One of the more interesting tools is Xtranormal, a web-based service that lets you create animated movies. You type words; cartoon characters speak your dialog. Simple enough. As with many technologies, from chainsaws to video editors, just getting the tool is not the same as learning how to use it well. Good results take time and effort.

Here’s a little movie we made with Xtranormal. It’s our first effort, so we’re naturally just a bit proud of it. We created 80 seconds of content, starting with the words we wanted our stick figure actor to speak. We added some movements and one simple sound effect. And we experimented with a number of camera angles to keep it interesting. Getting everything to synch up was a bit of a challenge. It took a lot more time than expected.

Video is a very powerful tool. It’s easy to produce; not so easy to produce well. Mostly, it takes time. Fortunately, Xtranormal is fun to use. We quickly got caught in the time-suck vortex of trying to make our little movie just a bit better. Those 80 seconds of video took several hours to create. If you are thinking about using this tool for your business consider the value of your time. And compare that to the value you could create by spending those hours doing your real job.

Anyway, here’s the result:

All of these vehicles, venues, and platforms are just tools we can use to tell our story. If our story sucks, if we are not a good company, if our products are lousy, then the last thing we need is tools to help more people learn about us faster.

If we have a strong story, make good stuff, sell it at fair prices, and treat our customers, our prospects, and our competitors with respect, then using social media to tell that story far, wide, and fast can help us succeed.

Social media is not social selling. And it is rapidly moving away from social marketing. It is just a very efficient way to have conversations with people who might buy our products, or not buy them, or influence others who might or might not, or interact with a million other people who might have some effect on whether or not we succeed.

And so it must always be focused on the people outside our organization, as they ultimately determine whether we live or die. When we get a tweet that is essentially a customer service question, it is a fatal error to think, or to say, that the question needs to be directed to our customer service department, which is not on Twitter. Either we have good customer service, or we don’t. How the question comes in the door is irrelevant, unless we don’t really care about our customers. And if that is true, then we are irrelevant, or soon will be.

I see social media following a similar trajectory to the web, although much more quickly, with much sharper climbs and probably a faster descent. It really wasn’t that long ago that just having a website was a novelty. It didn’t need to be any good, or do anything useful. Just having a URL meant you were a sexy company. That lasted about three years. Then people started to demand that the website add value to the customer experience. So good companies began to install online help systems, and answer their email around the clock. The best ones began to see their online help system as a sales tool. Customers could now decide to buy from a company because they could clearly see how much support they would get after the sale. And they could see that before buying. Before even showing up on the company’s radar.

A bunch of groovy new startups arrived on the scene promising to take companies that suck, put them on the web, and magically turn them into great companies. Companies that suck, and some that don’t, bought into the hype, made a few people rich, the web collapsed, and a zillion internet gurus were out of work. This entire scenario played out between 1995 and 2001. The web didn’t go away. But the people who didn’t know how to make use of it did. And the web is a better place today.

Fast forward to today. You have to be a company that doesn’t suck. That’s always been true. Just two years ago, just being on Facebook meant you were a cool company, and you felt all sexy and warm inside. But if your company sucks, now it sucks on Facebook. And Twitter, and YouTube, and the other next best things to come along. And your customers, former customers, and competitors have yet another way to share the story of your sucky company. And leave you in the weeds. Lots of people claim to be social media gurus and sell a lot of snake oil. I think that we’ll see the social media bubble burst in two years or less. Social media won’t go away, but the hype will. The gurus will be unemployed. Meanwhile, the people with good storytelling skills will remain successful.

So, be a company that doesn’t suck. Have a great story. Tell it well, meaning listen more than talk. And use social media tools to help share that story with more people faster.

“The hardest part of the whole journey was the first 25 yards out of the driveway.”

Rick Gunn spent nearly three years traveling around the world by bicycle. He pedaled 25,000 miles in 33 countries on four continents, wearing out three bikes along the way. Now he shares that experience with others via a multimedia show that he calls “Soulcycler.”

We caught up with the Lake Tahoe resident, adventurer, photographer, and writer for a few moments in between trips.

American Sahara:
So one day you decided to get on your bicycle and ride around the world. After you made the decision, how long before you actually hit the road?

