We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
Lao Tzu | Tao Te Ching : v11
PEMBAnote: Recently, we’ve open up PEMBAspeaks to select guest bloggers, and what follows is the first of these. We’re very pleased and proud to host Sara Lingafelter from rockclimbergirl.com, and look forward to more of her contributions.
Recently,
Kris at SportsOneSource.com posted an item on Twitter discussing the effectiveness of athlete and celebrity endorsements. That triggered a healthy discussion among Kris, Pemba and Larry at Amazon about the importance of social media, face-to-face interaction, and how to identify influencers in segments like climbing, which are less traditionally “competitive” than other segments of the sports and outdoor industry.In climbing, influencers don’t necessarily come from the #1 spot in the latest comp. So, where do they come from?
The real world.
She’s probably getting a little tired of hearing it from me (though I’m sure her sponsors aren’t), but
Steph Davis is an example of a professional climber doing it absolutely right.Steph has always done it right – she climbs hard, inspires through her climbing and her writing, and has a long history of connecting with the community through direct involvement, slideshows, and through film. In “Outdoor 2.0,” Steph is an example of a pro who Gets It. She has a
well-written, content-driven, and interactive blog, where she responds to reader questions and features her sponsors in a non-intrusive way. Taking it a step further than most, Steph has embraced social media, including regularly interacting directly with the climbing community on Twitter. Notice the key word, there: “Interacting.” She participates in conversations with the rest of us “normal” climbers as if she’s just one of us, I suspect because she just might be just one of us. She tweets about her efforts on her backyard climbing wall, and her choice of cams in between tweets about her vegetable garden and her tile project. She chimes in on gear questions, with advice on brands she works with and those she doesn’t. She comes across – at all times – as warm, genuine, credible and human. All of these factors make her an example of the type of ambassador that companies should covet.Now, I’m not a pro. I’m just another “climber with a writing problem” (the original is
@redheadwriting, and I’ve never read five words strung together that I so wished I’d written myself.) Lately though, a few folks in the biz have taken an interest in what I do (thank you, Pemba and Larry.) Some folks even believe that little ol’ me has some influence within my relevant community. I’m starting to get asked by folks in the industry, “How do you do it? What makes you special? Why do folks care what you think?”Um…
Re-read that paragraph I just wrote about Steph. I write a content-driven blog, chock full of trip reports, photo essays, training experiences and insights, stories from my climbing life, as well as gear reviews and product spotlights. I participate in, and foster abundant discussion among readers. I engage with the community (and neighboring communities) via interactive participation on Twitter and other social networks. I tweet about my climbing life, and my life outside of climbing. I am always at the ready to chime in on gear and training questions, based on my real life experiences. I like people, so I’m naturally warm and human in my online interactions. I get outside more than the average weekend warrior, so while I’m not sending sick hard or floating up jaw-dropping free solos, I do have enough experience and authority to be credible. All of these factors, apparently, make me an example of the type of influencer that companies are starting to watch.
Brands and people who work with brands need to look outside the competition circle to identify influencers who connect with their intended audience. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. The new influencers – professionals and the rest of us – are already out there, doing what we do, because we can’t help it. I’d blog and tweet and review gear even if nobody listened to a word I say – I love doing it, that much. I’d imagine that someone like Steph gets to where she is because she loves it, that much. And, there are people like both Steph and I in each little corner of the sports and outdoor industry.
Beyond just letting the pros and bloggers do their thing on their own, brands can benefit from building closer relationships with new influencers like me. I blog, write reviews and tweet about the products and brands I love, because I use and love them. I don’t review products that I’m not truly in love with, whether that product is bought for full price at retail or provided by the company for the purposes of the review. If I encounter a product I’m not truly in love with, I let the supplier know through private channels, in case they care to listen to my feedback. I’m someone who trusts my life to my gear every time I go out – from my rope, to my baselayer. As a result, I have strong feelings, and generate valuable feedback, whether publicly or privately.
But I’d do all that whether the industry pays any attention to me or not.
The benefit that you in the biz get from paying attention to folks like me, and appreciating what we do, and connecting with us through social networking, and getting to know us as people through trading tweets or commenting on our blogs is
increased loyalty, if you’re so inclined. Just like a climbing partnership, with careful attention and through shared experiences both epic and mundane, we can build a certain mutual respect, trust, and loyalty.I have a short list of brands that I’ve relied on since my early days of climbing (or earlier), and with whom I’ve connected through Twitter or through those of you reading who “get” what I do and see value in it. Those brands are the ones I look to first when I do my own shopping, and the ones I think of first when I need to make a recommendation to someone else. Partly, it’s because those lines are the biggest dots on my radar given limited time to keep an eye on the market – they’re what I know best without having to do any research. Partly though, it’s because I dig seeing people making a living doing what they love, which the best of you are doing. If I can do what I’m already doing, in a way I believe in, and it means one of my “Twitter friends” is going to have a brightened day at work, then that’s a pretty sweet deal all the way around.
