Creative Generalist

Competitive Advantage Is Fleeting

2009-06-19T11:44:00.001-04:00

Competitive Advantage Is Fleeting (And It's Okay to Admit It). An interesting HBS article by Rita McGrath.

One implication of hypercompetition that has not yet gotten the attention it deserves is that the skill of getting out of things and re-focusing your organization is likely to be just as important as spotting opportunities and moving to capture them. I suggest that the vast majority of companies struggle with letting go, while the more adroit strategists make the necessary judgment calls and move on.

Punk Rope

2009-06-17T12:38:00.001-04:00

Recess was the best, wasn't it? Ah, well, here's a pretty cool program out of New York that seems to be recapturing that fun and exercise for a wider audience: Punk Rope!

Punk Rope Salutes March Madness 3-31-09 from Tim Haft on Vimeo.

Punk Rope is a playful mash-up of recess and boot camp that’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Each class is a unique blend of creative calisthenics, group conditioning drills, relay races, rope jumping, and core training. Students come in all ages, shapes, sizes, and fitness levels. Everybody is welcome!

Wooden Arms

2009-06-15T16:55:00.000-04:00
I've posted previously about how great Patrick Watson songs and shows are (I've seen at least 14 of 'em!). It's been fun watching this band improve and earn the acclaim they are now almost universally receiving. Their latest album, Wooden Arms, dropped last month and is start-to-finish wonderful. If you like pop-piano-acoustic-percussive type tunes, take a listen. And watch this beautifully shot takeaway show by Vincent Moon.

Banksy in Bristol

2009-06-14T14:50:00.003-04:00

Banksy at the Bristol City Museum. Brilliant, yet again.

Gigundo Industries

2009-06-08T12:26:00.000-04:00

For all your New Yorker-style cartoon needs (for birthday cards, books, presentations...). Gigundo Industries Inc.

Publicacy

2009-06-05T11:54:00.001-04:00
The word "publicacy" was coined by Scott Cleland, author of the insightful web policy The Precursor Blog, as a needed antonym to "privacy". In the age of Web 2.0 social networks, mobile phone GPS, cload computing, and a growing variety of "wisdom of crowds" data analysis, the "publicacy ethos" - that "if technology innovation can make information public, it should be public and that there should be no permission or payment required to access, use or remix this new 'public' information" - becomes an increasingly important subject for discussion and debate. As this NY Times article explains, you're leaving a digital trail and tracking that trail is valuable learning - both commercially and societally.

Hello Wave

2009-06-02T23:47:00.006-04:00
If you haven't done so yet, set aside 80 minutes and watch the preview that Google delivered last week of its forthcoming Wave communication platform. You'll be hearing a lot about it soon, I'm sure. Wave may very well replace email and will certainly play some key role in consolidating the oodles of social media services competing for our attention.

Impressive in its scope and ambition, obviously, but also a very good sign that Google has created Wave to be open source and "federation" friendly.

Visual Futurists

2009-05-27T19:12:00.000-04:00
It's the industrial design equivalent of science fiction: 100 completely unreal inventions.

(Thanks Clay)

Crossing the Chasm

2009-05-23T17:48:00.002-04:00

Recently I re-read Geoffrey Moore's classic “Crossing the Chasm”, a great technology marketing book that came out in the 90s. It’s about marketing and selling disruptive technology products to mainstream customers. Although some of the case studies naturally date the book, it remains just as instructive now in 2009 as it did over a decade ago.

There are a few key sections worth highlighting (excerpts below): identifying the chasm, moving from early market to mainstream, niche segmenting, and creating a whole product. Food for thought...

What is the Chasm?...

