The COMRADITY Journal

Independence Day

Independent thinking is essential to the creative process. We all need objective feedback that we respect and trust to validate our ideas.

Many successful creative people understand that fear haunts our confidence in the creative process. For example, David Kelley

Our takeaway from his story - Who we choose to validate our ideas effects the creative process. As David Kelley points out the nasty little girl in elementary school who told you that your clay horse looks nothing like a horse still resonates when we prepare to begin the creative process as adults.  

How do you choose a sounding board for your creative process?

Businesses look to creative professionals. But creative solutions for a business don't come in a kit. If every business checks off the same boxes and does the same thing, they certainly won't stand out in today's highly competitive, cluttered marketplace. Businesses need original ideas that are aligned strategically with their unique set of problems/opportunities.

Many creative professionals prefer to work independently because we have witnessed great ideas (whether our own or others') be impaled by a peer or manager for self-serving reasons.  But in today's multimedia, fragmented audience ecosystem, no one professional can do it all.  We need partners we respect and trust.

Both businesses and creative professionals need independent, unbiased, nothing to gain or lose sounding boards to validate original ideas and execute them across the board. A safe haven for independent thinking, where business and creative professionals can collaborate to develop and execute original ideas.

 "An oasis," with the addition of humor, in the vernacular of John Cleese

Here's to Independence Day!

Disrupt Ambiguity

Jill Lapore, the first Harvard academic to critique Clay Christensen's "Disruptive Innovation" theory, is generating a lot of buzz. Clay Christensen responds defensively that he is constantly improving the theory.

 

Essentially, Lapore applies her expertise as an historian to debunk a theory developed by a business analyst based on a moment in time. Which is how businesses are analyzed. (Which is a bigger issue for another post). 

 

In my opinion, the problem with "Disruptive Innovation" is its ambiguity.

 

Ambiguity confuses people. It isn't actionable. People act on one objective at a time. Is the goal to disrupt or innovate? These are two different modes of operation. One positive. The other negative.

 

Ambiguity divides people in debate instead of bringing them together to act.

 

Ambiguity doesn't help people to make good choices. When taken literally, the (perhaps unintended) consequence is the conclusion that a successful innovation strategy starts with the objective to destroy. Here's what that gets you: a vicious cycle of mutual destruction. Which looks a lot like a stagnant economy with high longterm unemployment.

 

Ambiguity is often used by so-called experts to keep everyone else in the dark so they must continue to hire the experts to tell them what to do.

 

So let's Disrupt Ambiguity.

 

Accept that we don't know it all. Consider that the best answers come from good questions.

 

Start with a purpose that is aspirational - i.e., better.

 

A purpose that benefits all stakeholders so the outcome is virtuous cycle with the momentum to perpetuate.

 

Finally, be clear about what it takes to be better and prepare to work hard. In a highly competitive world with diverse cultures, needs, and wants it isn't easy to develop and market a product.

COMRADITY welcomes Movable Media founders as first Resident Studio Members

Movable Media has relocated its headquarters in Stamford and become our first Resident Studio Member at 845 Canal Street.

"Movable Media founders, Andrew Boer and Andrew Eisner, join COMRADITY's growing member network of innovative professionals and we are honored that they have chosen Comradity Studio as their new headquarters,” said Jim Kern, chief executive officer of Comradity.  “We look forward to introducing them to the community.”

“Movable Media helps brands create resonance with their customers by enlisting influencers to create content, which is validated by a performance measurement system,” added Katherine Kern, chief membership officer of Comradity.  “It will be fun to discover how our growing award-winning, multi-disciplinary top talent Member Network pool will capitalize on Movable Media as part of an integrated program.”

Movable Media is a B2B-focused content marketing agency that provides targeted audiences to brands through influential authors, content and incentives.  Current clients include Williams Sonoma, P&G, Intel, MasterCard and Pitney Bowes, among others.

