Are You Turning Your Content Into a House Boat?

You’ve spent years developing and refining your content. You’ve tweaked it and tweaked it and when you deliver it on stage you know you’ll knock it out of the ballpark every single time. It’s taken you years of hard work, of being thoughtful, of mastering your craft, and perfecting your message.

And then…

You wind up turning it into a house boat.

In my mind a house boat is sort of the love child of a horrific house and a clunky boat.  It has the worst attributes of both and loses the grace and beauty that a house or a boat poses independently.  It doesn’t navigate the waters particularly well (in fact many look like they can barely float).  It lacks the comforts and conveniences most of us desire in a home.  It can neither weather a solid storm nor provide shelter from the elements.   House boats are basically a combination of a crappy house and a crappier boat.

So how does this relate to your content and your work?

Well, you may have written a fabulous book or developed a world class keynote. However, when you take the essence of either of those and attempt to force it into another format or medium you too may wind up with a house boat.  We’ve all seen video based training, from a thought leader that we admire, that is neither great nor effective. It’s not great from an aesthetic perspective nor is it effective at all from a training standpoint.  We’ve sat through painfully long workshops that are poorly designed and inadequately delivered.  These are the house boats that thought leaders, speakers and authors often put out into the marketplace.

In order to prevent that, you need to partner with an expert that has a deep grasp of the modality you are working in as well as an understanding of your work.  Work in unison and learn the nuances and quirks of each format. Combine that understanding with a true grasp of what your content can do and for whom it is most impactful and you’ll create powerful content that is best in class.

Don’t rush into a format without a thorough understanding of its uniqueness.  A workshop is not a three hour keynote and video enabled learning does not mean a video of a workshop.  If you take shortcuts along the way you’ll turn your life’s work into a clunky houseboat. You’ll rob it of its true potential to change the behaviors, beliefs and actions of individuals, as well as curtailing the financial benefits to you.