation with Chris yesterday. He said “You should totally write a book” – So I did the math for him. I can sink 300 hours into writing a book fighting my deamons of illiteracy, get my name on the cover and make $50,000 maybe even six figures over years. Or I can sink 300 hours of equal effort into my company and make millions.

Momma didn’t raise no fool. What people that look from outside in do not see is the little thing called opportunity cost. Look it up.

Of Fortunes and Futures

There are really only two legitimate outcomes on every challenge: Live each day as if it were your last or pursue a long term strategy with predictable payoffs over time. These are great concepts to apply to a business, horrible concepts to apply to a hobby. Guess where on the pay scale SBS Show comes. 🙂

So really the future of the SBS Show today is no different from the future it had on the very first Skype call. “How do we get people to do ____?“

The future is in informing as many people as possible, in floating them up to the higher level, in opening more doors and providing more opportunities. You have to have a certain level of faith to accept that because it is vapor in the truest sense of the word. I already have a successful business. Chris already has a great job as a techie. Susanne is a brilliant business developer. Every guest that comes on is an expert at what they do and happy with who they are.

So thats the future. The future of the SBS Show is in what benefits the most and does so with a great deal of satisfaction and opportunity. The second it isn’t it fails to exist at its very core and it eventually fails to exist at all as its main proponents abandon it. The overall message and karma of an idea with an honorable goal is immortal. That message will persist long after Chris, Susanne, Vlad, SBS Show and community is around. That message is quite simple:

Help others be better. In turn they will make you better than you ever could be by yourself.

Post dedicated to the only person that can see through this and read what I’m actually saying.