20 x 2: What’s the Difference?
Rannie photojunkie gathered 20 couples on 20 couches. What’s the Difference? Simple and beautiful. You may see some familiar faces.
20 x 2 : What’s The Difference? from photojunkie on Vimeo.
LIFT: Holm Friebe and Philipp Albers, “The Hedonistic Company”
Holm Friebe and Philipp Albers delivered a presentation at LIFT on a topic that’s close to my heart: the future of work, exploring new forms of self-organizing “unorganizations” of creative free agents. Of course, I’ve been thinking about similar issues as I consider how to scale Remarkk! Consulting, so I took particular interest and had a great conversation with the guys over fondue. (which, btw, is the best part of LIFT!)
Friebe’s book, Wir nennen es Arbeit (”We call it work”) is a bestseller in Germany that has been described as “youth economic manifesto”. They organized a conference in Berlin also called Wir nennen es Arbeit Festival-Camp, which looked like tremendous fun and is possible inspiration for a Toronto FreeAgentCamp or Future of Work conference. These guys apparently invented Powerpoint Karaoke (fact check anyone?), and put on events like a poetry slam with sms voting and electro-shock feedback. They are looking to develop coworking spaces to accommodate their starfish adhocracy. This is not your father’s creative agency.
Presentation notes after the jump…
Lifters underground at CERN, originally uploaded by Kooze.
I had a fascinating tour of the Large Hedron Collider at CERN on Saturday. This was one of the last opportunities for members of the public to get inside this amazing, mind-boggling project probing the frontiers of physics and our understanding of the universe before it gets switched on this summer. Something to tell the grandkids.
Our guide Bilge Demirköz is a research fellow at CERN who is searching for evidence of dark matter. She gave a tour through not only the facility, but also across the history of particle physics through 30 Nobel prizes. Her passion for the subject was infectious, as you could sense the excitement of scientific exploration at the frontiers.
LIFT Workshop: Online Communities Clinic, Pedro Custodio
Pedro Custodio did a great workshop, an “Online Communities Clinic”. Good material, really solid foundation for thinking about and planning user interactions for online communities. Once the slides are on Slideshare I’ll update this post and embed. (If you want to see them when uploaded, leave a comment on this post.)
My rough notes follow after the jump….
I made a commitment to myself to be a better, more regular blogger. I’m in Europe right now, heading to Geneva next week for the LIFT Conference for my second year. Described as a conference dedicated to exploring the social impact of new technologies, LIFT is fantastic - great sessions, big beautiful brains, fun interactive art and yummy fondue - what’s not to love? I will try to blog from LIFT this year, or you can follow me on Twitter.
Obama inspires! (From Gen-X Apathy to Sense of Purpose)
I have been following the U.S. democratic primaries pretty closely and I am struck by Barack Obama’s amazing talent to transcend everyday politics and inspire in a way that no leader has done in my lifetime. Obama’s abilities and his unique and transformative potential were well articulated both by small-c conservative libertarian Andrew Sullivan in the Atlantic Monthly and by Caroline Kennedy in this weekend’s NY Times.
His ability to engage the passion of youth and unite it with the wisdom of age inspires me. In my community engagement work, I am attempting a similar kind of engagement and I am learning a lot just by thinking about this task in the context of the emerging Obama moment. If successful, he will be the first President of the Social Web Age.
But you only need to witness the man himself in his moment.
Why do I want to believe? Because we are facing increasingly intractable and difficult problems. The old ideologies are failing us. Government is failing us. Corporations and other large institutions are failing us. I believe that human culture applied through our creative passion will solve the most difficult problems of our age. They are, in fact, the only things that ever have. We have no choice but to unite, collaborate in new ways and harness the creative spark in every individual. It’s not a matter of being idealistic, it’s a matter of survival and the resilience of our communities and society in the face of accelerating change.
Why do we engage young people? Because they have the energy, the passion, the new ideas and the skills to realize them. They also need the wisdom, knowledge and experience of their parents generation.
If Millennials have the passion and ideas, and the Boomers have the power, authority, capital and experience, then the epochal role of Gen-X folks like me is to help broker the relationship between the Millennials and their parents. We are the ones working to build the institutional structures and the inter-generational interfaces of the new millennium. This is my mission and the focus of my consulting work, and I know it describes the role of many of us in our own ways.
Harvard Business Review Breakthrough Idea: Toronto TransitCamp
Along with my co-authors Jay Goldman and Eli Singer, I am proud to announce the publication of our article titled Sick Transit Gloria in the February issue of Harvard Business Review. The article shares the story of Toronto TransitCamp with a general business audience and is included in the 2008 edition of HBR’s annual The HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas section. There are many great ideas in there, so do yourself a favour and pick up a copy. (TransitCamp is also nominated by BlogTO in the Best of Independent Toronto Survey. Vote here!)