“We are thrilled to be the first company to move into Comradity’s beautiful new space in the Harbor Point area of Stamford,” said Andrew Boer, founder and president of Movable Media.  “I see great potential in Comradity’s vision of helping creative professionals collaborate; agencies like ours need to provide expertise across numerous channels, and we can’t do it all in-house.”

“We are very excited to take up residence at Comradity,” added Andrew Eisner, co-founder and chief operating officer of Movable Media.  “The design and look of the space is aesthetically perfect for our business, and there’s a great variety of talented creative companies and individuals in Connecticut.  We are excited about tapping into this resource through Comradity.” 

Join us any Monday morning for the Open House for a tour of the space at 845 Canal in Stamford and to meet the Movable Media founders.

Remember the Fearless.

It's Memorial Day weekend.  

 

Spring is peaking (albeit a little late this year) and Summer is around the corner. We're coming out of a record sucky winter and it feels awfully good to see Spring's colors all around and anticipate summer's warm sunny days and starry evenings.

 

I am remembering the brave this Memorial Day weekend . . .

 

The explorers who believed in the New World enough to get on a boat when others told them they'd fall off the edge of the earth . . .

 

The philosophers who believed that reason would win over righteousness . . .

 

The engineers who took human beings to the Moon and brought them back alive . . .

 

The surgeons who dare to cut open a body to save a life . . .

 

The creative people who inspire us to discard hard and fast perceptions of what must be true with fresh, original images, melodies, and words . . .

 

The free spirits who break new ground, instead of following the well worn path, overcoming civilization's fear of the unknown.

 

There are many to remember.  Many whom we all know.

 

But this is also a weekend to remember our personal "heroes."  The fearless few. Especially the ones who would take that chance - if they had a chance to.

 

Here's to my childhood provocateur, Lynn Goodwin Borgman.

Labels Schmabels

Do you know what the US Government label is for people who work for themselves?  The Non-Employer Sector. Labels are a convenient way to communicate a lot of information at once. And that label has negative connotations.

What if the number of jobs created by a sector will not be the best way to measure its value to economic growth in the future? As Greg Satell points out - "business isn’t physics, its universe changes all the time."

Who knows what the right label is for this group, but the "formerly-known-as-non-employer" Sector has the scale to have a big impact. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Non-Employer Sector is 22.5 Million, generating almost $1 Trillion in receipts in 2011. If it were a country it would be in the top 20 in the world. And the trend is on the way up, Independents will increase to 40% of the workforce by 2020.

MBO Partners Study of Independents paints a picture of a valuable economic resource:

Are they "entrepreneurs"? In an interview with The Whiteboard, Congressman Jim Himes describes entrepreneurs in Connecticut this way:

Our relative advantage lies in the high-value-added, innovative, creative businesses that one usually would call entrepreneurial. To put perhaps too fine a point on it, I’m not holding out for a massive new steel refinery to open up in Fairfield county. Our costs don’t permit that. And as a result, our future lies with the kind of innovation that we associate with entrepreneurship in these sectors.

But we also need to realize that “entrepreneurship” can mean a lot of different things. The guy who starts the restaurant down the road, someone who starts a regional carwash business like Splash in Fairfield County, and others that are starting world-beating technology businesses—all of these are entrepreneurial and all are important.

COMRADITY members are "high-value-added, innovative, creative businesses"  that the Congressman describes an entrepreneurs.  They love a challenge - whether it is helping a regional carwash business or a brand at a large company without a "power brand" budget.  They want to grow with their clients. They collaborate with peers who complement their skills.

The trailblazer of coworking facilities, Indy Hall in Philadelphia, founded by Alex Hillman, did a study of its members' sentiments which echoes the work ethic of COMRADITY members:

Working makes me happy. I like feeling productive and that I'm doing something that is somehow adding my value to the world.