I think it goes without saying that your professional ambassadors might be able to take a page out of the “new influencer” playbook, if they haven’t already. The “rules” we play by are pretty simple. Be nice. Answer questions. Be honest. Communicate with both personality and professionalism. Let love of life, and sport, be contagious for readers. The pros who will make the most effective “new influencers” are the ones who naturally play by those rules.
Getting to Know Sara…
Sara Lingafelter is a climber, writer, gear junkie, attorney and half-time dog mama based in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to blogging about the climbing life at RockClimberGirl.com, Sara is the unofficial #climb community den mother on Twitter, where she met and grew fond of Pemba Serves and the people involved.
Over the years, Sara has developed an appreciation and fondness for the outdoor industry and its denizens, and is considering making a career shift in that direction. For now though, Sara adores her work with the
Puget Sound Partnership, a Washington State agency with the mission of restoring the health of Puget Sound by 2020; at First Ascent Law PS, her private solo law practice; as Spiritual Advisor to the Kitsap Vertical World Climbing Gym; and as a freelance writer and editor.In her free time, Sara climbs as often as possible at home crags between Squamish, BC and Smith Rock, OR, and is a prolific writer lacking the patience necessary for the print cycle. In addition to her own sites and guest posts here at PEMBAspeaks, Sara is a
reader blogger for Climbing Magazine and gear reviewer for rockclimbing.com. Sara lives in the Pacific Northwest with her half-time dog Hana, a seven-year-old yellow labrador retriever.
It’s like Where’s Waldo, just with Katie…can you find her?
Katie and I took a day off yesterday and went up to Rattlesnake Mound. It’s a fairly new area and is pretty cool. A tornado came through a couple years ago and took out most of the trees in the area. Everything felt wide open but it got really windy at times. Made for a cool atmosphere though.
We warmed up on the House Boulder and got warm pretty quick. In the sun it was perfect out and we were down to t-shirts and sweating. After packing up our stuff we went over to Chaos. It is on my list for the year and I wanted to give it a good flash go since it was very much my style. I promptly blew the flash by missing the first hold and went to work on it for real. I was able to get all the moves worked out pretty quickly but my skin was suffering badly from a solid month of not climbing more than once a week.
Chaos is about 6 moves long and is full on power crimping. For me the crux is going to be bumping from the first tiny crimp to the second, bigger, crimp. I couldn’t quite put it together yesterday but we may be going back tomorrow for more. It should go down then. The moves are all really fun and it was a good effort by John to put it up last year. Well done sir!!!
After getting completely cold at Chaos we went over to the sunny side of the bluff again to explore a little. We found a nice little boulder with about 5-6 really fun warm ups. There is potential for some more but it’s a nice little boulder and has cool exposure to it. The setting is unique and was a great way to cool down after a great day.
I approve!!!
We spent ten days in Xegar. Every day, we watched it rain, waiting. Prior to our sojourn in Xegar, we spent ten days crossing Tibet on muddy roads, over landslides, through floods. We expected our gear to be waiting for us in Xegar, as it was sent from Beijing before us. Instead, we waited in Xegar for our gear, for ten days.
A few hours later, the first of six trucks that carried our gear arrived. Eighteen hours later, the last truck rolled in. Mostly, our boxes had been packed upside-down. Rightways, they were waterproof; upside-down they were water-tight. In the monsoon rains they filled completely with water. All of our gear was soaked. Some things could be dried – tents, bags, climbing equipment – but the toilet paper and chocolate chip cookies were all waste. We spent two days drying some stuff and trashing others before finally leaving Xegar.
We didn’t make it far. The earthquake altered the course of a river, which in turn washed out the last bridge between us and where we were going. A small, crumbling strip of dirt connected the bank with the bridge, and that was it. Less than 10K out of Xegar, and we were stuck, again.
Our LO was fatalistic: ”It won’t be possible to go to the mountain. We will only charge you $XX,XXX.00 to take you back to Beijing early.” Liaison Officers are paid per expedition – successful or not – and they get paid a portion of everything they are able to charge. They also get a portion of any funds that are left over from the expedition’s budget. The quicker the expedition finishes, the more money they make, and the sooner they get to go home.
