It's not easy being seen

Have you ever wondered about being a celebrity?

I often ask myself, 'Why would you?'

It would be the loss of simple things I reckon, going to the shops without make up (hmm, not exactly a problem for me) or dropping the kids off at school without a mobbing.

The only thing worse than being a celebrity would be the "reality TV" kind that leaves you with all the exposure but no wealth to secure your lifestyle, or what's left of it.

This got me thinking about those who chase press, the tabloid kind. Not only might you catch the press's attention but also, you might actually become a spectacle. AND if that press attention did not have major money attached, well there goes the lifestyle.

Brain surgeons are not in weekly trash magazines and if they were you would not trust them. Thought Leaders do not chase light entertainment, celebrity press. It's always got to be about the message.

Here are some ways to do that:

* Create a survey and share the findings

* Be interviewed and quoted for substantial articles on point

* Get a syndicated column in a major newspaper or journal

* Or, better still, use the power of technology to become your own TV or radio show.

Just a thought.

M@

15 minutes of fame

Andy Warhol said in 1968, "In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes!" By the late 80's it had become a reality for many. Simon Cowell, a.k.a. Spice Girls and American Idol, suggests that with reality TV "everyone can be obscure for 15 minutes". And now with face book, blogging and other social media, everyone can be famous to at least 15 people (not including my mum).

Warhols 15 minutes refers to the fleeting condition of celebrity that is a result of some fickle media grabbing onto some often self-created buzz.

I don't like the idea of celebrity!

I don't think those who have it like it very much either. A certain Miss Hilton aside most, would rather you watched their movies and enjoyed their acting, not their very human relationship issues. I don't like the idea of celebrity and certainly not the light entertainment magazine selling kind. I think it is a consequence of exposure without substance. I'd almost prefer notoriety where I am known for disagreeing with some famous stance. Or "IDEAreity' where I am known for something I said or thought.

When people follow what you wear you are a fashion celebrity. When people discover in you a way to express an idea they themselves have had but could not explain, that's thought leadership. When people get to entertain an idea that they had not yet considered that's thought leadership. With Thought Leadership, you get something way more valuable than celebrity.

Your thinking is more important than your styling, but stylish thinking will win on both fronts. Let's start a magazine called ‘The Idea' and replace ‘No Idea' on the news stands. Let's make it sexy, full of well-crafted ideas, ideas that contribute to a conversation or contradict a conversation.

Thinking needs an extreme make over. It needs a U2 soundtrack and an OBAMAesque charisma. It needs to inspire not just inform, it needs to engage the right hemisphere and not simply be logic to the left.

Thinking is no longer the realm of the clever PHD waving residents of Ivory Tower. We need to popularise ideas. We need to shape them into sound bytes and deliver them Haiku style on a long tail to all who will listen. Ideas shape thinking, thinking will save the planet, change your world and deliver fulfillment on a scale we can't even imagine.

Here are 15 minimums of claim, a prescription for Thought Leadership…

1. Claim a piece of mental real estate; own an idea
2. Start a blog on that idea
3. Create a screencast about your idea
4. Publish a book
5. Mentor someone
6. Give a speech
7. Start a movement
8. Write a white paper about your idea
9. Contribute to an existing conversation
10. Contradict an existing conversation
11. Create a conference around your idea
12. Start a Twitter on your idea
13. Create a network around your idea
14. Publish a newspaper on your idea
15. Invite others to evangelize your idea

Create extraordinary ideas and share them with the world.

Learn. Think. Share.

M@