“We have enough high-tech marketing history now to see where our model has gone wrong and how to fix it. To be specific, the point of greatest peril in the development of a high-tech market lies in making the transition from an early market dominated by a few visionary customers to a mainstream market dominated by a large block of customers who are predominantly pragmatists in orientation. The gap between these two markets, heretofore ignored, is in fact so significant as to warrant being called a chasm, and crossing this chasm must be the primary focus of any long-term high-tech marketing plan. A successful crossing is how high-tech fortunes are made...” [p.5]

“Every truly innovative high-tech product starts out as a fad – something with no known market value or purpose but with “great properties” that generate a lot of enthusiasm within an “in crowd.” That’s the early market. Then comes a period during which the rest of the world watches to see if anything can be made of this; that is the chasm. If in fact something does come out of it – if a value proposition is discovered that can predictably be delivered to a targetable set of customers at a reasonable price – then a new mainstream market forms, typically with a rapidity that allows its initial leaders to become very, very successful.” [p.6]

“One of the most important lessons about crossing the chasm is that the task ultimately requires achieving an unusual degree of company unity during the crossing period.” [p.7]

On the Early Market...

Technology enthusiasts “are the ones who first appreciate the architecture of your product and why it therefore has a competitive advantage over the current crop of products established in the marketplace. They are the ones who will spend hours trying to get products to work that, in all conscience, never should have shipped in the first place. They will forgive ghastly documentation, horrendously slow performance, ludicrous omissions in functionality, and bizarrely obtuse methods of invoking some needed function – all in the name of moving technology forward. They make great critics because they truly care. ... They pose fewer requirements than any other group in the adoption profile.” [p.31]

Visionaries “are not looking for an improvement; they are looking for a fundamental breakthrough. Technology is important only insomuch as it promises to deliver this dream... From the strategic leap forward it enables.” ... “Visionaries are easy to sell but very hard to please.” [p.34]

“Crossing the chasm requires moving from an environment of support among the visionaries back into one of skepticism among pragmatists. It means moving from familiar ground of product-oriented issues to the unfamiliar ground of market-oriented ones, and from the familiar audience of like-minded specialists to the unfamiliar audience of essentially uninterested generalists.” [p.137]

On segment-targeting...

“A market is: a set of actual or potential customers; for a given set of products or services; who have a common set of needs or wants; and who reference each other when making a buying decision.” [p.28]

“...The claim is made that, although niche strategy is generally best, we do not have time – or we cannot afford – to implement it now. This is a ruse, of course, the true answer being much simpler: We do not have, nor are we willing to adopt, any discipline that would ever require us to stop pursuing any sale at any time for any reason. We are, in other words, not a market-driven company; we are a sales-driven company. Now, how bad can this really be? I mean, sales are good, right? Surely things can just work themselves out, and we will discover our market, albeit retroactively, led to it by our customers, yes? The true answers to the previous questions are: (1) disastrous, (2) not always, and (3) never in a million years.
The consequences of being sales-driven during the chasm period are, to put it simply, fatal. Here’s why: The sole goal of the company during this stage of market development must be to secure a beachhead in a mainstream market – that is, to create a pragmatist customer base that is referenceable, people who can, in turn, provide us access to other mainstream prospects. To capture this reference base, we must ensure that our first set of customers completely satisfy their buying objectives. [p.68]

“The segment-targeting company can expect word-of-mouth leverage early in its crossing-the-chasm marketing effort, whereas the sales-driven company will get it much later, if at all. This lack of word of mouth, in turn, makes selling the product that much harder, thereby adding to the cost and unpredictability of sales. ... So, if we want market leadership early on – and we do, since we know pragmatists tend to buy from market leaders, and our number one marketing goal is to achieve a pragmatist installed base that can be referenced – the only right strategy is to take a “big fish, small pond” approach. Segment. Segment. Segment.” ... “Make a total commitment to the niche, and then do your best to meet everyone else’s needs with whatever resources you have left over.” [p.69]

“Winning the beachhead, knocking over the head pin, creates a dynamic of follow-on adoption, opening up new opportunities, in part from leveraging a solution from one niche to another, in part from word of mouth interaction between customers in adjacent niches.” ... “The fundamental principle for crossing the chasm is to target a specific niche market as your point of attack and focus all your resources on achieving the dominant leadership position in that segment.” [p.77]

“Can’t we go after more than one target? The simple answer is no... You cannot cross the chasm in two places.” Move into adjacent niches after you’ve conquered the first one. [p.99]

Direct sales is the best channel for crossing the chasm in high-tech. ... “It gives us maximum control over our own destiny.” ... “The retail system works optimally when its job is to fulfill demand rather than create it. ... Because it does not create demand, and because it does not help develop whole products, retail distribution is structurally unsuited to solving the chasm problem.” [p.169]

On the Whole Product Concept...

