The COMRADITY Journal

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, literate or not.

But a career in these arts is not aspired to.

We should be re-inventing marketing practices and re-valuing the creative business it supports. But most innovation is about cheaper not better, 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 - without breaking the bank.

First the physical place: the COMRADITY Studio will open in March 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 equipped for secure, state-of-the-art telepresence events and an audio/video Lab for secure, real-time or recorded web streaming of focus groups or events -- or to produce demo-level videos and audio recordings. 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 make a difference.

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 March.

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, [email protected]

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."/

Fresh Perspective

According Alan Tovey (@batsub1) in the Telegraph, Freelancers are  "buoying the economy" in the UK, via @davos.  He credits their "free spirit . . . offering new ways for companies to grow while minimising risk and cost."  

Business managers are forced to react to the many factors out of their control, just to keep the balls in the air. That's why a fresh perspective is valuable.

But fresh - as in naive and untested - isn't good enough. The difference between the inexperienced and professional using "free" tools is brought to life by Christopher Penn's (@cspenn) "Incompetent Holiday Music" video.

Practice, as my piano teacher "harped", is the unavoidable prerequisite to developing talent.

For example, Sebastian Thrun (@SebastianThrun), the "father" of the Massive Open Online Course company, Udacity, "no longer believes the hype."  He openly admits that results have fallen short of his expecations, the percent of enrollees in open (read: free) education completing and mastering the subject is in the single digits.  As a result, his company is shifting direction:

". . . building a company . . . requires compromises, humility, and, crucially, taking in more money than you spend. And it's why Thrun might be giving up the moon--free education for all! Harvard on a piece of glass!--in favor of something far more pedestrian. It will be, Thrun admits, "the biggest shift in the history of the company," a pivot that involves charging money for classes and abandoning academic disciplines in favor of more vocational-focused learning. In short, Thrun must prove that Udacity is something more than a good story."  via @jen_mcfadden

Engineers talking about taking in more money than spent?  Next thing you know,  "strategy" enters  design lexicon.  In fact, Andy Cogdon (@cctcreative) goes so far as saying "If graphic designers want a seat at the top table, they need to have an understanding of business." via @CreativeBloq.

Here's the really good news: when tech and design worlds are concerned about business viability, reality speaks. "Whatever it takes to achieve scale" has a dark reality: low margins and low quality.

When margins are low, everyone feels exploited - from customer to employee. Emily Jane Fox (@emilyjanefox) reports that one Walmart store manager's answer is to promote a food drive for employees for Thanksgiving. Although the intention is to help employees with extraordinary emergencies this year, the story is drawing more attention to how low the average Walmart employee salary is - just above the federal poverty level.  via @DruckerInst.

The unintended consequence of an eoncomy built on scale and low margins is that "For the first time in memory, adults in the United States under age forty are now expected to be poorer than their parents." Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) makes an interesting observation that there are no new frontiers for today's youth to emigrate to, physically.  But he points out that there are virtual frontiers to explore: "we may begin to see cloud towns, then cloud cities, and ultimately cloud countries materialize out of thin air." via @rossdawson

Virtual communities will thrive when they offer better economic promise.  For example, developing products and services which employees are proud to deliver and customers are proud to say they've discovered.  There are many such frontiers, for example, the Institute For The Future (@IFTF) asks: "How will we change our minds to change our collective economic, political, and interpersonal fortunes?" The 2013 Fellows of the "Future For Good Fellowship Program" offer 6 fresh perspectives.:

• Milton Chen offers a new vision of how people will use technology to personalize learning - both the context and how they experience learning.
• Gabriella Gomez Mont (@gabriella_lab) is exploring city government structures and infrastructures which facilitate creativity and vision.
• Sam Gregory (@samgregory) is exploring how real time video can empower individuals to share what they witness and influence change in civil rights and justice.
• Shannon Spanhake (@channelshannon) who is the San Francisco Innovation Officer is looking to understand the BadAss hacking culture of innovating for value creation, as differentiated from the entrepreneurs who are primarily motivated by making lots of money.
• David Thigpen (@Belbegofco345) is exploring the impact of art as a catalyst for turning around urban neigborhoods and galvanizing community.
• Ariel Waldman (@arielwaldman) is developing a science hackday where anyone can have access to scientific resources to prototype ideas.