Rick Gunn:
Most people don’t really give much thought to the preparation phase of my journey. Often they think I just randomly jumped on a bicycle and set out to ride 25,811 miles around the planet. It took me two years to prepare for, as I tended to list after list. This included financing, bikes, equipment and supplies, camera gear, medical vaccinations, insurance, house and dog sitters, and on and on and on. The truth was, as I say during my show, the hardest part of the whole journey was the first 25 yards out of the driveway.

And that still remains the truth. Imagine working at the same job for 10 years, then suddenly deciding you’re going to venture out on a brand new life–one in which you will see a different horizon night after night for three years straight. There is no real planning for a trip of this magnitude. There were only the things I tended to before I left, and the things I failed to tend to after I’d launched. The true decision to go was really 90 percent of the planning.

American Sahara:
Would you do it again?

Rick Gunn:
This is something I swore I wouldn’t do when I ended my journey. I simply felt like I’d done it–realized my dream that was (and then some.) But I would never say never. I am spontaneous if nothing else. And I like that part of me. Realistically, I have my sights set on a series of smaller projects, and just today I was talking with a friend from Iran about doing a ride for peace with him across his country. Very exciting just thinking of it.

American Sahara:
What would you do differently now, with your round-the-world trip experience?

Rick Gunn:
This is a tough one. I think I would spend the first part of the journey differently. That is, my journey across the US and across Europe. I was in such a state when I departed. Just the transition alone, going from 10 years of routine schedule, to riding eight hours a day through a set of changing landscapes, politics, and climate. I guess I would somehow plan on more volunteer work. That or some other project that would better connect me with the local people, and elicit a deeper feeling of connection to the journey. It was like the first six months, I was just shell-shocked, and needed an outlet.

American Sahara:
Favorite place visited?

Rick Gunn:
Kyrgyzstan. Without a doubt. Mountainous country, a bold, electric culture of nomadic herders living in yurts, combined with eye-popping landscapes. Yes, Kyrgyzstan had me at hello.

American Sahara:
Most memorable person you met on the journey?

Rick Gunn:
So many to choose from. So many saints disguised as normal people. I could choose an Amish man who took me in in the Appalachians, or a Zen practitioner in Virginia. But the prize goes to an Iranian man by the name of Mohammad Tajeran who resides in Mashad, Iran. The two of us had befriended each other as I did a search for cyclists in Iran.

Mohammad was also riding around the world, planting trees everywhere he went. We decided to ride together in Malaysia. And we spent a couple of weeks just riding and comparing notes. What I came away with was a profound respect for his faith, his culture, and his spirit. The man was truly unafraid of anything. He knew in his heart that his journey was for the greater good, and more than once assured me that if it was it his time to go, it was in God’s hand anyway. There was something extremely comforting I learned from him, that I carry with me to this day. That is, as the Massai of Africa always pronounce, “Any day is a good day to die if you’ve lived your life right.” Mohammad is one of those people.

Cycling in Kyrgyzstan, by Rick Gunn

American Sahara:
How did the trip affect you? Would you say you are a different person now than before you left?

Rick Gunn:
Night and day. I am fundamentally a changed man. I recognized how little I knew, and how much I thought I had. I saw clearly that I am not, nor is anyone, what they do. (I was a news photographer.) Once that mask of 9-5 work is taken off, one has to look deeply into oneself to define what they really are. And what they are is much, much greater than anything they imagine.

I also discovered that there are people out there who are truly suffering. Riding my bike, I saw firsthand the effects of war, poverty, and disease, then decided to do something about it. I began volunteering in AIDS hospices and schools, as well as doing work with mine extraction units in Laos, and environmental groups on Borneo. I learned that instead of spinning my wheels talking about what I’m “against,” my energies are best used towards active solutions. This meant volunteering, service to others, and reporting about those who are making a difference in the world. This led me eventually to a new purpose and intent in life: to be of service to others.

American Sahara:
What do you think is the most valuable skill a person should have for a trip like yours?

