When Guy Kawasaki first started to blog I was enthralled. His posts were spot on and devoid of self-aggrandizing fluff (mostly). He was honest and straight forward. I understood how people could see him as arrogant, but my opinion was that he was no more arrogant or cocky than any of us would be if we had a constant stream of people pissing nonsense in our ears about how cool we were. In short I really liked him and I still recommend people to go back and read the first two or so months of posts. But like many of us (myself included), Guy is a one trick pony and the fact that I have never sought out investors meant that I shortly lost interest in Guy’s one trick.
Over the years I would occasionally hear of Guy doing this or saying that and most of it went in and out of my consciousness as quickly as moving two screens in Leopard’s spaces. But the impression that Guy was becoming, or had always been, a douche bag was slowly growing. And now I have finally made up my mind. I will still recommend his first blog posts, but with his recent post I am firmly convinced that Guy Kawasaki is an idiot. I don’t mean to use the literal definition of the word idiot here, he is clearly smart and successful, but I now believe him to be insincere and so have lost a great deal of respect for him. I mean idiot in the douche baggy sense. The “oh yeah, I’m so cool” sense. The “OMFG please don’t let people find out I’m just like everyone else” sense.
His recent post Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter is all about how to get more followers on twitter. In this post he gives ten tips about how to get people to follow you. The tips range from “Follow the social media whores” to “Follow everyone who follows you” to “Asking people to follow you.” (Yes, like in the third grade, “will you be friend.”) In the middle are gems like @ famous people because “All you want to do is appear like you have a relationship with them to enhance your credibility.” Are you kidding me? I have no doubt this will work. Guy cites advice from another web big wig (I would have called him a douche bag, but he was quite nice the one time we met) Robert Scoble, which further points out that his advice will work. And that’s fine. Except that it’s not.
The days are numbered for these types of tricks. I think everyone will agree that the world is changing into a more transparent place. Long tail success is created by genuineness and honesty. (I’ll give Guy points for honesty. It’s got to be hard to say “look what a douche bag I am.”) The days of the glamor and illusion created by mediums like television are coming to and end, being replaced by the blinding light of reality that is already creeping through the cracks of our world. We are about to step out of the casino doors at eight in the morning, after drinking and gambling all night, into the sunshine of honesty and truly seeing people for who they are.
Be honest. Be yourself. Be genuine in thought, word and deed. We will be drawn to you and love you for it.
I’d like to give a shout out to Jon Dale who wrote this article which inspired my post. Thanks Jon. Everyone should follow him on Twitter.
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