We made the plan to create an awesome resource. Then we checked the plan for adequate levels of ass-kickery. Now it’s time to create and promote it.
Create your awesome resource!
Before you start creating the content you need two things:
1. A clear vision of what you want to accomplish (check!)
2. Buckets of passion
Danger, Will Robinson!
When you’ve been involved in anything long enough to be an expert it all feels very familiar. Comfortable. Ordinary.
Ordinary is the enemy of passion! You have to find a way to turn all the dials up to 11 before you start creating.
Get psyched: Music. Loud. Dancing to it. Music that matches the emotion you want people to feel as they interact with your resource! (When I wrote the Awesome Manifesto I listened to reflective, mellow music. For this article I’m listening to really loud gypsy punk. I turn up the volume every time I feel my energy lag.)
Get furious: Spend 5 minutes with a patient family member or pet, ranting about the issue you plan to write about. Stop after you do exasperated gestures but before the forehead veins turn up, and get creating.
Get inspired: Think about all the people this resource will help. How much better their life will be if you get this right, if you get them to act.
The process
Is entirely up to you. You might like to mind-map, meditate, or just dive in and start creating. As long as you can stay resolutely on topic and keep your passion levels up you should use whatever suits you.
Editing and prettifying your awesome resource
1. Ruthlessly cut everything that doesn’t support your message. (You can put your name on at the end, but that’s it.)
2. Don’t feel you need to use all the clever tricks. Clever tricks allow you to hide behind the flash, instead of making the message stronger.
3. Don’t exceed your technical skills. Plain and raw is better than awkwardly polished.
4. If your resource goes for longer than three pages or three minutes, it might need a narrative structure (like the classic dramatic arc) to tie everything together and keep it on track.
5. If you produced the content over a number of sessions, make sure the tone and energy stays consistent. (Something I have not done in this series of posts!) For video and audio, you might have to redo a bit to get it all to match.
6. Don’t fall into the perfectionism trap.
7. Make sure the opening is engaging enough to get your audience to keep going.
Tell everyone about your awesome resource!
Which should be easy enough, since you’ve made a killingly awesome resource. You should be bubbling over with excitement and dying to tell people, which is the simplest, least skeevy and most effective way of marketing it. Just make sure you ask people to share it and tell them how.
Also, if you’re anything like me, test the links, make sure it all works, then get the heck away from your computer for a little bit. I tend to drive myself crazy with checking pageviews and comments if I don’t monitor myself.
Feeling inspired yet? Ready to make an awesome resource? Tell me in the comments!