I've Been Bad.

And I'll admit it.

I haven't read GapingVoid for a long, long time. Hugh got too sucked into keeping me up to date on all the *things* he was doing and the people he was *talking to*, instead of *what* he was *thinking about* and *talking about* (By the way, is it bad internet grammar to use asteriks like that?).

Anyway, I wandered back over, and it's a reminder that I shouldn't let things that I once found interesting slip out of my consciousness if they go through uninteresting bits.

And I found this excellent post about a conversation he had with a client. Here's the top bullet points, but please go to Hugh's excellent site and read the post - he's right.

1. I'm not here to tell you about your business.

2. To me, The Cluetrain is the most important book about the internet ever written.

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

3. Nobody cares about you. That last sentence terrifies a lot of corporate types...

4. You've already done "efficient". We're living in a post-efficiency world now...

THESIS:

5. The growth will come, I believe, not by yet more increased efficiencies, but by humanification.

6. If corporate blogs work, it's because they help humanify the company.

7. Blogging is not about reaching a mass audience. Blogging is not about creating yet another sales channel. Blogging is about allowing "The Smarter Conversation" to happen.

Blogs allow you to cheaply and quickly begin a smarter conversation. And once you get it going, that conversation starts bleeding out into all other areas of your business- including advertising, PR and corporate communications.

8. Having a "Smarter Conversation" is not an intellectual decision. It's a moral decision.

9. Just because the conversation started out smart, doesn't mean it stayed that way.

WRAP-UP:

10. A fairly comprehensive list of corporate blogs can be found here on Wikipedia. [UPDATE: The Wikipedia list seems to have been taken down; but thankfully there's another list here.]

11. Blogs are very culturally disruptive- more so than people realize. So the question you have to ask yourself is, what part of your business are you trying to disrupt? Because you have to be ready for it.

12. "Conversation" is just a metaphor. Then again, no it's not.

13. Here are some links to give you some food for thought: Go to Hugh's site for all these:) please.

14. Remember, our internal drives were hardwired into us long before money was invented. So we're not doing it just for the money. We're really doing it to find meaning. Just my opinion.

15. Thoughts from my day job: "What's driving innovation and sales on our end is not a technological issue, it's a cultural issue. Get the right culture going, and the tech looks after itself."

Man, I've missed ya Hugh.

Innovation has a Minimum Speed Limit

In the rapidly-changing technology and media landscape of today, there is one constant need - to do things better, faster, and cheaper than ever before.

That holds true for creative production as well as creative (and any other) business.

If you do not have the ability or the will to move fast, or adapt quickly, you are dead - you just might not know it yet.

Old media (not necessarily as a euphemism for all the old studios and networks - old media is a way of thinking, of managing, and of communication and awareness or lack thereof) is fighting this battle every day, and losing.

It's losing to it's phalanxes of executives, business affairs, legal affairs and insurance policies.

And it's creating a huge opportunity for smaller, faster companies led by individuals who understand not on the minutiae of what it takes to make their product (and therefore be able to make it better/faster & cheaper), but who also actually understand and grasp what's going on in this new world.

The moment for trying new things, new business models, new ways of integrating talented & experienced individuals is now.

Who's going to take the opportunity and make it work?

Wait & see.

It's the Story, Stupid

If I had a nickel for everytime I've heard the phrase "content is king," I'd be a very wealthy man.

Over the years, when I've been on projects in a meaningful creative role (which I can count on one hand, thus far), it always, always comes back to one thing for me - the story.

As Robert McKee puts it best "Story well-told."

This isn't existential. It isn't debatable. Watching great films, or great televison, or even a great short film tells us this in visual media. A play, a book, a poem or a painting "well-told" all hold the same power.

The issue in the business is that there's so much money to be made on simple "content" that we forget the things that ignite the passion and inspiration in us that a great story creates.

Instead we replace it with satisfaction at the power lunches, the nice offices, cars and homes, and "people we know" and the politics of power.

I'm trying to come to terms with how to continue furthering my own personal career and stick to the titular principle above as much as I can. Part of that will come from creating businesses and business opportunities that foster collaboration and innovation with new storytellers around the country and around the world.

I don't yet know where that place will be, but I can tell you that I am passionate and excited about the prospects of what can be.

Some of the greatest storytellers in human history had nothing more than a few people gathered around to listen to them as they wove their masterful tales. No lights, no cameras, no special effects, no layers of executives and lawyers and agents and managers.

The industry system as we know it today by no means has a monopoly on talent, and by and large have chosen to forget the relevance of a well-told story, and replaced it with the "well-marketed" story.

Something different is coming.

Thoughts on Think Tanks

Seen around town: Companies discussing or starting "strategic" think tanks (differing from "creative" think tanks... which I still think should be more aptly titled).

Think Tanks are the things you create in politics in order to get a certain point of view across without calling them Lobbyists, and by attempting to back up their opinions with research or facts.

Think Tanks are also the things you create in a business when you have the sneaking suspicion that your business might be threatened.

Think Tanks are not units you want to isolate from your employees or business folks if they're the ones who are supposed to provide innovative ways to make a company better.

A Think Tank in a glass walled tower has a great view of the surrounding landscape, when they should be looking at the cogs and gears of the machine they're tasked with overhauling and turning into something new.

Unless I'm mistaken about the purpose of a "Think Tank" - which maybe in the proper case should be renamed "Think Net" or something that doesn't imply an impenetrable armoured vehicle or an aquarium.

Meh.