Our Latest Failure: The 500th Post Contest
Robby Slaughter
A few weeks back, we thought it might be fun to celebrate post #500 on our little blog with a contest. We invited readers to submit guest posts in exchange for the chance to win a $75 grand prize. Unfortunately, our sweepstakes was a total failure.
What does it mean for a blog contest crash and burn? In our case: a total lack of entries. By the first official deadline, we had not received any submissions. So we quietly extended the timeframe by another week and solicited more responses. Again, not a single person offered a blog post. Today, we were supposed to announce the top five finalists. That’s obviously not going to happen!
On a phone call yesterday, Ashley and I were scratching our heads trying to figure what had happened and what to do next. Certainly we had made a lot of mistakes in the process. Our most crucial failure was the assumption that we would receive several entries. Since we both expected this to be the case, we did not touch base throughout the contest on the status of the number of entries. We figured the submissions would be rolling in, so why waste time confirming this every day? By the time we determined that we weren’t actually getting responses, it was too late. A faulty assumption sunk our contest!
There might have been other structural problems as well. Certainly, these kinds of programs require deadlines, and we’ve talked before about how deadlines create problems. Furthermore, the last time we ran a contest, we openly discussed the nature of extrinsic motivators like prizes. We know that we should be careful about giving rewards at work.
One more theory might apply: the so-called homecoming queen paradox.
Courtesy DeviantArt user TheYellowGhost
The story goes that since everyone assumes that the homecoming queen has a date to the prom, no one actually asks the her to go to the dance! Maybe our blog contest had a similar problem. Perhaps many readers thought that our contest would be quite popular, and thus decided their chances of winning would be too slim. This is an optimistic hypothesis, but perhaps it has some merit.
Despite a big push, lots of personal requests over email, in-person and on Twitter, our contest was a failure. That’s okay. Failure is the secret to success! If you have thoughts about what went wrong, please share them in the comments below.
Thanks to everyone who hoped to enter! Maybe next time we’ll find a way to make this program work.
November 17th, 2011 at 7:22 am
Sorry guys! I was thinking about writing a submission, but since I just started reading in September I figured you would want someone who had been around a while. I also assumed there would be plenty of other posts. I wonder who else had made these assumptions. :-/
Just for the record: my favorite post I have read so far has to be “A Complete Waste of Sponsorship” by Robby. I do appreciate the great content you guys are generating!
November 17th, 2011 at 9:13 am
Thanks Bryan! It sounds in your case, the “homecoming queen paradox” applies.
Glad you like the blog. Comment anytime!
November 17th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Likewise, I thought about posting, but I found out about it days before the deadline and didn’t have enough time to sift the archives to find the article that resonated most and then write a piece in reflection of that article.
I also assumed many other people would be writing and I wouldn’t have much of a chance.
Thanks for all you do here, Robby. I appreciate what you create here!
November 17th, 2011 at 10:36 am
I agree with Lydia. I found out maybe a week before the deadline, but the idea of sifting through the archives for a post to respond to and then writing the post in the hopes of maybe possibly winning $75 seemed like too much work. Perhaps it was the parameters of the contest that were the problem–maybe you should have selected a post for people to respond to rather than putting the onus on them to find a post AND write a reaction. Just a thought.
November 17th, 2011 at 10:48 am
Of course after the contest is when we all choose to respond. Lesson learned: assumptions are future excuses. How many times should I have listened to my assumptions and gone the other way (makes me think of Do the Work by Pressfield)?
November 17th, 2011 at 10:49 am
Allison and Lydia, maybe the main problem then was the paradox of choice—the notion that having lots of options might seem like a good idea, but it can actually be overwhelming.
Thanks for your comments and feedback.
November 17th, 2011 at 11:33 am
I, like most of the other posters, learned about the contest late (so many good bloggers, so little time). and thought other (better) writers had already submitted. Sometimes just showing up is ALL the battle.
I am currently reading “Best Practices Are Stupid” by Stephen M. Shapiro, on improving creativity in organizations. He posits that a well focused challenge results in better submissions than a more open ended approach (select your best post and comment on it)…Even when compressed into 499 entries, the universe is a big place.
Homecoming queen paradox and paradox of choice are both in play here.
November 21st, 2011 at 8:15 am
Procrastination in the face of a busy schedule dooms the best of intentions. I had this on my task list but kept pushing it further down as more demands took its place. It goes back to the the Covey “Importance/Urgency” quadrant. This never made it to the right sector.
November 21st, 2011 at 8:41 am
Hi there,
Don’t overlook the fact that some of us haven’t figured out how to comment on the blog! We’ve looked everywhere on the site and don’t know how to access or comment on the blog…remember, some of us are extremely technically challenged and too shy to ask for help!
November 21st, 2011 at 9:52 am
Robby,
How strange that I signed up for your newsletter a few weeks ago and found today that they had been going into my spam folder. I just retrieved this issue and opened it. I couldn’t believe that I saw an article with the word “Failure” in the title. How refreshing it was to see someone discussing something that had not worked in their organization. Every professional magazine in our industry discusses how so-and-so switched careers and decided to become a professional photographer and now is wildly successful booking $10,000 wedding gigs within 3 months of picking up a camera.
Congratulations on your 500th blog post. What a wonderful milestone. Consider me a loyal reader through the next 500!
November 21st, 2011 at 11:23 am
Thanks, Mike, Terry and Terri! It’s great to have your thoughts. Keep in mind that this is only our *latest* failure. We’re sure to screw up again, but that’s not going to stop us from working hard to help organizations and individuals become more efficient, more effective and more satisfied!
November 21st, 2011 at 1:07 pm
When it comes to the newsletter problem, one way to solve that would be to subscribe using the RSS feed. (The orange button near the top right here)
Essentially you can subscribe to multiple blogs and read them all at the same place. All my favorites are there and easy to access.
Google “RSS readers” to learn more. It makes my blog reading more productive!