Innovation Design | Jason Moriber

The Joy Connection and Good Social Capital

In my Social Capital system everything starts with time; it’s the fundamental currency that I trade on. As example: It can take an author fifteen-years to write a book about a four-hundred-year-era that a reader ingests over a three-day-weekend. The author, rooted in time, produces the magic of encapsulating value into a pod (the book). The reader frees it, galloping through history, shredding time, getting lost in time, losing track of time.

If we root ourselves within time, Social Capital is produced. If we free ourselves from time, Social Capital can be shared. This is the trick! I work hard, using my time and labor to create something; writing a post like this one, helping a friend move, or baking a cake. I then bring it to my audience to share. By sharing it I free it to transcend time, to become energy that can be re-utilized. This post you’re reading now might give fuel to Tac’s (or your) Social Media fire, helping my friend move will strengthen our bond, sharing cake makes everyone happy. The goal is to infuse the Social Capital with longevity, allowing this initial energy to be transferred. The joy of eating cake is then infused within the next engagement (the cake-eater smiles a little bit brighter at their friends).

The “energy-power” is amplified through the craft and sincerity of the creation. The “energy-longevity” is then embedded through the resonation and engagement with the audience.

There are two main types of Social Capital:

Produced Resonance (which makes up 90% of the Social Capital I witness, the one we can make ourselves through our efforts –writing posts, baking cakes).
Spectacular Magnetism (which relies on serendipity and a relinquishing of control. We can foster and harness it, but not create it).

When Produced Resonance is injected into a market it’s energy-power is transferred into states such as joy, insight, satisfaction, and nourishment. When successful, this power spreads across the widest path and touches many people. In comparison, Spectacular Magnetism isn’t injected into the market; it attracts the market. The results are similar (joy, insight, satisfaction, etc.) but the production is less about the effort. The creation of Spectacular Magnetism is more about imbibing and channeling the intangibles that match the zeitgeist of the era, or a unique tune-in to the tenets of a culture, or an ability to represent ones own world in a way that everyone feels like they own a piece of it. There is a relinquishing of the self, or a part of a persona, to open up your heart for the audience to find what they desire within it.

A good way to illustrate these two types of Social Capital is through food. Produced Resonance is exemplified within the produce section of the supermarket. We (those who have regular access to stocked supermarkets) take the plenty provided for us for granted. It’s hard not to. The trucks arrive during the night; the first shift stocks the cases before dawn. The electricity invisibly channels through the grid to keep the produce cold. There are the farmers, the pickers, the shippers, the distributors; all are involved in the process. It’s a complexity of unseen heroics so we can eat bananas every day of the year.

Time is inherent within the supermarket produce. There are so many people’s actions rooted in time to get the produce to the place where we can purchase it. The supermarket then presents the produce in its most vulnerable state: near ripeness. It’s the exact perfect time to free all the produces’ stored up capital into satisfaction, nourishment, and joy. Supermarkets have done such a good job at separating the food from time that most of us rarely consider the crazy supply chain that shipped that bunch of bananas to that particular case. At this stage it’s our goal to free the capital, to free time from the pages of the book, to become free from time.

Spectacular Magnetism is found within special, less obviously manufactured paths. Imagine I offered you a peach at full ripeness, just plucked from the tree in my backyard. Could you reject it? I didn’t create the tree; I planted and nurtured it. I didn’t make the peach ripe, the sun did, but I picked it, washed it, and offered it to you. If our histories and cultures align just enough, we’ll have a shared mythology about giving, friendship, food, and life. My giving you a peach from my own tree is more powerful than buying you a case of peaches from the supermarket. The time element is obvious. There’s the tree, which is growing in the present, I can touch it. Here’s the peach, in our shared time together, not in the magical display case at the supermarket.

Your acceptance and enjoyment of the peach, which is chock full of energy-power, infuses you with energy-longevity. This transference of energy through Social Capital will spread beyond your being and influence those in your proximity.

These Social Capital currencies are as old as eating. These currencies are stronger than any artificially manufactured market-capitalization. Social Capital has the potential to satisfy the human yearn for genuine concern, an honesty in message, and the selflessness of gift giving.

The transference of joy is one of the many paths that enable good Social Capital.

Build more joy!

The Great Devolution and the Emergent Force of Free Radicals

Innovation Design

We’re amidst an economic “Devolution.” It’s not an easy era to define, to find solutions for, or to provide the path towards positive progress. The answers are here. They are burgeoning. Some are obvious within the movements of companies; others are simmering at the grass roots. History could look upon the next decade as a “greatest generation” putting us within the pantheon of our wartime heroes. Or they could see it, as economist Umair Haque believes, as “a lost decade.” I say let’s go for greatness!

