Therese
says: My marketing career began thirteen years prior to
Morgan’s when “Think outside the box” was the newest catch phrase for the
engineers and sales team. Every plan and project was paused to apply this
“outside the box” concept except nobody knew what the BOX was. So how can we think
beyond something that has not been defined?
That catch phrase was
to encourage creativity and innovation and worked well for companies like
Microsoft and Apple in the early 1990’s, but when applied to a manufacturing
company with a specific customer base business as usual was a better approach.
Platform is what you
stand on while at a station when you are waiting for the train or bus so you can go somewhere.
Platform is the wooden crate built for the delivery of appliances you will use
in your home for decades. Platform is solid, supportive, and best made out of wood
or concrete. It’s a foundation and for novelists your foundation is what rests on the seat of your desk chair. When fueled with chocolate, your foundation can expand.
A platform, when applied
to reaching an audience, is to define - the primary message or agenda. The example is "he/she has a _________ platform" and words used to
fill in the blank are: environmental, spiritual, political, social, and more
specific concepts like leadership, or marketing-myth-busters. People who have a platform like this are also standing on a box, like a milk crate holding a megaphone, that raises
a leader above the crowd to be heard regardless of the value of the message.
For a novelist, your platform is – writer,
your audience is - reader. Do you know the dimensions of that box? Are you
within the box or standing on it? Do you know the length of the boards, or the
number of nails? Are you stirring concrete or chocolate? Do you care?
You should care. Your novelist platform is your PERSONA. This is
your mythical and public presence to rise above the crowd and connect with your
audience through stories. The foundation of your persona is your themes, your
public personality, your story to tell. Tell it with style instead of perched on a box.
I like that..are you within the box or standing on it.
ReplyDeleteSome of us are in but peeping out!