(Good) content is king

If you don’t subscribe to the “Daily Cartoon” email from Hugh MacLeod, perhaps yesterday’s post will convince you to:

There’s a lot of content out there.

There’s fun content: Hey, look at this dumb cat acting goofy.

There’s info-tainment content: Hey, look at this dumb politician acting goofy.

There’s personal content: Hey look at me and my friends, hanging out on Christmas Eve.

There’s “social proof” content: Hey, look at fabulous me at the gym/fancy restaurant/corporate boardroom, hanging out with rockstars/billionaires/celebrities etc.

There’s pundit content: Why Donald Trump is evil. Why handgun ownership is evil. Why Hillary Clinton is evil. Why USA/France/China/Norway/Mozambique/Paraguay is evil.

There’s expert content: Ten things every lawyer/dentist/CEO needs to know. Why house prices are going to tank net year. Why house prices are not going to tank net year. The future of this, the future of that.

There’s news content: What happened over in Russia. What happened over at Google. What happened over at Fenway Park.  What happened during the Oscars.

There’s lifestyle content: The best restaurants in Miami, the best shoe stores in New York, the best vacation spots in India.

And then there’s what I call “Transformative Content“. The stuff that actually inspires people, the stuff that actually changes lives.

The stuff that moves us, the stuff that pushes humanity forward. 

The stuff that actually matters.

It could be a blog post, sure. But it could just as easily be a song, a book, a drawing, a film, a poem, an idea. It doesn’t matter what it is, what matters is what it does. What matters is that it changes lives, somehow. What matters is that it rocks your world.

i.e. There’s “Transformative” content and there’s “Everything Else” content. The former is what people have an infinite need for, what. The latter is merely clutter that most sane people are looking to remove from their lives at the earliest convenient moment.

And what is true for content, is also true for business. There are the businesses that change the world, and there are businesses that are just there for the metaphorical paycheck. I know which one I want to be working for.