Creative Generalist

Generalists Unite!

2011-04-30T11:41:00.004-04:00

By their very nature generalists tend not to congregate. Our interests are so many and so varied that it's almost counter-intuitive to try to gather us around a common theme. But it is indeed possible and this site will prove it.

When I started this blog, Creative Generalist, in April 2002 I did so really just to bookmark websites and quotes that I found to be personally interesting. It was just my own solo link list, and having just quit my job and moved to Montreal (on a whim) I had a little free time to wander around - literally and digitally - and post such dispatches.

At the time I was a couple of years out of university and the web was becoming a really exciting place for exchanging ideas. I felt quite strongly that the world was over-specializing - partly because of a relentless bureaucratic push towards efficiency and partly because of the rapidly deepening technology-fueled push of innovation - and that a generalist perspective was not only valuable as a counter-balance but essential in understanding and maximizing such new ideas. So I posted about it - insights from others and my own opinions. (And by day I took up a job at Maisonneuve, a startup general-interest magazine.)

Over time I started to notice that other people were reading my blog posts (an audience?!) and some of them even took the time to email me - to challenge, to compliment, to share. In 2005 I wrote a ChangeThis manifesto called How Broad Thinking Leads to Big Ideas, from '06 to '08 I published the eclectic curiosity interviews, and in 2008 I presented my essay What Specifically Do Generalists Do? to Russell Davies' Interesting conference in London. All along the way the feedback I received was amazing and the best part was that it always came from incredibly bright, passionate, curious people with fascinating projects and stories. And these people identified themselves as creative generalists!

They're out there. You're not alone. You really should meet each other.

Over the past couple of years my career and life have gotten very busy and I gradually fell out of the routine of regularly feeding the blog beast. Besides that though I also felt that there were many more people championing the generalist mantra - including incredible minds like Dan Pink, Frans Johansson, Bruce Nussbaum, Tim Brown, Roger Martin, and many others. The whole big idea of T-shaped people and versatilists and holistic approaches and design/systems thinking really caught on. Meanwhile, this blog is mostly dormant and I've occasionally pondered if and how I might renew it.

A few conversations I've had with generalists over the past several months - in with particular Arnold Beekes - have inspired me to evolve Creative Generalist from personal soapbox to shared community. That's really the best part of it. And so I've established a niche social network, The Society of Creative Generalists, for generalists to introduce themselves, share a bit about what interests them, and converse with each other if so moved.

Why a standalone social network? Well, there are a few reason:

1. Facebook is too personal. SoCG is more than just a vanity badge to show friends.
2. LinkedIn is too professional. SoCG goes beyond work projects and job posts.
3. The Ning platform I'm using seems to be pretty versatile for the wide range of things a motley crew of generalists might use it for.

Some of you may know of the Creative Generalist group I formed on Facebook years ago. It has a few hundred members but is also fairly inactive. That's my fault. A good community needs active managers and moderators and fortunately Arnold (and soon others) has agreed to take on that role and ensure that this Society of Creative Generalists maintains its vibrancy - perhaps including some collective assignments around which to collaborate.

The community's goal is simply to define what it is to be a creative generalist and build a directory of sorts for all the people out there that specialize in everything. See you there!

The Virtual Choir

2011-04-17T18:26:00.002-04:00

A truly impressive project. Eric Whitacre and his forming of a choir around hundreds and then thousands of virtual voices. Via TED.

Cuddles Proxy

2011-04-16T18:18:00.000-04:00

My friend Aron is up to some mischief with his latest project: My After Sex Buddy doll. Be sure to check out the video.

Interdependence Commencement

2010-06-07T20:05:00.002-04:00

Tiffany Shlain's UC Berkeley keynote commencement speech...

Pause

2010-02-18T22:46:00.002-05:00

Well, it's certainly been a while since my last post. Yikes.

I used to hold to a pretty steady and disciplined regimen of about three posts a week - even long after that new blog smell faded away. But I've slowed over the last year - obviously - for, I suppose, a variety of fairly typical reasons: blog fatigue, Twitter distraction (@shardy12), info overload, very busy and engaging day job, little time to tap out anything worth reading (like now), and even some (happy) recognition that the generalist mantra which I felt was so under-represented several years ago is alive, well, and thriving widely these days.

Cheers to that, Creative Generalists!

Still, I miss the blog (and especially those of you I've met through it) and intend to keep with it - even if it means a bit more of a quiet period while I re-imagine it and carve out the right time to post. (How I admire those who blog often, thoughtfully, and thoroughly.) So, basically, all this is is really just the equivalent of a radar ping - to show that I'm still swimming around this big digital ocean even if I haven't called in for a while. Back soon.

Boundary Matrix

2009-11-23T11:03:00.005-05:00

How to overcome the challenges inherent to cross-disciplinary collaboration: Creating a boundary matrix.

(Illustration: Dave Gray)

1 Million FPS

2009-10-11T22:16:00.002-04:00

Some remarkable slow-motion footage:

(Thanks Ask)

Work in the Conceptual Age

2009-09-06T13:25:00.003-04:00

The three paragraphs on this page at gigaom offer a variety of links leading to some great posts touching on various aspects of generalism and work. As the intro lines state: "'Big-picture thinking and inventiveness are going to be the key to professional success in a new “conceptual age.' In a series of posts over at WebWorkerDaily, Imran Ali has been musing on the type of work that we might be doing in the future, the skills that will be required, and the type of teams we might be working in." (Hat tip to augustdiva!)

Separate but related - work in the conceptual age - is this TED Talk by Dan Pink. He speaks about how to motivate workers and how rewards for task-oriented people need to be one thing and rewards for creative people needs to be another.

The Cove

2009-09-04T19:37:00.003-04:00

The Cove. It's a remarkably restrained film in that most of it describes the teamwork, planning, and logistics involved with covertly documenting one of the grisliest activities on earth: Japan's slaughter of dolphins. Not much of the brutal footage is actually shown, and it's obvious that the producers spared us the especially gory bits, but what is seen quite vividly shows the ugliest and cruelest of what humanity can unleash upon another sentient, self-aware mammal.

The Cove centres on an Oceans 11 type team of photographers, ex-military, free divers, props designers, and others assembled by Director Louie Psihoyos and OPS (Oceanic Preservation Society) and their efforts to expose the brutal round-up of dolphins each year in a tiny cove in Taiji, Japan. Its lead character is Ric O'Barry, whose life's mission is to reverse the captivity, trade, and killing of dolphins that came about largely by the popularization of the creatures in his 60s TV series Flipper. Along the way, we see Taiji's and Japan's bureaucratic political shadiness and even self-destruction (they mislabel toxic mercury-soaked dolphin meat as whale meat and distribute it to school lunch programs).

A very powerful and disturbing movie.

Netflix Culture Manifesto

2009-08-05T19:57:00.002-04:00

Apparently NetFlix has a rather enlightened approach to HR and company culture. Exhibit A: this internal 128-slide presentation.

Culture

View more presentations from reed2001.

No Respect for Marketing

2009-07-27T16:07:00.002-04:00

An excellent Ad Age article by Al Reis on the often misunderstood key difference between marketing and advertising, and why GM doesn't get it.

I think he's wrong. Advertising at GM is not broken. Marketing is.

Marketing's job is to coordinate all the various disciplines inside a corporation in order to develop the right product, the right price, the right position, the right distribution strategy and the right brand name.

Advertising's job is to position that brand name in the minds of consumers.

Good marketing makes advertising relatively easy. Bad marketing makes advertising difficult, if not impossible.

(Thanks Dave)

Lookalikes

2009-07-26T22:42:00.002-04:00

From the display tables to the "Guru Bar", it's hard not to page through the leaked Powerpoint describing design plans for Microsoft's retail stores as highly imitative of Apple Stores.

Now, check out this excellent Adult Education ("a useless lecture series") talk by Gaylord Fields called "Yeah Yeah ... Uh, No: Exploring the Audiovisual Phenomenon of Beatles-Lookalike Long Playing Albums".

Shoes

2009-07-16T18:47:00.002-04:00

One of the trippiest, most wonderfully odd music videos ever...

Tiga "Shoes" from AlexandLiane on Vimeo.

23andMe

2009-07-09T18:53:00.000-04:00

It's an odd thing to spit into a vial and send your saliva FedEx across the continent. So it was that curiosity tempted me a few months ago to try out 23andMe's personal genetics test.

Basically, you order a kit online for $399. It arrives a couple weeks later. You spit in the special vial, seal it up, and send it off. And another few weeks later an email arrives that tells you that your online profile has been completed. Pretty easy, actually.

The confidential (yet privately shareable) report summarizes your genome scan and provides you with a variety of health, traits, and ancestry - complemented by a rich library of background research. My results confirmed simple things like my skin and eye colour, insights into my ancestry on both my mother's and father's side, and indicators about the likelihood that I may go bald or become diabetic, among other things. It offers both the novelty of science and the profundity of extreme self-awareness. Not for everyone, and not especially actionable, but highly interesting for those seeking the ultimate in insider information.

Competitive Advantage Is Fleeting

2009-06-19T11:44:00.001-04:00

Competitive Advantage Is Fleeting (And It's Okay to Admit It). An interesting HBS article by Rita McGrath.

One implication of hypercompetition that has not yet gotten the attention it deserves is that the skill of getting out of things and re-focusing your organization is likely to be just as important as spotting opportunities and moving to capture them. I suggest that the vast majority of companies struggle with letting go, while the more adroit strategists make the necessary judgment calls and move on.

Punk Rope

2009-06-17T12:38:00.001-04:00

Recess was the best, wasn't it? Ah, well, here's a pretty cool program out of New York that seems to be recapturing that fun and exercise for a wider audience: Punk Rope!

Punk Rope Salutes March Madness 3-31-09 from Tim Haft on Vimeo.

Punk Rope is a playful mash-up of recess and boot camp that’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Each class is a unique blend of creative calisthenics, group conditioning drills, relay races, rope jumping, and core training. Students come in all ages, shapes, sizes, and fitness levels. Everybody is welcome!

Wooden Arms

2009-06-15T16:55:00.000-04:00
I've posted previously about how great Patrick Watson songs and shows are (I've seen at least 14 of 'em!). It's been fun watching this band improve and earn the acclaim they are now almost universally receiving. Their latest album, Wooden Arms, dropped last month and is start-to-finish wonderful. If you like pop-piano-acoustic-percussive type tunes, take a listen. And watch this beautifully shot takeaway show by Vincent Moon.

Banksy in Bristol

2009-06-14T14:50:00.003-04:00

Banksy at the Bristol City Museum. Brilliant, yet again.

Gigundo Industries

2009-06-08T12:26:00.000-04:00

For all your New Yorker-style cartoon needs (for birthday cards, books, presentations...). Gigundo Industries Inc.

Publicacy

2009-06-05T11:54:00.001-04:00
The word "publicacy" was coined by Scott Cleland, author of the insightful web policy The Precursor Blog, as a needed antonym to "privacy". In the age of Web 2.0 social networks, mobile phone GPS, cload computing, and a growing variety of "wisdom of crowds" data analysis, the "publicacy ethos" - that "if technology innovation can make information public, it should be public and that there should be no permission or payment required to access, use or remix this new 'public' information" - becomes an increasingly important subject for discussion and debate. As this NY Times article explains, you're leaving a digital trail and tracking that trail is valuable learning - both commercially and societally.

Hello Wave

2009-06-02T23:47:00.006-04:00
If you haven't done so yet, set aside 80 minutes and watch the preview that Google delivered last week of its forthcoming Wave communication platform. You'll be hearing a lot about it soon, I'm sure. Wave may very well replace email and will certainly play some key role in consolidating the oodles of social media services competing for our attention.

Impressive in its scope and ambition, obviously, but also a very good sign that Google has created Wave to be open source and "federation" friendly.

Visual Futurists

2009-05-27T19:12:00.000-04:00
It's the industrial design equivalent of science fiction: 100 completely unreal inventions.

(Thanks Clay)

Crossing the Chasm

2009-05-23T17:48:00.002-04:00

Recently I re-read Geoffrey Moore's classic “Crossing the Chasm”, a great technology marketing book that came out in the 90s. It’s about marketing and selling disruptive technology products to mainstream customers. Although some of the case studies naturally date the book, it remains just as instructive now in 2009 as it did over a decade ago.

There are a few key sections worth highlighting (excerpts below): identifying the chasm, moving from early market to mainstream, niche segmenting, and creating a whole product. Food for thought...

What is the Chasm?...