Consisten with David Thigpen's premise that art can be a catalyst for urban revitalization, Catherine Clifford (@catclifford) references Ann Markusen: "artists are also entrepreneurs who bring in money, create jobs and give a boost to neighboring and related businesses, says Ann Markusen, director of the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs and author of the Kauffman report." via @shaherose

Suspend Disbelief.

Put your cynicism on pause, you "dream killer", and read on!

The theme for What We're Reading this week is intended to acknowledge you do have grounds for cynicism and inspire more positive outlook for the future.

First, let's be realistic, there are lots of reasons for the creative class to be frustrated. For example, a business model that pushes all of the risk on the lonely creative with empty promises of backend profits, via @ade1965.

The internet was supposed to set us free.  But instead it became a free for all.  “'The growth of the Internet will slow drastically [as it] becomes apparent [that] most people have nothing to say to each other,' economist Paul Krugman wrote in 1998. 'By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s…. Ten years from now the phrase information economy will sound silly.'”  The Web feels like the new puppet master as Big Data efforts to commercialize it. via @Kauf

Thought Leader web designers of the world united in Belfast last week at Build and (the only thought leader to actually trademark his name) Chris Messina™ (@chrismessina) sums up the speeches:

It felt like some themes emerged, not just from this year, but from the arc of the last five years. More than one speaker tapped into a feeling that I’ve had for a while that the web has changed. The web has grown up. Unfortunately, it has grown up to be kind of a dickhead.

There were many times during the day’s talks at Build that I was reminded of Anil Dash’s The Web We Lost.

Do you also think of the past sentimentally and wish we could go back to those better days? They may not have been as great as you think!  Think politics have sunk to a new low? Here's some news that suggests "the more things change, the more they stay the same": Harrisburg, Pennsylvania newspaper, Patriot- News, (formerly known as Patriot and Union), is finally retracting a critical editorial of Lincoln's speech in nearby Gettysburg, on its 150th anniversary. via @PrivacyCamp

The truth is there is a lot of room for improvement and new thought leadership on the Web. In fact, Faruk Ates (@KuraFire) responds to Anil Dash's "The Web We Lost" with this:

We get it back by improving our culture, and craft it into one that has a deeper appreciation for people, for its users. A culture that is rife with empathy, driven by a genuine passion to do some good in the world, and supported with a sense of business to also turn a profit out of that.

How do we inspire you to suspend disbelief that we can build a better "new media world"? 

Most of the time, we share stories that aren't covered a lot or at all by the mainstream press.  But this week, we just couldn't resist the Make a Wish Foundation's grant to Miles Scott, aka Bat Kid. via @CreativeGroup

If that doesn't melt your brittle thinking, here's another kid's dream come true that can't help but move you.  The defector Marlin's rookie pitcher, Jose Fernandez.  After defecting about 5 years ago from CUBA, leaving his beisbol fanatic Grandmother behind, he now pitches for the Miami Marlins, breaking all the records.  During an MLB.com "Hot Stove" interview he is surprised by his Grandmother. via @howardweaver

You must be thinking that's two moving stories, but not big enough to make a difference. How about changing the way girls think about themselves?  Did you know an all girls school in Louisville, KY has attracted national attention for its student recruitment campaign using an empowering theme for young women: "You're Not a Princess" via @weejeemedia

And here are some examples of folks who still believe there can be a happy ending, by taking Mr. Drucker's advice and making things different instead of making the same old stuff bigger: “you don’t have to be the biggest to be the best.” via @druckerinst

Sonya Song (@sonya2song) writes that we behave differently when sharing in social media depending on when we're thinking fast or slowly.  Some content evokes a quick response and others a more thoughtful one, suggesting an opportunity to make social media differently.  Specifically, Sonya explores simple ways to evoke more thoughtful responses: "This pattern I name as tension-relief, which is combined by a turning point. As a turning point disrupts the flow of a message, it may slow down people’s thinking and engage System 2." via @JohnParis

Another example of engaging readers is to make the story "experiential", integrating multimedia components at the right moment in the reading process.  Sourcebooks calls their platform "Shakesperience": via @draccah

Aside from integrating the features into the text itself (see screen shots below), Sourcebooks added material that it believes will enhance the learning experience, including photographs from great performances of the plays, audio of great actors like Judi Dench, Orson Welles and others in classic Shakespeare rolls, corresponding video, and essays from famous Shakespearean directors and others. The product also includes features like rare, early recordings of performances, illustrations of costumes and set designs, a talk-like-Shakespeare voice coach and interviews with renowned Shakespearean actors.