I’m talking about a Devolution, yeah, you know…
The recession has aggressively splintered “our national economy” into multitudes of micro-economies. Within this Devolution we are each our own economy. Like ships torn from their moorings by a hurricane and floating adrift in the harbor, the ties that bind us are frayed and need replacing. The umbrella corporate economy, which had been the mainstay and the glue of sustained economic prosperity, is badly damaged and slow to find remedy. The markets are desperately mercurial and the employment horizon is reminiscent of the dust-bowl era. Is this the rebound? The experts disagree on where to pinpoint the indicators, and the media is so confused by all the facets they have chosen to simplify the polygon of these issues by tossing us gossip and tragedy. Let us eat cake!

Mayor James M. Baker of Wilmington, Delaware, a small city in major duress, calls our current era, “A Great Reset.” Dov Seiman of FastComany argues it’s a “Rethink.” It’s like we’re going to try the past 10 years all over again! This time, these employees and job-candidates are throwing out the idea of the corporation (or job) as their safe-keeper. They’re all on our own, gathered loosely within fluid confederations to get tasks completed and to bring home the bacon. A nation of freelancers stands at the ready to get to work, but what will this work be?

Maybe the Devolution has put us even farther back? The stories I hear, read and witness are closer in tone to the time at the end of the great depression. Livelihoods were insecure while everything was seemingly up for grabs. You had to make your own way, sink or swim, and take what you could get while eyeing the next step up. Reset, rethink, re-do.

Free Radicals!
This Great Devolution is giving birth to a new type of worker and trailblazer. I call them the Free Radicals. The Free Radicals are represented within all strata of economics and culture. They are working with their hands and smarts, laboring to pull the economy up by its bootstraps. The Free Radicals are seeking the path forward without subsidies, without pension security, and operate outside the corporate economic culture. It’s not because they’ve shunned these footholds, it’s because these levers and lifts are no longer available.

Julie Meyers, CEO of Ariadne Capital, is witnessing this Devolution and the rise of Free Radicals at the investment level:

“I don’t know a single person under 30 [years old] who feels they work for anyone, anymore. And I include the people who work for me at Ariadne Capital who are under 30, they don’t really believe that they work for me…I think the under-30s really view themselves as their own P-n-L, as their own brand…this trend has arisen from what I call an Individual Capitalism…The recession has created many individual capitalists in the form of freelance consultants, solo deal makers and some by design others by chance.”

The Devolution is influencing the C-Level to act as Free Radicals, too. GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt is shifting their core away from “old-school” and possibly dried-up profit centers. They’re moving on from TV/Cable (selling NBC/Universal) and Finance (selling units or divesting from GE Capital) and investing $20Billion over the next two years in R&D to invent NEW products for a NEW economy. They’re banking their future on risk-taking.

The Free Radicals are all over the grass roots. How much longer will large-scale agri-businesses be able to keep the status quo while research keeps pointing to the unhealthy and uncompetitive model of their arena? We all know the economy of subsidized corn syrup can’t be the only way to feed our nation. There is a burgeoning food trend to grow and buy local and organic foods. Whole Foods has recently announced they will be growing produce in shared-space community gardens! There is a heroic wave of small-scale agriculturalists that are grabbing the tiller and making it happen; growing new economies that support us all. Show them some love!

Who, What, When
I can point to cities and investments in light rail, urban cores, and small/local business. I can point to business accelerators such as start-up spaces and co-work spaces. I can point to dozens of folks working hard to figure it out under enormous pressures: out of work, in debt, and without support networks. It’s heartbreakingly awful. I personally can’t stand it.

The Recession caused the Devolution. The Devolution is birthing Free Radicals. Support the Free Radicals! Seek them out within your communities and see how you can amplify their efforts. Maybe it’s through buying their products, maybe it’s through micro or angel investments. We need to boost their efforts and harness their energies. They are leading us out of the Recession. Find them, empower them, and show them some love.

—–

Dear Umair,

Innovation Design

Jelefant: why the increased bombardment of slogans? less engagement? are you on vacation?

Umair: ha. what is it that you want from me, exactly?

Jelefant:…Ok, let me start with this…

I agree with your slogans, I’m a believer in ethical capitalism. The problem I run into is how to act like the theories we believe in, even if incrementally. From your writing I gain insight into ways to convey to top-down orgs how they can begin the transformation process. Thanks for that. What’s incongruous to me is the rapid-fire leaflet dropping many of us then utilize to share our vision (status updates, posts, comments). These don’t seem to match the how we can start following our own slogans.

One ongoing missing piece is the foundation on which communities can test out these theories. Where is the capital going to come from that supports this movement?

Thanks,

-Jason

The Renaissance Steamroller and Bravo’s “Work of Art”

Innovation Design

Bravo’s “Work of Art” is a bummer. The recent show confirmed its inherent thrust: to devalue ideas outside of 400-year-old western fine-art hegemony. I don’t blame the show, I blame the Renaissance and its undying strong-armed influence that demands non-innovative western art making.