“We have enough high-tech marketing history now to see where our model has gone wrong and how to fix it. To be specific, the point of greatest peril in the development of a high-tech market lies in making the transition from an early market dominated by a few visionary customers to a mainstream market dominated by a large block of customers who are predominantly pragmatists in orientation. The gap between these two markets, heretofore ignored, is in fact so significant as to warrant being called a chasm, and crossing this chasm must be the primary focus of any long-term high-tech marketing plan. A successful crossing is how high-tech fortunes are made...” [p.5]

“Every truly innovative high-tech product starts out as a fad – something with no known market value or purpose but with “great properties” that generate a lot of enthusiasm within an “in crowd.” That’s the early market. Then comes a period during which the rest of the world watches to see if anything can be made of this; that is the chasm. If in fact something does come out of it – if a value proposition is discovered that can predictably be delivered to a targetable set of customers at a reasonable price – then a new mainstream market forms, typically with a rapidity that allows its initial leaders to become very, very successful.” [p.6]

“One of the most important lessons about crossing the chasm is that the task ultimately requires achieving an unusual degree of company unity during the crossing period.” [p.7]

On the Early Market...

Technology enthusiasts “are the ones who first appreciate the architecture of your product and why it therefore has a competitive advantage over the current crop of products established in the marketplace. They are the ones who will spend hours trying to get products to work that, in all conscience, never should have shipped in the first place. They will forgive ghastly documentation, horrendously slow performance, ludicrous omissions in functionality, and bizarrely obtuse methods of invoking some needed function – all in the name of moving technology forward. They make great critics because they truly care. ... They pose fewer requirements than any other group in the adoption profile.” [p.31]

Visionaries “are not looking for an improvement; they are looking for a fundamental breakthrough. Technology is important only insomuch as it promises to deliver this dream... From the strategic leap forward it enables.” ... “Visionaries are easy to sell but very hard to please.” [p.34]

“Crossing the chasm requires moving from an environment of support among the visionaries back into one of skepticism among pragmatists. It means moving from familiar ground of product-oriented issues to the unfamiliar ground of market-oriented ones, and from the familiar audience of like-minded specialists to the unfamiliar audience of essentially uninterested generalists.” [p.137]

On segment-targeting...

“A market is: a set of actual or potential customers; for a given set of products or services; who have a common set of needs or wants; and who reference each other when making a buying decision.” [p.28]

“...The claim is made that, although niche strategy is generally best, we do not have time – or we cannot afford – to implement it now. This is a ruse, of course, the true answer being much simpler: We do not have, nor are we willing to adopt, any discipline that would ever require us to stop pursuing any sale at any time for any reason. We are, in other words, not a market-driven company; we are a sales-driven company. Now, how bad can this really be? I mean, sales are good, right? Surely things can just work themselves out, and we will discover our market, albeit retroactively, led to it by our customers, yes? The true answers to the previous questions are: (1) disastrous, (2) not always, and (3) never in a million years.
The consequences of being sales-driven during the chasm period are, to put it simply, fatal. Here’s why: The sole goal of the company during this stage of market development must be to secure a beachhead in a mainstream market – that is, to create a pragmatist customer base that is referenceable, people who can, in turn, provide us access to other mainstream prospects. To capture this reference base, we must ensure that our first set of customers completely satisfy their buying objectives. [p.68]

“The segment-targeting company can expect word-of-mouth leverage early in its crossing-the-chasm marketing effort, whereas the sales-driven company will get it much later, if at all. This lack of word of mouth, in turn, makes selling the product that much harder, thereby adding to the cost and unpredictability of sales. ... So, if we want market leadership early on – and we do, since we know pragmatists tend to buy from market leaders, and our number one marketing goal is to achieve a pragmatist installed base that can be referenced – the only right strategy is to take a “big fish, small pond” approach. Segment. Segment. Segment.” ... “Make a total commitment to the niche, and then do your best to meet everyone else’s needs with whatever resources you have left over.” [p.69]

“Winning the beachhead, knocking over the head pin, creates a dynamic of follow-on adoption, opening up new opportunities, in part from leveraging a solution from one niche to another, in part from word of mouth interaction between customers in adjacent niches.” ... “The fundamental principle for crossing the chasm is to target a specific niche market as your point of attack and focus all your resources on achieving the dominant leadership position in that segment.” [p.77]

“Can’t we go after more than one target? The simple answer is no... You cannot cross the chasm in two places.” Move into adjacent niches after you’ve conquered the first one. [p.99]

Direct sales is the best channel for crossing the chasm in high-tech. ... “It gives us maximum control over our own destiny.” ... “The retail system works optimally when its job is to fulfill demand rather than create it. ... Because it does not create demand, and because it does not help develop whole products, retail distribution is structurally unsuited to solving the chasm problem.” [p.169]

On the Whole Product Concept...

Generic product – what is shipped in the box
Expected product – what the consumer thinks they are buying
Augmented product – accessories, plug-ins, extras, technical support, etc.
Potential product – the product’s room for growth and enhancement

“At the introduction of any new type of product, the marketing battle takes place at the level of the generic product – the product itself. The hero in the battle for the early market. But as marketplaces develop, as we enter the mainstream market, products in the center (1) become more and more alike, and the battle shifts increasingly to the outer circles (4).” [p.110]

The single most important difference between early markets and mainstream markets is that the former are willing to take responsibility for piecing together the whole product (in return for getting the jump on their competition), whereas the latter are not. Failure to recognize this principle has been the downfall of many a high-tech enterprise. Too often companies throw their products into the market as if they were tossing bales of hay off the back of a truck. There is no planning for the whole product – just the hope that their product will be so wonderful that customers will rise up in legions to demand that third parties rally about it.” [p.112]

Lots of other good stuff - and interesting how one of the pivotal challenges in all of marketing ultimately boils down to transitioning from specialist to generalist appeal, and doing so with niche segmenting and a whole product. Again, a great book, well worth dusting off and scanning through again.

Random Facts

2009-04-18T19:00:00.000-04:00
Recycling: Each year, Americans throw out enough soda pop cans bottles to reach to the moon and back—twenty times.

Kissing: The science of kissing is called philematology.

Nutrition: A person will usually swallow around 250 times during dinner.

Dolphins: Just a tablespoon of water in a dolphin’s lung could drown it.

Volcanoes: Japan has 10% of the world’s active volcanoes.

One should learn something - at least one thing - new every day. That being the goal, this site of Random Facts, will overload your daily diet.

(Thanks Rose)

A Generalist President

2009-04-04T17:17:00.001-04:00
It's clear reading The Audacity of Hope that Barack Obama isn't just a good speaker but he's also a very good writer, exceptionally talented at conveying thoughts and ideas articulately, intelligently, and with flow. It's a book that so obviously framed his whole presidential campaign, which as we all know now has thankfully turned the page on the redacted scribbles of the Bush-Cheney years. It's a book about his background, experience, approach, beliefs, and aspirations.

Besides the obligatory pre-campaign introduction that most political personality books share, there are a couple things that really stand out about Obama in The Audacity of Hope.

The first is that this is a man who has a very keen understanding of history, especially American history. I blogged previously about a post at Pop Philosophy called The Return of History which summed up nicely the great value of studied hindsight on matters of the present and future. It would appear that Obama's relative young age as president is more than offset by his professorial knowledge of past presidents and of his nation's founding and subsequent journey.

The second thing that resonated throughout the book was that Obama most certainly possesses a generalist mindset. I've posted before about how leaders need to be generalists - including a vision of the big picture, a talent for "hiring" and delegation, and an openness and empathy towards differing ideas and perspectives. He covers sports, faith, economy, politics, power, science, family, and a number of other topics with ease and in balance with each other. This trait will serve him well as leader of a country with so many diverse challenges and opportunities.

Here are a few excerpts that illustrate the above further:

...[A]cross America a constant cross-pollination is occurring, a not entirely orderly but generally peaceful collision among people and cultures. Identities are scrambling, and then cohering in new ways. Beliefs keep slipping through the noose of predictability. Facile expectations and simple explanations are being constantly upended. Spend time actually talking to Americans, and you discover that most evangelicals are more tolerant than the media would have us believe, most secularists more spiritual. Most rich people want the poor to succeed, and most of the poor are both more self-critical and hold higher aspirations than the popular culture allows. Most Republican strongholds are 40 percent Democrat, and vice versa. The political labels of liberal and conservative rarely track people's personal attributes. (p63)

It is to say that after all the trappings of office - the titles, the staff, the security details - are stripped away, I find the President and those who surround him to be pretty much like everybody else, possessed of the same mix of virtues and vices, insecurities and long-buried injuries, as the rest of us. No matter how wrongheaded I might consider their policies to be - and no matter how much I might insist that they be held accountable for the results of such policies - I still find it possible, in talking to these men and women, to understand their motives, and to recognize in them values I share. This is not an easy posture to maintain in Washington. ... (p59)

As a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. We wouldn't tolerate schools that don't teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and underinspired, if we thought that the children in them were like our children. It's hard to imagine the CEO of a company giving himself a multimillion-dollar bonus while cutting health-care coverage for his workers if he thought they were in some sense his equals. And it's safe to assume that those in power would think longer and harder about launching a war if they envisioned their own sons and daughters in harm's way. ... Black leaders need to appreciate the legitimate fears that may cause some whites to resist affirmative action. Union representatives can't afford not to understand the competitive pressures their employers may be under. I am obligated to try to see the world through George Bush's eyes, no matter how much I may disagree with him. That's what empathy does... We are all forced beyond our limited vision. (p82)

Most of all, she [Obama's mother] possessed an abiding sense of wonder, a reverence for life and its precious, transitory nature that could properly described as devotional. During the course of the day, she might come across a painting, read a line of poetry, or hear a piece of music, and I would see tears well up in her eyes. Sometimes, as I was growing up, she would wake me in the middle of the night to have me gaze at a particularly spectacular moon, or she would have me close my eyes as we walked together at twilight to listen to the rustle of leaves. She loved to take children - any child - and sit them in her lap and tickle them or play games with them or examine their hands, tracing out the miracle of bone and tendon and skin and delighting at the truths to be found there. She saw mysteries everywhere and took joy in the sheer strangeness of life. (p243)

Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start to Tweet

2009-03-31T12:10:00.002-04:00
Twitter has forced me to confront head-on something I so fervently rail against: close-mindedness. It's personal this time though. It was my own close-mindedness.

You see, I finally relented and joined Twitter last week - something I stubbornly refused to do for a few reasons, namely: I'm too busy, it's too shallow/banal/narcissistic, and what's the point really. Basically for the same short-sighted reasons that many railed against blogging waaaay back in the early naughts, I struggled to see the value of <140-character brain farts. Well, I was wrong.

Twitter (and its various apps) deliver a few valuable things. Firstly, it's effectively a faster search engine than Google. Nowhere near as comprehensive but pretty useful for breaking news and the very latest links. Secondly, it is a shining example of the wisdom of crowds, identifying trends on anything - a marketer's dream. Twitter's real value is in what it provides in aggregate. Thirdly, it is a great launching pad out to deeper blog posts, media articles, and video clips (see Guy Kawasaki). This is what especially bugs me about having ignored Twitter for so long; that it is simply a very useful generalist tool for scanning ideas.

Anyways, you can follow me here. Not sure yet what I'll post most about - probably a mix of personal, Creative Generalist, and WowWee. I'll definitely never be a power user - too reserved/private for that - but I'll certainly be following the brightest twitterers out there as I find them. Speaking of which, thanks to Pam and Mitch at Twist Image, leaders in the ___sphere, for the nudge.

"Twouble with Twitter" sous-titré
by LePostfr

.

100 Nons

2009-03-25T23:49:00.000-04:00
100 (Non-Design) Blogs that Every Web Designer Should Read, according to Kelly at Wed Design Schools Guide.

Welcome Aboard

2009-03-21T15:19:00.000-04:00

"You will not get that on United Airlines. I guarantee it."

Rip! A Remix Manifesto

2009-03-08T22:14:00.007-04:00
The remixers manifesto:
1. Culture always builds on the past.
2. The past always tries to control the future.
3. Our Future is becoming less free.
4. To build free societies, you must limit control of the past.

This manifesto forms the thesis of the excellent new documentary called Rip! Rip! is about the battles raging between copyright and copyleft; between the creators, publishers, protectors, and remixers of culture. Following the mash-up musician Girl Talk, the film is itself a provocative mash-up of numerous copyrighted songs and images. And, true to form, it is partially available online with an explicit invitation to remix the whole damn thing (see Open Source Cinema).

Brilliantly edited and free-flowing, Rip! is important for its courage at shining a light on perhaps the most significant issue surrounding ideas. Art and ideas are inspired by other art and ideas, and laws that refuse this ignore the giants on whose shoulders we stand and shortchange us of new discoveries and crazy good creations like Girl Talk's and this.

Seriously, how impressive is THRU YOU!

(Thanks Ryan and Benny)

A Global Economic Outlook

2009-03-02T08:54:00.002-05:00
There is of course no shortage of sky-is-falling media commentary on the economy these days. Most of it, however, due to the sheer scope of the global economic crisis, only focuses in on particular angles - mortgage foreclosures, Wall Street excess, bail-out this and bail-out that - and not on the larger net of circumstances. It is a big complex challenge and analyzing it in a big picture sense is ultimately the only way we can properly understand it. To that end, here is a pretty good article by Norwegian management consultant Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar that studies the global economic outlook both as a whole and with the long view in mind.