We know in general that independence comes with high risk. Especially in the creative and knowledged based added value businesses where value is difficult to quantify. Here are some ways coworking facilities are helping to lower the risk of independence:

• Make professional resources more accessible - from digital media production equipment and resources to business services.
• Increase the visibility of diverse talent to peers and to businesses
• Encourage cross-generational knowledge sharing
• Facilitate collaboration in a very competitive field.

COMRADITY is just one of many coworking communities serving "Independents." I just returned from the annual Global Coworking Un Conference where I observed how fast this phenomenon is growing and how diverse it is. Yesterday's labels don't serve a purpose. It is time to develop a new lexicon to understand what "independents" have in common, and therefore how to help accelerate their impact on economic growth. Both coworking owners and government policy makers would benefit from understanding the needs of this valuable human resource.

What do the "indie" and "small batch" movements have in common?

They are both "original" creations with extraordinary value.

"Small batch" is used to describe coffee, bake goods, fashion, created by hand.

The "indie" movement does not buy the notion that the future of ads, entertainment, and news creation will be automated by a formula. They are making original ideas.

The formula followers will tell you that original ideas are unpredictable. But "small batch" makers and "indies" know that when the experience is unexpected it is much more memorable.

The formula followers will tell you that formulas assure collaboration.

But "small batch" makers and "indies" know that when an experience is memorable it galvanizes a team to collaborate willingly.

Trust is the key to unlock the potential of the "indie" movement. I met many "coworking" founders at the Global Coworking Un Conference in Kansas City this week who have sacrificed financially by charging very low prices to win trust. Not illogical when the "indie" movement is portrayed by the media as "anti-business." But when they raised prices members didn't budge. As one founder said understandably surprised "they want us to succeed!"

As Coworking pioneers realize the "indie" movement has the extraordinary value of the "small batch" movement, better economics will bring a new challenge. Expansion. The temptation to expand by formula was already emerging at the Kansas City event. But just as "indies" are diverse, there is no one coworking space formula. Each reflects its local community and the passion of its founders. This is a good thing, although challenging. As Ed Catmull says, in Creativity Inc.:

This tension between the individual's personal creative contribution and the leverage of the group is a dynamic that exists in all creative environments . . . On one end of the spectrum . . ., we had the genius who seemed to do amazing work on his or her own: on the other end, we had the group that excelled precisely because of its multiplicity of views. . . .I didn't yet have a good mental model that would help me answer that, but I was developing a fierce desire to find one.

I'll let you know what he finds when I finish the book! Thanks to all for knowledge shared! Good luck in the next year.

What does "It" look like?

What will a better creative business look like?

The economics of the creative business have been transformed in the past 35 years. The primary reason is the sheer number of media choices for both consumers and businesses -- from a few dominant players to an exponential number of choices today.

Abundant choice doesn’t mean more value.

There are new/additional costs for everyone - media, marketers, and audience:

• The media industry enjoyed a captive audience when a few players dominated, but now has the additional expense of marketing to build much smaller audiences.
• Buying ads has never been cheaper, but customizing messages, publishing fresh content for a brand website, and managing real time social media conversations multiply costs.
• We, the audience, spend more than ever on “media” in our monthly budget, adding cable, then mobile, and replacing obsolete monitor and phone equipment every couple of years. With Social Media we add the cost of what we “pay” in licensing the “rights” to our personal photos, thoughts, and behavioral data when we agree to Terms and Privacy policies. Do you think we have as significantly more satisfying content?

Abundant choice has created demand for something to help decide what to choose - a new intermediary and cost, Adtech. When I was trained in the media department at Leo Burnett, we made choices based on several variables: cost, audience size, whether that audience adds incremental reach or just adds more frequency, and the halo effect of the context and content quality on advertising recall. Adtech makes choices based on only one variable: impressions. As Bob Hoffman points out in "The Epic Screwing of Online Advertisers"

We think of an impression as one ad seen by one person. In the impossibly sneaky and perfidious world of online advertising an "impression" has nothing to do with either ads or people.