Generic product – what is shipped in the box
Expected product – what the consumer thinks they are buying
Augmented product – accessories, plug-ins, extras, technical support, etc.
Potential product – the product’s room for growth and enhancement

“At the introduction of any new type of product, the marketing battle takes place at the level of the generic product – the product itself. The hero in the battle for the early market. But as marketplaces develop, as we enter the mainstream market, products in the center (1) become more and more alike, and the battle shifts increasingly to the outer circles (4).” [p.110]

The single most important difference between early markets and mainstream markets is that the former are willing to take responsibility for piecing together the whole product (in return for getting the jump on their competition), whereas the latter are not. Failure to recognize this principle has been the downfall of many a high-tech enterprise. Too often companies throw their products into the market as if they were tossing bales of hay off the back of a truck. There is no planning for the whole product – just the hope that their product will be so wonderful that customers will rise up in legions to demand that third parties rally about it.” [p.112]

Lots of other good stuff - and interesting how one of the pivotal challenges in all of marketing ultimately boils down to transitioning from specialist to generalist appeal, and doing so with niche segmenting and a whole product. Again, a great book, well worth dusting off and scanning through again.

Random Facts

2009-04-18T19:00:00.000-04:00
Recycling: Each year, Americans throw out enough soda pop cans bottles to reach to the moon and back—twenty times.

Kissing: The science of kissing is called philematology.

Nutrition: A person will usually swallow around 250 times during dinner.

Dolphins: Just a tablespoon of water in a dolphin’s lung could drown it.

Volcanoes: Japan has 10% of the world’s active volcanoes.

One should learn something - at least one thing - new every day. That being the goal, this site of Random Facts, will overload your daily diet.

(Thanks Rose)

A Generalist President

2009-04-04T17:17:00.001-04:00
It's clear reading The Audacity of Hope that Barack Obama isn't just a good speaker but he's also a very good writer, exceptionally talented at conveying thoughts and ideas articulately, intelligently, and with flow. It's a book that so obviously framed his whole presidential campaign, which as we all know now has thankfully turned the page on the redacted scribbles of the Bush-Cheney years. It's a book about his background, experience, approach, beliefs, and aspirations.

Besides the obligatory pre-campaign introduction that most political personality books share, there are a couple things that really stand out about Obama in The Audacity of Hope.

The first is that this is a man who has a very keen understanding of history, especially American history. I blogged previously about a post at Pop Philosophy called The Return of History which summed up nicely the great value of studied hindsight on matters of the present and future. It would appear that Obama's relative young age as president is more than offset by his professorial knowledge of past presidents and of his nation's founding and subsequent journey.

The second thing that resonated throughout the book was that Obama most certainly possesses a generalist mindset. I've posted before about how leaders need to be generalists - including a vision of the big picture, a talent for "hiring" and delegation, and an openness and empathy towards differing ideas and perspectives. He covers sports, faith, economy, politics, power, science, family, and a number of other topics with ease and in balance with each other. This trait will serve him well as leader of a country with so many diverse challenges and opportunities.

Here are a few excerpts that illustrate the above further:

...[A]cross America a constant cross-pollination is occurring, a not entirely orderly but generally peaceful collision among people and cultures. Identities are scrambling, and then cohering in new ways. Beliefs keep slipping through the noose of predictability. Facile expectations and simple explanations are being constantly upended. Spend time actually talking to Americans, and you discover that most evangelicals are more tolerant than the media would have us believe, most secularists more spiritual. Most rich people want the poor to succeed, and most of the poor are both more self-critical and hold higher aspirations than the popular culture allows. Most Republican strongholds are 40 percent Democrat, and vice versa. The political labels of liberal and conservative rarely track people's personal attributes. (p63)