(Thanks Ali)

Pow! Right Between the Eyes

2009-02-23T22:01:00.002-05:00
Back in the autumn of 2006 I offered some guy named Andy my two cents on blogging and then gave him a nudge and introduced him to readers here.

A couple of years and hundreds of insightful/witty/bizarre posts later he's got a big fancy business book and is on his way to becoming a best-selling author. Pow!

The guy is Andy Nulman, former president of Just for Laughs, current boss at Airborne Mobile, snazzy dressy, random shouter, and devout user of the Comic Sans font in emails. And the book, just out, and with forewords by comedians John Cleese and Craig Ferguson, is Pow! Right Between the Eyes: Profiting from the Power of Surprise. It's an overdue title and he's just the showman to write it.

Pow! is about how business "is in desperate need of new ways to inspire bored and cynical consumers who have grown weary of the same old song and dance. In today’s information economy, it doesn’t matter how many people you reach, but how much attention they pay. And the best way to get attention is with the powerful, but largely misunderstood, element of surprise."

I personally find surprise to be an especially relevant element for Creative Generalists. Firstly, as I learned back in my days running general-interest magazine Maisonneuve, is that curious people, almost by definition, take an active interest in seeking out that which is new, novel, peripheral - surprising. Surprises in the generalist realm can come from anywhere, which is exactly the rush. But also, secondly, Creative Generalists are particularly apt to discover, design, and cleverly present surprises for much the same reason. We mine the fringes and blend the fragments, often with surprising results.

Surprise is a pretty deep and nuanced subject, which Andy explores and ponders thoroughly - beyond just the in-your-face cliches - in Pow!. It's one of those biz book that captures an important yet underrated marketing idea and deservedly, finally, and yes, surprisingly brings it to the fore. Check it out.

O Love

2009-02-12T22:49:00.001-05:00
Last month when in Vegas for CES I took the opportunity to catch a couple of Cirque du Soleil's permanent shows, Love and O. One disappointed and one amazed.

As a Beatles fan I'd been dying to see Love ever since its launch. I heard good reviews from friends and quite enjoyed the soundtrack - blended mixes of the classic tunes re-produced by Sir George Martin and his son Giles. Staged at an impressive venue within The Mirage, it was clear that Love was designed to overwhelm. Beatles + Vegas + Cirque... everything about it is big. And, from watching a making-of documentary about it, there were clearly some big egos and big expectations involved as well. It definitely had it's moments but in the end it fell flat for me - perhaps because it was too much musical and not enough cirque or probably because it simply wasn't how I'd imagined these vintage songs coming to life. My expectations were likely too high.

The same can't be said for O. I knew nothing about it other than that it was CdS's first and only water show, and that it was at the Bellagio. But from the opening of the grand (and I mean grand) curtain, it was apparent that this production was something special. Truly magnificent in every way - set design, athleticism, peculiar characters, choreography, music, costumes, stage transitions - O far surpassed the two other (outstanding) Cirque shows I'd seen before this trip (Dralion and Corteo). O did big well. A definite must-see if you're visiting Las Vegas.

15 Steps and a Marching Band

2009-02-11T22:00:00.001-05:00
"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Grammys."

Grammys, you're idiots. You actually put on a decent show last Sunday -- including a brilliantly awesome performance of "15 Steps" by Radiohead with the USC Trojan Marching Band! -- and now you go and pull it from YouTube. This is how you fade from relevance. When will you morons learn how this internet thing works? Too late, probably.

Anyhow, grab the torrent (it's better quality anyway) or take a peek at the rehearsal. This rendition of "15 Steps" is truly fabulous.

Romeo Dallaire on Leadership

2009-01-29T00:01:00.006-05:00
Romeo Dallaire is a Canadian senator, humanitarian, author, and retired lieutenant-general. He is best known for the position he was assigned to in 1993: Force Commander of UNAMIR, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda. Responsible for the UN forces mandated to maintain order in the country yet left powerless by the UN itself, Dallaire witnessed firsthand the grisly bloodshed of the Rwanda genocide.

Dallaire wrote a book - Shake Hands with the Devil - about the experience, which has since spawned documentaries and a feature film. He continues to advocate strongly for human rights and for a more widespread understanding that all humans are human.

Last night I had the privilege to listen to Dallaire speak on the subject of leadership. Obviously, he has some remarkable and difficult stories to tell on the subject. He has tremendous insight - on motivation, sacrifice, values, priority, human nature, politics, organizations, success, failure, and vision.

Although he had numerous reflections on Rwanda and his military past, he tailored his speech for a business audience. Dallaire spoke about the importance of a mission statement containing simply one phrase and one action verb. And he pointed out that as a leader, "People want to see your eyes."

Dallaire surprisingly hung much of his presentation on generalist principles. He emphasized the importance of a visionary long view, of managing within ambiguity, and most of all of pulling together disparate disciplines to achieve progress. I wish I could find some slides or video online. He offered several great examples and models in support of a more interdisciplinary mindset for leaders. A very inspiring man.

Spanning Silos

2009-01-25T16:04:00.003-05:00
Two of the foundational elements of creative generalism -- both of which I've noted here before -- are these: 1) that Creative Generalist is a ying-yang sort of term in which the the executional focus of creativity is balanced with the big picture oversight and broader ideation of generalism, and that 2) corporate leaders need to be Creative Generalists. Essentially, this is also the central thesis of David Aaker's recently published new book Spanning Silos: The New CMO Imperative.

Aaker, a giant in the field of branding and marketing theory, argues that decentralization has spawned powerful product, country, and functional silos which jeopardize companies' overall marketing efforts. As a result, resources are misallocated, the marketplace is confused by inconsistent messages, and companies fail to leverage scale economies and successes. An equilibrium needs to be found and its the CMO's job to strike it.

As Aaker remarks in this strategy+business interview:
If the goal of the centralized marketing team appears to be to centralize and standardize, there is a significant risk of organizational resistance or even rebellion. Such changes can easily be perceived as threatening, and they can destroy what’s great about decentralization — vitality, flexibility, accountability, and so on. So the goal should rather be to address silo-driven problems in part through improved communication, trust, and cooperation. Harness those silos and make them work for you by turning them into a source of ideas and a testing lab for the best ideas. Don’t just eliminate them. It may be that centralization and standardization will eventually be part of the process, but it should not be the goal.

Here also is video of a speech that Aaker delivered on the topic last September to the 2008 European Chief Marketing Office Conference. "All companies are decentralized. ... Silos are completely unviable in today's modern world. ... Customers want systems solutions."

The Best Job in the World

2009-01-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

To those of us living in the deep freeze of winter, the heavenly sun-swept photos coming from Tourism Queensland are tempting indeed. Their latest marketing campaign, The Best Job in the World, is a stroke of genius. They've posted for the position of Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, a job that supposedly comes with a paradise villa, AUD$150k salary, and mandate to simply enjoy life and blog about the area. Brilliant.

CES 2009

2009-01-18T18:02:00.003-05:00
A belated happy new year to my faithful readers.

I've not posted for a while because I've been especially busy - first in a lazy laid-back way during the holidays and then, last week, as a presenting exhibitor at the gigantic Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

It was my first CES and although most vets found it to be quieter than in past years (due to the economy, of course) it's still really really big and busy. I spent much of the sleepless week presenting, speaking, interviewing, and running around schlepping but I did have a little bit of time to wander around and see what the world of gadget makers are up to. Lots, apparently - everything from new smartphones, wireless charging mats, modular computing, pico projectors, eco-batteries, ultra flatscreen TVs, 3D, and super durable kids computers, to just skim the surface. The sheer scale and diversity of invention is incredibly inspiring if not intimidating.

There are a number of great round-ups online, including here, here, here, and here.

Aside #1: I have to mention my surprise at just how friendly and genuinely curious I found the reporters, crews, producers, and bloggers covering CES to be. As I said, it's a big show to sort through and cover, and they're being barraged by entrepreneurs and PR pros non-stop from all angles. And yet, as a whole, very good-humoured and well-prepared.

Aside #2: Whoever scheduled the big adult entertainment expo to be at the same time and just next door (in the Sands) is responsible for one of the funniest and most entertaining convention centre hallway walks ever. Truly a collision of personalities and fashions.

Aside #3: Vegas itself is wild, as everyone knows. From what the cabbies will tell you, it's also hurting these days. Discounted hotel rooms, unmoving construction cranes, and headlines on the local paper claiming that gambling revenues are down 15%. If you're looking for a cheap getaway in 2009 Sin City may be a steal of a deal.

Polymath Probability

2008-12-27T22:33:00.003-05:00
An interesting thread at Ask Metafilter pondering the question, "Is it possible to be a polymath these days?".

I especially like this particular response:

Aristotle and DaVinci were incredible, but they didn't know everything. People are (rightly) so impressed with them, they base "what one should know" on what they knew. So of course it seems like they knew everything.

What did Aristotle know about cooking? Did he know how to make a sculpture? How much did DaVinci know about Africa?

There have been times when the topics studied at universities (or through other formal methods of teaching and learning) were relatively small compared to how many there are now. So if you define Renaissance Man as someone who is an expert on all the major topics taught today at, say, Harvard, then no there are no more Renaissance men.

But if you're asking if there are people who know an impressive amount about subjects in many fields than of course such people exist. I was in college with a guy who was getting his Phd in Comp Lit while also studying advanced biology. And he was also a first-rate athlete and a gourmet chef. I think most people who know him would be comfortable describing him as a Renaissance Man.

I think Douglas Hofstadter fits the bill. He's a Cognitive Scientist but also a gifted writer. He wrote "Gödel, Escher, Bach" but he also wrote a translation of Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin." He's a composer and he speaks and writes knowledgeably and provocatively about many topics. Paul ("Hackers and Painters") Graham might fit the bill, too.

It's also possible to be a dilettante, which is what I am. I would never call myself a Renaissance Man, because I haven't mastered most of the things I dabble in, but I write books, program computers, draw pictures and direct plays.

Beam Camp

2008-12-26T19:30:00.003-05:00
I received a friendly email from Brian, the Director at a cool summer camp for kids and teens called Beam Camp. It's a 4-week summer program (July 18-August 16) for boys and girls aged 7-17 in Strafford, New Hampshire. They're looking for some big collaborative ideas. Here's the overview and how you can participate:

Beam Campers cultivate hands-on skills in the fine and manual arts while exploring innovative thinking, design and the creative process. They transform ideas into artifacts and personal achievement into community success.

Each summer Beam commissions a Project Master to design a unique large-scale collaborative endeavor that campers produce and enjoy. The Project can range from the conceptual to the structural. We are looking for big ideas that will challenge and excite our campers and staff. Our Project Management Team will work with the Master to "translate" the Master's project blueprint into the camp context.

Here's the link to their Proposal page, if you're curious.

Happy Festivus

2008-12-23T19:32:00.002-05:00
(via Savage Chickens)

Thanks for yet another great curious and creative year. Season's greetings from Creative Generalist!

To Find Out

2008-12-18T09:08:00.000-05:00
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

aKido

2008-12-10T00:35:00.001-05:00
One of the great joys of concert-going is the random unexpected discovery of a new band, the opener. Added to my playlist as of last Thursday: Montreal's aKido.

Dancing in Chains - AKIDO from akidomusic on Vimeo.

The Stuff of Thought

2008-12-06T23:33:00.000-05:00
I just finished reading Steven Pinker's bestselling The Stuff of Thought, the Harvard experimental psychologist's latest book about how the mind works. For some reason I wasn't expecting much from it but by the end it left me wanting more.

This is a great book for curious people. (That last sentence could even be open to analysis.) Pinker eloquently goes through case after case and example after example of how and why we use language to convey ideas, and likewise how ideas shape our language. Grammar, semantics, pragmatics, inferences, naming trends, cursing - so many things that we take for granted are dissected with the goal of presenting human nature back to ourselves. Good stuff.

I.O.U.S.A.

2008-12-01T23:02:00.000-05:00
The Reuters quote used to promote the documentary film I.O.U.S.A. is pretty much spot on. It is: "To the U.S. economy what 'An Inconvenient Truth' was to the environment."

In what has to be the best timed release of any movie this year, I.O.U.S.A. explains and examines the enormous and rapidly mounting U.S. national debt. It shows just how serious the consequences of it are for current and future generations of Americans, not to mention its influence in shifting geopolitical power over the long term. The film's makers focus the story on the so-called four deficits: budget, savings, trade, and leadership. They interview a number of accountants and economists to make their non-partisan point, defying the "boring" stereotype and making charts and graphs look better than ever before.

This is a very good, timely, thought-provoking movie.