The industry is beginning to acknowledge the value dilemma. Joe Marchese predicts “The Coming Subprime Advertising Crisis”

Common sense can tell us that a vast majority of what is being defined as “assets” by our industry are near-valueless. BUT, bundle up a few billion of them, cloak it all in some “programmatic” or “data-consumer-profile-ROI” jargon, and voila! Grade A assets that are being traded for billions.

A leading Digital Marketer, Tim Richards, in the 2014 SoDA (Society of Digital Marketing Innovators) Report reflected:

There is a massive gap between what technology can do and what we are doing with technology to provide real business and consumer value.

To fill that gap, the report identifies demand for strategic thinking and “marketing creativity.”

Very experienced talent is out there. But there are two hurdles: first, it takes diverse talent to plan and execute a multimedia interactive experience, but they are isolated, and second, the value of strategic thinking and marketing creativity is difficult to quantify.

The talent is isolated. As the exponential expansion of media choices has driven down profits, both traditional media and agencies have let their most experienced professionals go independent, hiring them back on a freelance basis. They work from home. No one is profiting from peer knowledge sharing across diverse expertise, generations, or media platforms.

The value of strategic thinking and marketing creativity is difficult to quantify. When the economics of the business were robust, media companies and agencies never priced based on the value of the creative product, they priced based on audience count. It probably would have been easier then because you could see the direct results of marketing creative on sales, but we didn’t need to. It is time to face the challenge.

For a renaissance in strategic thinking and “marketing creativity” to spring forth, the timing is right to explore new ways for the independent creative professionals and the companies they serve to “go to business” - Specifically, better ways to find each other, profit from knowledge sharing, and collaborate to measure results and reward performance.

Let's Do It.

There’s a lot of room for improvement in the creative business.

Step back.

In 1950, "Mass communication" was on a roll. 

887 Million "literate" aspired to a common idea of success.

Literacy meant reading the written word.

Today, 6 Billion are connected by mobile phones. They have no common culture, language, or economic means. They aspire to many different definitions of success. Not just globally, but in every town.

Multimedia - visuals and audio - can communicate instantly, in any language.

The value of creativity should be higher than ever before. But the business is siloed, disorganized, and fails to deliver return on investment.

We should be re-inventing marketing practices and re-valuing the creative business it supports. But most innovation is about cheaper not better, the latest tactics not strategic thinking.

No one can do it alone. Cooperation among professionals, vendors, organizations, and business  will accelerate success for mutual benefit.

That's why we've made COMRADITY, the place, for those who are ready to re-invent the way we "go to business" - without breaking the bank.

First the physical place: the COMRADITY Studio will open in May at 845 Canal Street in Stamford’s Harbor Point area.  Neither a “lean” co-working space for start-ups nor a Regus space for lawyers and accountants, the COMRADITY Studio is designed to be creative AND professional.  We are very serious about making the creative business fun again.

The space is designed and furnished for the Creative Professional Community, with fiber-optic Internet service to handle large files with blistering speed.  The Open Studio is in the front of the space with a lounge and library desks accessible during office hours.  The Resident Studio has private offices and dedicated desks with 24/7 access. Studio memberships start at $45/month.

Virtual Members (starting at $25/month) enjoy member rates for facilities when space is available -- like Open Studio Lounge Access for the day, private meeting rooms by the hour, a large event room (up to 45) equipped for Corporate Level secure video conferencing and reliable live webstreaming, a smaller meeting room (up to 25) simliarly equipped, and an HD Web Video Production Hub for 2 to 3 camera live or recorded videos. Non-member rates are double.

Both Studio and Virtual COMRADITY memberships include the on-line member network, COMRADITY.io. This is not a social network, but a professional network.  This is not a professional network for everyone, like LinkedIn, but a network specifically designed for Creative Professionals who want to improve the way we "go to business" - better ways to design assignments, an opportunity to prove that great content can drive results, and collaborating with peers of complementary skills to provide an end to end solution.