Rick Gunn:
Adaptability and a knowing of one’s own mind. These I feel are interrelated. If you know yourself well enough, then you are able to adapt to situations that may get tough. In turn, you recognize that things always change. And that adaptability is like grease on the wheels of the mind.

American Sahara:
Was there one piece of gear that was most useful while on the road?

Rick Gunn:
Physically, this was perhaps my knife. I used it every day. But by far, my attitude became my best tool.

American Sahara:
What prevents other folks from undertaking their own epic adventures? Could anyone do something like this?

Rick Gunn:
Easy answer: fear. People ask me what the most dangerous place in the world was. When I tell them Baltimore, they always laugh or look at me strangely. We always fear those things we don’t know about. And yet, as we move towards those fears, and the unknown, we usually find that behind them is a reward. A new friend, a new experience, a new outlook on life.

To me, we have two simple choices to almost every situation: fear, or love. I think you know which one I prefer. As for whether anyone could do this. I would give a resounding yes. If that person had the will, and the drive, and the right attitude, they could do it. Perhaps even better than I did.

American Sahara:
You share your stories and your photographs in community presentations. What would you like your audience to learn from that experience?

Rick Gunn:
I would like to bring a message of unity. One of my heroes, Dr. Wayne Dyer, puts it this way, “We are all here now. In the eyes of the loving presence, there are no favorites.” This simply means that what we want for ourselves and our children we should want for all people of all nations. The truth is, 35,000 children under the age of five die every day of starvation or malnutrition. 35,000! This while 70 percent of all disease in the west is due to obesity (or overconsumption.)

I want people to come away from my Soulcycler presentations realizing that each of us has a responsibility to our neighbor. Another one of my heroes, Kahlil Gibran put it nicely. “You owe naught to any man, you owe all to all men.” That is the message I want to convey.

American Sahara:
What is the most common question you are asked at a Soulcycler show?

Rick Gunn:
“What did you eat?” They love to hear the parts about eating worms, intestines, kangaroo roadkill, and honey ants in the outback.

American Sahara:
You’ve just returned from a 2,373-mile bike ride the length of India. Was it what you expected it to be? Any big surprises?

Rick Gunn:
Yes, in a way. After travelling around the world on a bicycle and thinking I’d seen it all, I am still brought to tears by a young beggar girl who was malformed by a birth defect. This means that I still have a heart, and I’m still very much alive. And that my life’s work is still to be done.

American Sahara:
How was the India trip different from the round-the-world ride?

Rick Gunn:
With India, I knew what I was getting into immediately. With the world trip, it virtually was sprung upon me. Naivety, if you will.

American Sahara:
What’s next?

Rick Gunn:
Anything that involves purpose, dreams and heart.

For more information about seeing Rick Gunn and his Soulcycler show in your community, visit: www.soulcycler.com

But when a new airplane is built no one really knows exactly where those limits are. So test pilots fly the thing to find out. They take the aircraft to the edge of the performance envelope and see what happens. If all goes well, they push beyond the existing boundaries. They explore unknown territory to see what they can find.

If they have a good day, and land in one piece, they have successfully pushed the envelope to establish a new boundary. Now the plane can be flown faster or higher. So the next day they’ll attempt to push the envelope out another little bit. If they have another good day, they’ve made more progress and helped create a better product.

Eventually, bad things will begin to happen. Components or systems or people will begin to reach the limits of their own performance. Sometimes, things will break and the pilot will have a not so good day. With skill and maybe some luck, the plane will land safely. The team will study what they’ve learned. They’ll dial things back a bit and establish the edges of the performance envelope. The limits of where the thing can be operated safely and reliably.

But no one knows where those limits are until they begin to go beyond them. They don’t know how fast or high or far they can go until they try.

You can do this in your own life. In your business. You can be your own test pilot. How do you know where your limits are? Have you pushed your own envelope lately?

I used to be afraid of heights. Then one beautiful San Francisco day, I took a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. Traffic hurtled by a few feet away. The bridge moved under my feet. The wind felt like it would sweep me over the rail. But nothing bad happened. I had a really good day. And now, I’m a lot less nervous about being in high places.