 

Gamification is another way to engage the audience to participate.  At NYU's game design conference, PRACTICE, three strategies are discussed - Transparency, Interesting Decisions, and New Ways of Creative Attachment - by Soren Johnson (@SorenJohnson), Keith Burgun (@keithburgun), and Brad Muir (@MrMooEar), respectively.

Here's a peak into Graeme McCutcheon's corner of the web, specifically together.js, an open source development software by that enables collaborative play. I don't understand a thing he is talking about.  But to learn, you have to suspend the need to think you know everything.  via @dmarti

Until next week . . .

Critical Thinking

Government education policy experts talk about the need for more Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math skills (STEM).  But when I talk to businesses about what is missing in new hires there is a consistent complaint - they don't know how to write, think, and persuade - my shorthand for this: critical thinking.

That's a fundamental contradiction and disconnect between how we are investing in education improvement and what is really needed.  Not that one or the other is more important.  Both are. But it takes critical thinking to "disrupt ambiguity" or rise above the rhetoric which is inherent in complex problems.

On the BBC website, freelancer Elizabeth Macbride (@editoremacb) argues for the value of critical thinking: "How do you take a stand for intuition, creativity or just plain old critical thinking — even when the data disagrees?" via @davos.

Even ADAGE questions if Online Advertising is too complicated, risking diminishing returns: "Advertisers are 'increasingly interested in very complex targeting scenarios,' said Nick Talbert, director of product marketing at MediaMind. . . .However, he cautioned there is a point of diminishing returns, and tag-hungry advertisers could be reaching the brink." via @dsearls.

When faced with complication, the temptation is to find the "silver bullet" but Pete Blackshaw (@pblackshaw) warns "We tend to ignore the fundamentals as we pursue the shiny new object." via @warceditors

Rick Wartzman (@druckerinst) reminds of us Drucker's recommendations for managing in a complex age  business situation: "provocative prescriptions for coping in a world in which 'the real challenge is to decide what you are doing' in the face of tremendous 'technological change or market change.'”  via @timkastelle.  Wartzman's perspective is also intriguing in his article in TIME magazine, "The Long View: Why 'Maximizing Shareholder Value' Is On Its Way Out."

Importantly, when "maximizing shareholder value" is off the table, it refreshingly forces a business to ask "what business am I in?" The journalism business is doing just this as new big money investors are throwing their hat in the ring. The Guardian writer to whom Snowden released his info to, Glenn Greenwald, recently announced a partnership with eBay billionaire, Pierre Omidyar. Tim Carmody @tcarmody writes about the recent discussion between NYTIMES OpEd contributor Bill Keller and Greenwald about the future of journalism and asks "What is Missing. He uses a Semiotic Square to make sense of the diversity of purposes in the Journalism market and concludes: "Greenwald and the journalists he surrounds himself with at this new news venture will be one future of journalism. Using one of the last century’s best two-dimensional, pen-and-paper critical tools, I have drawn a square that illustrates at least seven more. Each will have their say." via @cpetersia

Speaking of language, the value of multilingual skills is discussed in THE ECONOMIST Prospero section. via @davos. I made a comment which started a conversation about the different words that define democracy in the US vs. France.  

What's missing in Carmody's semiotic square analysis of the future of journalism is the "yet to be discovered" dimension of journalism made possible by new technology. Jose M. Salmeron (@jamslameron) writes in SMASHING MAGAZINE: "the ongoing dramatic transformation of the media industry in all its formats (audio, video and text) leaves the door open for a complete reinvention of the publishing business." via @timkastelle

One opportunity for experimentation is emerging.  Specifically, Dorothy Pomerantz (@DorothyatForbes) identifies a new category of Independent Film between the truly low budget independent films and the block busters that the major production companies are focused on, exclusively.  These films are financed through State tax credits (Connecticut is one of the States offering Film tax credits) and private investors and distributed by the Production houses distribution arms. via @kitson.

As we experiment, there are some principles that remain true for creative professionals as we master new technologies to express the human condition.  Here is a good start written by Joe Berkowitz (@joeberkowitz), referencing Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward). via @unleashvideo.

Changing channels to different category of complexity - Stephen Marche (@stephenmarche) in Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income Equality asks us to consider that this economic crisis has brought women and men into an alliance - ending the battle of the sexes. via @missrogue.

