As a kid I enjoyed it, now I think it’s yet another commercial holiday which we celebrate in order to stimulate the economy. However it brings people together and that’s good. The non-believers don’t celebrate the traditional form. There are all kind of different forms in which adults celebrate. For example ‘Surprises’ in which you buy someone a small present and write a poem. However the present isn’t just wrapped in giftpaper. The person giving the present creates something personal. For example if you like cars, you get a hand-made scale model made from paper.

With the Enter-priZe entrepreneurs we celebrated it with a game of rolling dices. All participants get some small and stupid presents. Then there are three rounds where the numbers on the dice have different meaning. All the presents are on the table and sometimes you get the chance to pick one from the table. In round two you get to start stealing and exchange gifts from others. At the start of round three all gifts are unwrapped and then another round of switching starts.

We celebrated at our office in the hague. As the pictures show we had some cleaning to do afterwards!

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Define yourself by your own (thinking) activities
Do not shape yourself by the job title somebody else gives you. People who are brave call themselves ‘thinkers’. Computer companies try to sell ‘business solutions’ to their client’s problems. In the creative economy we each can think and exchange creative solutions with others.

The power of thinking is an underestimated value to most of the business activities we do today. Most of the times we only see acknowledgement for great thinking by ‘leaders’ of companies. People like Steve Jobs, Barack Obama and Winston Churchill are just a few examples. We see their actions and acknowledge them by thinking power. This is great, but mostly happens because they made a difference.

In our creative economy it’s great we more and more see the power of the individual. Driven by networks like, for example, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter the voice of the crowd gets a saying in a growing amount of important decisions around the world. We see change both big and small.

Combining the power of individuals and a growing set of creative ideas and impulses requires us to channel. We need to conceptualize our ideas in order to make them work and be able to put them out in the open. An idea is worth nothing. Everybody has ideas and it gets easier to put them out there. We need concepts, not ideas. Beautiful names, concrete plans, shapes and designs. Driven by actions is key because most people with the ability to come up with concepts, don’t get the chance to create them.

In my opinion, thinking activities are big pillars on which we can define ourselves. People that are able to create change from their thoughts are the new leaders. It’s an encouraging thought that in the world of tomorrow there will be room for millions of small and individual leaders and not only thousands of leaders that control the change the world is going through.

I was happy to see Rattan Chadha talk about this subject in his interview with KBIRI. He only rarely gives interviews, which is good because most of his time goes to building business and changing the world.

Rattan Chadha “Everytime I go on a holiday, I start new businesses” from KBIRI on Vimeo.

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Be nomadic
Nomads are at home in every country. You can choose your own path and means of travel, and choose how long you stay. Being nomadic isn’t about being alone. They are likely to travel in groups. Writer Charles Handy says leaders must combine ‘a love of people’ and ‘capacity for aloofness’. Creatives need to be able to think alone or working together.

This is actually one of my favorites. Maybe a bit strange, I’ve only flew once in my life and probably won’t leave the country on short notice. But I believe being nomadic is more about blending in, not necessarily traveling around the globe.

A nomad needs to be able to acclimatize in groups, changing environments and businesses. This sounds general, but I believe it’s not. In my everyday life I see a lot of people that are in the creative industry and aren’t nomadic at all. They’re lead by the urge to comply to expectations of their environment. Not a bad thing, but limiting at least.

In my opinion people (and creatives in particular) need to be able to adapt to change. This requires you to easily blend into groups, work with new people, processes and even more important, work everywhere. If it might be on the train, airplane or in a crowded office.

Now if we blend that together two things pop into my mind. If you need to be able to work everywhere, determination and focus are key. Second, you need to be able and adapt to change or be able to change things for yourself. Can’t focus? Be nomadic, find another spot to work. Sounds logical, but for a lot of people it just isn’t.

For sometime now I have this big plan to life abroad… Not that average trip to New Sealand, USA and all. But more like how I’m going to combine a style with frequent trips abroad with work and personal life. This can be hard and needs a lot of re-considering and preparations before starting off.

My plans involve at least living in New York. Why New York if I never been there before? Because I think it’s one of the role models of how our cities will become one day. It intrigues me how it develops, appeals to millions of people and grows beyond a size we can think of.

So one day I will be one of those international Nomads. I will.

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Triggered by the title? Well, basically that’s what is happening here in the Netherlands on the web. All bloggers (amateur and professional) that embed video or music need to pay a fee based upon the amount of viewers. The fee is depending upon the amount of visitors. But first let’s start with a small explanation for what Buma/Stemra is. From their website:

There are people who make music although you’ll never hear them make a sound: they are called music authors. Their efforts precede the successes of the artists who perform their works. The music that we enjoy is their intellectual property. Just like other authors, they have the right to remuneration when their works are played, sung or recorded. Buma/Stemra takes care of these matters.

