#025 – The Hype Cycle & Personal Brands

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Bringing 5 interesting ideas to your inbox every Thursday morning to ignite your curiosity and drive your growth.

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read time 4 minutes 

#025 at a Glance:

• Quote that will get you thinking: Following crowds vs Walking alone.

• Podcast you should listen to: Utilising human observation to reveal the needs and impulses of consumers.

• Framework: The Hype Cycle.

• YouTube video that got me thinking: Alex Hormozi on personal brands.

• Tweet I liked: Build or destroy.

Quote that will get you thinking:

Podcast you should listen to:

The Mentor with Mark Bouris #339: Martin Lindstrom

Martin Lindstrom is one of the world’s premier brand-building experts, advising Fortune 100 (yes, 100) companies on how to build future-proof brands. He has carved out a niche as a global expert and pioneer in consumer psychology, brand marketing, and neuroscience research in the business arena.

Martin has worked with multinationals including Pepsi, Google, Burger King, and Swiss Air, and has even brought his innovative strategies to the notoriously bureaucratic banks.

Really fascinating insights and this chat definitely opened my eyes to the power of taking a step back from technology and data to make real-world observations that inform our decisions. Extremely powerful.

Listen on Spotify here. Listen on Apple Podcasts here.

Framework:

The Hype Cycle 

I’ve been deep-diving into technology at the moment, particularly the history surrounding technological busts and booms throughout recent history as a way of trying to get a better understanding of patterns and what the future might look like for certain companies.

In doing so, I came across the Hype Cycle, which was created by the people at American technological research and consulting firm, Gartner, to essentially map the timeline different technologies go through.

According to the Hype Cycle, there are 5 phases that all technology goes through:

1. Technology trigger: The product is on the market you hear it about it everywhere from social media to the news. “Have you heard about X?”

2. Peak of inflated expectations: The hype is well and truly at its peak, but people are beginning to find some pitfalls. “Yeah, it’s great, but…”

3. Trough of disillusionment: At this point, the product has now failed to meet people’s extremely high expectations from the beginning.

4. Slope of enlightenment: The media have now stopped covering the technology and the hype is well and truly over. Many technologies that reach this fourth phase simply fall out of the market. But some businesses may continue to experiment by finding new uses for it or changing the original version.

5. Plateau of productivity: The benefits of the technology become widely demonstrated and accepted, often in the form of a version 2.0 or 3.0 that emerges from the experimental phase to become a success.

Pretty interesting, especially considering that almost every form of technology we’ve ever known has either passed through, or is passing through this Hype Cycle with very few exceptions.

YouTube Video that got me thinking:

Alex Hormozi on Personal Brands

I came across an interesting video this week from American entrepreneur and CEO of Acquisition.com, Alex Hormozi, about building a personal brand that stands out.

Why is it that people like Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, and Andrew Huberman have managed to build up such a large audience?

Yes, they're all experts in their respective fields, provide value to their followers, and they are interesting to listen to. They tick all of the those boxes, sure.

BUT Alex Hormozi says that the popularity of these types of individuals can be attributed to one factor:

They cannot be neatly confined into just one category – they are multi-disciplinary and don't fit the mould.

For instance, Rogan is the stand-up comedy guy but at the same time he's also into jiu-jitsu and the UFC, and he's got his podcast and then also has all of these interesting thoughts on UFOs, biohacking and everything in between.

Same with Lex Fridman, he's the nerdy science guy but at the same time, he's a black belt in jiu-jitsu and simultaneously making waves in the podcast game.

These individuals grab the attention of their audiences because what they say and do aren't necessarily predictable. They don't fit the mould. And because of that level of unpredictability, they can both grab and maintain the attention of the masses.

As soon as someone can say that they've "figured you out", they'll move on because they believe that they can now place you into a certain category and then predict everything you're going to say, everything you're going to do, and how you're going to react.

So, what's the takeaway?

Audiences are intrigued when people don't fit the mould and try not to pigeonhole themselves to fit neatly into just one category. And perhaps that is one of the reasons why people follow them so closely…

Food for thought.

Tweet I liked:

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!

Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, & stay curious. ⚡

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