Finally, privacy is the complex issue of the day. A documentary, Terms and Conditions May Apply, asks the questions raises awareness of the complexities, hopefully leading to a wider deeper debate.  To see this film on November 17 at 4pm EST via a webstreaming event and hear a panel discuss the issues afterwards, click here and RSVP. via @drummondreed

Time is the Currency

Media Market Veterans understand that time drives value.  For example, the most valuable medium is live broadcast. Viewers will pay a premium to watch it. Both the audience count and the scarcity of advertising time multiplies what advertisers will pay, exponentially.

The least valuable medium is space - for example - the Yellow Pages. There is no scarcity.  The more advertisers, the more pages in the Yellow Pages book and the more time it takes the consumer to use it.

Ironically, the internet is more like the Yellow Pages.

Hidden Value of Time is the theme of "What We're Reading This Week"

Journalism's search for a business model hasn't begun to create a medium in which the reader spends less time getting news they can use (so they have more time to benefit from that knowledge - the "end benefit" - for more on this see my post on "confidence";). Perhaps the "outrageous confidence" of new journalism entrepreneurs with "outrageous resources" will. By @kdoctor, via @rodrigopdl

The question every product developer should be asking - does the technology cost time or create time? For example, one way new technology costs time is the "learning" stage.  NFC doesn't stand for "No Friggin’ Clue!" but according to BUSINESS TRAVELER, it will be a new way to check in to a hotel and unlock the room door. via @ArtieBeavis

The test of time is proving that Government intervention to grow the housing market isn't sustainable. TIME editor RanaForoohar points out that we don't know why higher income is so hard to come by:

To create a true recovery, we need income growth. Without it, people don’t have more money to spend, and thus can’t bring down their debt and take on new or bigger mortgages. (The average American’s credit score is still many points below what mortgage-lending banks want to see.)

To create income growth, you need unemployment to come down closer to 6%. (It’s 7.2% now and may go higher over the next few months as the shutdown-related statistics are tabulated.) That’s not happening. And we still don’t really know why.
via @RanaForoohar

The "Invisible Economy" may have the clues:

Pull back and consider this network of uncounted jobs, sort-of-income, and tentative entrepreneurs all across the country, and a larger possibility emerges: Maybe the economy is doing marginally better than we think. Those stagnant jobs numbers that come out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics the first Friday of every month don’t account for much of this activity.
By @EmilyMBadger, via @goonth.

Speaking of invisible, "Tacit Knowledge" appears to have little value as more and more companies reduce experienced staff to cut costs.  This tacit knowledge could provide the value of more sustainable business development in less time. Especially if it is available on a variable, "on demand" basis.

The key to this puzzle is tacit knowledge. To make stuff, you need to know how to make it, and this knowledge is, to a large extent, latent – not available in books, but stored in the brains of those who need to use it. By Ricardo_Hausman, via @georgedearing

If the end benefit is "more time", the premium is "Kairos" time:

The Greek language has two words for time. Chronos (like the Titan and father of the Olympians) is a word for ordinary time. This is the time we spend running errands, cleaning our homes, watching mindless t.v. We spend a good part of our days in chronos time.
The second word, and the one that is relevant for us here, is kairos. Kairos is the word for sacred time. This the place where time “flies”, what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow”.
By Allison Stieger via @CreativityPost

Childhood should be when "Chronos" meets "Kairos" - the sacred time when we learn from the experience of making things.  There is no "App" for that according to Katie Davis (@katiebda) and Howard Gardner :

The challenge, as Mr. Gardner and Ms. Davis see it, is to become enabled by apps—using them as springboards to new experiences—rather than dependent on them (for example, just following the GPS and never looking outside).
By @MarcPerry, via @davos

Getting it Done

The theme of "What We're Reading This Week" is inspired by the "Bridge to Nowhere" in downtown Pittsburgh, PA, which sat unfinished for 6 years from 1963 to 1969.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic writes "the capacity to turn an idea into a successful service, product or venture. If, as William James noted, 'truth is something that happens to an idea',  entrepreneurship is the process by which creative ideas become useful", via @rossdawson.

