I read books. Not as many as I’d like, but I can only read for so long before my mind is so full of ideas I have to do something about it and the book sits closed until the next night. One of the recent titles I tacked was “Rework” by the guys from 37signals. Among other things, they made the point that every business creates sawdust or, in other words, byproducts.

For a sawmill, that’s sawdust they actually sell at a profit.
For Alpine Replay, they discovered their’s is skier behavior data.
For creatives, that’s the story of creating awesomeness.

In the panel discussions from The Meeting 8 I keep rambling on about, Chase Jarvis talked a little bit about his “sawdust”.

Behind the Scenes
Now, Chase is a good photographer. A very good photographer. Aside from that, he recognizes the power in the story behind the story.

So, as part of the deal to shoot photos for Aspen/Snowmass, Chase Jarvis also produced a behind the scenes video which, as he pointed out during The Meeting (see 32:00 – 40:10 or 38:00 – 40:10 if you’re in a hurry), often does better than the actual content. With 44,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, it’s a pretty good deal to make.

Nearly 200,000 views later, I think it’s safe to say that he was right.

It’s a simple lesson, but a valuable one. Look at the story you are telling and see if there’s story about the story hidden in the “everyday” actions you might be overlooking. At times, that deeper layer can be more powerful that the original narrative.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.