NIN's Moment Factory

2008-11-20T21:37:00.000-05:00
Nine Inch Nails were in town last week; a stop on their Lights in the Sky tour. And as good as Trent & Co's music was, it was the on-stage light show that was truly spectacular.

I've never seen anything like it. The whole set was at times engulfed in light from no less than 108 backing spotlights. But the really innovative bit was three light screens which would descend upon the stage, sometimes behind the band and sometimes in front of them. The screens would alternatively display some beautiful ambient images and interactive walls. You kinda have to see it to understand it.

The show was created by Montreal's Moment Factory and they've put together a short making-of video well worth watching. Highly imaginative and typically (for NIN) pioneering work.

Meet Rovio

2008-11-12T08:37:00.004-05:00
Something I've been working on over the past several months: the launch of Rovio, a WiFi-enabled robotic webcam from WowWee. You can drive this little omni-directional 3-wheeled guy using an intuitive interface in your web browser. Give it a try. Through mid-December you can book a fun 5-minute test drive around a specially constructed loft. Meet Rovio test drive.

[Demo video and microsite by Montreal's Twist Image]

Why Don't You Get It

2008-10-29T19:33:00.005-04:00
Back in March I posted about my forthcoming involvement in The Age of Conversation 2, a book about the shift towards new business and marketing techniques for evolving dialogue about brands, experience, and community.

Well, it just released today. Ta-da!

This book has 237 contributors and I am one of them, writing about this creative generalism thing of course. The book is now available in both hard and soft cover from Lulu. All proceeds go to Variety, the international children's charity.

Purposeful Random Collisions

2008-10-28T18:27:00.000-04:00
A few top-tier idea conferences recently wrapped up: Picnic 08 in Amsterdam, Idea Festival in Louisville, and BIF-4 in Providence. Unfortunately I couldn't attend this year but fortunately there are enough articles, videos, and firsthand dispatches floating around the net to experience vicariously through.

Mutual Differences

2008-10-23T21:48:00.001-04:00
Let us enrich ourselves with our mutual differences. -- Paul Valery, polymathic poet and philosopher (1871-1945)

Late Night Ideas

2008-10-22T23:59:00.000-04:00
As a longtime night owl - perhaps stubbornly so - I find this headline rather vindicating: Bright ideas come to us at night, not in office hours.

The article claims that, "research now suggests that if you want to be the wisest, you really need to stay up - well, until 10.04pm at least. This is supposedly the best time for a eureka moment, according to research."

Good stuff. Now, if only the article's author would actually cite what research study says this I will sleep better at night.

(Thanks Jane)

Scorched

2008-10-21T22:17:00.002-04:00
Saw a pretty impressive play this weekend. Theatre so good that it elicits a reaction of silence by both using silence as a major plot theme and a dramatic device.

Described by [playright] Wajdi Mouawad as an exploration of “the questions of origins”, Scorched centers on Jeanne and her twin brother Simon, who are summoned to the office of a notary to hear the last will and testament of their mother, Nawal. They are each handed a letter written by their mother; one is to be delivered to their brother and one to their father. The mystery begins, sending them on a journey into their mother’s past, to a Middle Eastern country engulfed in a civil war where she was a political activist and later became a prisoner. Through poetic language and evocative imagery, the play connects the origins of these three members of a family in startling and unforgettable ways.

I caught this brilliantly staged show in Montreal at the Centaur Theatre. From here it tours Winnipeg and Edmonton, I believe, before visiting the US and Australia. It's a powerful production with a singular moment at which, as Adrienne Clarkson remarks on the National Arts Centre (which commissioned and developed the play) website, "the whole audience realizes something at one time, and everybody breathes together."

Banksy's Pet Shop

2008-10-11T11:56:00.003-04:00
More Banksy brilliance.

This time it's a fake pet shop in New York called The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill - his first official exhibition and the first Banksy project to employ animatronics - which aims to question "our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming".

GINA

2008-09-22T21:54:00.004-04:00
"First of all, let's ask the questions: What do we need the skin of a car for anyways? What's it there for? Does it have to be metal? Do we always have to make it in the same manner?"

These are the questions BMW's Director of Design Chris Bangle asks in this stunningly sleek presentation of the GINA Light Visionary Model, a car shape-shiftingly skinned in fabric. Every season car companies advertise that their new designs are, well, new and revolutionary. This one actually is.

(Thanks Michael)

Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants

2008-09-10T12:04:00.000-04:00
Step inside the Wild Beasts' transfixing music video for the falsetto lilting song Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants. The video employs the droste effect, an Escher-esque immersive technique in which similar smaller images appear spiraling deeper and deeper within the shot, to the nth degree.

Wild Beasts - Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairevoyant

(via Adland, who goes into a bit more detail on who put it together and how)

Three Nights of Culinary Bliss

2008-09-07T15:20:00.009-04:00
Well aware of the culinary devotion and rigor of analysis that recreational diners on such sites as Chowhound and Zagat possess, I hesitate to call myself a foodie. But my experiences last week at three of the finest and most innovative restaurants in the US - Zenkichi, moto, and Alinea - probably say otherwise. That I would plan a trip around the chefs' (and sommeliers') tours leaves no doubt that I'm dedicated to this generalist thing, even on a taste level. ;-)

The first outing, Zenkichi, was a pleasant accident. In New York with friends, one of us received a random text message recommending an obscure modern Japanese brasserie in Brooklyn's hip Williamsburg area. So obscure was the place that when we went looking for it earlier in the day we passed it twice without realizing it. Zenkichi's facade is a sheer face of wood planks; windowless and apparently doorless except for a small index card sized latch. This was their signage...

The ambiance inside was much more decorative although still in a dark and restrained way. After walking upstairs and along a pathway over cobblestones and streaming water, the six of us were seated in a cozy and quiet alcove booth.

I partook in the Omakase for Three, which consisted of:
-Miso Soup
-Raw tasting of Alaskan Sock Eye Salmon, Junsai & Uzaku, and Maguro Carpaccio
-Sweet Duck Salad
-Hirame Isobe Tempura
-Grilled plates of Saikyo Cod and Grilled Lobster & Summer Vegetable
-Tsukune Chicken
-Kanpachi Nigiri
-Frozen Black Sesame Mousse and Dessert Sake

The meal, served at just the right casual pace, was delicious and had the other three people in our party ordering extra plates of "what they're having."

The following night it was dinner for two at Chicago's moto. Moto was really the impetus for this trip. Having met its chef, Homaro Cantu, at Idea Festival last year and having interviewed him for this blog (here) soon after, I was suitably intrigued to sample his science lab prepared and transmogrified creations. To that end, my lovely accomplice and I embarked on the "grand tour moto," a 20-course four-and-a-half hour tastebud adventure. Here's what was on the menu (which is, famously, edible) the evening we stopped in:

-Edible menu with summer truffle
-Liquid center scallop
-Kalamata and feta
-Nitro sushi roll
-Loaded baked potato gnocchi
-Biscuit creme brulee
-Ants on a log with foie gras
-Seared buffalo hot wings
-Cuban Missile Crisis
-Fresh from the garden
-Smoked pork with cornbread
-Roadkill of fowl
-Fajita with aromatic utensils
-Vodka tonic
-Blueberry cake & ice cream
-Powdered peach doughnut
-Chocolate & fluff

Now, I was in this more for the experience than the review, so you'll have to excuse that I didn't take detailed notes. But suffice it to say that dishes like "Ants on a Log" and "Cuban Missile Crisis" are simultaneously what you'd expect and not. The magic of moto is in how unusual cooking techniques (dry ice, lasers, centrifuges, etc.) and artistic presentations toy with your ideas of food. The amazing greek salad, for example, was liquified; the tangy hot wings were printed on flavoured paper; and the Cuban Missile Crisis resembled a cigar and was served in an ashtray. The standout for me was a relatively unattractive plate of fowl called Roadkill. It was one of those heavenly bites that cause the world around you to evaporate.

Truly an experiment that every foodie should encounter. And I must add that the waiters - some of whom also work in the kitchen - were great - friendly, good-humoured, and passionate about the food they were serving.

The night following that we ventured to another part of beautiful Chicago to indulge in the bliss that is Alinea. Like moto, Alinea's chef, Grant Achatz, is also young and innovative - although in a more traditional sense (loosely speaking). His tour menu included the following fascinating 26 courses:

-Steelhead Roe, smoked salmon, grape, celery
-Lemongrass, oyster, sesame, yuzu
-Tomato basil, mozzarella, olive oil
-Rouget artichoke, garlic, bottarga
-Cobia tobacco, radish, cedarwood
-Chicken Liver, bacon, caramelized onion, vin santo
-Watermelon, green coriander, tomari, bonito
-Oxalis Pod, sweet, hot, sour, salty
-Short Rib, Guinness, peanut, fried broccoli
-Hot potato, cold potato, black truffle, butter
-Lamb, potato, sunflower, sweet spice
-Foie gras, fig, coffee, tarragon
-Rhubarb, ginger, basil
-Transparency of raspberry, rose petal, yogurt
-Nasturtium abalone, ginger, eggplant
-Lobster, popcorn, butter, curry
-Yuba, shrimp, miso, togarashi
-Wagyu beef, maitake, smoked date, Blis Elixir
-Black truffle explosion, romaine, parmesan
-Duck foie gras, mole flavors
-Bacon, butterscotch, apple, thyme
-Strawberry violet nicoise olive
-Dry shot pineapple, rum, cilantro
-Sorrel honey, fennel, poppy seeds
-Whole wheat, almond, apricot, chervil
-Malt cherry, cashew, vanilla fragrance
[Gallery here]

The flow was ideal, each small course was an interesting new idea (my favourites were the Hot Potato Cold Potato play with temperature and the unusual use of bacon in sweet dessert), and the service was impeccable. Complimenting the symphony of flavours and scents was a perfectly attuned progression of wines, breads and butters. I have to believe that this is about as good as it gets.

And on the fourth day, if you're wondering, we came back down to earth with a deliciously greasy, carelessly served Chicago deep dish pizza from Giordano's!

Respect

2008-08-26T23:56:00.003-04:00
Alexandre Enkeril over at Disparate opens a recent reflective blog post about respect between academic disciplines with this interesting passage:

The diversity of skills, expertise, and interest is especially useful when people of different “walks of life” can collaborate with one another. Tolerance, collegiality, dialogue. When people share ideas, the potential is much greater if their ideas are in fact different. Very simple principle, which runs through anthropology as the study of human diversity (through language, time, biology, and culture).

The problem, though, is that people from different “fields” tend not to respect one another’s work. For instance, a life scientist and a social scientist often have a hard time understanding one another because they simply don’t respect their interlocutor’s discipline. They may respect each other as human beings but they share a distrust as to the very usefulness of the other person’s field.

Know What You Don't Know

2008-08-25T19:04:00.003-04:00
Several nuggets of insight and good advice for Creative Generalists in this article - The Never-Ending Debate of Specialist v. Generalist - about computer technology, catch-all Craigslist job postings, and that "the more you know, the more you find out you don't know."

The Geography of Hope

2008-08-17T14:05:00.008-04:00
...[H]ere's the real crux of it, the thing that puts bounce in the step of the ones already on this path - there is the chance to be part of possibly the greatest project in the history of civilization, to be at the forefront of the generation that confronted the worst conflagration the world had ever seen - and sorted it out. Scientific American calls climate change "arguably the most imposing scientific and technical challenge that humanity ever faced"; a veteran British politician warns of "an ecological time bomb ticking away"; and the former chief economist of the World Bank predicts "major disruptions on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the twentieth century." To look back, perhaps half a century from now, to say to our children - to our grandchildren - that we took all this on, fought and thought, worked our asses off, tried and failed and tried again, and finally got this wondrous new contraption moving down a clear path toward the sustainable city on a hill - what could be better, more worthwhile, more flat-out balls-to-the-wall exhilarating, than to be part of that?

This paragraph is pulled from the prologue of Chris Turner's new (2007) book The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need, which I've been reading over the last month or so. Taking a phrase that economist Kenneth Boulding once said - "Anything that exists is possible." - and running with it, Turner eloquently riffs for 439+ pages about the immense and significant possibility and opportunity wrapped up in the daunting and depressing climate, energy, and environmental crises. It acknowledges yet dispenses with the fearmongers' dire warnings and instead chronicles one after another stories from around the world of imagination, ingenuity, ambition, invention, cooperation, and, most notably, real action; hopeful stories that show that a sustainable future is possible and that many people are already successfully and profitably achieving it.

The book breaks down into chapters about vision, power, transport, housing, design, cities, economics, ideology, development, and community. It examines wind farms in southern Alberta, carbon neutral islands in Denmark, microfinance in Bangladesh, Earthship housing in New Mexico, solar villages in Thailand, New Urbanist communities in Colorado, farming in Cuba, North Carolina, and South Central LA, architecture in India, carpet manufacturing in the US, and countless other examples of innovation actually happening today. He questions everything from the environmental movement and UN development initiatives to the idolatry of Le Corbusier and the whole big concept of GDP. And he weaves it all together masterfully in a casual yet passionate voice.