It is to say that after all the trappings of office - the titles, the staff, the security details - are stripped away, I find the President and those who surround him to be pretty much like everybody else, possessed of the same mix of virtues and vices, insecurities and long-buried injuries, as the rest of us. No matter how wrongheaded I might consider their policies to be - and no matter how much I might insist that they be held accountable for the results of such policies - I still find it possible, in talking to these men and women, to understand their motives, and to recognize in them values I share. This is not an easy posture to maintain in Washington. ... (p59)

As a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. We wouldn't tolerate schools that don't teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and underinspired, if we thought that the children in them were like our children. It's hard to imagine the CEO of a company giving himself a multimillion-dollar bonus while cutting health-care coverage for his workers if he thought they were in some sense his equals. And it's safe to assume that those in power would think longer and harder about launching a war if they envisioned their own sons and daughters in harm's way. ... Black leaders need to appreciate the legitimate fears that may cause some whites to resist affirmative action. Union representatives can't afford not to understand the competitive pressures their employers may be under. I am obligated to try to see the world through George Bush's eyes, no matter how much I may disagree with him. That's what empathy does... We are all forced beyond our limited vision. (p82)

Most of all, she [Obama's mother] possessed an abiding sense of wonder, a reverence for life and its precious, transitory nature that could properly described as devotional. During the course of the day, she might come across a painting, read a line of poetry, or hear a piece of music, and I would see tears well up in her eyes. Sometimes, as I was growing up, she would wake me in the middle of the night to have me gaze at a particularly spectacular moon, or she would have me close my eyes as we walked together at twilight to listen to the rustle of leaves. She loved to take children - any child - and sit them in her lap and tickle them or play games with them or examine their hands, tracing out the miracle of bone and tendon and skin and delighting at the truths to be found there. She saw mysteries everywhere and took joy in the sheer strangeness of life. (p243)

Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start to Tweet

2009-03-31T12:10:00.002-04:00
Twitter has forced me to confront head-on something I so fervently rail against: close-mindedness. It's personal this time though. It was my own close-mindedness.

You see, I finally relented and joined Twitter last week - something I stubbornly refused to do for a few reasons, namely: I'm too busy, it's too shallow/banal/narcissistic, and what's the point really. Basically for the same short-sighted reasons that many railed against blogging waaaay back in the early naughts, I struggled to see the value of <140-character brain farts. Well, I was wrong.

Twitter (and its various apps) deliver a few valuable things. Firstly, it's effectively a faster search engine than Google. Nowhere near as comprehensive but pretty useful for breaking news and the very latest links. Secondly, it is a shining example of the wisdom of crowds, identifying trends on anything - a marketer's dream. Twitter's real value is in what it provides in aggregate. Thirdly, it is a great launching pad out to deeper blog posts, media articles, and video clips (see Guy Kawasaki). This is what especially bugs me about having ignored Twitter for so long; that it is simply a very useful generalist tool for scanning ideas.

Anyways, you can follow me here. Not sure yet what I'll post most about - probably a mix of personal, Creative Generalist, and WowWee. I'll definitely never be a power user - too reserved/private for that - but I'll certainly be following the brightest twitterers out there as I find them. Speaking of which, thanks to Pam and Mitch at Twist Image, leaders in the ___sphere, for the nudge.

"Twouble with Twitter" sous-titré
by LePostfr

.

100 Nons

2009-03-25T23:49:00.000-04:00
100 (Non-Design) Blogs that Every Web Designer Should Read, according to Kelly at Wed Design Schools Guide.

Welcome Aboard

2009-03-21T15:19:00.000-04:00

"You will not get that on United Airlines. I guarantee it."

Rip! A Remix Manifesto

2009-03-08T22:14:00.007-04:00
The remixers manifesto:
1. Culture always builds on the past.
2. The past always tries to control the future.
3. Our Future is becoming less free.
4. To build free societies, you must limit control of the past.

