APRIL 15, 2009

If you’ve been anywhere near the blogosphere in the past few months, you’ve noticed that one of the dominant themes of conversation has been the apparent demise of “traditional media” - i.e. newspapers and, to a lesser extent, the publishing industry as a whole. The list of major dailies that have either shut their doors or moved to online-only distribution is quite startling and probably familiar territory for anyone reading this blog.  Indeed, on our social media team, it’s become kind of a predictable cliche when someone e-mails us a story about yet another newspaper folding.

The blogosphere is all about commentators, and there are a few that have buttered their intellectual bread by loudly and apocalyptically predicting the demise of the newspaper industry’s business model. Clay Shirky is my personal favorite, with Jeff Jarvis coming a close second. These folks are feted all over the web for saying out loud what everyone intrinsically knows - that there’s little future in a business model that requires consumers to pay for creative intellectual property. I can make a copy of a band’s best song in five seconds and send it to everyone I know in about a minute, without that group ever seeing a dime. I can re-post a newspaper article on this blog or my own, even challenging it or refuting it in the process, destroying not only the article’s credibility but also the protection the newspaper has over its own created content. We know this. Bottom line: people are no longer willing to pay for media or information except in very specific circumstances.

What’s disappointing, though, is that none of these thinkers seem to be considering the social ramifications at play here. Shirky, for instance, punts in his latest blog post. But if anything is clear, it’s that the development of a commercial model for news and information distribution pre-figured modern democracy, and continues to uphold it. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the pamphlet that laid much of the intellectual groundwork for the American Revolution, was not only a work of philosophy and political activism - it was a cash cow for its author and publishers, going through 25 printings in the first year alone. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the book often credited with galvanizing the abolitionist movement and providing the spark for the Civil War, was the best-selling novel of the 19th century. I’m most familiar with American history, but every social movement of the modern era - from civil rights to feminism to gay rights (as well as other movements we might consider less savory) - has had, at its heart, one or more works of for-profit journalism or advocacy.

And that continues today. Without the profits to sustain long-term investigative reporting, do you think we would’ve seen the Abu Ghraib expose in 2004? The story on Walter Reed that surfaced in 2007? More important, would anything have been done about those gross miscarriages of justice had journalists not shined a light on them? On a local level, who covers City Council meetings? Who pesters the city comptroller about missing funds? Who writes a story on the potholes in that dilapidated neighborhood on the other side of town and ultimately gets them fixed?

This isn’t to lionize journalists or authors. There’s been a lot of shoddy work in those fields, to be quite honest. But the for-profit press serves as a vital check on the excesses and inadequacies of government, and there’s one reason that those writers, thinkers, and activists have been able to do the work they’ve done - money. I just think that the sooner we figure out a way to re-monetize creative intellectual property, the better.

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JANUARY 14, 2009

What qualifies as an “experience economy?”  You may have first heard the term described in a book of the same title written in 1999 by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore.  Arguing that businesses must learn to orchestrate memorable events for their customers, Pine and Gilmore envisaged that memory itself will become the product, or the “experience,” on which consumers will spend their free money and free time in the 21st century.  From the plush, oversized chairs and indie music at Starbucks, to the “retailtainment” toy store known as FAO Schwartz - for the past ten years, we’ve been living in an experience economy.

Although the concept of the experience economy was born in the business field, in recent years it has crossed into the frontiers of tourism, architecture, nursing, urban planning and other arenas – even art media.

Take Lomography, for example – a niche, retro form of photography that was “born again” in the mid-1990s and enjoys a cult following today.  Inspired by former state-run optics manufacturer LOMO PLC of Saint Petersburg, Russia, Lomography encourages taking casual, snapshot-like photos rather than purposeful, realistic ones.  Its motto: “Don’t think, just shoot.”  There is even a list of rules to follow.