This short piece tells the tale of a community and a public agency coming together to solve problems in an innovative new way, using social web technology, social media and design methods together with the Barcamp unconference framework. The approach helped to shift the relationship between the organization and its customers and community stakeholders. That organization was the Toronto Transit Commission and the event and the open creative community that emerged from it was called Toronto TransitCamp. You can read the article in Harvard Business Review, or visit this wiki page for links that provide a comprehensive overview of the background, the design, the experience, the media coverage, the conceptual foundations and the influence of TransitCamp.
The authors want to make clear that while our names may appear in the byline of the article, the ideas and the event itself come from a community of participants and peers. We were also inspired by many talented global thought leaders. We would like to acknowledge these contributions and inspirations here:
Our friends who helped make TransitCamp happen: Robert Ouellette, ReadingToronto; Tim Shore, BlogTO; David Topping, Torontoist; Matt Blackett, Spacing; Adam Giambrone; David Crow; Bryce Johnson; Joey Devilla; Madhava Enros; Michael Glenn; Misha Glouberman; Julia Breckenreid; Ryan Feeley; Kieran Huggins; Andrew Moore; Kevin Bracken & Lori Kuffner, Newmindspace; Rannie Turingan, photojunkie; Patrick Dinnen;
Friends and inspirations: Alec Saunders, Iotum; Amber MacArthur; Alex Lowy; Andrew Baron, Dembot; Anthony Williams; Arieh Singer; Audrey Carr, Between Us; Austin Hill, Billions with Zero Knowledge; Ben McConnel and Jackie Huba, Church of the Customer Blog; Bianca Goldman, A Wee Bit Skint; Bonnie, Ernie & Rachel, GreatCycling; Brian Oberkirch, Like it Matters; Cambrian House; Chris & Jessie, Istoica; ; Chris Anderson, The Long Tail; Chris Messina, FactoryCity; Colin Henderson, The Bankwatch; Colin Smillie; Cory Doctrow, Craphound; David Eaves; David Gray, Communication Nation; David Pritchard; David Weinberger, Everything Is Miscellaneous; Doc Searls; Don Tapscott, New Paradigm; Elspeth Roundtree; Eric Goldman, Napoleon’s Gambit; Ev Williams, Evhead; Greg Wilson, The Third Bit; Guy Kawasaki, How to Change the World; Howard Rheingold; Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid; Iris Glaser, Tailor Communications Design; Jason Kottke; James Bow, Transit Toronto; James Cherkoff, Modern Marketing; Jeannette Hanna & ; Jeff Howe, crowdsourcing; Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine; Jeremiah Owyang; Jesse Hirsh; Jevon MacDonald, socialwrite.com; Mike Beltzner; Joe Clark; John Battelle, Searchblog; John Moore, Brand Autopsy; Johnnie Moore; Joseph Thornley, Pro PR; Karen Quinn Fung; Kate Trgovac, My Name is Kate; Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users; Kelly Seagram; Kenyatta Cheese, Braintag; Lawrence Lessig; Lee Goldman; Lee Odden; Leila Boujane, Idee, Inc.; Lloyd Alter, treehugger; Maggie Fox, Social Media Group; Mark Dowds, Mark Evans, A Canadian Take on the Web; Mark Raheja; Mark Surman, commonspace; Martin Cleaver; Matt Mason; Matt Mullenweg, Photo Matt; Matthew Dewall, Maybe Sorta Kinda; Matthew Ingram; Michael Anton Dila, Torch is Wicked; Michael Lenczner; Michael O’Connor Clarke; Michael Geist; Michael Seaton, The Client Side Blog; Michelle Perras, Shot From the Hip; Mitch Joel, Six Pixels of Separation; Nicholas Carr, Rough Type; Nikki Goldman; Om Malik, GigaOm; Peter Francey; Phil Hood; Richard Florida; Riccardo Cambiassi; Rob Hyndman; Robert Scoble, Scobleizer; Rochelle Latinsky; Ryan Coleman Found in Translation; Saul Colt, The Smartest Man in the World; Scott Beale, Laughing Squid; Sean Howard, Craphammer; Sean P. Aune; Sean Wise; Seth Godin; Shel Israel, Global Neighbourhoods; Steve Munro; Steve Rubel, Micropersuasions; Stowe Boyd, /message; Stuart MacDonald; Sulemaan Ahmed; Tara Hunt, HorsePigCow; Michael Arrington and Erick Schonfeld, Techcrunch; Thomas Purves; Tim O’Reilly; Todd Defren, PR Squared; Tom Davenport, Make IT Matter; Tom Williams, the $5 philanthropist; Tom Peters; Will Pate; Yochai Benkler
Nominated! Best Tech/Web Evangelist & TransitCamp, Best Unconference
I am honoured (and a little tickled, to be honest) to be nominated in BlogTO’s “Best of Independent Toronto” survey in the category Best Web or Tech Evangelist!