This manifesto forms the thesis of the excellent new documentary called Rip! Rip! is about the battles raging between copyright and copyleft; between the creators, publishers, protectors, and remixers of culture. Following the mash-up musician Girl Talk, the film is itself a provocative mash-up of numerous copyrighted songs and images. And, true to form, it is partially available online with an explicit invitation to remix the whole damn thing (see Open Source Cinema).

Brilliantly edited and free-flowing, Rip! is important for its courage at shining a light on perhaps the most significant issue surrounding ideas. Art and ideas are inspired by other art and ideas, and laws that refuse this ignore the giants on whose shoulders we stand and shortchange us of new discoveries and crazy good creations like Girl Talk's and this.

Seriously, how impressive is THRU YOU!

(Thanks Ryan and Benny)

A Global Economic Outlook

2009-03-02T08:54:00.002-05:00
There is of course no shortage of sky-is-falling media commentary on the economy these days. Most of it, however, due to the sheer scope of the global economic crisis, only focuses in on particular angles - mortgage foreclosures, Wall Street excess, bail-out this and bail-out that - and not on the larger net of circumstances. It is a big complex challenge and analyzing it in a big picture sense is ultimately the only way we can properly understand it. To that end, here is a pretty good article by Norwegian management consultant Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar that studies the global economic outlook both as a whole and with the long view in mind.

(Thanks Ali)

Pow! Right Between the Eyes

2009-02-23T22:01:00.002-05:00
Back in the autumn of 2006 I offered some guy named Andy my two cents on blogging and then gave him a nudge and introduced him to readers here.

A couple of years and hundreds of insightful/witty/bizarre posts later he's got a big fancy business book and is on his way to becoming a best-selling author. Pow!

The guy is Andy Nulman, former president of Just for Laughs, current boss at Airborne Mobile, snazzy dressy, random shouter, and devout user of the Comic Sans font in emails. And the book, just out, and with forewords by comedians John Cleese and Craig Ferguson, is Pow! Right Between the Eyes: Profiting from the Power of Surprise. It's an overdue title and he's just the showman to write it.

Pow! is about how business "is in desperate need of new ways to inspire bored and cynical consumers who have grown weary of the same old song and dance. In today’s information economy, it doesn’t matter how many people you reach, but how much attention they pay. And the best way to get attention is with the powerful, but largely misunderstood, element of surprise."

I personally find surprise to be an especially relevant element for Creative Generalists. Firstly, as I learned back in my days running general-interest magazine Maisonneuve, is that curious people, almost by definition, take an active interest in seeking out that which is new, novel, peripheral - surprising. Surprises in the generalist realm can come from anywhere, which is exactly the rush. But also, secondly, Creative Generalists are particularly apt to discover, design, and cleverly present surprises for much the same reason. We mine the fringes and blend the fragments, often with surprising results.

Surprise is a pretty deep and nuanced subject, which Andy explores and ponders thoroughly - beyond just the in-your-face cliches - in Pow!. It's one of those biz book that captures an important yet underrated marketing idea and deservedly, finally, and yes, surprisingly brings it to the fore. Check it out.

O Love

2009-02-12T22:49:00.001-05:00
Last month when in Vegas for CES I took the opportunity to catch a couple of Cirque du Soleil's permanent shows, Love and O. One disappointed and one amazed.

As a Beatles fan I'd been dying to see Love ever since its launch. I heard good reviews from friends and quite enjoyed the soundtrack - blended mixes of the classic tunes re-produced by Sir George Martin and his son Giles. Staged at an impressive venue within The Mirage, it was clear that Love was designed to overwhelm. Beatles + Vegas + Cirque... everything about it is big. And, from watching a making-of documentary about it, there were clearly some big egos and big expectations involved as well. It definitely had it's moments but in the end it fell flat for me - perhaps because it was too much musical and not enough cirque or probably because it simply wasn't how I'd imagined these vintage songs coming to life. My expectations were likely too high.

The same can't be said for O. I knew nothing about it other than that it was CdS's first and only water show, and that it was at the Bellagio. But from the opening of the grand (and I mean grand) curtain, it was apparent that this production was something special. Truly magnificent in every way - set design, athleticism, peculiar characters, choreography, music, costumes, stage transitions - O far surpassed the two other (outstanding) Cirque shows I'd seen before this trip (Dralion and Corteo). O did big well. A definite must-see if you're visiting Las Vegas.