According to Ben Sellers of The Free Lance-Star (VA), “For photographers in the digital age, film is a bit like vinyl is for music buffs – there’s an intangible quality that is more about the process than the product.  Maybe it’s nostalgia – or maybe an indie, do-it-yourself spirit – whatever drives film lovers to their passion is in full effect in the cult of Lomography.”  Sellers also reports that the Holga, a Lomographic camera first manufactured in Hong Kong in 1982, has seen a minor resurgence in popularity of late.  (A fan site on Facebook recently boasted more than 5,000 members.)

Photo enthusiast Alfred Klomp has a different take on Lomography, however.  While Klomp agrees that Lomography is a lot of fun, and that “its philosophy isn’t crap,” he believes nonetheless that the medium has become less of a philosophy and more of a business, therefore losing its shine.  Says Klomp, “Lomography is an orchestrated hype, a marketing trick right from the get-go.  A sort of early exercise in viral marketing, not for a product but for a lifestyle.”

In my opinion, while the business and cult-like nature of Lomography may have lost its shine, the philosophy – process over product – remains as brilliant as it ever was.  When you purchase a Lomographic camera, you are not investing in the realistic, true-to-life photographs it will produce – say, as a pricey 12-megapixel digital camera would – but you are investing in the experience you will have with the camera.

To me, Lomography seems to be more about the value of the experience of taking pictures than about the value of any particular photograph.  (Unlike with digital cameras, you are not distracted by the instantly-developed image.)  It’s true that you may later develop a beautiful photograph to share with your friends and family – or, in the case of Facebook, with the entire world – but the point is that your photograph will more than likely spark conversation about the why and the how and not just the who or the what.

My first Lomographic camera arrives next week.  Out with the new and in with the old!

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DECEMBER 16, 2008

I love books, but due to some work and general life craziness, I’ve been unable to read much for the past few weeks. Luckily, things have slowed down enough that I was able to finally sit down and finish a book I started a month or two ago - Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children, a novel about an aging liberal patriarch, a veteran of the culture wars of the 60s, and his relationship with the younger generation, comprised of his daughter, his nephew and his daughter’s two friends.

I’m ashamed to say I picked up the book because of its inclusion in several critics’ Best of 2006 awards. I don’t read a lot of fiction and not many of my friends do either, so when it comes to figuring out what I should read next, I generally have to rely on the Pulitzer committee or the New York Times’ Review of Books. I figured The Emperor’s Children was a safe purchase because of its critical acclaim.

Was I ever wrong. Undercurrents isn’t a book review site, but suffice it to say that the critics’ perception of this book didn’t match my own. I thought the dialogue was hackneyed and impossibly witty, that many of the central premises of the book were outlandish,  and the characters unbelievable. The constant refrain running through my head as I read was “People like this do not exist, and if they do, they do not deserve to have a book written about them.”

After finishing the book, I blamed my own upbringing for my lack of appreciation - I’m a hayseed from Richmond, Virginia and a current resident of staid and practical Washington, not the child of Manhattan literary eminences -  but upon reading reviews at Amazon and Metacritic, I quickly discovered that my opinion about The Emperor’s Children wasn’t unique. At Amazon, the most commonly-used tags for the book are “waste of time and money”, “avoid”, and “awful”, the most common rating for the book is one star, and the average rating is a mere two and a half. At Metacritic, the aggregate rating from professional critics is 85 (denoting “universal acclaim”) while the rating from readers is 69. Whichever way you slice it, reader reactions to this book were a far cry from those of elite reviewers of literature.

Reading these reviews, my insecurity over not “getting” The Emperor’s Children quickly melted into triumphalism - I was right, and the professionals were wrong. I mean, it’s not surprising the book was reviewed so well - it’s basically about the same New York literary-journalism class that reviewed the book, and paints it in a very appealing light. But it’s nice to know that that small clique isn’t capable of driving public opinion about books like they once did.

This particular book aside, it’s incredible how much power social media has had in debunking the ideas of “professionals”.  As print media continues to die, the blogosphere has eroded the opinion-setting power of all kinds of pundits, from art and literature critics in New York, to political talking heads in Washington - and one can only hope that the unwashed masses on the internet continue to prove that the emperor has no clothes.

