Via Andrew Sullivan:
The next generation - Generation Y, the Millennials, the Net Generation - emerges, announces itself and declares its intentions this year.
I talk about these amazing, creative and post-partisan young people a lot in my work - their values, the way they work, their use of media, their learning styles. I usually explain that my role, and the role of my Generation X peers, is to act as translators and brokers between the Boomers and their Millennial children - transferring knowledge, power and capital to a new generation that will become the dominant force in our future. I know my place, and I have confidence in their abilities to fix the crap their parents have left in their wake.
Creatives grow better in the South West
A series of happy coincidences conspired to give Toronto a great new event that's taking off like a rocket! SummerCamp falls hot on the heals of CaseCampToronto7, CopyCamp2008, CIX and StartupCampToronto2, a major mid-week after-party that CommunityNorth calls "one camp to rule them all".
This unusual convergence of open/unconference events all happening the evening of the 29th and CaseCamp steward Eli Singer's booking of the amazing megaclub CiRCA presented an opportunity too good to pass up. Many thanks to CaseCamp sponsors comScore, Thornley Fallis, InterCom Search, Social Media Group, Pigsback.com, Segal Communications, FreshBooks and nextMedia for making the space available. Special thanks to Rob Hyndman|Hyndman Law for helping us pickup some extra expenses to make SummerCamp a reality.
Creative convergence happens on the dancefloor!
SummerCamp Dance Party CaseCamp along with its sponsors transform CiRCA into ground zero for Toronto’s creative communities: art, design, communications, technology, media, social change and entrepreneurship. DJs, interactive art, and the closest friends you haven’t met celebrating their passion for participatory culture, creative practice and society. Tuesday, April 29, 2008 9:00 PM - Close CiRCA 126 John Street Toronto, Ontario M4V 2E3 RSVP on the Facebook event. Enjoy a late night party and a great lineup:- Andrew McConachie (DJ Set)
- Jimmy Blak (DJ Set)
- Abdul Smooth (DJ + Visuals)
- Gabe Sawhney (Interactive Visual Installation)
- Newmindspace (Cool Stuff TBA)
[ICE08] A vision for Canada's future in digital and interactive media and technology...
In 2018, Canada has embraced its role as a model power of digital innovation and become a key node in the emerging global network economy.
Accelerating technological change has altered human behaviour patterns and radically reduced the transaction costs of communication, negotiation and enforcement between and among firms and individual creators.
The web is us. We are increasingly aware of each other, our interdependency and the artifacts of our physical lives made digital. We are also rediscovering lost aspects of ourselves through our heightened relationship with the Other. Canada's digital citizens have embraced the creative age and are rediscovering their individual creative agency, sense of purpose and values.
Significant private and public investment in ultra-broadband fibre and the continuous march of accelerating technological change is reducing the cost of moving bits towards zero, both over fixed and wireless networks. This inevitable technosocial reality has reconfigured the relationship between creator, content and audience.
Infinitely abundant digital content itself has been transformed. Content is currency, signal and signifier of resources that are naturally scarce: attention, the rare and valuable relationship between creator and audience, unique experiences of transcendent collectivity and the appreciation of rare social and physical objects of culture.
Canada's media and technology industry underwent a painful transformation process, remaking the supply chain from a few large companies into open commercialization networks of micro-enterprises building social web tools and embracing the economics of abundance.
The new Canadian broadband and media conglomerates embraced their roles as pools of brand-power and capital within a broader open commercialization ecosystem. They shifted their business models and attention towards the edges, embracing the 1% as important to their future adding new venture investment arms attached to their innovation groups.
Together, this tightly interwoven but loosely structured network economy is accelerating through time, projecting the cultural creative values of Canadians into a hopeful shared global future.
Enter the DEMOCAMP/ICE08 blogging contest.
This appears entirely reasonable to me:
"We don't think it's a radical proposal. We're interested in Canadian eyeballs for Canadian programs," Lind told the commission. However, he added, "It's confusing when everybody has their hand in the pie. To maximize Canadian audiences in primetime, social policy objectives need to be elsewhere."
[From Playback :: Rogers calls for market-driven fund]
I'm no fan of Rogers anti-competitive behaviour in the mobile and broadband arena, but I have to agree with the tenor of their approach to the much-maligned CTF. I want to see top-quality Canadian content succeed on Canadian screens as well as around the world. I don't think mixing economic and cultural policy agendas has been very successful to date and will become increasingly irrelevant unless some drastic changes are made. The CBC should focus on its mandate of telling Canadian stories to Canadians and be well-funded to do so.
But....
If the cablecos get their wish on CTF reform towards a more market-centric approach, then I think it is fair that those funds also be made available for indie producers for broadband distribution without discrimination or the requirement for broadcast network distribution deals.
Dear CTF: Open up the process, let viewers decide on what gets funded. Maybe the CTF (or some successor institution) could learn something from A Swarm of Angels or FilmRiot and actually innovate instead of foot-dragging on change.
This is the single biggest policy change that could support the emergence of a new generation of Canadian innovators in content and business models, who can develop quirky and compelling niche content on small budgets with potential global audience appeal. This is my dream - am I alone?
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...
Notes:
Digital Bohemia: The end of work as we know it; people want to work in new structures; how do you integrate individuals with strong sense of self-determination, people fed up with hierarchies; The Penguin Paradox.
Their "company" is called Zentrale Intelligenz Agentur (Central Intelligence Agency) which they describe as "a capitalist-socialst joint venture, designed to establish new forms of collaboration". People are contributing in Berlin and around the world. They described the operating principles with seven (or so) rules.
Seven Rules:
Rule 1, The 7 Nos - No office. No employees. No fixed costs. No pitches. No exclusivity (company doesn't own your life). No working hours (results only). No bullshit.
Rule 2: Work-Work Balance - balance projects for clients with your passion projects, given equal priority and attention.
Rule 3: Instant Gratification - profit immediately with work; no salaries, billable time/project, always keep 10% of profit for the company for play money; pay bills immediately as well
Rule 4: Pluralism of Methods - tech solutions for social problems, use online tools for collaboration; Skype, Google calendar, Google Docs
Rule 5: Fixed Ideas - live up to your intellectual obsessions and dark desires at work; take them seriously; don't be afraid to offend people;
Rule 6: Responsibilities Without Hierarchies - each project as to have one person incharge, but it can be anybody; beginning of year retreat in the country; rethink the business model; sift through projects and leaders take them on;
Rule 7: The Power of Procrastination - don't try to be too efficient; good deas will adapt and catch on, even if you neglect them for a while; they have to ripen; there is a natural Darwinism of ideas
Rule 7.5: Marketing by Feuilleton - no adverstising, no PR; do something interesting and press coverage will be yours; they get coverage in the culture section
Conclusion - A Hedonistic Company not only changes the nature of work, it shifts the domain of that work.