A few months ago Arlene Battishill, the president of GoGo Gear, rode her motorcycle the entire length of the Baja peninsula. She met up with some scruffy-looking guys in Southern California, crossed the border into Mexico, and rode all the way to Cabo San Lucas. Eleven hundred miles in five days. With some traveling companions she really didn’t know.

I’m pretty sure Arlene told us in the first days or maybe hours of that trip that this was by far the biggest ride she had ever attempted. She said she would be doing something she had never done before. She planned to push her own envelope.

We had a great trip. Arlene proved to be one of the best riders in the group. She was definitely the most fun and now she and I are good friends. Recently I read about how she jumped on her bike and rode north, to San Francisco; 575 miles in a long weekend. She shared a picture of herself and her motorcycle at the Golden Gate Bridge. I could feel the wind and smell the ocean. I wanted to tell her about the time I went there and came back different.

Arlene celebrates another day of pushing the envelope.

I originally wrote this as a guest post on the GoGo Gear blog. When Arlene published it she also said some very nice things about me. Here’s her version.

Simple questions. And the answers aren’t really important. Except to your traveling companions. Those could be the people glaring at you while you drive away just as their breakfast burrito comes off the griddle. Or shaking you awake at dawn, while they are ready to roll.

My traveling companions lead the way out of a remote camp in Baja

Misunderstandings like these can ruin a trip. But they are avoidable with good communication. It can be very easy to assume that everyone else operates with the same sense of time, the same scheduling style, that you do. Especially if you are used to traveling alone. But bring in a new companion, or another couple, or create a small group, and differences in styles and perceptions of urgency or leisure will quickly surface. Mix in a little bad luck and things can deteriorate rapidly.

You can easily avert a lot of unpleasantness just by talking about timing before the trip starts. You might start the conversation by mentioning that you like to grab a quick cup of instant coffee and a granola bar and be rolling 30 minutes after sunrise. Or, that you really enjoy cooking up a big breakfast for the entire group, taking your time to pack up, and rarely leave camp before ten o’clock. Again the answers themselves are not so important. But the resulting conversation can be.

You might be pleasantly surprised to learn that everyone else on the trip shares your sense of timing. So it will be easy to manage expectations and keep the group smiling. If that’s the case, you can all just agree to be ready to roll at 6:30. Or at 10 AM. Or whatever time the group decides on.

And don’t panic should you find that your camp mates have a very different sense of timing from you. No need to cancel your trip. Just compromise. You might plan a combination of long days with early starts as well as shorter days with more leisure time. As long as you all talk about it before you leave, it will most likely work out.

And if you only have time for a quick weekend getaway, consider making it a general rendezvous rather than a trek. Just pick a scenic spot a couple of hours from home and have everyone meet there. Some will arrive right after work on Friday night, some Saturday morning in time for breakfast, and others later in the day. If you aren’t planning to actually travel together, it won’t matter when people arrive. You can have breakfast whenever you like and still enjoy a pleasant evening around the fire with nice people and good conversation. And that might include talk about when to have dessert.

Meet the California Scooter Company. They build a little motorcycle that is big fun, very cool, not cheap, and is extremely popular. The California Scooter is powered by a Honda-designed 150cc four-stroke, single-cylinder engine that can deliver 98 miles to a gallon of gas. It sports a lot of machined aluminum, stainless steel, and chrome. The brakes and electrical system are modern and efficient. It’s got an electric starter for reliability and a kick starter for some extra fun and panache.

Think of it as a sort of retro 1950s-style chopper that anyone can ride, is easy to maintain, and doesn’t cost as much as a decent car. The bikes are inspired by the Mustang, a small motorcycle built in Glendale, California from 1947 until 1963. That bike had the classic long and low chopper look and was so fast on the race track that it was banned from competition.

The founder of the California Scooter Company, Steve Seidner, bought an old Mustang intending to restore it and give it to his father as a gift. Instead he ended up creating a new American motorcycle company. The bikes and the company have been well received, are getting great media coverage, and are enjoying tremendous success.