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DECEMBER 1, 2008

Last week, I read an article in Newsweek that was cleverly called “Change You Can Conceive In: Could Euphoric Obama Fans be Sparking a Baby Boom?”

The author writes, “In the hours and days since Obama’s victory, many of his exhilarated supporters have been, shall we say, in the mood for love.  And though it’s too soon to know for sure, experts aren’t ruling out the possibility of an Obama baby boom—the kind of blip in the national birth rate that often follows a seismic event, whether it’s scary (a terrorist attack) or celebratory (the end of World War II).”

Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe have actually co-written a number of books on the subject of generational baby booms, namely, “Generations: The History of America’s Future,” which tells the history of America through a succession of generational biographies circa 1584 to the present.  According to Strauss and Howe, just as history molds generations, so too do generations mold history.  They even claim to have identified a historical pattern in which each generation belongs to one of four archetypes, or ”Turnings,” that repeats sequentially:

Awakening.  During an Awakening, rising adults are driven by inner zeal to become philosophers, religious pundits, and hippies, as they alienate children (who see the adult world becoming more chaotic each day) and older generations alike.  A Nomad (or Reactive) is born during an Awakening.  Nomadic leaders are cunning, hard-to-fool realists, and taciturn warriors who prefer to meet problems and adversaries one-on-one.

Unraveling.  An Unraveling is an era of relative peace and prosperity between an Awakening and a Crisis.  A Hero (or Civic) is born during an Unraveling.  Heroic leaders are considered vigorous and rational institution-builders, entering midlife as aggressive advocates of technological progress, economic prosperity, social harmony, and public optimism.

Crisis.  A Crisis is a decisive era of secular upheaval in which a values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.  Wars are waged with apocalyptic finality.  An Artist (or Adaptive) is born during a Crisis.  Artistic leaders are advocates of fairness and the politics of inclusion, and are irrepressible in the wake of failure.

High.  A High is an era between a Crisis and an Awakening.  A Prophet (or Idealist) is born during a High.  Prophetic leaders are cerebral and principled, summoners of human sacrifice, and wagers of righteous wars.  Early in life, few see combat in uniform; late in life, most come to be revered as much for their words as for their deeds.

What I want to know is whether you agree or disagree with Strauss and Howe’s dissection of generational archetypes.  If you agree with them, where do you believe your generation stands now?  If you disagree with them, what would you add or amend to make them more relevant?

Personally, I believe that an Obama baby boom would compose part of a New Adaptive Generation - a collection of “artists” who will be irrepressible in the wake of modern-day failures.  At least, that is what I hope.

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NOVEMBER 20, 2008

Warren Buffett once said, “My favorite holding period is forever.”  Apparently, James Altucher, President and founder of Stockpickr, agrees with him. He wrote a book called “THE FOREVER PORTFOLIO: How To Pick Stocks That You Can Hold for the Long Run“, and during an interview on CNBC yesterday, Altucher suggested investing in companies providing services in the following areas:

• Obesity: 33 billion dollars are spent each year on services for the obese.

• Dirty Water: Developing countries are finding it much harder to deliver clean water to their growing populations, and companies that sell clean water treatment technologies will thrive.

• Luxury: The rich are recession-proof, and the stocks of luxury producers make a great hedge against any slowdown in the global economy.

Now I’m no financier, that’s for sure, but from a New Persuasion point of view, his advice makes perfect sense. The future looks a lot more predictable when you actually take the time to pay attention and study the trends/issues that are presently hidden in plain view.

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OCTOBER 3, 2008

In case it hasn’t been obvious in my previous posts, I like to write about innovations in public policy. The idea that small changes in rules and practices can produce big benefits for society is fascinating to me.

For awhile now, I’ve been meaning to pick up Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s Nudge, a book about simple policy changes that can be made by governments and employers to encourage people to make better choices. The book is based on two papers authored by the pair in 2003 (sorry, you’ve got to pay for the second one!).