There used to be a great little culture and technology magazine here in Canada called Shift. I discovered Turner there several years ago and came to appreciate his writing style in everything from his opus about The Simpsons (which became his first book) to lighter dispatches like the delicious one he did for Maisonneuve (the mag that I once managed) about mangosteens. The Geography of Hope flows exceptionally well, even as it goes from serious subjects to things like Dr. Suess or The Big Lebowski (yeah, there's a connection). Turner proves to be a very enjoyable, internationally-minded, and informed guide for this tour.

This book was an antidote of sorts for me. Over the last couple of years, I've read many books and watched several documentaries about weather, oil, industry, suburbia, civilization, globalization, progress, and more. Combined with all that's in the news (including the frustrating backwardness of our federal leaders on these matters), and despite that fact that most of what I've studied is rational, thoughtful, important, and of great interest as a generalist, it's also had the cumulative effect of being rather depressing. In no way dismissing the magnitude of our big picture challenges - quite the contrary, actually - Turner turns the discussion around and indeed shows that there is hope, that hope inspires, and that inspiration is a very good thing. The Geography of Hope is a truly outstanding book - highly recommended!

Some random excerpts:

-- ...the truly innovative thing about Samsø's energy revolution: Not only had it reconfigured the archetypal image of a post-carbon future from looking apocolypse to regional renaissance, it'd done so with readily available tools and the skills and enthusiasms of conservative people living in villages that were all but antiquated. There's not one radically new technology installed on Samsø, not a single untested experiment. Samsø's real revolution was social, and it provides a compelling model for how to implement radical change without freaking out the regular folks whose lives are disrupted by it. [37]

-- ...This was the nature of the wave, and though it could look absurd on its dotcom surface, it crashed ashore carrying all manner of magnificent technological pearls: dirt-cheap, instantaneous, wireless communication of near-global reach; the muckraking citizen journalism of the blogosphere; the spread of telecommuting; the flat-out knowledge dissemination miracle of Google. And it's reasonable to assume that without the big, dumb [dotcom] wave, the useful stuff would have remained at the bottom of the sea.

So then: Stop for a minute. Hit the END button on your cellphone, close the three windows currently open on your web browser, wrap up that Instant Messenger conversation and hold off on that text message you were just about to start typing on your keypad. Stop. Think of your life in 1992. How you found information, who you shared it with, how long it took to do so. Think of hunting for a pay phone, leaving word with the restaurant's hostess to let your friends know you were running late, hoping they got the message. Think of writing a letter, putting it in an envelope, mailing it and waiting for a reply. Think of the library, of card catalogues, of cranking your way through a dozen spools of microfilm looking for that quote, that bit of trivia, that slice of nostalgia. Think of all that stuff - obscure hobbies, half-formed thoughts, weird bits of pop-culture esoterica - that simply vanished, never to be heard from again. Think of all that went into transforming that world into this one.

Now just imagine all that reckless energy pointed in the direction of a real problem. [62]

-- There might be more than one answer to any given problem, a number of technically satisfactory right ways to do the job, but the rightest thing is the one that does it most elegantly - and it might not be the most scientifically advanced. This is where the sustainability boom diverges most sharply with the dotcom approach: it celebrates efficiency, not pure technological achievement. And often as not, this includes at least a partial return to old ways, a resurrection and reworking of abandoned techniques, an embrace of intrinsically more earthbound and rational systems. Not new gadgets, then, but new strategies. Or, to phrase it more precisely, hungry sheep instead of top-of-the-line lawnmowers. [69]

-- Mark Falcone [real estate developer]: "I think that the business enterprises that are going to allow the North American economy to be relevant, you know, fifteen years from now are going to be those business enterprises that have devoted themselves to providing services that enhance the quality of people's lives in a very holistic way." [261]

-- ...the environment, as an actual physical thing, is not a political issue. It is not open for debate, at least not in the same way that marginal tax rates or trade agreements with China are. It is not a human invention, nor a force capable of being bent entirely to human will. Quite the contrary, we are wholly dependent on its mercy for every single breath we take. The same delusion of externalities that permits economic growth to be balanced against maintaining a healthy planet also feeds the misconception that one can be, in any real sense, anti- (or for that matter pro-) environment. That it could be a political issue and not the sea in which all political issues swim. Sustainability should be built into enlightened constitutions alongside - ahead of - all other rights and freedoms, woven into the very fabric of political life the same way it needs to be folded back into the global economic system. The first unalienable right in America's Declaration of Independence is life, and it means nothing - no civil right does - without a sustainable climate in which to function. It should be that simple. But here comes a colossal understatement: It isn't. [317]

Unrepentant

2008-08-13T23:29:00.003-04:00
Some reflections on dilettantism, job searching, organizations, and personal branding, among other things, from the Unrepentant Generalist...

One other interesting development during this job search was my realization that I have become more comfortable with my personal brand as a generalist. I can admit to myself that I am better at thinking across disciplines and considering the big picture than I am at specializing and making sure all the details are right, instead of trying to be good at everything. ...

The really brilliant people, the deep thinkers, are the ones who are able to identify useful separations between the general and the specific. They can extract generalizations that apply to a variety of situations that had been heretofore thought completely separate.

A great blog with many thoughtful posts worth checking out.

In Rainbows (Literally)

2008-08-07T22:40:00.002-04:00
I knew what I was getting myself into. While in London several weeks ago I caught one of the two big Radiohead concerts in Victoria Park. I think there were something like 60,000 people there on that beautiful summer's night and the show was great but the crush of people and long lines to exit were not. Sometime during that evening I swore off attending anymore ultra big shows like that - except for the same one in Montreal yesterday for which I already had tickets.

Drizzly weather, muddy grounds, a different and closer vantage point, and a little more space. This time I could actually enjoy the music. And it was so good! We heard somebody near us say "in my top 5, definitely" after the last encore and that seemed to be the consensus. It takes a really strong band to pretty much unanimously win over a dirty and damp crowd of 35,000. A band who has made a career - not just a couple albums - of catchy, enduring, and artistically interesting tunes. Mix in a superb light show on stage - hanging vertical light bars, wide and deep - some dry Thom Yorke humour, and even half an hour of fireworks on the horizon (Montreal is spoiled; there are pyromusicals every week during the summer) and you've got yourself a wonderful evening. Except for the dreadfully long wait to exit afterwards...ah well.

If you haven't already downloaded and listened to In Rainbows, do. Here's a couple elegantly simple videos from the band. Or check out James Houston's inventive remix of Radiohead's lovely song Nude using spare hardware components; something he presented at Interesting 2008.

U23D

2008-07-30T21:43:00.005-04:00
There was an article in the National Post earlier this week describing how The Black Knight's immense popularity is helping to lift the fortunes of beleaguered Canadian 3D theatre operator IMAX. Not only is the box office moola spilling over to IMAX's screens, Batman seems to be reintroducing movie-goers to an experience they left years ago - not because it wasn't impressive but because the films themselves (usually of the nature documentary variety) were stuck in a bit of a rut. But nothing quite beats a caped vigilante jumping off a Gotham skyscraper or a disheveled joker (masterfully!) robbing banks and blowing stuff up.

Another film to also inject some 3D life into an already energetic genre is U2's recently released concert video U23D. It's a stunning production - the first digital 3D, multi-camera, real-time shoot; the largest collection of 3D camera technology ever assembled for a single project. As a fan of both rough concert bootlegs and polished concert videos, this film takes it all to a whole other level. It eclipsed simply being a recording and instead felt like an outing; being amongst the buoyant Argentinean crowd (an inspired venue choice), right next to Adam's drum kit, and probably closer to Bono than is really necessary. No doubt other (relatively wealthy) bands will follow. In the meantime, don't miss donning the special visors for this one.

Scared Expertise

2008-07-29T00:40:00.000-04:00
My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared. -- P.J. Plauger

The Great Pirates

2008-07-22T20:40:00.002-04:00
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was an inventor, architect, engineer, mathematician, poet, cosmologist one of the great American visionaries of the 20th century. Best-known as the inventor of the geodesic dome, Fuller devoted much of his life to resolving the gap between the sciences and the humanities, which he believed was preventing society from taking a comprehensive view of the world. His theories and innovations traversed the worlds of architecture, visual art, literature, mathematics, molecular biology, and environmental science and have had a deep impact on all of those fields. (Description via the Buckminster Fuller Institute)

In 1963, Fuller published a short book titled the Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth, in which he relates Earth to a spaceship flying through space. He was thinking big, using the spaceship as a vehicle to argue the importance of world view, and both celebrating and mourning the truly multi-disciplined thinkers (like DaVinci and Michelangelo) who once ran the world; people he called the "Great Pirates". It's interesting to scan this text and follow his arguments in favour of big picture thinking and a return of sorts to our "innate comprehensivity" (or else risk extinction). Some excerpts...

From Chapter II - Origins of Specialization

And it followed that these Great Pirates came into mortal battle with one another to see who was going to control the vast sea routes and eventually the world. Their battles took place out of sight of landed humanity. Most of the losers went to the bottom utterly unbeknownst to historians. Those who stayed on the top of the waters and prospered did so because of their comprehensive capability. That is they were the antithesis of specialists. They had high proficiency in dealing with celestial navigation, the storms, the sea, the men, the ship, economics, biology, geography, history, and science. The wider and more long distanced their anticipatory strategy, the more successful they became.

From Chapter III - Comprehensively Commanded Automation

The Great Pirates did run the world. They were the first and last to do so. They were world men, and they ran the world with ruthless and brilliant pragmatism based on the mis-seemingly "fundamental" information of their scientifically specialized servants. ...

We can develop faster and faster running horses as specialists. To do so we inbreed by mating two fast-running horses. By concentrating certain genes the probability of their dominance is increased. But in doing so we breed out or sacrifice general adaptability. Inbreeding and specialization always do away with general adaptability. ...

When, as we have seen, the Great Pirates let their scientists have free rein in World War I the Pirates themselves became so preoccupied with enormous wealth harvesting that they not only lost track of what the scientists were doing within the vast invisible world but they inadvertently abandoned their own comprehensivity and they, too, became severe specialists as industrial production money makers, and thus they compounded their own acceleration to extinction in the world-paralyzing economic crash of 1929. But society, as we have seen, never knew that the Great Pirates had been running the world. Nor did society realize in 1929 that the Great Pirates had become extinct. However, world’ society was fully and painfully aware of the economic paralysis. Society consisted then, as now, almost entirely of specialized slaves in education, management, science, office routines, craft, farming, pick-and-shovel labour, and their families. Our world society now has none of the comprehensive and realistic world knowledge that the Great Pirates had.

From Chapter V - General Systems Theory

We begin by eschewing the role of specialists who deal only in parts. Becoming deliberately expansive instead of contractive, we ask, "How do we think in terms of wholes?" If it is true that the bigger the thinking becomes the more lastingly effective it is, we must ask, "How big can we think?"

One of the modern tools of high intellectual advantage is the development of what is called general systems theory. Employing it we begin to think of the largest and most comprehensive systems, and try to do so scientifically. We start by inventorying all the important, known variables that are operative in the problem. But if we don’t really know how big "big" is, we may not start big enough, and are thus likely to leave unknown, but critical, variables outside the system which will continue to plague us. Interaction of the unknown variables inside and outside the arbitrarily chosen limits of the system are probably going to generate misleading or outrightly wrong answers. If we are to be effective, we are going to have to think in both the biggest and most minutely-incisive ways permitted by intellect and by the information thus far won through experience.

(Thanks Nadine!)

LittleBigPlanet

2008-07-12T13:49:00.006-04:00
Been wandering around curiously checking out the gaming and virtual world spaces lately. Lots of really cool and very exciting things happening. There's the phenomenal (and in my opinion well-deserved and totally expected) pre-release buzz surrounding Spore and its great Creature Creator utility. But one other title, an upcoming PS3 game, is also demo-ing some very impressive graphics and functionality. Check out this playful GDC video of Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet:

Way cool!

Oh, and if that doesn't amaze you, just watch this vid through to the end. Within it could very well be the Holy Grail of gaming.

Become a Specialist at Being a Generalist

2008-07-11T00:01:00.001-04:00
Pras Sarkar (of Yahoo! Research) delivers a must-read post full of superb advice for those seeking that sublime if elusive balance of employment and generalism. The title alone is worth the price of admission: Become a specialist at being a generalist.

Five key tips according to Pras:
--Stay up-to-date with your area of generalization
--Know what to explore and what to ignore
--Be critical of new technologies
--Visualize the results of all new pursuits and endeavors
--Don’t over-generalize

Little People

2008-07-10T20:45:00.001-04:00

Don't forget the Little People - a tiny street art project.

