Recession Graph 4 – Bathtub

Optimism required here. Previous posts have called the shape of this recession and economic activity as flat lines off an ‘L’ or wonky lightning. An analyst from UBS sees an uptick. In 2011 or 2012.

Meantime, we’re on the slope of a bath going down to the plug hole. We’re skirting the bumps of the plughole… flat, drop, swirl, clunk up, swirl, clunk up, crawl out, gradual ascent, Olympic climb up the back and out.

And, with reference to my previous post – amazing what you can find on Flickr… dead cat in the bath:

And, for those who want to start to explore Flickr’s photo library… this might tickle you… on a bathtub theme… here. (Which reminds me of a funny internet etiquette story, because some guys recently employed a German student as an intern and she thanked them, giving them a Flickr reference which put her demure nature in a whole new light. Do they ask her to return next summer? Where do they put their eyes)!

Malcolm Gladwell in The Week on brainfood

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink, has just released his latest book: Outliers: The Story of Success. Being a wired kinda guy, it’s all collected on his website here.

If you’ve never seen Gladwell’s TED lecture on Spagetti Sauce – and the difference between ‘push marketing’ and mass customisation (aka how choice is good economics)… then click here for a treat.

In this week’s edition of The Week, Gladwell lists six books of essential reading. The amazing thing about the internet is that you can fish the library to get a taste of this ‘stuff’ without even needing to buy the book:

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis – qed google gobsmack… watch this lovely YouTube video trailer for the book

Should I be tested for Cancer? Maybe not and here’s why by HG Welch – (Well, in the case of this book – I googled and got the whole book – click here!

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner – book and blog click ici.

Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt

Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man by Garry Wills – again, boy, Google have the whole book up on the web!

The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking by Roger Martin – this time, I give you the Wikipedia cheatsheet 

 

Outliers has an interesting thesis. That there are no geniuses – just people who’ve done 10,000 hours of practise in the right subject at the right time and probably ahead of everyone else. So Mozart was doing more piano, younger… because his dad was a concert player himself. Bill Gates and Paul Allen were doing code in an area of computing in their school holidays, only to have greatness thrust upon them.

Two cliches: ‘Practice makes perfect’ and ‘the harder I work, the luckier I get’. Again, good news for us folk who presume we’re average: keep presuming, keep at it, No Surrender.

Venturesome Economy – the secret of innovation

Was recently reading an interesting book review in the FT of a book called The Venturesome Economy - How innovation sustains prosperity in a more connected World, by Amar Bhide.

The thesis is well worn – that innovation will keep developed economies like the US and UK ahead of the marching hoards of the BRIC economies.

I’ve been quaking that India and China are each spitting out a million MBAs per annum and thinking that my kids will not have any hope in the 2020s because our world will be overrun by the brainboxes of the emerging nations.

Good news for them! And, it chimes with intuitive thoughts I’ve had about our more developed marketplaces… it’s not necessarily the innovation that has kept our economies ahead, it’s the fact that our consumers are more willing to embrace new technology and this ‘venturesome consumption’ which drives the market, which drives the innovators, which drive the economy.

So, here’s to the early adopters of the bleedingly trendy. Here’s to Tweeters on Twitter… to flashmobs, to Huddle, to Six to Start, to Oil Productions, to Velo Agency… to nonsensical fashions in Hoxton, or crazy artists in the Tea Building… it all adds up to a vibrant marketplace that tests, filters, champions.

And, creates progress. And prosperity.

 

Another blog post picks up the topic here. Saying stuff that I’d pick up – on the public policy context for innovation… should government help start-ups at all? which ones – the big near-successes or the myriad of small/risky?:

The Venturesome Economy

Amar Bhide channels Austan Goolsbee when he writes:

[...] there is little evidence of an “undersupply” or a need for public policies to stimulate the production of more high-level know-how or to subsidize the training of more homegrown scientists and engineers. Rather, given the realities of modern innovation, there is a good argument for reversing policy biases against the development – and even more importantly – the effective use of mid- and ground-level innovations. Public policies should stop trying to rob mid- and ground-level Peters to pay high-level Pauls.