BIG DATA isn't useful when we don't understand where it comes from according to MIT Management Journal writer Renee Boucher Ferguson's interview of UNC professor and Princeton CITP fellow Zeynep Tufekci "more data does not necessarily mean more insight. 'A lot of big data research is done in an isolated, one-shot, single-method manner with no way to assess, interpret or contextualize the findings,' she said. 'There is great potential for error and misunderstanding; worse, with a lot of money flowing into this space, there is a lot pressure to produce “results” and overlook the fact that methods that were not developed to study humans, and do not necessarily work the same way, but are being applied widely.'" via @ariegoldshlager

"A product that delivers a noticeably different experience can overtake the competition,"  based on the analysis of Nigel Hollis at Millward Brown. via @jorgebarba (You'd think that would go without saying, but the "bubbles that burst" are the result of ideas that add no meaningful added value).

John Lilly of Greylock Partner explains why the Venture ecosystem is failing to deliver meaningful added value when he describes a marketplace using a metaphor of cups of water: "companies protecting their cups of water; companies trying to knock other companies’ cups of water over."  Protecting your portfolio and disrupting mediocre competitors just isn't a proven strategy to produce sustainable value. via @hnshah

Enter the "lean start-up" mantra: "In the case of extreme uncertainty, where the the definition of value is unknown, any activity that does not focus on learning to identify true value for the customer is wasteful. So the primary function of a startup is to discover a sustainable (and scalable) business model, and the unit of progress is the # of hypotheses validated or invalidated," as explained by Tristan Kromer. via @hnshah TWITTER's IPO pitch is an example of of what they are talking about. Not surprisingly, as with any case study, it makes the founders sound visionary. The truth is creating anything is about conflict as described in the Nick Bilton story in the NY Times Magazine.

One way to come up with meaningful products is to know why things work now and learn how to think.  In today's more complicated world it makes sense that it shoud take longer to learn. Rana Foroohar of TIME argues: "Hundreds of billions of dollars of government money, as well as countless man-hours of time and energy are spent trying to get kids to graduate from high school. But the truth is that a high school degree is, in today’s economy, largely worthless. Of the 14 million new jobs that will be created in this country over the next decade, nearly all will require at least a 2-year associates degree." via @social27hub

Here are some ideas which will have the potential to offer meaningful value and become sustainable brands:

The GOOGLE driverless car creates the possibility for a shared car business. via @jowyang

Detecting Human Rights Violations from a satellite. via @palantirtech

Figuring out Audio for multimedia. via @gamasutra

Revolutionizing Radio via @jdelcolliano

Virtual currency meets traditional currency via the first ATM. via @rossdawson

Energy

Energy happens when a negative and positive connect.

That's what happens when a brand like MIRACLE WHIP capitalizes on its love it or hate it franchise to recharge the brand. via @sparksheet.

On the lighter side, is it possible to capitalize on farts as an artform? via@mikiane

 

when pigs fly

 

Robert Deyber, When Pigs Fly, hand-crafted stone lithograph

The POV of featured articles in "What We're Reading" today invites you to suspend disbelief by imagining the impossible, you know, like pigs flying.

"When Pigs Fly" may seem like a pretty trivial expression for such an important issue.  But when I started with "What if?" and searched for images, I was amazed to see that most of them alluded not to 'what if the impossible were possible', but 'what if the worst happened'. 

When our imaginatioin goes to the worst possibilities instead of the best, I'd say the state of our ability to envision something better pretty much sucks.

Today's featured articles, provoke us to consider that there is a lot of room for improvement. 

Evegny Morozov, in the MIT Review, provokes us to think beyond solving the privacy problem and think about how to implement better democracy, where there is more participation in government.via @privacycamp

The healthcare.gov disaster is not an isolated problem.  According to Clay Johnson, formerly with Blue State Digital which was behind the 2008 digital Obama campaign: "Computer World yesterday came out with a report that took the last 10 years worth of IT procurements that are greater than $10 million and showed that 96 percent of them fail. They come in over budget, or vastly too late, or they don't work at all."  Former Whitehouse CTO, Aneesh Chopra predicts: "In the next two or three weeks, Chopra expects that a number of web-based entities will emerge in the private sector — both startups and established companies — to offer online alternatives for consumers to shop for health insurance."  via @CaseyFahey. The only companies who could conceivably respond that quickly would have to be the companies who have some proficiency in thinking outside of the box - specifically ecommerce based internet companies, like AMAZON and APPLE.

Business and Individuals have a common unfilfilled need - a truly integrated, personally controllable "cloud." via @lisapeyton and @dsearls.

On the lighter side, what if brand slogans were more honest? via @markbriggs.