Being considered in the company of Toronto tech luminaries AmberMac, David Crow, Joey Devilla, Eli Singer, Will Pate is unexpected and humbling. If you’re looking for sparks, I am NOT going to be actively campaigning against my colleagues and dear friends, will NOT engage in Clinton-style slash and burn. I argue for a new kind of tech politics, an end to Swiftboating and Rovian dirty tricks. I argue for a new web evangelism of HOPE! promising CHANGE! through UNITY! (Did I mention David Crow’s unnatural fascination for women’s shoes?)
At the same time, I would be humbled and grateful if you chose to support my insurgent campaign as the Dennis Kucinich of this crowd of well recognized tech gurus. (Oh wait, he withdrew!)
But I WILL campaign vigourously in these final days for TransitCamp for Best Unconference. I am very proud of what our community did there, how we jumped out of our tech niches and into the mainstream discourse of city-building. Lucky for TransitCamp, the BarCamp mothership wasn’t nominated in competition.
So vote early and vote often!
2008: Back to work….there’s lots to do!
Happy New Year! It’s been an overly long holiday vacation from the blog. I thought I would start the year with a declaration of intent and an ask for your help and insight.
It’s a busy time for Remarkk! at the moment. I’m moving into the final strategy and writing phase for the Creative Convergence Project, completing the engagement strategy and web site launch for Municipal Cultural Planning Partnership and exciting TransitCamp-related developments are coming including the pending publication of an article in the February Harvard Business Review with co-authors Eli Singer and Jay Goldman. Every week, exciting new prospects, ideas, community projects and startup opportunities pop up. I am looking forward to chatting with the folks at the Founders & Funders dinner as well as the inspiring Lift Conference in Geneva. It’s a great outlook for 2008.
While we’re at it, maybe work-life balance should be on this list somewhere. The wonderful thing about this life I have is how work and life really make up a meaningful and integrated whole. Maybe this is my rationalization for not “having a life” in the traditional domestic bliss sense. It may be an integrated whole, but if I’m honest with myself, it’s not really that balanced and I need to work on that.
I’m wrestling with the question of how to scale my business while maintaining my focus on the things I find personally meaningful, my purpose and the strength that has come from my independence. My preferred mode of taking on more and larger projects is to collaborate with other independent or freelance creative pros whom I know and trust. People who, like me, want to innovate, make meaning and change the world while offering each other complementary skills and capabilities. Maybe you are one of those people.
So, what kinds of capabilities am I looking for in my soulmate-collaborators? Well, here’s a list of the things that tend to be asked of me by clients and prospects:
My strength has always been my ability to cross these various domains with relative ease and to synthesize it all in a meaningful way. But I know I can’t keep DOING it all if I’m going to be effective and deliver all the value I have to offer. Meanwhile, I’ve got some work to do in focusing my service offering, positioning my brand and rationalizing my workflow and project portfolio.
I stubbornly resist well-established methods of growing a service-based business. I want to know:
How can a network of innovative professionals work in a way that effectively competes with a traditional integrated firm?
Because I talk the talk of open source, co-creation and community-driven innovation, I want to live it. I’m putting myself out to my community to ask for your insights as I develop Remarkk further in 2008. If you’re part of my community and have insights to share on these questions, or have some of these complimentary capabilities, I’d love to hear from you. Coffee is on me.
Failed strategy connects Afghan fields, city streets
I really don’t give my good friend David Eaves nearly enough link-love. I’m making a conscientious effort to correct that, and now is a good time to start. He and Taylor Owen have co-written an Op Ed in the Toronto Star I recommend, “Failed strategy connects Afghan fields, city streets”:
In the coming months, under the leadership of the former U.S. ambassador to Colombia, U.S. private contractors will likely attempt to fumigate poppies in Afghanistan. Around the same time, the Canadian government will decide whether to shut down the Insite supervised injection site in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
The two policies are inextricably linked and unambiguously bad.
What’s really sad in both cases is how evidence is ignored because of ideological blinders. Fumigation in Colombia failed to achieve its goal (coca production actually increased) and introduced many dangerous and immoral externalities including damaging the health and legitimate livelihoods of local people. Supervised injection sites have proven effective at harm reduction and increased access to appropriate care for addicts.
Ideologies make me sad. They often create blinders to perception, creating more heat than light. At a time when we need better perceptive capacity in an environment of accelerating change, I’d like to believe we are evolving beyond ideology. I believe that part of the disengagement of mainstream people from politics has been the failure of both left-wing and right-wing ideologies to engage their imaginations and address the realities of modern life.
But apparently, humans need ideologies to make sense of their world and their place in it. Maybe we just need new ideologies. We’re accepting nominations for emerging and relevant 21st century ideologies in the comments section. Leave a link to the relevant Wikipedia page!