The Story of Stuff

2008-07-09T19:44:00.000-04:00
Complex systems - hell, even simple systems - can often be difficult to describe; to make palatable and understandable without trivializing or oversimplifying. Two great ways to explain systems are to lay them out visually somehow and then guide an audience through it using story. Both techniques are employed in this 20-minute video: the Story of Stuff (a link that HaikuBoxer so eloquently pointed to). In it sustainability expert Annie Leonard explores the global materials economy and its impact on economy, environment and health. You get the idea.

JOVA

2008-07-05T14:34:00.000-04:00
Here's another good example of the Synthesize & Summarize service that Creative Generalists provide. JOVA is a creativity portal launched earlier this year by Sarah Boden-Dawans. She saw a gap to help businesses sift through the information overload required to stay in touch with global innovation and sought a way to collate it to inspire her southern African colleagues and peers. Many of its posts may also inspire communications and marketing professionals outside of Africa with a whole other perspective. Boden-Dawans describes JOVA's founding purpose more in this Marketingweb interview.

Job Tags

2008-06-30T15:47:00.001-04:00
I like to see this sort of thing... a job posting specifically tagged for Creative Generalists.

Interesting 2008

2008-06-23T11:52:00.002-04:00
This past Saturday I attended Russell Davies' wonderfully inspiring Interesting 2008 (2nd annual) "conference" (more of a casual salon-meets-speakers-corner get-together) with about 200 or so other curious souls at Conway Hall in London.

It's basically a day of short and long presentations by a random selection of people about a eclectic array of topics. Topics such as plosives, currency, masks, Churchill, toilets, Hiraeth, booze, insomnia, and more. Interesting stuff! For a complete run-down of who presented what, check out "Metaverse Evangelist" and first speaker (about Lego) Roo Reynolds' blog post here, or some of the Technorati pings here.

I was lucky enough to be on the agenda too. I presented for about 16 minutes about What, Specifically, Do Generalists Do? (NB: these slides were mostly background and don't explain all that was said, obviously), based on this original post. It was actually the first time I've formally verbally presented some of the ideas you see here at this blog. It was fun. I had a blast at Interesting (thanks Russell!) and London is proving to be a delight to explore. But more on that later...

Update (07/10/08): The Guardian has posted some video from the day here.

Blue Ocean Strategy

2008-06-15T01:02:00.006-04:00
Few business books have had the widespread and sustained resonance that Blue Ocean Strategy by INSEAD professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne has. Published just a few years ago, it's already a classic. If you haven't yet read it, you should.

Blue Ocean Strategy challenges companies to break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space that makes the competition irrelevant. Instead of dividing up existing--and often shrinking--demand and benchmarking competitors, blue ocean strategy is about growing demand and breaking away from the competition.

Using as examples Cirque du Soleil, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, CNN, FedEx, and Bloomberg, Kim and Mauborgne illustrate the value of redefining problems in new and different ways; ways not typical in traditional and entrenched marketing and management strategy. Here is how they distinguish between blue and red oceans:

Red oceans represent all the industries in existence today. This is the known market space. Blue oceans denote all the industries not in existence today. This is the unknown market space.

In red oceans, industry boundaries are defined and accepted, and the competitive rules of the game are known. Here, companies try to outperform their rivals to grab a greater share of existing demand. As the market space gets crowded, prospects for profits and growth are reduced. Products become commodities, and cutthroat competition turns the red ocean bloody.

Blue oceans, in contrast, are defined by untapped market space, demand creation, and the opportunity for highly profitable growth. Although some blue oceans are created well beyond existing industry boundaries, most are created from within red oceans by expanding existing industry boundaries. ... In blue oceans, competition is irrelevant because the rules of the game are waiting to be set. [4-5]

The dominant focus of strategy work over the past twenty-five years has been on competition based red-ocean strategies. [5]

Described this way [corporate strategy being heavily influenced by its roots in military strategy], strategy is about confronting an opponent and fighting over a given piece of land that is both limited and constant. Unlike war, however, the industry shows us that the market universe has never been constant; rather, blue oceans have continuously been created over time. To focus on the red ocean is therefore to accept the key constraining factors of war - limited terrain and the need to beat an enemy to succeed - and to deny the distinctive strength of the business world: the capacity to create new market space that is uncontested. [7]

This is a very important business book for generalists. So much of its core argument not only supports many of the skill sets and strengths of generalists but basically insists that these qualities and approaches to strategy are in fact crucial keys to future success. In particular, the authors place divergence on par with focus (and a compelling tagline) as a main characteristic of good strategy; they stress the value of considering alternatives and identifying commonalities; and, most significantly as the major section within the book, they note the tremendous opportunity that results from looking across boundaries.

Here are some especially relevant/interesting excerpts:

...[T]he business environment in which most strategy and management approaches of the twentieth century evolved is increasingly disappearing. As red oceans become increasingly bloody, management will need to be more concerned with blue oceans than the current cohort of managers is accustomed to. [8]

The creators of blue oceans, surprisingly, didn't use the competition as their benchmark. Instead, they followed a different strategic logic that we call value innovation. Value innovation is the cornerstone of blue ocean strategy. We call it value innovation because instead of focusing on beating the competition, you focus on making the competition irrelevant by creating a leap in value for buyers and your company, thereby opening up new and uncontested market space. [12] ...those that seek to create blue oceans pursue differentiation and low cost simultaneously. [13]

Make the competition irrelevant by looking across the six conventional boundaries of competition to open up commercially important blue oceans. The six paths focus on looking across alternative industries, across strategic groups, across buyer groups, across complementary product and service offerings, across functional-emotional orientation of an industry, and even across time. [20]

[A]n alternative to the existing strategic planning process, which is often criticized as a number-crunching exercise that keeps companies locked into making incremental improvements. [20] ... The result is mounting cost structures and complex business models. [30] ... Focus on the big picture, not the numbers. [82]

To fundamentally shift the strategy canvas of an industry, you must begin by reorienting your strategic focus from competitors to alternatives, and from customers to noncustomers of the industry. [102]

When a company's strategy is formed reactively as it tries to keep up with the competition, it loses its uniqueness. [39]

Over time, functionally oriented industries become more functionally oriented; emotionally oriented industries become more emotionally oriented. No wonder market research rarely reveals new insights into what attracts customers. Industries have trained customers in what to expect. When surveyed, they echo back: more of the same for less. [70]

[T]he more an industry is populated by settlers [versus pioneers], the greater is the opportunity to value-innovate and create a blue ocean of new market space. [97]

Instead of focusing on customer differences, [companies] need to build on powerful commonalities in what buyers value. That allows companies to reach beyond existing demand to unlock a new mass of customers that did not exist before. [102] ...To reach beyond existing demand, think noncustomers before customers; commonalities before differences; and desegmentation before pursuing finer segmentation. [103]

Barriers to imitation are high. This is why we have seldom observed rapid imitation of blue ocean strategy. In addition, blue ocean strategy is a systems approach that requires not only getting each strategic element right but also aligning them in an integral system to deliver value innovation. Imitating such a system is not an easy feat. [187]

Highly recommended reading (Amazon link).

Park Ave Scavenger Hunt

2008-06-14T15:07:00.005-04:00
I'd say this qualifies as pretty clever: Architect Secretly Builds Epic Scavenger Hunt into NYC Apartment.

Eric Clough isn't your typical architectural designer. Sure, he'll design you a fine den or kitchen, but he's clearly got a creative streak that goes much deeper than that. That's why, when given the opportunity, he secretly built an incredible scavenger hunt into a $8.5-million, 4,200-square-foot Park Avenue apartment that included ciphers, riddles, poems and a lot of hidden doors and compartments.

(Hat tip to Jordan)

Update: NY Times article here - a bit more backstory. Thanks J.

Creative Generalists on Myers-Briggs

2008-06-11T19:00:00.003-04:00
Noel, a member of "The Society of Creative Generalists" Facebook group, mailed me recently to ask:
"I am curious to know what the prevalent type is among Creative Generalists on the Myers-Briggs... maybe a poll. I have a premise that there will be certain traits that are more common than others."

I'm curious too. A discussion thread has been started here if you'd care to share your M-B personality type and see if any patterns emerge. He's ENFJ. I'm INTJ. Which one are you?

Invent It

2008-06-10T07:59:00.000-04:00
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -- Alan Kay

We Specialize in Everything

2008-06-06T00:02:00.003-04:00
Seth Godin on specializing in everything.

He asks, "tell me again why you're a generalist?" This would be my response.

Moneyball

2008-06-05T22:47:00.004-04:00
I've long believed that a key and understated trait of creative generalists is the discipline to regularly and deliberately expose oneself to ideas, subjects, and worldviews that are either uncomfortable or even outright disagreeable. Not only is it important to learn widely all of the various things of interest but it is equally important to witness and consider many things that are not quite so easily understood or immediately interesting.

Like calculus, the challenging course I studied in college as part of my degree.
Like French, the elusive primary language of the city in which I live.
Like animal cruelty, the repulsive crime that makes my blood boil.
Like peak oil, the hopelessly huge global social and political issue.
Or like baseball, the sorta-fun-to-play yet boring-as-hell-to-watch pseudo-sport of mostly standing around watching a couple under-athletic dudes play catch. I'm not really a fan.

And yet, on the latter, I recently picked up and read Michael Lewis's 2004 bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Brilliant book! It's all about baseball (actually, more the business of baseball) and yet it's not at all boring. ;-) Basically, Moneyball is the story of how in 2002 the Oakland Athletics achieved a spectacular winning record while having the smallest player payroll of any major league baseball team. Forced by new ownership to trim costs, A's GM Billy Beane discovered and enacted a more mathematical and efficient approach to scouting, negotiating, and training pro baseball players; a transition from hunches to stats. What was really fascinating about this story was how it describes how an entirely new way of thinking was introduced - reluctantly at first and in sharp contrast to conventional and weathered thinking - and then ultimately embraced. It's a story about how a transcending game-changing idea can trump traditional incremental innovations. Recommended read.

Busy Signal

2008-06-04T20:22:00.000-04:00
I tend to shy away from blogging about my personal adventures, but seeing as my posts here have been few and far between lately I guess I probably should offer an excuse.

I've been busy. Busy settling in at a new job. Just over a month ago I left my Creative Producer position at Airborne Entertainment, where for the past three years I brand-managed mobile projects for Family Guy, Maxim, and others, to join robotic toy and consumer electronics creator WowWee as their new online-focused Director of Marketing. The WowWee team is sharp and pioneering, and I'm excited to be a part of it. And playing with toys at the office is a bonus too, of course.

I never would have predicted I'd one day land at a toy company. But my personal "creative generalist" philosophy has guided me well and helped me be open to new and different opportunities. It's given me the courage to make tangential job leaps and still call it a coherent career. This is what my path looks like:
-traditional ad agency (internship)
-start-up ideation agency (internship)
-marketing communications agency
-start-up arts/culture magazine
-mobile content production
-marketing consumer electronics / toys

Each shift requires a lot of learning, unlearning, and relearning - which is exactly why this blog is a little quiet at the moment - but I believe it is all really quite healthy. In fact, relearning is probably even more important to one's career now than it ever has been before. Things change so quickly and assumptions constantly need to be revisited; a zig in the ol' career forces one to recalibrate. This is an edge, I believe, that generalists possess versus their comfortable specialist counterparts. Plus, I'm convinced that the "other-worldly" insights that an industry outsider brings is not only more transferable and applicable than we're often led to believe but it's also an unusually valuable import for any employer. Well, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Creative Generalist Q&A: Saul Kaplan

2008-05-25T14:00:00.001-04:00

A year and a half ago I ventured down to the charming city of Providence to check out an ideas conference being hosted by Rhode Island's "Business Innovation Factory." It turned out to be an outstanding event, attended by many bright minds with numerous inspiring stories from a wide range of fields. (I returned last year too.) Beyond all of the ideas, however, the main takeaway was just how advantageous being small actually is for tiny Rhode Island when it comes to actually capitalizing on innovation. And they know it! For this installment of the eclectic curiosity interview series, I chat with Saul Kaplan, the "Chief Catalyst" leading the BIF charge.

Saul Kaplan is the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation. He serves as the Executive Counselor to the Governor on Economic Growth and Community Development and serves on the Board of Directors for the Quonset Development Corporation, the Slater Technology Fund, Family Services of Rhode Island, and for The Big Picture Company. Kaplan created and leads Rhode Island's unique Innovation @ Scale economic development strategy aimed at increasing the state's capacity to grow and support an innovation economy, including an effort to turn the state's compact geography and close-knit public and private networks into a competitive advantage. Kaplan was appointed by Governor Carcieri to the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council.

Where does Rhode Island rank in terms of business innovation? And in which areas is it particularly strong?