The “io” stands for invitation only.  We – the members – invite peers we respect and want to work with. The member profile is designed to showcase your unique talent in the context of the Creative Professional Community.  The project directory is the first of its kind – sort of an IMDB for the marketing creative business.  The Community Calendar promotes events in the area and at the COMRADITY Studio. We plan to re-invest in the network to add more features on the development roadmap and welcome member input.

The member network will "opt-in" to broadcast to the public on COMRADITY.net.

We welcome. . .

• Independent Creative Professionals, writers, musicians, videographers, strategists, developers, editors, designers who respect the value each brings to the others' work.
• Innovative Vendors whose new inventions require education for adoption.
• Organizations (professional and academic) that want to teach lifelong learners.
• Businesses that believe they can get better value by re-thinking their creative services investment.

The COMRADITY.io network beta is live.

The COMRADITY Studio opens in May.

Let's do it.

@comradity

Belonging.

What does "belonging" mean in a connected world?

When connecting is technically easy, there appear to be infinitely more possibilities to "belong."

In principle, the internet's data-based algorithms should be blind to race, gender, or other visual stereotype cues and reveal where we belong based on a more rationale, logical basis.

But Catherine Good suggests that stereotypes are powerful -  intimidating individuals, who know they are "qualified to belong," from realizing their potential:  "'stereotype threat,' a situation in which a person is at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group."  Good is researching the importance of belonging:

Good’s impressive body of research, along with the research of her colleagues, have painted a consistent and important picture: an individual’s sense of belonging matters.The need for belonging is a fundamental human motive. While a sense of connection and acceptance is important for everyone, signals of acceptance may be particularly impactful for socially stigmatized individuals, who are constantly asking themselves: Do I belong? via @creativitypost

As the internet evolves from text to images and video, visual stereotyep cues will influence perceived belonging in the virtual world.  Teen migration from posting text messages on Facebook to mobile photo and video apps is the trend:

teens also love Snapchat because it allows them to send inane photos of themselves without fear of leaving a permanent digital footprint.The California-based app is seen as so hot, with so much potential for growth, that it has already been pegged with a $2-$4bn valuation in the Silicon Valley tech community. via @kauf

The downside to stereotypes is that they blind us from recognizing the outliers which do "belong." Anjali Ramachandran (@anajali) recommends the book "Hidden In Plain Sight" in her speech on the future workplace at the Drum (@drum) Conference.  She suggests that a combination of traditional business planning structures and gamification may address Gallup's finding that up to 87% of the workplace is disengaged at work.  But gamification may be more than a relevant medium for a generation who grew up with WIIs and Xboxes. Avatars can hide visual stereotype cues, freeing one to see what is "hidden in plain sight." via @neilperkin

While avatars may be effective "masks" to hide visual stereotype cues, gamification of the workplace will need to address the downside of hiding one's identity: the potential to inhibit trust.  Jennifer Robin (@jenrobinideas) and Michael Burchell (@burchellm) from the Great Place to Work Institute, responsible for producing the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work for annual list, credit trust (credibility, respect and fairness) as one of the key factors. via @tedcoine

This week, COMRADITY will demonstrate how the new member network website is designed to help Independent Creative Professionals establish where they belong in the marketplace, via invitation only events.  If you are interested in learning more, contact founder Katherine Kern, katherine@comradity.net.

And this week, the COMRADITY Creative Professional Resource Center construction continues in Stamford, CT, with opening events in January, 2014.

Finally, share what you are reading or writing with the COMRADITY Creative Professional Community by following @comradity and tweeting links.

Happy Holidays!

Making Choices

This past week was Thanksgiving. We are lucky to live in a world of abundant choices.

But the more choices we have, the harder it is to decide.

Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) talks to Princeton graduates in 2010 about his choice to start AMAZON and asks them if they will make the easy choice or the hard choice.  "Clever at the expense of others or Kind."  via @openculture

Perhaps people choose to be clever over kind because they perceive it to be more meaningful.