Joe Berk rides his California Scooter in the hills above Los Angeles

Some of that success is due to engaging their prospective customers with a robust social media marketing campaign. The company is very active and accessible in a lot of online motorcycle enthusiast communities. If you’ve spent any time in the forums, you know they can be brutal. Opinionated and uninformed haters can quickly bring the signal-to-noise ratio to near zero. You can get assaulted with charges that your product is overpriced offshore junk from people who have never seen it. And it can be tough to jump in and contribute without sounding like you are just trying to sell your stuff.

The California Scooter Company has managed to avoid all of that danger, rise above the chaos, and actually tell their story well. They make good use of Facebook and Twitter and the company blog has new, engaging content several times a week. The guy behind all of this social media success is Joe Berk, a business management consultant, author, and motorcycle enthusiast. Joe is a good friend of mine and that’s how I became such a big fan of the California Scooter Company.

So the bikes are cool, Steve’s got an awesome business, and Joe is fun to hang out with. He also likes adventure travel, especially in Baja, Mexico. In about a week, we plan to throw all of that together into a big mashup involving fish tacos, cactus, and cold beer. Joe has put together a little group ride to the tip of Baja and back, on 150cc California Scooters. And I’ve managed to get myself invited along. I’ll be driving a big, comfortable pickup truck with a really good air conditioner. And a fridge in the back seat for cold drinks.

We figure we’ll get some good pictures and have a lot of fun. We’ve got some interesting characters along on the ride and I think we’ll come home with a few good stories. I hope to share them with you when I get back.

You can create and leverage partnership opportunities that help build your brand and introduce you to people and organizations that would be tough to reach with a cold call. These opportunities are all around, you just have to be creative to find them.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from a friend I had met in a Tread Lightly Master Trainer class. He was organizing a weekend event for his Toyota FJ Cruiser four-wheel drive group and needed help staffing a booth to share the good word about outdoor ethics and responsible off-pavement recreation. A fun gig, a chance to get out into the backcountry, meet some new friends, and maybe drive a trail or two. I volunteered and we started planning.

The Tread Lightly exhibit, complete with a Cobb grill and anchored by the XP Camper.

My first challenge was dealing with the weather. The event meant two full days staffing a table in the middle of a dirt parking lot. If I didn’t want to end up with heatstroke I would need to find some sort of shade structure. I contacted my friends at XP Camper to find out if they might be interested in donating the use of their demonstration vehicle to be the base camp for my Tread Lightly exhibit. Not only would the camper and its attached awning provide shade, we would have a cool place to come indoors and a refrigerator for cold drinks, right in the booth. And XP Camper would get a chance to show off its new design to a whole new group of potential buyers. One quick conversation and I had an awesome plan to avoid sunstroke.

Next problem was how to stand out and draw foot traffic to the booth. There would be lots of cool stuff to see and a lot of activities over the weekend. If I wanted any of the attendees to come to my exhibit, I was going to have to get creative.

Enter the scent of grilled meat. A most powerful attractant for outdoor-folk.

I planned to set up a small portable grill and cook up some tidbits of something tasty. With luck, the wind would spread the scent around and draw folks in. I’d offer them a bite to eat then deliver my pitch. For some time now, I’ve carried a Cobb portable grill on my trips and used it to cook up some fantastic meals. It’s a great product and would be perfect for this event. And, coincidentally, at this year’s Overland Expo, I happened to meet the folks who import the Cobb grill into the US. So I contacted them to say I’d be showing off their product and ask if they wanted to donate something toward the event’s big Saturday night raffle. That conversation went extremely well and I had managed to not only score a cool prize for my friend’s car club meet, I had also gotten Cobb named as one of the sponsors.

The event was a huge success for all concerned. We spread the Tread Lightly message to a very receptive audience, we showed off a cool new camper design, we gave away a very nice prize, and we all had a great time. Moreover, this was a chance to build on some new relationships and set the stage for future collaborations.

It’s a sort of connect-the-dots kinda thing. And it’s all good.

After a bit, I began walking up the hill toward the stuck car. The driver put her head out the window and very politely asked me if I was wanting to drive up the road she was currently blocking. I said I was there to see if I could help her out in any way.

We talked a bit and I suggested she try gently backing down the hill while I spotted her. We got the car down without much more trouble than a bit of wheel slip.