15 Steps and a Marching Band

2009-02-11T22:00:00.001-05:00
"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Grammys."

Grammys, you're idiots. You actually put on a decent show last Sunday -- including a brilliantly awesome performance of "15 Steps" by Radiohead with the USC Trojan Marching Band! -- and now you go and pull it from YouTube. This is how you fade from relevance. When will you morons learn how this internet thing works? Too late, probably.

Anyhow, grab the torrent (it's better quality anyway) or take a peek at the rehearsal. This rendition of "15 Steps" is truly fabulous.

Romeo Dallaire on Leadership

2009-01-29T00:01:00.006-05:00
Romeo Dallaire is a Canadian senator, humanitarian, author, and retired lieutenant-general. He is best known for the position he was assigned to in 1993: Force Commander of UNAMIR, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda. Responsible for the UN forces mandated to maintain order in the country yet left powerless by the UN itself, Dallaire witnessed firsthand the grisly bloodshed of the Rwanda genocide.

Dallaire wrote a book - Shake Hands with the Devil - about the experience, which has since spawned documentaries and a feature film. He continues to advocate strongly for human rights and for a more widespread understanding that all humans are human.

Last night I had the privilege to listen to Dallaire speak on the subject of leadership. Obviously, he has some remarkable and difficult stories to tell on the subject. He has tremendous insight - on motivation, sacrifice, values, priority, human nature, politics, organizations, success, failure, and vision.

Although he had numerous reflections on Rwanda and his military past, he tailored his speech for a business audience. Dallaire spoke about the importance of a mission statement containing simply one phrase and one action verb. And he pointed out that as a leader, "People want to see your eyes."

Dallaire surprisingly hung much of his presentation on generalist principles. He emphasized the importance of a visionary long view, of managing within ambiguity, and most of all of pulling together disparate disciplines to achieve progress. I wish I could find some slides or video online. He offered several great examples and models in support of a more interdisciplinary mindset for leaders. A very inspiring man.

Spanning Silos

2009-01-25T16:04:00.003-05:00
Two of the foundational elements of creative generalism -- both of which I've noted here before -- are these: 1) that Creative Generalist is a ying-yang sort of term in which the the executional focus of creativity is balanced with the big picture oversight and broader ideation of generalism, and that 2) corporate leaders need to be Creative Generalists. Essentially, this is also the central thesis of David Aaker's recently published new book Spanning Silos: The New CMO Imperative.

Aaker, a giant in the field of branding and marketing theory, argues that decentralization has spawned powerful product, country, and functional silos which jeopardize companies' overall marketing efforts. As a result, resources are misallocated, the marketplace is confused by inconsistent messages, and companies fail to leverage scale economies and successes. An equilibrium needs to be found and its the CMO's job to strike it.

As Aaker remarks in this strategy+business interview:
If the goal of the centralized marketing team appears to be to centralize and standardize, there is a significant risk of organizational resistance or even rebellion. Such changes can easily be perceived as threatening, and they can destroy what’s great about decentralization — vitality, flexibility, accountability, and so on. So the goal should rather be to address silo-driven problems in part through improved communication, trust, and cooperation. Harness those silos and make them work for you by turning them into a source of ideas and a testing lab for the best ideas. Don’t just eliminate them. It may be that centralization and standardization will eventually be part of the process, but it should not be the goal.

Here also is video of a speech that Aaker delivered on the topic last September to the 2008 European Chief Marketing Office Conference. "All companies are decentralized. ... Silos are completely unviable in today's modern world. ... Customers want systems solutions."

The Best Job in the World

2009-01-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

To those of us living in the deep freeze of winter, the heavenly sun-swept photos coming from Tourism Queensland are tempting indeed. Their latest marketing campaign, The Best Job in the World, is a stroke of genius. They've posted for the position of Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, a job that supposedly comes with a paradise villa, AUD$150k salary, and mandate to simply enjoy life and blog about the area. Brilliant.