So. Buma/Stemra takes care of all interests of music authors in the work they create. Not necessary a bad thing, wouldn’t it be the case that they’ve launched this ridiculous idea(dutch) for charging bloggers for embedding the music of authors.

What’s crazy about this is that YouTube or any other site providing access to copyrighted content should (and in a lot of cases already is) pay for it. In other words, they’re the broadcasters. They deliver the content to my browser. For me to see. A blogger or any other website is just a channel which I’m in which leads me to the content on the network of (for example) YouTube.

In the old world this would mean a manufacturer of TV’s is paying a fee for the amount of viewers that watches content via the screen. Where in fact (and completely logical to me) the broadcasting networks are paying fees for the series, movies and other contents that are being broadcasted.

Can we solve this? Yes we can. It’s not that hard, only it involves more effort from Buma/Stemra. I believe they should be more cooperative and look at how the world is changing. They’re focusing on the downside of the Internet (pirated content) and fighting against it. However they should see this as a big opportunity. You can now promote your artists and drive sales through all kinds of content networks. Artists are more and more using the web to connect and promote their own music. We now see more artist producing music on their own without a label. They own their channel and show what we’ve always known. They love to create music and connect to people that appreciate them for it. How? By listening, buying and maybe even more important: promoting it.

If Buma/Stemra won’t start making more deals with content networks, they face to be replaced. I love to see more self managing artists. Buma/Stemra is in it for the money, that’s why one day they’ll be gone.

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Talking to your customers about your product is very important. We’ve experienced that while starting Tweetburner and see it actively happen around us. It’s a big drive for your success. For example, let’s take a look at two big video websites: YouTube and Vimeo. YouTube is the real big guy, while Vimeo is just, well, big. However I’ve never heard people say: ‘YouTube is a great product and becomes more and more relevant for me’. Other people have kept repeating to me how great Vimeo is.

I believe this has to do with the staff of Vimeo being active in their community. Involving your users during development makes them loyal and likely to stick when a YouTube in your market arises.

In the valley, building the next YouTube’s is what they try everyday. I would lie if that doesn’t appeal to my imagination, but think about it. Because VC’s have funds they need to keep alive, cashing out is their goal. If building a bad product allows them to cash out, they will. And if that affects you and your users, too bad. Needs to happen. Your customers know that. It’s like the banking world, it’s all about he money!

When a new YouTube enters your market, you want to be able and say: ‘Our users love us, let’s improve our product even more and show that new competitor who we are‘. You want to be credited for creating a product loved by users, not raising another $20 million dollar of funding.

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Put the priority on ideas, not on data
Create and grow your own creative imagination. Build a personal balance sheet of intellectual capital. Understand patents, copyright, trademarks and other intellectual property laws. Entrepreneurs are more worried to lose their ability to think than if their company loses money.

I believe the quote contains a contradiction. As an entrepreneur I surely value the ability to think above earning every penny I can get. When you make sure you keep the thinking process on the go, you’ll be able to make money with your intellectual property quite easily. The contradiction lies within companies being worried to lose money. Here’s why.

I love to share my ideas and knowledge. With everyone interested but also with companies in the same industry or maybe even direct competition. This is related to an active thinking process. If done right, you’re always ahead of the competition or at least be able to use you thinking power to change your idea, concept or strategy.

People asked me if I’m not scared people ’steal’ an idea. I’ve always told that idea’s can’t be stolen because they’re just a bunch of thoughts. I focus on the difference between ideas and concepts. Developing an idea to a strong and valuable concept takes time, thinking power and skill. Now the concept has a small market worth, but more important  Depending on the level of completion of the concept you need to be careful about what to tell and what not to tell.

When a competitor copies and launches on of your concepts, is your company losing money? I think not. I even think it’s good when it happens. When competition sees the same opportunity as you, this is evidence there is a market for your product. Besides that you can watch what they’re doing and learn from it. Use that information in your thinking process and it will enable you to take more balanced decisions.

Be open on abstract levels and get people to think with you. Do this face to face, or if you like on big scale via blogs and twitter. This opens the freeway of collective creative intelligence.

Here are some of my tips regarding this TCE rule.

1. Train your thinking power
   Read blogs, articles and books related to stuff your working on. Keeps you sharp. But also talk with other people about their ideas. Not only do most of them like to hear your feedback, it trains your thinking power because you get better at it and learn from them.
2. Don’t overprotect your ideas
   It is very important to protect your ideas, but over protection makes it harder to apply changes when needed.
3. Be open
   Closely related to my first tip. When working on your own ideas, share your thoughts with others. They maybe working in your industry, but maybe even more important in a different industrie. Learn from their thinking process when pitching your idea. Best example is related to on of the ideas we’re working within Firmhouse, Dealkeeper. At a conference I talked about it and somebody pointed me directly to a competitor still quite under the radar. I probably wouldn’t found that competitor myself.