Next Big Thing – Reinvent yourself

Everyone’s got to do it. The Credit Crunch has changed all the rules. You need to reinvent yourself, because those old Pre-Crunch formulas just aren’t adding up.

Ask an Estate Agent. He got hit by the Tsunami first.

Tips from me below?

- Hold hands: As always in life, things seem alot rosier if you have someone who will hold your hand. This is a thread you can input to. I’ll feel less lonely if you can add your own comments. 

- Get a blog and all the cyber-tools (Delicious? LinkedIn? Feedburner? Twitter?). Don’t be slave to them, but realise that all the tools are gaining profile for a reason. Know your reason.

- Get out more: meet people you respect most, tell them your truths and ask them to recommend other people that you should speak to (cf Theory of the Strength of Weak Ties)

- Don’t worry about money, worry about being digital. Dubai, Russia, Brazil, India, China… the talk is that these markets (and what Martin Sorrell called ‘The Next Eleven’ on Radio 4 this morn)… they are emerging markets. But, the new big superpower is the digital continent. You don’t have to upsticks to stake your claim. (I’m blogging this wirelessly from The Diner

- Don’t get too clever. Stick to what you know. With the world’s foundations shaking, you need to get onto safe ground. There’s no better moment in a conversation, for me, than watching someone hit their sweet spot. The thing they feel passionate about. The topic where they lose their inhibitions and self-consciousness – and just spout their expertise. They don’t need your input and won’t be knocked off the track. Because they know they know best. Go there. And take it online. (or to Dubai – whichever you think is least extreme).

- Be a mongrel. Cross pollinate the things you are passionate about. Don’t start in anything that isn’t your comfort zone. Port in a storm. Better the devil you know. Cliches in a recession.

- Be happy. Downshift your expectations of yourself. Look for ways to pat yourself on the back. One pat and you can treat yourself to chocolates or downtime. Two pats and you take the rest of the afternoon off. Happiness is contagious. More contagious than money or love.

- Read history books. In good times, fortunes are made. In bad times, empires. Remember, the hard times are the making of people. Austerity measures are good for the soul. The journey is the reward. (And, there’s nothing new under the sun – so work out what history book to rip off for the ‘next phase’).

- Ignore as much as possible. Sit in your comfort zone and say ‘F*** it‘ to everyone’s silly alternative ideas or the host of bad news out there. In fact, there’s a book on the subject to go along with it. See here. Sent to me by my friend’s yoga teacher, the author. Now sitting on a hill in Italy with two fingers up at his old London adland life.

- Surf the web. In my first attempt to find ‘F*** it’, the book. I found FuckItAll.com. Opens your mind. A bit.

- Back winners. The cream will rise to the top. Because it takes a devil-may-care attitude to troubles. It doesn’t feel risky to be jumping into things that you know well. Go with your gut feel. Take that leap.

Castaway – First night storming success

My quest for the Next Big Thing followed a hunch that a blog isn’t the only modern outreach tool. Beer and peanuts are modern too – ‘cept we call it ‘networking’ and it doesn’t hurt to do more of it when it’s a really great crowd.

Thanks to Big Al’s Creative Emporium, I got a venue in Soho to host a salon for ad veterans, web gurus, PR maestros, media experts, private equity hacks, design gods and widget warriors. A feisty combination of some 30+ real UK industry seniors and a solid kernel for Castaway2, 3, 4…

The connections were really popping – but modesty, exclusivity and privacy forbid me from naming names without your permission. 

The conversation was wide ranging… the need for us all to have our very own Digital Personal Trainer to max the benefit of new online tools; the Google OpenAd model; stories of growth amidst the looming recession; Diigo vs Delicious; the perfect tweed for a 21st century cycling suit (I kid you not)…

Fellow castaways, can you scribble down in the ‘Comments’ section some of the other lines of conversation to share with the rest of the world? Pretty please – and not just Oli Barrett.

I’m now working on AllofUs to host Castaway2 (Sept 24?) and Fortune Cookie to host Castaway3 (Nov 19?). Mail me if you’re interested, especially you folks on the Digital Magic Roundabout in Widgetland EC2- moo.com, skimbit, techlightenment, techcrunch, dopplr, trampoline systems, redmonk, songkick… twould be nice to meet you.