We have made innovation central to our state’s economic future. We are the smaller more manageable place where it is easier to get ideas from the white board on to a real world test bed. If new ideas work here in Rhode Island they will be better positioned to launch nationally and globally. We are positioning the state as a national innovation hot spot. Rhode Island has significant momentum in several innovation economy sectors such as health and life sciences, information technology and digital media, and defense/marine technology. Rhode Islanders are also natural entrepreneurs – we are two times more likely to start a business than the New England regional average. We’ve got a unique ecosystem, one in which the state’s compact geography and “tight knit” social networks enable collaborators to more easily explore and test new business models.

What's a specific example of a situation where RI's compact size and tight networks have provided an advantage that wouldn't typically happen in larger states?

In 2006, Rhode Island concluded a ground-breaking port security demonstration project that brought public and private sector partners together to build a communications network for real-time, cross-agency monitoring of vessel traffic in Narragansett Bay. Because of Rhode Island’s well-networked community of defense experts, this project was executed quickly and at less cost than would have been possible in other areas of the country. Other ongoing initiatives taking advantage of Rhode Island’s unique ecosystem include electronic medical records, personalized medicine, intelligent transportation, and a statewide research alliance. We are particularly excited about the BIF Nursing Home of the Future project that we have just launched to completely rethink how value is delivered to our elderly population.

You've said that you believe that success in Rhode Island is hinged on the community's ability to experiment with new business models. What exactly do you mean by that? What kind of models?

It’s not just Rhode Island’s success that hinges on an ability to experiment with new business models. Our entire nation must now compete in an increasingly complex, global economy where innovation and knowledge are the primary drivers of growth. Innovation is about a better way to deliver value. It is not technology that is getting in the way of progress in the areas that matter most: health care, public safety, education, and quality of life. These are all systems problems and we do not have a road map for systems level experimentation and change. We have more technology then we know how to use and absorb today. It is humans that are getting in the way. Humans and the organizations we live in are stubbornly resistant to change and do not know how to work and play nicely together across boundaries. We need safe environments to experiment with new business models particularly networked business models that cut across organizations, industries, and the public and private sector. My new mantra is about R&D for new business models. All organization leaders need to constantly explore and experiment with new business models the same way they test new products and technologies today.

Rhode Island has a unique opportunity to be an innovation hot spot by turning its small size into a competitive advantage. For organizations interested in developing new business models – specifically models that require the networking of capabilities across industries and disciplines – Rhode Island’s place power presents a unique opportunity for value creation. We can more easily develop an integrated understanding of an entire system and also provide an independent, neutral platform for experimenting with new systems.

We created the non-profit Business Innovation Factory to deliver on this proposition and BIF’s experience lab currently has projects underway targeting new business models in healthcare, education and public safety.

What are the biggest challenges and opportunities that come from spanning the worlds of politics, business, academia, and the arts?

An active BIF community member once suggested that our t-shirts should proclaim “BIF The Anti Silo”. I believe that the best value-creating opportunities will be found in the gray areas between disciplines, functions, and sectors. We have to learn how to create new system level solutions with an interdisciplinary approach that enables transdisciplinary solutions. New business models will arise from bringing the unusual suspects together and learning how to connect new capabilities in purposeful ways. All of this is easier to say then to do. Most of us are busy pedaling the bicycle of our current business models and we spend too much time interacting with only the usual suspects who shop the same old solutions and capability sets. Our mission at the Business Innovation Factory is to enable collaborative innovation. We are creating a community of innovators who are interested in exploring and testing new business models. We are trying to make R&D for new business models easier to do while still pedaling today’s business models.

What skills/training/experience do you personally rely on most to span such silos and to foster collaboration?

Very thick skin, a strong belief that there is always a better way, the ability to thrive with ambiguity, actually enjoying steep learning curves, and did I say very thick skin. Everyone loves innovation until it impacts them. I used to think that we could enable large-scale change and create more innovators by proselytizing. Innovation rhetoric is everywhere and yet we still don’t seem to be progressing beyond the buzzwords. I now believe in sorting the world to identify the innovators across every imaginable discipline and silo and then finding ways to connect them in purposeful ways. I think we will make more progress that way. That is what BIF is all about.

From your experience visiting and consulting many different types of organizations, what are the most common mistakes made in how they organize and structure themselves? How can organizations be more innovative?

There is a lot written and many consultants who work in this space. I will mention a couple of observations from my years as a road warrior strategy consultant with all of the black and blue marks derived from trying to help CEOs lead major organization change projects. The first is that traditional organizational structures are unable to fully take advantage of today’s network and communication technologies that enable both more efficient and entirely new business models. Functional silos are ineffective structures to align the full power of the enterprise to delivering customer value. Today it should be more about aligning capabilities that tap skill centers from in and outside of the organization. Today it is more about an operating architecture to deliver value then it is about an organization structure. The key leadership roles are more about managing a network of capabilities and strategic alliances then about managing a portfolio of corporate functions.

The second idea I would share is the distinction between making today’s business model more efficient and exploring entirely new business models. Most organizations have improved their ability to harness technology to make today’s business model more efficient. Companies have ramped up product development efforts and streamlined every process to improve the competitive position of the current business model. Today that is necessary but not sufficient. In addition, leaders must explore new business models if they hope to sustain top line revenue growth and strong global competitiveness.

At BIF-3 you remarked that "CEOs don't have the expertise to change systems". What did you mean by that?

Most CEOs today have only had to lead a single business model throughout his or her entire career. They have not had to significantly change business models and focus primarily on how to make the current business model more efficient and competitive. I suspect that the CEO of tomorrow will have to change their business model several times over the course of his or her career. The successful CEO will establish an ongoing process to explore new business models, even models that might threaten the current one. Where do they teach business model innovation? Where do CEOs turn to learn this new strategic imperative? The Business Innovation Factory is focused on this important market unmet need.

Having now hosted three successful multi-disciplinary idea conferences, what would you say are the key factors to a successful event?

People, People, People. Richard Saul Wurman, the founder of TED, is both a friend and mentor of mine and he told me early on that when he welcomed participants to his events, he always said, “Welcome to the dinner party I always wanted to have and now can.” Through our summits, we’re looking to create experiences that spark intelligent conversations. We look for innovators from all walks of life who can tell a fresh story. But that’s only one part of the equation. Just as important are the audience members. Our audience is made up of people with a genuine passion for what they do. When you bring that all together, good, inspiring concepts will arise. We are looking forward to BIF-4 on October 15-16th.

Over the three Summits, which storytellers surprised and/or inspired you the most? Why?

William Gibson, author of Pattern Recognition, is right in saying "The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed". I’ve often caught glimpses of that at our annual summits. I am most impressed by innovators from places you wouldn’t expect them to come from. Colonel Dean Esserman, who is implementing an innovative business model for community policing, spoke at BIF-1 and BIF-3, and gave all of the summit participants compelling insights on what business model innovation is all about. All of our storytellers have had a unique story to share and I always say that it is up to our BIF community to make the personal connections that are most meaningful to them. I am most gratified by the stories I hear after the summit about connections and new projects that have been launched with BIF as the catalyst.

From BIF-2, Peter Gloor described the differences between star and galaxy network topologies. A star network is all about ego and is self limiting. Everything must go through a central node for the network to survive, limiting growth and innovation. A galaxy network enables actionable connections among all nodes. I couldn’t help but make the connection to BIF which works everyday to strengthen an emerging galaxy in support of our mission to enable collaborative innovation.

Where do you look for inspiration? Are there any organizations, people, books or websites that you find especially inspiring?

I am most inspired by my own children and the next generation of innovators that they represent. It makes me hopeful for our future. Unlike dinosaurs like me who struggle to understand what it means to live, work, and play in a shiny new networked world. For them it is a natural act. They have been brought up to collaborate across silos and have almost no patience for organization boundaries that get in the way of new ideas and solutions. I think the most important thing we can do is to enable them to get underneath the buzzwords of innovation to the real solutions that we must scale in healthcare, education, public safety and quality of life. I feel good about building a network of innovators that are ready to roll up their sleeves and to demonstrate that there truly is a better way.

Thank you, Saul.

MUTO

2008-05-23T12:28:00.000-04:00

That this video, MUTO, of pictures animated on public Buenos Aires walls is around seven minutes only adds to its awesomeness. Created by BLU.

(Thanks caff)

Unboxed

2008-05-08T07:44:00.000-04:00
Janet Rae-Dupree's NY Times column "Unboxed" continues to offer a monthly dose of, you could say, chicken soup for the CG soul. Two recent dispatches cover variations on a theme: 1) don't decide too soon and prematurely eliminate possibilities and 2) harness the power of improv and facilitate a "culture of yes"...

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?
"It seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. ... A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.”

Can Executives Learn to Ignore the Script?
"And so the more spontaneously we respond — the more improvisational we are — the more likely we are to stumble across new and improved methods for resolving problems."

Rock the Tesseract

2008-05-07T18:53:00.004-04:00
Two of life's most common questions are “What are you going to do when you grow up?” and “What do you do for a Job?”. New Zealander Jason Kemp answers, "I’m a polychronic creative generalist (and divergent thinking maven). Creative generalists rock the tesseract!" Click here to see what he means by that.

Slow Down

2008-05-05T19:41:00.002-04:00
"Slowing down is essential to any kind of creativity — even if it makes you unfocused, inefficient, undisciplined, or unsystematic too," says Carmine Coyote at Slow Leadership. Five Ways to Boost Creativity — or Kill it Altogether.

(Thanks Leslie)

Dissecting the Division of Labour

2008-05-01T00:04:00.001-04:00
Check this out... New research [appearing in the Journal of Theoretical Biology] by scientists at Ohio State University suggests that societal duties do not need to be assigned by a division of labour (DoL) where every individual has a specific role. Researchers Anthony D'Orazio and Tom Waite argue that generalists have a definite role to play and that this holds true for environments as varied as a single cell, an ocean colony of sea anemones or even a small cookie business.

"What this modelling showed me is that there are conditions under which it actually helps to have some generalists, especially for fairly small groups, some individuals that you might think of as Jacks- or Jills-of-all-trades or multitaskers," said Waite. "You might actually have to pay them more and they might often do the wrong task, but if you don't have them, this whole notion of specialisation leading to greater economic productivity might actually be wrong."

These results go against some long held beliefs, even going back to Greek philosopher Plato, who argued that societies require specialisation to be productive and efficient.

The Importing and Exporting Role

2008-04-30T00:02:00.000-04:00
I love this exchange from this Dearlove & Crainer Management-Issues interview with business strategy professor, consultant and author Richard D'Aveni. Asked about how relevant his academic insight is to real business situations, he zeros in on exactly the thing that spanning leaders - that is, leaders who are able to span multiple industries, disciplines, or cultures - can do which makes them important and influential, and which ultimately makes them even better leaders...

Why should executives, beset with all this turbulence and change, listen to someone like you, an Ivy League Professor - Joe Bowtie, if you like? How do you understand their world?
That's a good question -- executives should always ask their advisors that. I think the main reason is because I live in their world. OK, so I spend some time teaching at this idyllic place up here in the woods of New Hampshire. [The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.] And I tell the students and executives who come here these stories about strategy.

But where do you think the stories come from?
They come from my consulting with hundreds of companies, from my research. They're coming from practical experience, and the way I learn is by talking to lots of managers, finding out what their concerns are, what's happening in their lives, what's affecting their businesses. So it's really a story that doesn't just pop out of nowhere.

What I am is an importer and exporter of ideas. I import ideas from one marketplace to another. And I can see general trends that the average manager doesn't see, because I see what's going on in one industry and another industry and another industry, and I pull them together. [underline emphasis added - CG]

And that gives you a different perspective?
That's right. That importing and exporting role is really what I do that managers can't do for themselves. I can't know an industry better than a seasoned industry exec can. He or she has a lifetime of experience in it. What I can do is import and export much better than they can.

I don't live every day in just one world, but I show up often enough to find the right information, and I can take it somewhere else and I can sell it, just like any merchant would, travelling from one nation to another. And my ability to see those trends and to transport them across industry borders is really what I'm good at.

Academic Culture Clash

2008-04-29T15:05:00.003-04:00
"Female Science Professor" recently posted an observation of a culture clash amongst science profs in a committee at her university. She noted that one particular issue seemed to transcend differences in scientific field, age, gender, race, or sanity level. The issue: whether one was focused or unfocused in their approach to academic research. She writes:

In the meeting today, some members of the Focused Group put forward the opinion that those who work on a wide range of topics tend to be 'too ambitious', 'too scattered', and 'superficial'. Some members of the Unfocused Group put forward the opinion that those who work on a specific, very focused topic are 'too narrow', 'can't see the Big Picture', and won't know what to do when that topic has been studied to extinction.

I should say that this was a very friendly discussion, and our disagreements were not expressed in a hostile way at all. Nevertheless, we found ourselves at an impasse, and have not yet found a way to reconcile these two different views to the extent of reaching a decision. ...Surely the answer is that the scientific community needs both kinds of scientists, ideally working together now and then. In our committee, however, we have to choose one species over the other, and that is difficult.

