The Art of Asking, The Art of Trusting

If by now you have not seen Amanda Palmer's TED talk, go watch it. I'll wait.

Pretty much ever since she put her Kickstarter in motion a bit under a year ago one lingering question has been whether this sort of thing is unique to Palmer, or whether there's something reproducible in this experience. Although it's not framed as such, what I hear Palmer saying in her talk is "Here is how I did this and here's what you can try, too."

It's not about the details (which is good and right for a TED talk) - it's about the philosophy. Although the talk is titled "The art of asking" and Palmer talks extensively about her experiences asking, the secret sauce for me is in her discussion of trust. You could equally well title the talk "The art of trusting" as she talks about the degrees and kinds of trust she has in her fans and how that affects what she does with her music.

In particular, she says she never tried to "make" people pay for the music; she asked people to pay and as she says,

When you connect with them, people want to help you

Connecting isn't easy, particularly if one is not a naturally outgoing or gregarious person. Neither is trusting. But both are skills that can be practiced and if anyone is going to replicate the AFP model, they're going to do it using huge elements of connection and trust.