CES 2009

2009-01-18T18:02:00.003-05:00
A belated happy new year to my faithful readers.

I've not posted for a while because I've been especially busy - first in a lazy laid-back way during the holidays and then, last week, as a presenting exhibitor at the gigantic Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

It was my first CES and although most vets found it to be quieter than in past years (due to the economy, of course) it's still really really big and busy. I spent much of the sleepless week presenting, speaking, interviewing, and running around schlepping but I did have a little bit of time to wander around and see what the world of gadget makers are up to. Lots, apparently - everything from new smartphones, wireless charging mats, modular computing, pico projectors, eco-batteries, ultra flatscreen TVs, 3D, and super durable kids computers, to just skim the surface. The sheer scale and diversity of invention is incredibly inspiring if not intimidating.

There are a number of great round-ups online, including here, here, here, and here.

Aside #1: I have to mention my surprise at just how friendly and genuinely curious I found the reporters, crews, producers, and bloggers covering CES to be. As I said, it's a big show to sort through and cover, and they're being barraged by entrepreneurs and PR pros non-stop from all angles. And yet, as a whole, very good-humoured and well-prepared.

Aside #2: Whoever scheduled the big adult entertainment expo to be at the same time and just next door (in the Sands) is responsible for one of the funniest and most entertaining convention centre hallway walks ever. Truly a collision of personalities and fashions.

Aside #3: Vegas itself is wild, as everyone knows. From what the cabbies will tell you, it's also hurting these days. Discounted hotel rooms, unmoving construction cranes, and headlines on the local paper claiming that gambling revenues are down 15%. If you're looking for a cheap getaway in 2009 Sin City may be a steal of a deal.

Polymath Probability

2008-12-27T22:33:00.003-05:00
An interesting thread at Ask Metafilter pondering the question, "Is it possible to be a polymath these days?".

I especially like this particular response:

Aristotle and DaVinci were incredible, but they didn't know everything. People are (rightly) so impressed with them, they base "what one should know" on what they knew. So of course it seems like they knew everything.

What did Aristotle know about cooking? Did he know how to make a sculpture? How much did DaVinci know about Africa?

There have been times when the topics studied at universities (or through other formal methods of teaching and learning) were relatively small compared to how many there are now. So if you define Renaissance Man as someone who is an expert on all the major topics taught today at, say, Harvard, then no there are no more Renaissance men.

But if you're asking if there are people who know an impressive amount about subjects in many fields than of course such people exist. I was in college with a guy who was getting his Phd in Comp Lit while also studying advanced biology. And he was also a first-rate athlete and a gourmet chef. I think most people who know him would be comfortable describing him as a Renaissance Man.

I think Douglas Hofstadter fits the bill. He's a Cognitive Scientist but also a gifted writer. He wrote "Gödel, Escher, Bach" but he also wrote a translation of Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin." He's a composer and he speaks and writes knowledgeably and provocatively about many topics. Paul ("Hackers and Painters") Graham might fit the bill, too.

It's also possible to be a dilettante, which is what I am. I would never call myself a Renaissance Man, because I haven't mastered most of the things I dabble in, but I write books, program computers, draw pictures and direct plays.

Beam Camp

2008-12-26T19:30:00.003-05:00
I received a friendly email from Brian, the Director at a cool summer camp for kids and teens called Beam Camp. It's a 4-week summer program (July 18-August 16) for boys and girls aged 7-17 in Strafford, New Hampshire. They're looking for some big collaborative ideas. Here's the overview and how you can participate:

Beam Campers cultivate hands-on skills in the fine and manual arts while exploring innovative thinking, design and the creative process. They transform ideas into artifacts and personal achievement into community success.

Each summer Beam commissions a Project Master to design a unique large-scale collaborative endeavor that campers produce and enjoy. The Project can range from the conceptual to the structural. We are looking for big ideas that will challenge and excite our campers and staff. Our Project Management Team will work with the Master to "translate" the Master's project blueprint into the camp context.

Here's the link to their Proposal page, if you're curious.