Oct 25, 2010
Had to share this one.
Ze Frank creates all these wonderful projects that have tons of people sharing and contributing, and its because he has an engaged audience along with a willingness to try ideas that seem silly.
Why aren’t you doing fun projects with your audiences? 
Oct 14, 2010
Melinda Gates speaks out about lessons that non-profits can learn from Coca-Cola, and she advocates local marketing, and giving access to data so that the locals can solve problems quickly.
Seems like a lesson we can all take away. The video is worth watching because it’s fascinating to hear about all of the efforts of the Gates foundation and other non-profits. Take a look, worth your 17 minutes!
Oct 13, 2010
John Wooden talking about what is “true success.” He had this great quote that was told to him by his father:
Never try to be better than someone else, always learn from others. Never cease trying to be the best you can be — that’s under your control. If you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to the things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you have control.
That’s how I define success: being the best you can be, and making sure that you give 100% to everything that is under your control.
Keep being the best you can be!
Oct 12, 2010
Gary Wolf talks about all of the different methods we use to quantify different aspects of our life – heart rate, sleep habits, spending habits, and a whole whack of other things. Why do I care? Because of this quote:
So, if we want to act more effectively in the world, we have to get to know ourselves better.
Know yourself better, learn how to improve not only yourself, but the world around you as well. Go get ‘em.
Oct 8, 2010
This great TED talk by Steven Johnson discusses how some of the great ideas in the world have come to fruition and the sorts of environments that have facilitated that sort of activity. My favourite part was him discussing how scientists get their scientific breakthroughs, and he mentioned this:
They happened at the conference table at the weekly lab meeting, when everybody got together and shared their kind of latest data and findings, oftentimes when people shared the mistakes they were having, the error, the noise in the signal they were discovering.
I’ve known this for a while, but I hope that if you have a great idea, bounce it off people and get their thoughts on the matter. I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who are much more talented and intelligent than I am, so their feedback on my crazy and out there ideas mean the world to me.
Find your group of smarter people, and share your idea with them!
Oct 7, 2010
Margaret Gould Stewart, the head of user experience over at YouTube explains the Content ID system over at YouTube, and mentions that the minute you upload some copyrighted material, the rights holders get to determine what happens to your video.
Once again, not a huge fan of copyright protection being too far and overreaching, but you really do have to realize that YouTube is making small and incremental changes to copyright protection. The story from the video is a great example: the wedding video that uses Chris Brown’s Forever brought the song back to number 4 on the iTunes charts, having been long dead before that. Had Sony, the rights holder to Chris Brown’s Forever, simply blocked the video from appearing, that song would have stayed off of the charts.
Keep in mind, years ago, these RIAA companies would simply have blocked the content and prevent anyone from enjoying the video. Now, you have companies thinking about all of the possibilities that can come from that one video. As Stewart said:
By simply blocking all reuse, you’ll miss out on new art forms, new audiences, new distribution channels and new revenue streams.
Now, the real task is to get them to move from only allowing popular videos to benefit from this sort of leniency, and to all videos that simply want to share the song – you want more people to listen to your artists, don’t you?
Oct 6, 2010
This great presentation from Johanna Blakley discusses how the fashion industry, which does not have the luxury of copyright protection, is a flourishing and innovative industry despite their lack of protection. Being strongly opinionated on the matter of copyright protection, I felt I had to make a few comments.
I think Johanna’s use of the fashion industry doesn’t necessarily apply to the movie, music, software or games industry (Anything that suffers from piracy.) because in fashion, it’s designer to designer copying, not consumer to designer. In other words, it isn’t a consumer issue as much as it is with the aforementioned industries.
But Johanna brought up a fantastic point: designers are making it more difficult for other designers to completely rip off their designs, but they aren’t making it more difficult for the consumer to consume, unlike all of the initiatives that the movie, music, software, and game industries have been undertaking. (Cough, Ubisoft, cough.) I think it’s a very valid point: these people who have no copyright protection are becoming very creative at designing something difficult to rip off, and people want it because it’s designed well.
So lesson to the movie, music, software, and game industries: make something we want, something unique, and we’ll buy it.
Trust me.
Oct 5, 2010
This blog post was inspired by Cameron Herold’s speech at TEDxEdmonton.
As someone who’s grown up not really fitting into the school system and always trying to do things on my own, this speaks volumes. It was really difficult to get through all of school, and not because I’m dumb, but because it isn’t a system I jive well with. Of course, this was because everyone in and around the system would try to get you into the “stable career” path without any regard for what you might be good at.
I really wish there was more emphasis on building on your strengths, rather than being constantly reminded of your weaknesses. I don’t believe that people shouldn’t be well rounded, but their strengths should be leaps and bounds ahead of everything else.
Oct 4, 2010
In an effort to blog more and more often, I have set a goal for myself to watch one TED video every morning, and write a short blog post about it. So… let’s kick this off shall we?
There was one particular point that struck me in this video:
If you’ve got an elementary particle and you shine a light on it, then the photon of light has momentum, which knocks the particle, so you don’t know where it was before you looked at it. By measuring it, the act of measurement changes it. The act of observation changes it. It’s the same in marketing.
Why? Well, I’m not sure if any of you are aware of the number of television shows are canceled every year, nevermind the number of shows on FOX that have been canned, but they are all determined by one thing: Nielsen ratings. Nielsen ratings are basically a sample of people who statistically represent the nation as a whole. They are what determines the fate of a show. Basically, the better a show fares on Nielsen tests, the better ad dollars it can pull in, and everyone on the show can get paid.
I am not a huge fan of Nielsen ratings; they cannot accurately measure everything about television shows, which is evident because a large number of very well made shows have been canceled in the past. Of course, set top boxes are unreliable for data; all they can do is tell whether it is turned on or off.
I offer two alternatives:
The biggest problem behind television is that all of this is being done because they need to sell advertising on these time slots, and that’s exactly why I dislike it. Commercials are a nuisance, and I would love for the entire model to change.
If only!
I would love to get your thoughts on the matter: Nielsen ratings, television shows, commercials, anything and everything in between! Comment down below.