Trend Analysis: The Lace Economy

Innovation Design

New networks are being amassed through a mix of web-based tools (Facebooks, LinkedIn) and traditional channels (networking, associations). These form into a tangled, limitless, and underproductive web. Though there is an intoxicating excitement in the chaos of tangled relationships, the ever-increasing girth of networks makes these connections fragile and meaningless. In the Lace Economy, networks will be filtered, gathered and sewn into manageable, identifiable, and productive patterns.

#Tweetsgiving; What I am Thankful For

Innovation Design

I am thankful for the hidden brilliances in our daily lives, things we can all share, but are unfortunately more difficult to come by within the “developing world.” I’m thankful for these things, which I take for granted each day: roads, heat & hot water, food, clothes…

Analyzing Trends: The Pendulum

Archived Favorites, Innovation Design

Trends swing like a pendulum, creating waves of fashion, art, culture, business, you name it…there is a cycle to trends (if not everything). In order to find, uncover and act on burgeoning innovations I visualize this cycle (as the following slides will display) and play with this visualization as a “game.” You can use almost any trend, idea, history, business for this game and see what you uncover.

Social Media Delusions of the McBiz Era

Innovation Design

I was chatting with blogger Francine McKenna on social media messaging/communications and its relationship to ROI and I had a revelation! Social media is playing out (with virtual currency i.e. “social capital”) many of the business strategies of the last four decades in response to the “breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreements” (1). Basically, people with money shifted focus from the local to the global, investing anywhere they could turn a quick and mucho-lucrative profit. Slow growth? Pshaw! Capital wants to double itself. This path was hugely adopted over this current decade, which I call the McBiz Era.

In social media, however, since there is less “real” money in play (time and effort vs. $dollars in investment) being “spent” within an immense amount of uncharted waters, delusions are freely adopted (mermaids!) and invisible corruptions (like undertows) are pulling folks all over the ocean. There IS great value in social media, I’m a firm believer and have data to support my beliefs (innovation, connection, and yes, new business), still, there are many layers to this onion, and some pointed symptoms that poke dangerously against the membrane, but yet without the force to pop the whole bubble.

In the financial sector this change has taken forty years to develop (and with the current recession, possibly fail). Twenty years ago a business could allow itself 5-10 years to make money relying on the “patient” capital of investors and bankers. Now most have two quarters to one year to produce or fail. This spawns business models aimed at immediately serving (conquering) the world, a McBiz i.e. Google, Twitter, Facebook (act local, think global). They follow in the dinosaur footprints of TimeWarner, Disney and McDonalds on a global path. The former pushes a PR agenda to keep an appearance of lean and mean: all it takes is 3 people, an idea, and an internet connection to start a McBiz (YouTube formed at a barbeque?, Twitter on a napkin?). This fuels more delusional business models while catering to impatient capital which seeks more McBiz.

Within the social media arena (echo-chamber) impatient capital is manifesting itself as a “behavior” (need results now!) instead of “returns” (show me the money). Without a strong business (too big to fail) already in place (i.e. Best Buy or Zappos who are now using social media), revenues (Google made money from the get-go, right?), or good backing (oh Twitter!) its a long haul, and a potentially devastating path to take. Some entrepreneurs are leveraged to the hilt.

The social media delusion of the McBiz era manifests itself via personal branding: individuals seek to have ever-expanding “influence” (investment) by growing huge contact/friend/follower lists (returns) on social networks. The social media space enables virtual growth in place of revenue growth (social capital) with a belief that the ROI will be shared influence (scratching backs?). But the %’s are low (inactive accounts, visibility, resonation) so the social media player needs more more more. This envelops the users, infesting many great ideas with scalability pangs; I want my message re-tweeted, I want my idea to go global NOW, I want more friends.

Some players see the the bubble bursting and seek to stake a claim and cash in their social capital chips for hard currency. The current models I see being adopted for social media monetization are based on driving those lists of friends to old-school cash-registers:

1. Sell tickets to an event or a conference
2. Sell a book
3. Sell consulting
4. Sell ads to match my content
5. Sell subscriptions to premium content

Soon we will all be doing one of the above (if not already, I’m obviously a consultant), yet it’s the purveyors of the products (Amazon?) who will reap the bigger rewards (I’m using my Mac, WordPress and Twitter to develop and distribute this message).

As an example, the veritable Social Media Club (of which I’m a co-founder of the local chapter here in Indy) is now monetizing the chapters via “boot camps.” I have no issue with these folks trying to find sustaining support for their efforts, who doesn’t want that! BUT is the pay-out worth the investment to date? How many hours has the SMC put into building chapters? Do they make that value back? How do you define this value?

