I GRADUATED COLLEGE!

I GRADUATED COLLEGE! After attending schools in 4 states, I am the owner of a bachelor’s degree. #awesome

The OK Plateau

Came across this post while trying to find out who authored this quote (which seems to be unknown):

Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary. Persistence is necessary for excellence. And persistence is a decision.

Collapse of Complex Business

Interesting insights, and while I don't neccessarily agree with all of them, the idea that anyone can do things as they were done in the 20th century, or will be able to again soon, is foolish.

About 15 years ago, the supply part of media's supply-and-demand curve went parabolic [went up a lot, quickly], with a predictably inverse effect on price [went down]. Since then, a battalion of media elites have lined up to declare that exactly the opposite thing will start happening any day now.

To pick a couple of examples more or less at random, last year Barry Diller of IAC said, of content available on the web, It is not free, and is not going to be, Steve Brill of Journalism Online said that users just need to get back into the habit of doing so [paying for content] online, and Rupert Murdoch of News Corp said Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use.

Diller, Brill, and Murdoch seem be stating a simple fact-we will have to pay them-but this fact is not in fact a fact. Instead, it is a choice, one its proponents often decline to spell out in full, because, spelled out in full, it would read something like this:

"Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use, or else we will have to stop making content in the costly and complex way we have grown accustomed to making it. And we don’t know how to do that."

(from Clay Shirky).

Change, then What

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

-Hannah Arendt

In 2 years, when things have changed even more then they have already, will today's vanguard be the old establishment resisting further change? Might be good to keep your eye on the future, even as the present becomes what yesterday's future was.

Is The Game Really Changing?

The game only appears to be changing. Network Executives aren't screwing things up any more than they always have screwed things up...it's just that we hear about it more now because of technology. When Cinema discovered that Television was taking over people's relaxation hours, the entire industry scrambled like morons to find its way. In the end, making movies evolved on it's own and all they needed to do was keep working.

It's the same with the internet. Together, we have to make shows and projects the same way we always have. We have to unify business, technological, and theatrically creative minds and point them all in the direction we want our projects to go

(from Darren Ewing).

Once It's Live, Leave It Live

About a year ago a highly rated TV show built a fictional company's web site to tie in to real life events at Comic-Con, the convention in San Diego. The finale of the newest season was this week. Just a few minutes ago a friend on Twitter and Facebook changed their status to say he wanted to work for that fictional company, and I wanted to comment/reply to my friend's status with the link to the fictional site. The site is down, offline, 404.

I wanted to share a part of the show with a friend, and they won't let me. I wanted to promote their product for free, and they stopped me. Instead of allowing all the money spent on the site and its very good videos and promotions pay off forever, they took it down. Estimated annual savings in taking down the site: $2000 (which ought to be lower, but for various reasons in this case is not lower). Estimated loss of audience engagement, good-will and ability for the franchise's value to increase over many decades: infinite.

The stock of the parent company that owns the network that carries the show has lost about $20,300,000,000 of market value since mid September (admittedly this may not only result from company wide failure to understand or capitalize on the internet).

Create a Great Website

No matter the type of site, certain things are consistent among all great sites. Seth Godin's list is a great starting point, and includes this gem:

Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a dealbreaker.

Internet Keeps Us Connected, Forever

Social Networks allow people to reconnect with people they've lost touch with over time. The internet in general keeps people connected to each other whether they want to be or not:

someone i used to live with has a video on cute overload today. weird how geeks are the only exes that never move out of your neighborhood.

(from thaumata's twitter).