Carl Jung is recorded here saying that "“Man cannot stand a meaningless life.” via @brainpicker

Dan (@danariely) tells us that we are motivated by believing that what we do is "meaningful".  His research reveals that "meaningful" is related to how hard the work is and that it is acknowledged.  Clever managers may choose to use this to their advantage. But they may not have any idea how to use Ariely's other finding: that liking what you do has a multiplier effect.  That isn't something manager can manipulate.  Neil Perkin (@neilperkin) shares GALLUP research that only 13% are engaged by their jobs and shares his theory about the motivational potential of "empowerment through autonomy".

Ariely also suggests that when workers aren't happy, they are more likely to cheat on their expenses reports.   Perhaps there is a relationship between the low engagement of workers and how little Americans trust each other. According to a AP/GfK poll, two-thirds of Americans think most people can not be trusted.  In the article via @ginsburgjobs, University of Maryland Professor Eric Uslaner suggests that lack of control is one factor contributing to distrust: "If you believe it's dark and driven by outside forces you can't control, you will be a mistruster." Wonder if he would agree with Neil Perkin's "empowerment through autonomy"  theory (considering autonomy is related to control)?

Why is autonomy - the power of the individual to control her own destiny - so elusive today? 

In the past, hard times have been a catalyst for success.  For example, a studio in little town in northern Alabama which produced classics like Percy Sledge's "A Man Loves a Woman", Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved a Man (the way I love you)", Rolling Stone's "Brown Sugar".  According the Fame Studio's founding partner, Rick Hall: "The tragedies that took place in my life made me a tougher individual, knowing if I could survive that, I could survive anything . . ." via @fastcocreate

Nassem Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) believes hard times are when to look for the "positive Black Swans": "Many people do not realize that they are getting a lucky break in life when they get it."   from (@jvembuna) Jana Vembunarayanan's discussion of Taleb's book, The Black Swan, via @timkastelle

If there is any doubt these are hard times, then read this article for Professor Vaclav Smil's grim conclusions, for example: "the demise of US manufacturing dooms the country not just intellectually but creatively, because innovation is tied to the process of making things." via @BrianKibby 

Or learn about the 7 things you didn't know the world is running out of, for example, chocolate (holy moley!) via @steveouting

Finally, how about the circular debate about alternative energy in this discussion, for example: Investor Owned Utilities face "a 'vicious cycle,' in which the industry's decline will make it harder to pass on the costs of providing service, because customer rates are tied to usage. As usage declines, the costs of new investment must be passed on to a shrinking pool of customer demand, which in turn forces per-unit prices higher still." via @davidgerzof

In the Bezo graduation speech (above), he talks about the choice to be a "Cynic or a Builder."   Look at all of these hardships as a cynic and it all sounds pretty hopeless. (GOOGLE definition of Cynic: "a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons.") 

But choose the "Kind" perspective and imagine the possibilities.

Did you know that China's space exploration has a peaceful purpose and landed a robot on the Moon on December 1? via @Verge

"On Tuesday, the country voted to name its new lunar rover Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, out of 190,000 proposed ideas. The choice of name shouldn't be a surprise. On Sunday, December 1st at 17:30 GMT, the superpower will send the rover to the moon on board its Chang'e-3 lunar probe. In Chinese folklore, Chang'e was a goddess who accidentally swallowed an immortality pill and flew to the Moon, with only a rabbit to keep her company.

'Yutu is a symbol of kindness, purity and agility, and is identical to the moon rover in both outlook and connotation. Yutu also reflects China's peaceful use of space,' said Li Benzheng, deputy commander-in-chief of China's lunar program, at a press conference announcing the naming choice."  

Choosing to laugh at life's hardships is a perspective that opens the mind to possibilities. Here are some funny bits (if safe for families should be safe for work"/). via @jorgebarba

On the other extreme, one celebrity made the unusual choice of chucking "fame" to be a Buddhist Nun. via @aeonmag

The point is choosing a "Kind" perspective over a "Clever" one has a much broader range of possibilities."/