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Invent yourself
Create a unique cluster of personal talents. Own your image. Manage it. Build momentum. Leave school early, if you want, but never stop learning. Break the rules. Be clear about your own assets and talents. They are unique. And they are all you have.

I consider myself a full time entrepreneur, working hard on starting my company and inventing myself. I’m also a student, working hard to get my bachelor in ‘Communication and Multimedia Design’. This means I’m in a continuous mode of self-exploration.

Luckily, there aren’t big contradictions in the combination of my study and company, which creates room to explore knowledge outside my company and study.

But who or what am I?

I’m a generalist. I know a little about a lot of subjects. Maybe you can call me a ‘Creative Generalist’. I love to explore information and trends, but I won’t digg in too far. Some people think being a generalist has a lot of downsides, but I believe it’s a great thing. However last year I really didn’t think about it this way.

Last year there were two ‘changing’ moments. Merging Firmhouse with Michiel’s company and switching my major study.

Within Firmhouse I’m responsible of planning projects and testing our ideas so we can launch them as new products and services. This creative process involves a lot of thinking and quick analysis. When concepting is done with ‘too much’ knowledge, it becomes a burden that keeps you from ‘freewheeling’.

My first major study was focused on business intelligence and informatics, a study teaching you to become a specialist in analyzing business processes and translating these experiences to system designs and blueprints. I didn’t like it because of the contents of the study, but more important I couldn’t focus on something I was already capable of doing on a basic level. I switched to a more creative study: Communication and Multimedia Design. It’s closer related to my tasks within Firmhouse and it focuses on trends.

These moments are important because it teached me more about being a generalist. I was told by experienced people that I needed to find my specialization in order to become a better at what I’m doing. I needed to find that ‘inner spark’ so I could develop better skills and add more value to the projects I worked on. After a lot of thinking about this, I can say I’m becoming a specialist in being a generalist… If I look at how fast I can go from idea to concept compared to one year ago, I’ve made tremendous progress.

What do I do to invent myself?

I try to be as diverse as possible. It enables me to put things in perspective and allows me to do a good job at Firmhouse. I read a diversity of books and blogs. The people I know are diverse, which allows me to learn from their experiences and knowledge. I use my blog and Twitter to re-share my experiences and knowledge so other people can learn from me.

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Most of the assignments involved communication problems, to be more specific most the charities asked a creative approach to generate more money for their cause.

StopTBC!
I was assigned to the KNCV Tuberculosefonds which recently launched a new campaign to get more attention for the problems of TBC in developing countries. It’s called StopTBC! and will be all over the place in the coming weeks. They asked us to think of ways how they can generate a steady and growing income for cause.

So we did. The first session resulted in three idea’s. These contained two important aspects, awareness and the simple actions people can take to donate and let others donate. In the second part of the evening the ideas where translated to one concept.

We presented the concept twice, in Dutch. Below you find the pitches I’ve recorded with my Zi6, sorry for the bad quality . The room was quite dark.. Enjoy!

8UO TBC – Presentatie eerste ideeën from Bob on Vimeo.

8UO TBC – Eindpresentatie from Bob on Vimeo.

Please leave a comment with your thoughts on this, I love to hear you.

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However Creative Commons is aimed to create freedom that creative people want to give to their work. The website of Creative Commons states that it also aims for scientists. I think this licensing model isn’t suitable for sharing research information. Therefore more specific tools are needed.

This short video is an introduction to Science Commons. Where Creative Commons focuses on sharing, Science Commons is meant to define a standard and licensing model that allows different resources to integrate their data.

By data we mean petabytes of research data that isn’t used to it’s full potential. It’s stuck in silo’s and only can be used by the few people that have access to it.

I think it’s great finally a workgroup is focusing on the research field. If they somehow are able to create the same effects as the Creative Commons did, this could have a big impact on the research field and how it operates.

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In short terms, they currently own the intellectual property that are the basics to online social networking. A big part of these basics are being used by Facebook, MySpace, Hyves and other social networks. Now it belongs to Friendster, one of the first social networks. This concerns me.

My biggest concern is a ‘war’ with lawyers that could rise in the Valley. The biggest ’start-ups’ over there are based on the basic principles of Social Networking as we know them today. Or at least the basics described in the patents.

Will Friendster become a pool of Intellectual Property that will charge other social networks for using ‘their’ methods and techniques? My guess is that we might see signs of this sooner than we might expect.

Friendster being awarded this patent feels awckward. They might be one of the first social networks that implemented the features described in the patents. When they released them to the public domain they didn’t took the effort to protect it. However one of the most important rules to successfully apply for a patent states that the contents of the patents may not already exist in the public domain.

Patents are meant to stimulate inventors to keep inventing and make money of their inventions by protecting the work that they created. Now it’s becoming a tool for business to give a boost to their cashflow and control competition. That isn’t particalairy bad but the side effect could be slowing down innovations in the market.

I’m curious how these patents are going to effect a fast moving market like the internet.

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