Focused or unfocused - that's a false choice (and university professional should know it). Specialists and generalists are the ultimate complements, and the real opportunity lies not in determining which one is better but rather in finding and fostering more ways for them to cooperate more completely and more often.

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko

2008-04-28T09:05:00.003-04:00
I read Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need cover-to-cover in less than 37 minutes. It's no A Whole New Mind or Free Agent Nation but then again it's no typical career advice book either. Working with illustrator Rob Ten Pas, Pink harnesses the kinetic, if sometimes ridiculous, energy of manga to drive home five sensible lessons for achieving a successful and happy career:
1. There is no plan.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses
3. It's not about you
4. Persistence trumps talent
5. Make excellent mistakes
6. Leave an imprint

It's a perfect book for high schoolers trying to figure out how to pursue their skills and passions. More than the advice, though, what I really liked about Johnny Bunko was how it fused two different genres together - manga and career guides - to make something interesting and enjoyable. The story itself isn't groundbreaking, but the format is. So kudos to Pink and Penguin for that and especially for raising the bar significantly with the trailer they produced to push the book.

Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo
Very well done!

The World Is Just Awesome

2008-04-21T14:19:00.002-04:00
A great new ad for Discovery Channel:

Boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada...

(Thanks Clay)

YoungMe - NowMe

2008-04-19T10:39:00.002-04:00
Such a cute idea: YoungMe-NowMe! A Ze Frank photo challenge over at ColorWars.

(Thanks Åsk)

Generational Mission

2008-04-13T23:06:00.001-04:00
Al Gore recently updated his Inconvenient Truth presentation and premiered it at TED last month. It's well worth watching. In it he moves beyond making the case that climate change is real and important to challenging us to act with a sense of "generational mission" to set it right. This coincides, incidentally, with his launch of a three-year, $300 million climate change campaign, one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.

Generalists Wanted

2008-04-10T23:47:00.000-04:00
Generalists not wanted here - Larry Borsato at The Industry Standard writes about how "...in the Web 2.0 world we live in, where new products and APIs are introduced seemingly every other week, specialization loses its allure."

(Thanks Garrick)

The Raccoon Riff

2008-04-06T23:53:00.029-04:00
The office at which I work, Airborne Mobile, is populated by an eclectic crew of seriously talented and not-so-seriously funny people. We have an opt-in internal email list called "Fun" and it's where the serial web link forwarders and jokesters post their "non-work" nonsense. I'm on it along with dozens of others - including one Tom Inoue, a senior graphic designer with whom I've had the pleasure to work with on a couple high-concept projects. He's a supremely skilled visual artist with a sharp eye and some major Photoshop chops. As it turns out, he's also got some impressive Google-fu when it comes to finding just the right completely random image for the moment.

Many months ago, someone started on the "Fun" list a series called "Friday's random picture." It was exactly that; a bizarre or compelling image with no context whatsoever. Sometimes it would garner a chuckle. One Friday, an image found at icanhascheezburger.com of a raccoon with outstretched arms was posted. Here it is:

Soon after, Tom quickly photoshopped the charming raccoon into a few baseball scenes.

This was amusing to some of us, so the gag continued. Tom followed up the umpire shots with a few other different ones - say, a Mission:Impossible scene and championship figure skating...

Then, taking up surfing...

Getting wet and parlaying that into iconic album art...

Working the curling, fringe festival, and summer birthday party circuits...

Delving into the arts...

Dominating at poker, foosball, and Olympic basketball...

And on it went with "the Safe Raccoon" somehow finding himself in a range of odd and hilarious scenarios. Our own traveling garden gnome. Oh yeah, here he is flying with Superman...

Anyways, I post this not just because it's good for a laugh but also because I think it's a fine example of being creative by recontextualizing something. It's a sort of unexpected improv; a riff, a remix, or maybe it's just an incredibly versatile raccoon!

[Tom's working on his personal website.]

Reversible Destiny

2008-04-03T15:15:00.001-04:00
Check out this recent NY Times article about Madeline Gins and Arakawa's $2-million Long Island house which they claim restores youth, boosts one's immune system, and even opposes death. And it's a real-life romper room.

In addition to the floor, which threatens to send the un-sure-footed hurtling into the sunken kitchen at the center of the house, the design features walls painted, somewhat disorientingly, in about 40 colors; multiple levels meant to induce the sensation of being in two spaces at once; windows at varying heights; oddly angled light switches and outlets; and an open flow of traffic, unhindered by interior doors or their adjunct, privacy. All of it is meant to keep the occupants on guard. Comfort, the thinking goes, is a precursor to death; the house is meant to lead its users into a perpetually “tentative” relationship with their surroundings, and thereby keep them young.

(Thanks Susan)

Jigsaw Coins

2008-04-02T23:44:00.006-04:00
The Royal Mint in the UK has revealed the new designs of its various coins. The result of a public competition announced in August 2005, the winner among over 4000 entrants is 26-year-old London-based graphic designer Matthew Dent. His beautiful design treats the coins as a loose set which when placed together form the Royal Arms. "I felt that the solution to the Royal Mint's brief lay in a united design - united in terms of theme, execution and coverage over the surface of the coins. ... It's easy to imagine the coins pushed around a school classroom table or fumbled around with on a bar - being pieced together as a jigsaw and just having fun with them." Very cool!

(Thanks Leslie)

What's Next in Marketing + Advertising

2008-04-01T00:01:00.006-04:00
The slides below are from a presentation, What's Next in Marketing + Advertising, delivered last week by Paul Isakson. An absolutely brilliant synopsis of just how profoundly marketing has changed -- in light of shifts in product design, the huge influence of social media, the movement to content as currency, and the increased value placed on engagement and utility -- in a fairly short period of time. Pass it around. ... Paul is a Senior Strategic Planner at Minneapolis-based brand agency space150 and the "What's Next?" theme is from a monthly lunch they hold to exchange ideas and thoughts, to inspire insight.

(via Only Dead Fish)
| View | Upload your own

The Age of Conversation 2

2008-03-31T09:02:00.007-04:00
Last year Gavin Heaton and Drew McLennan released a new and interesting book, The Age of Conversation. It was an experimental project featuring 100 voices -- mostly marketing types from all pockets of the biz and blogosphere, including Roger von Oech, Gareth Kay, David Armano, and Andy Nulman -- writing on the importance of debate and discussion. All proceeds go to charity. It's received lots of net buzz and is enjoying Amazon bestseller status.

Here's its promotional description:

If ideas are the currency of our times then this is, undoubtedly, the Age of Conversation, for without the art of dialog, the cut and thrust of debate and discussion, then the economy of ideas would implode under its own heavy weight. Instead, the reverse is true. Far from seeing an implosion, we are living in a time of proliferation - ideas build upon ideas, discussion grows from seeds of thought and single headlines give rise to a thousand medusa-like simulations echoing words whispered somewhere on the other side of the planet. All this - in an instant. In what began as a half dare, the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan challenged bloggers around the world to contribute one page - 400 words - on the topic of "conversation".

Well, a 2008 sequel was announced last month and I'm glad to say that I'll be among its 275 (yes, 275!) authors. The topic, generally, is "Why don't people get it?!". More details, including a launch date, to come in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, here's a link list of the project's other contributors:

Adam Crowe, Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob Carlton, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Bradley Spitzer, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Clay Parker Jones, Chris Brown, Colin McKay, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Cord Silverstein, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Goldstein, Dan Schawbel, Dana VanDen Heuvel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Darryl Patterson, Dave Davison, Dave Origano, David Armano, David Bausola, David Berkowitz, David Brazeal, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Emily Reed, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, G. Kofi Annan, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Graham Hill, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, J.C. Hutchins, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeremy Middleton, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, Joe Talbott, John Herrington, John Jantsch, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Flowers, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kris Hoet, Krishna De, Kristin Gorski, Laura Fitton, Laurence Helene Borei, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Barnes-Johnston, Louise Mangan, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Marcus Brown, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Mark McSpadden, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Hawkins, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Monica Wright, Nathan Gilliatt, Nathan Snell, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul Marobella, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Beeker Northam, Rob Mortimer, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Cribbett, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tiffany Kenyon, Tim Brunelle, Tim Buesing, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Longhurst, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

Haiku Building

2008-03-29T15:58:00.001-04:00
Given that my first blurb appears on the cover, I would be remiss not to mention the latest book by my favourite cultural canary, Susan August. Following in the divine footsteps of Haiku Applecart, her first book, Haiku Building is another wonderful collection of charming 5-7-5 poetry. Each one hones in on one of life's little details and deftly draws it out in just a dozen or so words.

traced by a finger
on the dusty truck window
"I like them dirty"

bath in the gutter
preparing for his hot date
an urban pigeon

melted spatula
I pause to reconsider
the joy of cooking

passing commute time
a favorite song's bass line
thumping in my chest

Crayon Physics and Fez

2008-03-25T22:14:00.005-04:00

There wasn't much to it but Line Rider had me hooked for days drawing virtual slopes for a poor fella to sled down. The beauty of that popular game was both its simplicity and its invitation to build many of the variables that influenced the action.

Two other new "homemade" games are expanding on similar foundations and causing quite a stir. Fez and Crayon Physics Deluxe both demo'd at the Independent Games Festival offshoot of the recent Game Developers Conference. Both show that basic premises - a 2D character navigating a 3d world and wax crayon drawings that magically come to life - can captivate and draw audiences. Glowing reviews here.

I first saw Fez at a Montreal Pecha Kucha night back in January. Co-creator Phil Fish showed off his collection of bitmapped pixel characters and the Mario-esque world of floating cubes players would need to explore around. Striking visual design and a kinda trippy play on dimensional space.

I learned of the other game, Crayon Physics Deluxe, from the very cool YouTube video above (via Roy - thanks!). Created by Finnish student Petri Purho as a follow-up to the original freeware prototype he created (something he does within 7 days at least once every month), CPD makes fun out of solving puzzles with artistic vision and a creative use of physics. Slate says looks like it was designed by a third-grader. To his credit, Purho considers that a compliment.

IDEO Eyes Open

2008-03-23T12:29:00.001-04:00
Dubbed a "field guide for the curious," the IDEO Eyes Open series of projects - city guides, urban tours, and an online collection of stories - focuses on the significance of spaces in our lives. Their aim is to draw inspiration from culture and communities and the experiences they create, while chronicling emergent ideas by tying them to concrete experience. All to connect inspiration with insight. A very smart outside-in approach and endeavour for the revered innovation consultancy.

Idea Videos

2008-03-18T20:10:00.004-04:00
Back at the beginning of the year I posted a list of over two dozen idea conferences taking place in 2008 all around the world. A true test of one's frequent flyer miles! Fortunately, several of these conferences now post many of their presentations online for free.

There's of course the TED Talks. This is an exceptional library of top thinkers discussing important and new ideas. So many to view, but may I recommend starting with Sir Ken Robinson's brilliant review of creativity in schools, Lost creator J.J. Abrams's talk about "the mystery box", or James Howard Kunstler's rant against suburbia. Or, better yet, just bounce from one vid to another.

Russell Davies, organizer of last year's Interesting '07 event, has posted a number of curious videos from his London gathering (as well as the Australian spin-off Interesting South) here. Good stuff. And I'm thrilled to say that I will be a speaker - not sure on what just yet! - at Interesting 2008 on June 21st.

Frans Johansson's first-annual Medici Summit just wrapped up earlier this month and he promises to reveal video from it on his blog in the months ahead. One of The Pirate's Dilemma author Matt Mason is already available here.

The Aspen Idea Festival showcases a variety of its videos - including conversations with Richard Branson, Colin Powell and, gulp, Karl Rove - here.

Toronto's ideaCity (whose site appears to be down at the moment) offers up its professionally produced videos on annual DVD sets.

Rhode Island's Business Innovation Factory also has a nice collection of free online videos featuring speakers from its three annual Collaborative Innovation Summits (the last two I posted about here and here). Be sure to check out Walt Mossberg's interview with Clayton Christensen, Denise Nemchev's surprising story of Bostitch innovating a simple nail, Ivy Ross's reflections on how product design can best be structured, and Michael Singer's eloquent talk about complexity and community. And, peeling back the curtain, here is my appearance as part of BIF's Short Takes video series released following the event. Mark Cuban, Jason Fried, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, and others - not bad company, I must say.

Happy viewing!

763 SXSW Reviews

2008-03-17T15:15:00.000-04:00
The mother of all indie-pop-rock music festivals, SXSW, just wrapped up yesterday in Austin. No doubt some stars were born, while others were left just to gas up the van and head home. The Morning News' contributing writer Paul Ford offers a convenient collection of 6-word reviews based on 48 hours of listening to 763 of the participating bands' lead MP3s. A great sampling of many new and generally unknown artists.

(Thanks Justin/Jason)