BT acquires Ribbit platform to take on Skype?

I’ve watched everyone blog about Cuil this week – taking on Google from Ireland. Flash in the pan?

Bigger UK news of a BT $100m acquisition seems to have gone under the UK blog radar. The blog ReadWriteWeb has 229,000 RSS readers and covered the fascinating story of Ribbit, an open source app allowing users to put a ‘call me’ button on their website and get an instant call centre hook-up. Not a call to a phone, but to your computer skype-like. Cool or what?! (well, that’s how I’m understanding it at first glance… over ReadWriteWeb’s post on the deal.)

TechCrunch blogged it here… they claim that Ribbit has given a ten-fold return to the investors who put in £13m some two and a half years ago. Nice work for VCs Allegis Capital, KPG Ventures and Alsop Louie Ventures!

The interesting case study to explain Ribbit is that you could, for instance, put together a page with a list of hotels for your holiday plans, or your wedding… and instead of clicking thru hypertext to the website, you could click straight thru to make a call to reservations. Neat.

All part of that trend I referenced earlier (Greycroft VC etc) of big tech-media-telecom firms trying to buy the right widgets to leapfrog into the future.

On forecasts and forecasting

Inspired by a blog of Oli Barrett.

My grandfather was an actuary, so a professional mathematician in the insurance industry predicting probability of life expectancy. In a cruel irony, he died by looking the wrong way on Tottenham Court Road, which Londoners will know is a one-way street. He confirmed that nothing was coming in the direction he checked and stepped into the road, only to have a truck confirm that he had looked the wrong way and flatten him.

Was this what forecasters might call a ‘Black Swan Moment’ – an act of randomness or plain human error? I prefer to imagine that, coming in from Suffolk, he’d been aghast at London crowds that summer day (and perhaps the 1980s ladies fashions?!).

Forecasters need to stick with the streets they know.

iPhone changes online dynamics?

So, I was a CEO and now I’m a nomad. Initially, I snatched time on the iStore Macs to check my Gmail. Next, I hang out at the FrontlineClub to hook to their wifi.

I’m not the only person doing this. Indeed, London is full of FreeAgents – freelancers, agency folk, knowledge workers. But, now I’ve bought my iPhone… what next?

A fully functioning pocket device will, I suspect, take the flexibility even further. Push Gmail (and RSS Reader). Web in my pocket. iPod for music, film. And Tom-Tom-style satnav. And, almost forgot, voice and sms of yore.  (Some of the uniques blogged by tech analysts from Jupiter… and IanFogg/Jupiter)

iPhone is a big step for the ‘Always On’ paradigm giving people useful digital stuff in a fabulous user experience. As the Jupiter analysts scream… it’s not about the hardware, it’s about the software…

Big… bigger… biggest? (I note that ‘iPhone 11 July‘ has 34million google page returns, compared to 56,000 for ‘Charlie Hoult’)

Why have a dongle? Why have a landline? More to the point, with 500 apps already available for the new 3G iPhone… what business models will prosper for this connected new economy?

Next question will be the value of luck and judgement in business building. With the power of the devices and the potential of the tools… you still need proven experience. But proven in what, these days? Or, do you just need freedom and hunger?

Dan Pink is a US commentator who coined the name Free Agent in his book Free Agent Nation. He’s blogging and writing about the entrepreneurial spirit in a series of best seller books. 

So, bigger than iPhone is the unleashed crowds ‘doing stuff’.

Authentic 2

I recently posted that ‘Authentic’ will be a factor in the Next Big Thing. Here.

Since writing my earlier blog – even while I wrote – I was singing that brilliant Gil Scot Heron anthem, The Revolution will not be televised. (click that for the lyrics and more, but so good I pasted them below). The song came out in 1974 and has a huge rapping build-up to the final line ‘The Revolution WILL BE-EEEE LIVE!!!’

Simon Jenkins, just elected to chairman of The National Trust, uses his SundayTimes column to explore the rise and revolution of LIVE. He points to the trend for real experience. He describes this as a ‘reversal of history’ and that ‘People… will use the internet and iPod, MySpace and YouTube, but as a proxy for the real’. It’s a natty call for the man just charged with getting folk out to the stately homes of England. 

