6 Social Media Lessons From The Movie Avatar

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Two things are on mind. One is the film Avatar and the other is Social Media. In the movie Avatar, directed by James Cameron of Titanic fame, there are several themes that are really very important and striking. But as I have become a Social Media Guy (and watching the movie for the second time this time in English and in 3D) I couldn’t help but coming back to the theme of interconnectivity and “networks”.

I have been reading Trust Agents and I just finished Chapter 7, “Build an Army”. The chapter starts off with the words “You Can’t Do It Alone”. This isn’t exactly original thinking or ground breaking writing on the part of Brogan and Smith but this is what the social mediums do for me and hopefully they do this for you as well. What I am referring to is the very effective repetition used in story telling. When that first shot in the movie is connected usually towards the end of the movie and you have that “ah-ha” moment.

In James Cameron’s Avatar the movie begins and ends with the main character opening his eyes. Another reviewer of the movie pointed out the theme of “seeing” in the movie. The love story involves the partners “seeing each other” and acknowledging that verbally. Watching the movie in English and Spanish “Te Veo” sounds p

rettier than “I see you” but in any language the idea of realization and understanding is powerful.

Building an Army requires understanding people. Whether you are building a force to promote your brand or building a force to protect your country there is no shortcut to creating a truly motivated team. You must understand your people and your clients. The US military would not work if it did not understand its recruits. Make no mistake; recruiting is a business and understanding the people that the military recruits is a multimillion dollar, if not multibillion dollar, enterprise.

So why is this important to you?

1. See/Understand your clients and you will make more money.

2. See/Understand your partners, employees, co-workers and you will be more effective.

3. Create a connected network and you will never be in the dark about what your stakeholders are thinking and doing.

4. Maintaining a working vibrant reciprocating network is vital to nature and it is vital to your family and of course it is vital to your business.

Lessons from Avatar:

1. Never rush a partnership / If you do, be prepared to respect your adversary

2. Seeing is believing / It is what it is / If you don’t understand let someone help you understand / Don’t be hardheaded

3. You can’t do it alone!

4. Being connected is better than not being connected

5. Make sure that when you share information that you do so in a respectful manner to all your colleagues (not just the ones that are in front of you)

6. Faith comes in many forms (you will need to find yours)

Please comment and pass this around if you found it interesting. Thank you for reading!