Interview with Mike Bloxham of the Center for Media Design
Mike Bloxham, the Director of Insight and Researcher for the Center for Media Design here at Ball State, is the most amazing networker I’ve ever met. You need only talk to him for a minute to trust him and feel like you’ve known him for years. In his job at the CMD, Bloxham is responsible for instigating new contracts for research and development. So how does a center in Muncie, Indiana make contacts to conduct research on eye-tracking, interactive television, and convergent media? They get a man like Bloxham on the case. So I decided to interview Mike and get all the wisdom I could get out of him in an hour over a fancy cup of coffee. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation:
Question: So how about using a site like LinkedIn to build your business network? The importance of blogging?
Bloxham responded that he’s not convinced that such sites really work to increase contacts. He stated that, though he’s on LinkedIn, he doesn’t really use it. Rather, he said he’d rather build his contact face to face or through conversation about common interests.
“I have to say since I started writing the blog at the beginning of this year on Media Post’s tv boards which I do every week, that’s been really interesting because there are some people I have met at events since then who have commented that they read my tv board and then there are others who I already knew but none the less it’s another conversation point and it gives me a feel for the reach of something like that.”
Bloxham added, though, that he thinks blogging on a reputable site which already has an audience is far different from a personal blog. So rather than blogging on your own, why not try to be a blogger for a larger site? However, Mike also added that blogging on your own can still be a valuable way to prove to readers that you have something to say.
Bloxham uses Google Alerts to track down links back to his entries and to the CMD.
Mike and I then talked about writing effective blog posts. I asked him about his sense of humor and whether he had ever been misunderstood in his blogs:
“It’s a very critical stage because they’ll [visitors] come back sometimes having misread it, which is actually hilarious. I don’t actually indulge in correcting people; I just let people argue among themselves. You’ve got to be able to write well; you’ve got to be a good communicator and I think a lot of people look at digital forms and digital tools as a means of avoiding the more difficult forms of communication and I think those who view them in that way are going to fall foul because they’re lost, you’re just fooling yourself.” Though blogs are often written in less formal language, it’s important to be sure that your text accurately presents what you’re trying to say. You can have incredible things to say but if you write them poorly no one is going to get your message.
Bloxham also had interesting things to say about attracting an audience. Rather than writing what you think people will be interested in: “I think one way in creating an audience is being in tune with your audience, to kind of set the tone for the audience; they have to decide whether or not they want to be your audience.” Mike’s advice seems a little contrary but I think he’s right. Your message, your blog, will read as being more authentic, and therefore more engaging, if you think less about pleasing everyone and more about engaging the audience you’re most concerned with.
When planning conference presentations and blogs Bloxham says it’s important to have an opinion: “People aren’t drawn to boring material. One of the things I always say to people who ask me to present is that I’ll have opinions on things. You may not agree with the opinions but you’ve got something to disagree with there. Something people are interested in….. yeah like if everything is very mutual, very matter of fact and desperate not to offend anybody or come up with any original ideas, and then just give it up and get a good sleep under a duvet. Why bother getting out of bed? You simply just want to get paid. I want something to justify my time which is obviously more valuable then doing it just for cash.” Bloxham is all about stirring people up whether it’s through presenting unique research, using humor to get the audience involved (he once pretended to snort coke off of the podium during a presentation), or being controversial. His approach makes sense. What blog entries get passed around the mailing lists you’re on? The ones that agree with the majority or the ones that stir people up? “I don’t think you need to be desperate to please the audience all the time. If you’re polite about it you can very easily turn around and say, ‘you’re not going to want to hear this. You may fervently disagree with this’ and then we can have a striking argument with a nice beer together. I’m going to agree to disagree and that’s absolutely great because there may be the argument; we’ll have an original thought each and wouldn’t that be a valuable use of our time?”
Bloxham is a treasure trove of fantastic advice. From being controversial, to tips on remembering names, his perspective and attitude set a high bar for those of us who aspire to create mutually beneficial networks of like-minded people.
