Not your usual field trip: Steve Spangler teams up
with the Colorado Rockies and 9News for a day of
learning and baseball at Coors Field in Denver, Colo.
security—the latter being especially important in these tough economic times. He
could get by comfortably by working as a
speaker, but he says he feels compelled to
capitalize on that speaking platform. He
suggests other speakers think about things
the same way—that they imagine what
other opportunities might be seized by
thinking in new and different ways about
their message, their style and their brand.
“We’re in kind of a weird business,”
he says. “I could be a speaker the rest of
my life. But part of me thinks it’s a prac-
tice, not a business.” So I feel I have to
do more than trade time for money. With
the toy company, for example, we started
making products, because that was a
natural byproduct of the presentations,
and this revenue stream only grew bigger
and bigger because of the time on the
platform.”
channel, launched soon after the
Mentos and Diet Coke experiment,
now claims more than 67,000 subscrib-
ers, and his clips have been viewed
nearly 35 million times. It’s no wonder,
then, that when the Google-owned
video site rolled out its first ever “origi-
nal content lineup” in October 2012,
Spangler was among the lucky few to
receive an undisclosed deal to provide
niche-oriented content to millions of
loyal You Tube viewers.
THE STAR OF THE SHOW
Of course, even though Spangler is now
sharing the secrets of “being amazing,”
it wouldn’t be entirely true to say that
he’s out of the spotlight—and his recent
You Tube deal proves it.
Spangler had been a presence on
Denver-area television for 20 years,
serving as a science education reporter and
“science guy” for the NBC affiliate KUSA-
TV. The TV work was always valuable,
giving Spangler much-needed exposure
and propping up his speaking business
in the process. But in the end, it was
You Tube—and one fateful experiment—
that launched Spangler into a whole new
realm of celebrity.
Tim Hyland’s work has appeared in numerous publica- tions, including Fast Company, Philadelphia City Paper and Philadelphia Life. Hyland lives
in Flourtown, Pa., and can be reached at
timothyhyland@gmail.com.
