Houdini sucked at magic, every modern magician will agree on that; it’s amazing how the entire world remembers him as one though. Why was this? Why didn’t the better magicians at the time be remembered like Houdini?
I was watching a History Channel special on Houdini, and ever since he has been great inspiration to me.
Starting out, he was an unsuccessful magician in a circus where he was only doing card tricks with only one act where he escaped from handcuffs. He realized that people only cared for his escape trick; he retired the cards, and opened a show with full emphasis on escape tricks.
He knew magic was not his trade, he knew that his knack was performance.
He knew what the crowd needed.
Houdini was brilliant at entertaining. He could entertain the crowd for hours while he was behind stage leaving the crowd alone, waiting with anticipation.
Take for example a time when it took him 2 hours to escape from a pair of handcuffs. He stood behind the curtain all except for a few minutes every 30 minutes to spark interest from the crowd.
During water tank acts he had assistants stand by with axes to scare the crowd. During his straitjacket escapes he would wrestle around violently exaggerating every move to make the crowd believe
He was an innovator.
Houdini was amazing at bringing innovative performances to the stage, and selling the crowd to make them believe that this “new” act could really be his last.
When copycats arose, and he was worried that his career may be near the end, he was still able to innovate. All of his acts had the same concept: put something valuable at risk, such as his life.
What's this mean for us geeks?
You need to remember that Houdini is remembered for something he sucked at doing. He was remarkable and had a knack for what he did, which was marketing and performance — not magic.
You may be the greatest HTML/CSS coder of our time, you may be the most creative designer ever to breathe the web. But, if you don’t market yourself, and don't get people talking about you, no one will ever know who you were.
Start now, do something today that is worth noticing, and then get people talking about it.
Until next time, follow me on twitter, @michaeldick