Does it matter? Did Best Buy gain new sales from Twitter or just from the PR they gained from using Twitter? Will Twitter ever make their investors money back, or will it take a sale to a larger company who knows how to monetize the old fashioned way, by earning it?

Or is it all intangible? Un-trackable? What are you gaining from social media, and is it worth the time/effort you’re putting into it?

Be wary of the mermaids, don’t get caught in the undertow.

——

endnote:

(1) Richard Sennett. The Culture of the New Capitalism, Yale University Press, 2006. Pgs 37-38.

The YouTube Tea Leaves: Stock Imagery, as a Business, is Not Sustainable

Innovation Design

Analysis: The YouTube Tea Leaves: Stock Imagery, as a Business, is Not Sustainable

The recent analysis of YouTube’s earning potential by Credit Suisse (reported here and here) points to a big red blot of ink, YouTube is losing lots of money, remains totally subsidized by Google earnings, and might always be. In short only a handful of Google’s total pieces bring in much of the revenues. Here’s a short list. Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Kenneth Sena write of YouTube (which was purchased for $1.76 billion in stocks, money, whatever by Google which makes about $4.2 billion a year), “monetization remains challenging.”

What is found, similar to the rest of the entertainment market, is that well-produced and popular content brings in the money and is where all future growth lies. YouTube might have spent these past few years as a loss-leader to gain audience awareness by offering the video-sharing tools, but in truth they’re seeking to be a purveyor (like cable) of traditional content.

Todd Spangler of Multichannel News notes:

YouTube, which still derives most of its traffic from user-generated content, has been attempting to increase its lineup of professionally produced content. Earlier this week, for example, YouTube announced a deal with Disney-ABC Television Group and ESPN, which will provide content clips for dedicated channels on the video site.

So best-quality content IS the goal. And YouTube wants to be the distributor/vendor/purveyor of this top-quality content in competition with others such as Hulu or Tv.com.

What is learned? There is not enough money in crowd-sourced content to sustain a business, the revenues don’t cover the costs. They only way to sustain the model is to keep investments coming in OR shift gears and go all-pro.

What does this mean for Stock imagery? it means two things:

1. Structurally, the bottom will fall out of the crowd-sourced image model. There will be so many little pieces of revenues that cannot support substantive growth, which is what investors seek. The investors will cash in their chips (digital railroad?)

2. Culturally, the truth is coming out, professional, well-crafted content works to gain revenues, crowd-sourced stuff doesn’t.

Short consolidation time-line: The investment firm Hellman & Friedman purchased Getty. Getty then purchased Jupiter. Hellman & Friedman own a piece of everything (including 15% of the Nasdaq market, Doubleclick, Digitas, more…) so, similar to the Google-YouTube relationship, they can subsidize the Getty business into the near horizon, or at least until they figure out what to do with it if not fold it into another of their businesses).

In the meantime artists keep lowering their prices to compete with stock, but stock has no bottom as it doesn’t need to keep itself afloat. Dangerous waters to swim in!

The answer: raise your prices and point to the truth, crowd-sourced imagery will never gain the client the same long-term results as professional imagery. Yes, you cost more, but as the YouTube model proves, showing the best stuff is where the money is.

Google, Artists, & a Value Grade

Innovation Design

The creative “value grade”

Everybody wants a piece of the creative arts (from Popes to moguls) some would pay for it, some would enslave for it. It has always been a path of passion to be creative, in some cases a decent living, but always with a mix of pitfalls, traps, and sheer-cliff career ending drop-offs.

Technology can be a friend to creatives, offering them tools to enrich their creative process. However technology is not a friend to the produce, which enables copy/paste virality by the millions. In order to compensate, Creatives need a shiftable “value grade” in their career which can be determined by this simple Q&A:

– do you expect a short-term return: job potential or traffic? (note: check your stats to prove traffic)
– does the potential theft of your work (or close copy) equal your gut-feeling of the value of the work?
– are you marketing your work other ways (print, email, other)?
– do you have a strong list of contacts in your market?
– are you currently working? at what level (kinda, a lot, too busy to talk)?

There are no standard answers BUT the last few questions tend to be the crux, if you have strong contacts, and are working, the answer is more black/white and polar, some say yes, some say no, the rest fall somewhere in the grey area.

Because there are no universally shared practices across the profession there is anxiety and ongoing head-scratching. As an example if illustrators banded together to adapt/adopt creative commons licenses to their works online (I expect most would choose – Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives) maybe we’d see less anxiety AND begin to show the market in a universal language that they’re serious about the online/offline value of their works..

Overall I do not find Google a friend to artists. It’s their goal to cut thin slices of revenue from everything. Artist are paid for one-offs, diametrically opposed to the Google model. Unless artist shift entirely to the thin-slice model (seemingly impossible) their only current recourse is to go it alone and hope for the best.