Turns out she works for an engineering firm that is doing an environmental assessment of a proposed cell tower site. Her goal was to drive to the site on the other side of the hill a couple of miles away and about 500 feet higher.

I confirmed with her that she had permission to drive on what I believe is private property. And I suggested that perhaps her car was not the best choice for that particular challenge. Then I offered to drive her to the site in my truck. She accepted.

Heading up the hill, I mentioned the benefits of low range gearing, bigger tires, and locking differentials. Also experience and training. I talked about how a more capable vehicle can tackle a tougher obstacle while minimizing impact on the land. I said that the reason I stopped in the first place was concern for her safety and possible damage to the landscape. I told her about Tread Lightly and responsible back country travel.

We found the cell site, she took a few pictures, we had a nice chat, and I drove her back down the hill to her car. I gained a couple new pinstripes but we never spun a tire.

All in all a nice experience and completely unexpected.

Would you have done anything differently?

Uniforms are a powerful tool, common to most cultures. Think about the person who delivers your mail, or packages, or a speeding ticket. They all wear a uniform. It gives them authority. Without the uniform, would you take a cop seriously? How about an airline pilot?

What’s the uniform in your field?

When I worked as a back country guide, our summer uniform was a green company polo shirt, desert or woodland camouflage BDU trousers, a company baseball cap, and a handheld two-way radio. In winter we wore black snow pants and a red and black snowmobile jacket. None of our guests dressed like that and it was obvious who was running the show.

Asked to speak at a presentation to visitors I thought I might dress up a bit better than my “work” clothes. So I pulled out a new polo shirt and some fresh khaki trousers. So did everyone else who presented that day. I looked just like every other talking head trying to sell something to tourists. I didn’t give much of a presentation and I doubt if anyone paid any attention to me at all.

The next week I went back wearing my field uniform, including a big knife and my radio in a pouch on my belt. All the other presenters still wore their khakis and polos, since that was their uniform. I stood out from the crowd and my audience listened to me.

More importantly, I was wearing my uniform rather than someone else’s. I felt comfortable and relaxed.

I had been afraid of speaking in public and it affected my performance. Now, in my comfortable everyday uniform, I could easily play the role that I was supposed to. I wasn’t a pitchman selling something. I was an experienced back country guide telling visitors about the beautiful scenery all around them. About the place where I got to spend 200 days a year. About the adventures I had enjoyed and wanted to share with them.

I felt like the hit of the party. It doesn’t matter whether that was true or not; I felt like it. My audience not only listened carefully and asked great questions, they wanted to hear more. To share in my adventures. To buy what I was selling.

As the last presenter finished speaking the audience broke up. Many of them came to ask me more questions; several wanted to book an adventure with my outfit. I pulled out my cell phone, called the home office, and made their reservations. Our company had been speaking at these events for years and had never before booked a trip right on the spot. I felt like the king of the world.

So the uniform worked for me. More importantly, it worked for my company and my customers. It helped them to decide to buy what I had to sell. Pretty powerful tool, no?

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the uniform was in helping me get over my fear of speaking in public. Before, I had been a guy doing something I didn’t want to do and knew I wasn’t very good at. After, I realized that I was actually playing a role. Out on the trail, where I wore my uniform every day, my guests expected me to be an expert guide, confident to lead a trip, and experienced in handling whatever the back country threw at us. And I was that person. I did that job every day and I was good at it. When I wore my adventure travel guide uniform, I was in character. I was ready to play the role I had signed up for.

So what’s your uniform? Is it the right one for what you need to do? Does it send the right message to others?

Richard Misrach's photo on the iPad. Wikimedia Commons image by Glenn Fleishman

How ’bout that iPad, eh? And how ’bout that beautiful background photo? That picture is of Pyramid Lake, in Northern Nevada. Serene, eerie, beautiful.

The default background screen on Apple’s iPad is called “Pyramid Lake (at Night).” It was taken by Richard Misrach, of Berkeley, California, in 2004. It is part of his series called Desert Cantos, an ongoing study of the American Desert landscape begun more than 35 years ago.

More on the photo, and Mr. Misrach, from the Reno Gazette Journal. And a very nice version of the original image, from Artinfo.

Enjoy the image, and your new iPad.