Backtracking a little bit: traditional economics - you know, the Adam Smith stuff - infers that people in general are “rational actors” - that we collectively make decisions based on our own personal interest. That makes sense in a lot of ways, and many think it’s the basis of how human beings act. For instance, I made a rational decision to come to work this morning because I know that: a) I won’t get paid otherwise; and b) I like what I do.

But in the past few decades, a new field has emerged called behavioral economics that investigates people’s irrational desires and actions, and how they affect the larger economy. Some examples of this can be seen in the poor understanding we human beings have of risk - a concept Kelly Stepno works on here at TMG - as well as the current economic crisis, which some believe was caused by an asset bubble driven by media hype rather than actual value.

The goal of Sunstein and Thaler’s work is to change people’s “choice architecture” by introducing policies that gently correct our tendencies toward irrational behavior. For instance, the authors identify savings rates as one area in which humans do not act rationally, and did a study of ways employers could help their employees save more money. They found that businesses who automatically enrolled their employees in 401(k) plans and offered an opt-out provision had dramatically higher savings rates than employers who had opt-in 401(k) plans. Thaler also experimented with a plan called “Save More Tomorrow” that allows employees to set aside parts of their pay raises toward their savings. The principle here is that people are irrationally loathe to give up any of their current income, but don’t have as much of a problem forgoing future gains. In this program, too, he saw the savings rates of participating employees more than triple.

The authors also discuss smaller policy changes, like removing key lime pie from a buffet line, that could help all sorts of pressing issues like obesity, indebtedness, and global warming. The basic theme is that changing people’s “choice architecture” is a way to deal with the irrational aspects of our behavior.

Like I said, I haven’t read the book yet, but I find a lot of the themes very intriguing. Of course, there are objections to this philosophy - who are you to tell me I shouldn’t have key lime pie? - but it’s refreshing to see people thinking outside left-right paradigms when it comes to public policy.

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JULY 28, 2008

With over one million copies sold on a wimpy $300 marketing budget, this 256-page tale of human sorrow and divine redemption is undeniably a literary and religious phenomenon.  But how did this happen?

Just over a year after it was originally published in paperback, William P. Young’s The Shack debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times trade paperback fiction best-seller list, and hasn’t budged since June 8.  Currently it is No. 1 on the Borders Group’s trade paperback fiction list, and, until recently, it was No. 1 on the Barnes & Noble trade paperback list.  Motoko Rich at the The New York Times says it’s “the most compelling recent example of how a word-of-mouth phenomenon can explode into a blockbuster when the momentum hits chain bookstores, and the marketing and distribution power of a major commercial publisher is thrown behind it.”

To summarize (but without revealing too much of the story): Early in the novel the young daughter of the protagonist, Mack, is abducted.  Four years later he visits the shack where evidence of the girl’s murder was discovered.  He spends a weekend there in a kind of spiritual therapy session with God, appearing as an African-American woman who calls herself “Papa;” Jesus, who shows up as a Jewish workman; and Sarayu, an indeterminately Asian woman who incarnates the Holy Spirit.

As intriguing is the storyline sounds, I’m not writing this post to encourage or even discourage you from reading The Shack – that’s entirely up to you.  But I’m curious as to why this book has become so popular so fast.  In other words, I want to know how we - the reading public - and even the author himself have turned this book into a best-seller.  I’ll offer five of my ideas:

1. It’s a quick read.  At 256 pages – a whopping 1055 pages fewer than the King James Bible – it’s no wonder that readers are drawn to a shorter rather than longer route to a cathartic encounter with the Christian God.

2. It’s cheap.  Foregoing the more expensive, hardcover version, Windblown Media originally published the book in paperback, making it approachable and affordable to everyone.

3. It’s bought in bulk.  In an effort to spread the word and share the love, many church leaders are asking bookstores for a dozen copies at a time – sometimes even a whole case – to distribute to colleagues, friends and family.  So, whether the book is digested in full or gathers dust on the bedside table, it counts as a sell.

