Is Fear Holding You Back?

“Buddy Media’s CEO Michael Lazerow chooses his company’s acquisition by Salesforce.com to create a moving video of the strangeness of human hope and the pernicious nature of fear.”

Yesterday, Kass and I signed a deal to sell Buddy Media to salesforce.com. Right after, I sat down and recorded a personal video. It’s raw and emotional and captured the feelings I had after signing. I thought about not sharing it as it is so personal. But that wouldn’t be very social-media like of me. I figure I’ve been sharing what I’ve been eating, doing, seeing and more for the better part of 5 years. So why stop now?

More on this here. The lesson for me here is not even Michael’s lesson about fear, though that’s a good one. For me, it’s that there are individual human beings with stories to tell behind every organization – and those stories potentially make each organization more powerful. If you had heard of the Salesforce/Buddy Media acquisition at all, was it of interest to you? Assuming you’re not directly affected? Maybe in passing. But what about now? Has a little video with some personal information about Michael Lazerow, shared directly with you, a (let’s say) casual bystander, changed your perception of the company at all? Maybe you’ll read the next story in the business news about them a little bit closer. Maybe, if you’re a social media person like me, you’ll notice his @lazerow Twitter handle in that photo above and tweet him to say that you liked the video.  Or maybe you’ll remember this video if you are at a business conference where Michael is speaking and, if you have the opportunity to talk to him, you’ll mention you saw it. Maybe he will smile and it will be the spark that starts a good conversation.

Or maybe his company is 100% irrelevant to you.

But what if this was your organization? What if sharing some human things about you and those you work with caused YOUR ‘casual bystanders’ to pay more attention when they came across you again?

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(photo credit)