A couple of things have been popping up on my radar interesting, or I think interesting, enough to warrant a hypothesis about business, communications, people and politics.

First there is:
This story. An entertainment channel for the conservative American.

What makes them interesting is the fact they seem to be focused on spreading content, the way the audience wants it (bypassing possible censorship) and they get that entertainment is still the biggest gateway towards culture shaping, because it allows them to say more under a veil of deceptive winking and smiling..

Of course the larger interesting question is the robustness of the hunger for segregrated media (loaded term perhaps, but BET did make billionairs out of the owners) that is still so strong in the USA (perhaps anglo/american cultural sphere in total). It seems something the vast majority of 2.0 land is not to keen on looking in to.

Secondly there is this:
http://www.mousemail.com/

MouseMail -> protect your kids -> advisor on board = Frank Luntz (GOP strategist) -> Bill Bennett = advisor (Form Bush/reagan administrator)

It seem that doing stuff instead of just rethoric seems to be finding it’s way more and more in the political arena. Is this the future of political campaiging?

Political branded utility and co-creation, while making money and creating voters out of consumers and consumers out of voters?

Looks the ultimate campaign moneymaker, bypassing any possible lobbylaws as the line blurs between voter and consumer and producer..

Thirdly there was this:

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/egypt.html

Seems like a action guided by the State Department more than some internal mantra. Now if Google start doing stuff like this in countries like USA to give a voice to police brutality and other stuff, I will eat my words.

But they won’t..This flip flop picking of sides all the time is what politicians and celebs do. And it is gonna cost Google at some point. Net neutrality does not mean that the net is a-political.

On the contrary. Just like the web is one massive confession, it is also one massive vote based on values.

Google does Data, not social and all the human stuff that comes with it. They should not start now, or their Switzerland position (we just create good search results) is done and then all gloves will come off.

Things are gonna get interesting now that the business of social/and co-creation is demanding a show of (political) colour, which leads to the hypothesis about business, communications and politics for the coming decade:

Increased segregation under the veil of curation based on preference. Which will only be overcome by fooling people.

We are going to have to start bullshitting (again), to get passed the bullshit, if we want to get things done.

herd, ideas that do, trickster and all that..

Kevin Starr at IIT Design Research Conference 2010 from IIT Institute of Design on Vimeo.

Not just for the third world or social problems, given the fact that the Western world is in financial trouble and adland is a joke…

His life is turned upside down when a young MBA (played by Anna Kendrick) comes in and figures out that by doing the firing online and from one central location, the cost of business can be reduced by 85%. Clooney tries to convince her that this is not as clearcut as Kendrick thinks it is.

The contrast between Clooney and Kendrick serves as a nice backdrop for some practices we all know but sometimes need reminding of*:

Change vs Status Quo Plan for transitions

Kendrick is positioned as the new, naive and better way of doing stuff. Clooney is the guy who is set in his ways and tries to keep the boat from rocking.

But the lesson here is that when it comes to the art of business it is not about about the binary. About embracing change or status quo..it is about the transitions. Change as we all know is constant.

Plenty of businesses, unfortunately, have picked one side or the other. Musiclabels, newspapers, the dotcom era of burn to earn. But this ignores one important insight idea.

The money is in the transition. From one to another. I once heard said about the Iphone that this was what Apple figured out and are making a killing of.

The Iphone, could be argued, has no innovative seperate things to it: phone new. Internet new. mp3 new, touch new. But they made it easy and seamless for us to transition from one position to the next.

From: “Who would need or want all this hightech stuff, I just want a phone to call and got a pc to do web stuff” to the next position: “WoW, this is very handy indeed, how did I ever do without”.

While Apple is always cheered for its ability to create evangelists out of their (cutting edge loving) customers they did not become big till they focused on the casually convert(ing)ed consumer.

The type that goes to church maybe twice a year (instead of every week), but leaves a donation everytime he does go, because that is his way of showing that he is still cares enough about, but is not totaly goverend by the church (or the next big revolutionary trend). Kinda like indulgences.

Know where the money is. It is in a lot of industries, still somewhere around the middle. They are blandish for a reason. They wish not to be, but are afraid to rock the boat to much. Help them makes sense and fun of the transitions in life and chances are you will be rewarded. In this life or the next.

*For arguments sake I leave the morality of working for/with a company that fires people for a living out of the equation. Same goes for the actual movie. No accounting for taste.

What with all the user generated content, 2.0, participation of the peoples going on in the world I have an idea:

What if we create the WCEF: World Championship of Everything (u like) Federation.

U got an activity, hybrid of old stuff or something u do with friends: sign up to the website, pick a date for regional preliminaries etc and (most importantly) declare yourself world champeen and allow people to challenge you.

Who does not want to be able to say he is world champion at something, anything??

the Role of the WCEF is the following:

1. to give you tools to plan your own world championship;
2. to look for sponsors (local to international) to help you out with any and all costs;
3. help you quickly determine whether the current format is ok, or needs some adjustment to make it spread;
4. fighting indifference and cynisme by promoting the cause of doing something/anything to world champion standard, instead of doing nothing;
5. buying every world champion a cold beer;
6. to make sure that the broadcasting rights are fairly distributed amongst all the championships;
7. to facilitate the breakaway of succesfull championships on their own (as with everything; money changes stuff, so why not make the split amicable)

just an idea (or a widget; or tv show; or nothing)

What…did I hear anybody say Innocent

So here in Holland the month of May is the month we remember the Second World War, the liberation of Holland and the loss of so much life.

So in memory of those passed away, those who survided and those who chose to fight; some chilling, uplifting and spot on quotes to give us (wannabe) planners that much sought after insight in to humans, and perspective on this thing of ours.

* We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

* “Nietzsche’s words, ‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.’”

* “When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves”

* “Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.”

* “We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.”

* “It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

* “Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary

* “We have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”

Viktor Frankl

Here is a example of transformation design, whereby action is deliberately made difficult in order to achieve new behaviour.

Hema, a dutch department store, has halved the sickness absence. Employees must nowadays “call in sick” online, where they must fill out a questionnaire directly. Online “calling in sick” raises the psychological threshold according to the inventor of the system. From six up to sixty questions are asked online and the employee must still ring his boss. The boss does not get to see the answers given in the questionnaire, but he does build op files so that patterns can be detected.

The reason I find this example interesting is that it is not about making something easy with regards to changing behaviour, but making stuff more difficult in order to be better. Complexity actually is intended, much like a bank vault, or the way casino’s are designed to keep players in house.

Driving home this morning was a joy; the sun rising in my face, some good tunes and better company made the ride home nice. But that was not what was so special about the
trip home (sorry Martina..:-) .