Teri Lussier paid me a very high compliment today in email, although I’m sure that’s wasn’t her intent. I expect she was just being matter-of-fact. Here’s what she said:<\/p>\n
You don’t do anything without a purpose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
She was asking why I phrase so many headlines in the form of a question, assuming correctly that I do so for marketing reasons. Questions are a pretty common arrow in the copywriter’s quiver. Properly constructed, they are inherently interesting and instantly involving. I’m not as good at this as I plan to be, but one of things I’m looking for in a good question is something that incites at least as much curiosity as it satisfies. I give you the headline of this post as an example.<\/p>\n
But Teri’s off-hand remark — “You don’t do anything without a purpose” — means everything to me, because it’s a completely true statement about everything I do — and everything I’ve ever wanted to be.<\/em> I can’t promise you that I always know what I’m doing, but I always know with perfect certainty what it is I intend<\/em> to be doing — what objective I hope to achieve by my efforts.<\/p>\n
So we’ve been playing this scenius game since<\/a> Thanksgiving<\/a>, really since<\/a> Swallow<\/a> Hill<\/a> Road<\/a>, and it’s fun to explore how much we understand of what we’re doing, and, fun, too, to understand how much there is that we’ve never thought to explore.<\/p>\n
Both Cheryl Johnson and I have been rebuilding our “Current Listings” content as Scenius scenes. Why? Because a content management system like a weblog is the perfect way of organizing frequently-edited copy — provide that you have some way of delivering the content in a form you can stand, once you’ve edited it. This is what Scenius — the software praxis, not the social process — is all about.<\/p>\n
Stop.<\/p>\n
A scenius — lower case — is a metaphor for a kind of communal genius. The word comes from “scene” plus “genius”, and the best example of a scenius that I can offer is the birth of Bebop jazz<\/a>. When you put smart, well-informed, passionate people together, the synergy of their Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Teri Lussier paid me a very high compliment today in email, although I’m sure that’s wasn’t her intent. I expect she was just being matter-of-fact. Here’s what she said: You don’t do anything without a purpose. She was asking why I phrase so many headlines in the form of a question, assuming correctly that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,24,6,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-egoism-in-action","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","10":"category-technology","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8186,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8186\/marketing-the-geek-marketing-content-to-incipient-geeks\/","url_meta":{"origin":6010,"position":0},"title":"Marketing the Geek Marketing content to incipient geeks","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"As promised to the Unchainees, here are links to the stuff I talked about in my presentations: First, Here's the main Geek Marketing presentation page. If you want to follow along from home, feel free to pursue the links. Second, Here is Cheryl Johnson's engenu help page. Third, for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2838,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2838\/black-pearl-marketing-minute-using-the-synergy-of-the-internet-and-low-cost-printed-promotions-to-sell-your-product-build-your-brand-and-give-you-an-affordable-testable-marketing-strategy\/","url_meta":{"origin":6010,"position":1},"title":"Black Pearl Marketing Minute: Using the synergy of the internet and low-cost printed promotions to sell your product, build your brand and give you an affordable — testable — marketing strategy","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Linked below is the first of a series of Black Pearl Marketing Minute podcasts that Brian Brady and I will be putting together. We want to take marketing ideas that we have discussed on BloodhoundBlog and flesh them out to real-life strategies while connecting them to other synergistic tactics. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12248,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12248\/video-killed-the-real-estate-star\/","url_meta":{"origin":6010,"position":2},"title":"Video Killed the Real Estate Star…","author":"Sean Purcell","date":"June 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I love\u00a0marketing.\u00a0 I love the opportunity presented by a brand new marketing campaign to be creative and stand out\u00a0from the day-to-day noise of everyone else.\u00a0\u00a0Unfortunately, most agents don't share my zeal for marketing.\u00a0 At least, I assume they don't; how else to explain the mind-numbing dreck I see every day.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1193,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1193\/peering-into-the-future-of-the-future-of-real-estate-marketing\/","url_meta":{"origin":6010,"position":3},"title":"Peering into the future of The Future of Real Estate Marketing","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"What's the future of The Future of Real Estate Marketing? Last Friday, Joel Burslem announced that he is taking a job as a marketing wizard for Inman News:I\u2019m happy to announce I will be joining the nice folks over at Inman News, as of March 26. I will be joining\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9711,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/9711\/how-about-anti-social-media-marketing\/","url_meta":{"origin":6010,"position":4},"title":"How about anti-social media marketing?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Responding to Brian Brady's BloodhoundBlog post about the profits and pitfalls of social media marketing, here -- surprise! -- is my contrarian take on the subject.","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3045,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3045\/louis-cammarosano-to-speak-at-the-bloodhoundblog-social-media-marketing-conference-brought-to-you-by-zillowcom\/","url_meta":{"origin":6010,"position":5},"title":"Louis Cammarosano to Speak at The BloodhoundBlog Social Media Marketing Conference brought to you by Zillow.com","author":"Brian Brady","date":"May 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What do you do with a guy who chooses to fight the lions in THEIR den? You invite him to speak at the BloodhoundBlog Unchained Social Media Marketing Conference, brought to you by Zillow. That's what we did and I think you'll be pleased. Louis Cammarosano, General Manager for Home\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"louis cammarosano","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images.homegain.com\/i\/photo\/louis_cammarosano105x139.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6010"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8646,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6010\/revisions\/8646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}