He even takes a pop at the likes of, well, the questors for the Next Big Thing (ie me): ‘Futurology seminars have long been obsessed with one question: what next after the internet?… Since the invention of the telegraph and gramophone, innovation is interested only in kit that yields profit… Futurology has a built-in distortion towards technological novelty, while ignoring the continued appeal of what has gone before.’

The point that Jenkins fails to make is that technology is a facilitator to the LIVE. You could even argue that with Gil Scott Heron. Without these new technologies, you couldn’t have the social revolutions… The pirate local stations of Radio Rebelde were used by Castro to take Cuba. Television halted Vietnam. Blogs continue to uncover the human conflicts of Iraq. And, Google’s RSS reader is allowing us to individually package up a host of thinkers’ threads as they blog to our themes.

In music, it’s the internet that is modifying the dynamics of recorded music and live. Firstly, internet provides global instant distribution. Secondly, it allows artists to capture the real value of their live performance – because gigs are now getting priced to approximate the secondary value of resell sites. Check out what they charge at the O2 these days and, if you’ve not been gigging recently, you’ll swoon. Equally, in marketing, the internet allows you to reach multi-niche audiences and keep that community informed of the next live gig, debate, workshop, training session or social. See the backers of Meet-up, if you want proof. (CEO Scott Heiferman, Esther Dyson, Andreas Stavropoulos (DFJ VC), U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, and Pierre Omidyar (Founder/Chairman of eBay – strapline: Real groups make a real difference).

It is ‘old school’ to argue that LIVE will cancel out digital. The phenomenon, though, is articulated in Nassim Nicholas Taleb‘s book The Black Swan when he discusses the difference in Big Success these days. Success happens in Extremistan, rather than Mediocristan. With the potential to replicate anything online, people crave the reinforcement of the real. But, they aren’t going back to pre-digital days… (ask Lucy Kellaway, who wittily wrote on BPC – Before Personal Computers earlier this month).

Talent is, for sure, at a continued premium in our wired world. But, it’s talent that shows real depth of soul that will win in Extremistan – and only if it can use the new tools for mass appeal.

What I think we’re seeing is that the real cut-through comes from Authentic. Authentic means Personality. Witness Boris Johnson’s election to Mayor of London. He bumbles faux-pas, he back-tracks, he speaks his mind even if it’s not to everyone’s taste. You can somehow bottle up extreme personality or superlative performance or uber-luxury or that unique live moment and people will pay so much more for that (over the internet!?) more than they’ll pay for the polished, bland, repeated stuff.

Same goes for Barack Obama, I’ve got to assume – albeit he doesn’t ‘touch me’ because his micro-casting doesn’t need my sphere of influence or my vote. The point, Mr Jenkins, is that Barack is a pro in capturing the authentic mood, but also in ‘getting it’ online.

While I’m fascinated by the internet phenomenon of Social Networking, I’m obsessed by member organisations and their power – whether the UK’s biggest member clubs the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds or The Caravan Club or the Royal Horticultural Society. And, if we don’t see the National Trust really embracing digital technology to pinpoint and leverage its member power, its estates will lose us as we all go gigging to little, crumblier, muddier country piles instead.

 

 

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the 
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

The answer for ITV – be more Brit-posh

I enjoyed Dan Sabbagh’s media analysis in Friday’s Times. He nicely argues that the reason for ITV’s wane is that it doesn’t do ‘posh’ like the BBC – and ‘posh’ exports internationally. He reckons the misery of Emmerdale or Coronation Street just doesn’t work like Strictly Come Dancing or Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency or Richard Curtis films (Love Actually, Blackadder) or Harry Potter.

For ITV, also add Wallace & Gromit, Artic Monkeys and Oasis… all have failed to get big traction in the US.

For ITV, the next big thing is to crack America. Or, has Dan missed a trick by not mentioning Simon Cowell? His formats are populist not posh and they are rescuing ITV as well as a heap of US TV stations stranded by the writers’ strike. All good for Simon Cowell, but perhaps stemming an inevitable decline in TV?