4. It’s controversial.  Christian “feely-types” say it’s life-changing and will bring you closer to God.  Christian “thinking-types” warn that it’s subversive and will make you question the author’s intentions.  Sounds like it’s worth investigating for yourself, right?

5. It’s ambiguous universalism.  Beaner927 at the Closer to Free blog writes, “There were even parts of the book that almost seemed like they were meant JUST for me. . . . I got goosebumps!”  Inverse personalization?  Enough said.

Finally, I believe DHubka at the Thinking About Today blog has the most insightful rumination of all:

Why are so many people’s lives being changed by the book?  What can I take from the book and apply everyday?  I don’t know that there is anything. . .  I think it’s encouraging that this book isn’t life-changing for me, I think it means I’m already well on that path.

To be sure, with 40% of fickle - err, impressionable - American adults having changed their faith at least once since childhood, it’s no wonder The Shack is “changing lives.”  Today, it really doesn’t take much to become someone totally different than you were yesterday.

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JUNE 11, 2008

A funny thing happened to me last week: I learned something valuable about 21st century America from a children’s story.  That’s right: the pages I stumbled upon were from none other than the 1960’s classic, Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman.  Reading the story as an adult rather than a child, however, I realized that Eastman’s tale was much more than a narrative about a lost bird trying to find his mother.  It was also an account of what happens when one leaves the proverbial “nest” and embarks on an existential quest for one’s true identity.

As childlike as it is profound, Eastman’s classic American tale is a tale about modern America.  Think about it: aren’t 21st century Americans also in search of our mother?  Now more than ever, we are looking for someone or something that will identify us, provide for us, and lead us into the unknown future; and, in doing so, we are also on a quest to find ourselves: who we are as individuals, and not just a nation.  But there’s a problem in 21st century America: we don’t know where to look or who to trust anymore.

To be fair, I didn’t draw this conclusion from Eastman’s text alone; I largely credit an article I read in the May/June 2008 issue of Psychology Today entitled “Dare to Be Yourself” by Karen Wright.  At the core of our quest, Wright claims, is a deep psychological craving for a sense of authenticity.  Not only do we as individuals need it, but America as a whole is starving for it, now more than ever before.  “Americans remain deeply invested in the notion of the authentic self,” says ethicist John Portmann of the University of Virginia. “It’s part of the national consciousness.” 

Our desire to achieve a sense of authenticity and identity has manifested itself in various forms over the past decade in America.  Consider the following cultural trends: 40% of U.S. adults have changed their faith since childhood; the total number of cosmetic procedures performed on Americans has increased 457% since 1997; and antidepressants have become the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States.  To me, this shows that loyalty is now second to authenticity: we are turning away from the alter because we can no longer withstand being untrue to ourselves and to our faith; we are exploring alternative images that may better reflect our “true” selves; and we are turning to prescription drugs in an attempt to bring ourselves back to our “intended” state of being, to who we believe we really are.  Meanwhile, America’s teens and twentysomethings – our country’s future leaders – are constantly trying out new friends, fashions, hobbies, jobs, lovers, locations, and living arrangements to see what fits and what doesn’t.

So, the question arises: have we come any closer to achieving the sense of authenticity that we desire?

Not really.  In the United States, we’ve found that too much cultural clutter stands between us and our authentic selves.  In other words, we live in an over-saturated society, a cultural environment that is flooded, among other things, with too many options and alternatives.  From having to choose one television channel among 500 available stations, one track on our iPod from a library of 20,000 songs, one cup of Starbucks coffee among 87,000 possible concoctions, the “saturation generation” is overwhelmed with choices, many of which do not reflect who we are at all.

To make matters worse, in our struggle to choose only one among many selections, we are also tasked with having to distinguish what is authentic in America from what, as The Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield might insist, is “phony” America.  I imagine Caulfield would especially cringe over the phoniness that’s polluted our country of late: embellished social network profiles, fake blogs, and phony online diaries; performance enhancing drugs like anabolic steroids and amphetamines; fabricated memoirs like A Million Little Pieces and Love and Consequences; and even the questionable tear shed by Hillary Clinton.  Amid a clutter of counterfeits, how can we know who to trust?