We unloaded our gear from the trucks, and moved it all out onto the bridge. We pitched our tents and moved in. We decided to live on a bridge in central Tibet for as long as it took to get off of it, but only if we were moving in the right direction. The LO said,”This is very irregular. We will charge extra for this.” He got back into his Landcruiser and returned to Xegar.
We schemed ways to get our gear across the river to our destination. One of our drivers tried to make it, and failed spectacularly.
We walked miles in each direction to find a better crossing, and found one that we thought might work. The LO was unconvinced. Bob Skinner stripped down to his BVD’s and his cowboy hat and strode in his boots purposefully towards the glacial river. “I’ll show ‘em how to cross a damned river!” he growled.
The LO – visibly shocked at the sight of Bob’s bare white skin – gasped and protested. What followed was a game of Red Rover at the water’s edge, with one mostly naked cowboy against a line of shocked and prudish CMA authorities. Bob stepped forward, prepared to break through. The LO said,”We’ll find a way – please, put your clothes back on.” We went back to the bridge with nothing settled.
That afternoon, we formed a fire-brigade to pass stones into the hole in the bridge. “This is ridiculous,” said Sibylle Hechtel, and she was right. There was no way that we could fill the hole with rocks and our bare hands. I was dispatched to Xegar with a wad of cash on a mission to buy shovels. The LO assigned a young interpreter to go with me.
“There are no shovels in Tibet,” he said as we walked into town. He then bolted into the first store we came to, and I followed, confused. He spoke with the man behind the counter in rapid-fire Chinese, although the man was Tibetan. There was a moment of silence, followed by a question in Tibetan that I took to mean,”What did you say?”
The interpreter turned to me and said,”This is the best store in Xegar, and they have no shovels. This man say that there are no shovels in Tibet. They don’t have them here.”
“This is a candy store,” I said, pointing to the rows of sugary sweets,”We need a hardware store.” I walked out with the interpreter already pursuing to block my way.
“We must leave Xegar,” he said,”You will not find shovels here.” I stepped around him and walked down the road towards the next store. Turning a corner, we came across a work-crew repairing the dirt road. There were dozens of people working. Each one had a shovel. “Here are our shovels,” I said and reached into my pocket for the money to buy them.
He grabbed my hand and pushed it back into my pocket: ”You will not buy these shovels! These are not for you!” I thought of Bob at the river’s edge, and wondered what he might do, now. My inner Bob said pretty clearly,”Deck the sonofabitch!” Somehow, this didn’t seem like the best idea, although I was tempted. Instead, we stared each other down, inches away from each other. “Why not?” I asked.
“These people, these shovels are not theirs. They cannot sell them to you. If they do, they go to prison,” he said. The wad of Chinese Rinminbi burned in my pocket, enough to buy all of the shovels there, and then some. With me I had the equivalent of a year’s salary for each of the workers. I thought of bullet-holes and blood spatters – evidence of firing squads – that I saw on the walls in Lhasa and Xigaze and Xegar. I didn’t doubt what he said about the workers going to prison for selling me a shovel. And I knew he would turn them in, just to make the point. I turned back towards the bridge without saying another word.
The whole way back to the bridge, he went on in a theme: “If you need anything – shovels, food, trucks, ANYTHING – CMA gets it for you. You get nothing on your own. NOTHING. We get everything you need. Only CMA. ONLY CMA, you understand?”
I understood. Sadly, it wasn’t the first time that I had encountered people whose only goal was to thwart the goals of others. It wouldn’t be the last, either. Sometimes, people do this for profit. Profit is what motivated the CMA. That, and they wanted control, which is the primary way that they make profits.
Other times, people thwart others because they lack a vision of their own, and fear change. Not able to imagine a different outcome or process than what they already know, they fight with all that they have just to keep the status quo. These people respond to a vision or goal with only “That won’t work.” Then, they do everything possible to assure that their prediction comes true. The saying goes,”Whether you predict success or failure, you’re right.” Only with one of these can you be accurate 100% of the time. More than anything, people who fear change find comfort in making correct predictions about the future. By contrast, others believe that the best way to predict the future is to create it.
We got off the bridge by hiring trucks that were stuck coming from the other direction. We were only able to hire four and we needed six, and we had to ditch our bus. So, we went to the mountain in stages over the course of several days. We rode on top of the loads . Where necessary, we siphoned gas from our trucks to fill empty tanks on the other side, hand-carrying the fuel across the bridge. The thing about the bridge at Xegar is that it wasn’t about getting across; our goal was beyond the skyline. It would’ve been easy to get caught up and thwarted by a roadblock, but that wasn’t what we had in mind when we set out. Our goals were bigger than the small obstacles that got in the way.
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