At TMG, we believe the answers to today’s most challenging questions are often “hidden in plain view,” and the answer to our nation’s identity problem may be no different.  Coincidentally, while the bird in Eastman’s tale searches frantically for his mother, he unwittingly passes right by her.

As Americans, we face a similar challenge: learning to ignore the alluring array of phony distractions that hinder our progress toward achieving authenticity, and, instead, observing those self-evident truths upon which our nation was founded.  Rather than focus on the changes that have taken place in our country within the last ten years, then, perhaps we should shift our gaze to the elements that have withstood the forces of change – the pieces of America that have persevered and, like the bird’s mother, stood by us all along.

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MAY 23, 2008

I read a good book recently by Dr. Ben Carson called Take The Risk .  If you’ve seen any of my posts lately, you know I’m a bit obsessed with putting risks into perspective.

Dr. Carson is in a unique position to talk about risk.  He’s the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins.  As he says in his book, “People who become surgeons – particularly neurosurgeons – tend to be risk takers.”  In the book, Dr. Carson expresses strong views on the need to look at risk in the right way.  As he says, “The most important developments in science, history, technology, and the arts came from taking risks.”  I hate to think about what great innovations we would have missed out on had we applied today’s views on risk over the last several decades.  Would we have embarked on the space program, for example?

There are many points in the book that really resonate with me.  One of the points that I agree with most is what Dr. Carson calls “our schizophrenic obsession with risk.”  For example, he says, “On the one hand our pop culture idolizes the edgiest athletes – from the professional bull riding circuit to… made-for-entertainment extreme sports events features on television’s X Games.  [A]nd yet, at the same time, every public school in the country is required to have six to eight inches of rubber tire fragments…under every teeter-totter, swing set and monkey bars…so that no child will suffer an accidental injury.”  Does this make sense?

We all need to take a step back on risk and try to figure out what we should worry about, and what we shouldn’t.  I know it’s hard in this era, when we’re inundated daily with news about those things that are bad for us. I know it’s not easy. 

I’m flying to Boston today for the holiday weekend and I can guarantee you that I will worry (and already am worrying) more about the flight up there than I am about the drive to the airport.  Clearly, I’m not putting these risks in their proper context.  But, I’m prepared to make a commitment to try not to obsessively worry about the wrong things.  Are you?

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APRIL 21, 2008

Collaborative storytelling is nothing new.  I can remember in grade school, sitting in a circle with my classmates, each person in the circle adding an element to the plot of a story the teacher had begun.  In the end we usually just laughed at the jumbled mess of story that emerged.  But now more than ever, I appreciate that entertaining exercise, as it illustrated the importance of controlling the tone and voice of a story.

I read this piece from The Washington Post about WEbook, a website designed to let writers, editors, and experts create literary projects together.  The site launched last week, but it’s not the first.  Other publishers like Penguin Books (UK) and HarperCollins have already launched similar wiki-type projects adopting the “crowd-sourcing” model of creation.

WEbook’s first published novel, Pandora, was written by 17 authors.  Besides the nightmarish thought of ever having to cite this literary work, I’m curious how cohesive and concise it could actually be.  This book could potentially be authored by writers from 17 different backgrounds, 17 different cultures, and 17 different countries.  Can such diversity come together to create a unified product? And, is the result a better book? 

In a way, this type of publishing redefines a writer’s identity, with each author asked to compromise, and even sacrifice, for the “good” of the book.  I can imagine this is a difficult task because for me, losing my identity as a writer would feel almost like losing a piece of myself.

As a social experiment, a possible testament to globalization, and certainly a nod to consumer product control (works only get published if they get high marks from the site’s members), I think WEbook raises interesting concepts.  But as a writer, I’m not sure I want to get mixed up with that kind of crowd.

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