this is what revenge really looks like

Last week I had the pleasure of attending my first Nerd Nite. If you’ve never heard of it, they’re an organization with branches in dozens of cities around the globe with a simple program. They take over a bar one night a month and have smart people give short talks. This month’s topics included an innovative ice-cream maker discussing her methods and launch of a thriving business, some San Francisco historians discussing an early-20th-century suburb made of abandoned trolley cars, and a biological engineer talking about antibody synthesis. They talk for about 20 minutes, leaving time in between to head back for a refill, and that’s about it.

And I think it’s totally genius. Here’s why:

Learning new things is fun. Smart people are interested in all kinds of things, and it’s too easy to get trapped in your same old circles in terms of new information (look up ‘filter bubble’ if you don’t know what I’m talking about. This is one of my favorite topics to think about right now). If you go out once a month with your coworkers or friends, you end up hearing about the same kinds of things. This is guaranteed variety. Plus, it’s low-impact (short talks) and high-enjoyment (you’re in a bar, not a classroom). So it’s not the commitment and stress of continuing education or the doldrums of a company self-improvement workshop. The format makes it easy to pay attention and get something unexpected and fascinating out of any given night.

Conversation topics provided. As may be well known from spending time with me ever (or following my Twitter), I like few things more than a pint with friends, but sometimes conversation runs dry and you end up talking about the same old things as always. How’s work? What TV shows are you watching right now? The weather — my god, the weather. Here, you have something novel introduced as part of the night out that immediately sets you off. In fact, my second-biggest disappointment of the night was the fact that my friends were ready to head out right after the talks ended. A wasted opportunity to soak in and chew on the weird and mind-expanding things we just heard which could have probably kept us going late into the night.

The best ’scene’ in any bar. My biggest disappointment though was not taking better advantage of the very full audience to meet some new people. Here we have the most finely self-selected crowd at probably any bar in the entire city. How can that room not have been filled with some of the smartest, most interesting people I’m likely to meet? Again, not filtered the way an industry networking event or interest-based meetup would be, but centered around a more diverse but equally sharp point of similarity — the desire to keep learning. And, well, also drinking.

I won’t pretend every second of the night was a wild success. They could stand a slightly bigger venue as it was almost uncomfortably full. The third talk was a bit dry (and admittedly a bit over my head). But in terms of concept and value, I’m extremely impressed and satisfied. See you there next month maybe?

don’t be scared, middle man

If you are like me (or even if you are not), last week you were able to pay a mere 5 dollars to download and watch the new Louis CK: Live at the Beacon comedy special. If you are even more like me, you probably laughed loudly and frequently at his well-crafted stand-up. If you are also, like me, a nerdy media type that spends your time thinking about the future of entertainment, something else caught your attention. You were probably impressed and excited by how an hour of quality filmed comedy, for such a low price, could be delivered directly to its audience in such a convenient way.

It’s this last point that’s getting the most attention in the press since the release: how CK is cutting out the middle man, shirking the studio system and going independent. What does this mean for the industry? Are big media businesses doomed to be left behind if more stars realize they could work under a similar model?

Naturally the comparisons to other artists who’ve tried self-published, pay-what-you-want experiments come up. One particularly interesting from Anil Dash said, “My Internet media lesson, courtesy of Louis CK, Radiohead & Prince: Start by being one of the greatest talents in the history of your craft.”

I don’t disagree with his cynicism, but as with any idea expressed in a tweet, there’s a lot more to it than that.

Radiohead, Louis CK, and other successful artists have gathered huge, loyal fan bases over the course of prolific careers. They’ve worked hard to get where they are. They earned their stature, and it makes sense that at this point they’d want to experiment with ways to control their output and their subsequent rewards. But as many have noted, they came up through their respective systems and have grown to a point where they can be shaken off. This is progress.

Similarly, many up-and-comers are using these same digital channels to find their big break. Tumblrs become book deals, YouTube sketches become development deals or writing positions. It’s easier than ever to start a career with some scrappy little project that serves as concrete practice in a craft, and if the talent is there, gets noticed and propels that talent on to bigger things. This, too, is progress.

Where does that leave big media and the brands who want to advertise to their viewers? Are they doomed as the two poles of digitally savvy beginners and digitally independent veterans move closer and closer together?

I would argue that at least for now, there is still room in the middle, and that it’s actually a good thing. Let the newcomers experiment in low-stakes forms, and set the unqualified visionaries free to pursue their own creativity. Where studios, distributors, labels or brands can have a place is going back to where they should be: discovering, nurturing, and elevating talent when that talent doesn’t have the resources or regard to reach success on its own.

Theoretically, big media companies should function like the stock market operates (also theoretically, which is to say before things went haywire). Smart people with an eye for what’s good pick out fledgling artists and invest in them. That investment helps the talent itself grow, and helps it find a larger audience. Sony Music can do this, Comedy Central can do this, Mountain Dew can do this; they have money and reach. If they invest wisely, everyone benefits, including us the viewers and listeners, who are introduced to new things we may eventually become truly loyal fans of.

Instead of trying to milk established acts for all they’re worth, wouldn’t we be better off it these companies depended on breaking new ground for maintaining their bottom line? They shouldn’t be scared that Louis CK doesn’t need them any more. They should be out finding the next dozen great acts that really need them right now. I’ll keep paying for anything CK puts out, but I have other dollars to spend. Show me something new to fall in love with.

a new appreciation

A few tabs I’ve had open forever, waiting to be shared and remarked on.

I don’t go to a lot of museums, because too often I feel like when I do, I stare at things, attempt to appreciate them, and leave not having gained much. So I was totally on the side Jason Schwartzman in this promo video for the Pacific Standard Time series of museum events happening across Southern California (full disclosure: several former coworkers worked on this as a pro-bono project).

But it also totally won me over with its points. There’s a TON of art in the world. Some of it I won’t like. That’s okay. Some of it I will. And it helps when we take a minute to learn about the who and why behind what it is we’re looking at — something I personally feel all museums, galleries and art institutions need to be better at. Not everyone has the tools to “get it” from just a rectangular canvas on a wall. But we want to! Help us, museum curators! Make art more accessible and we will come see it more! People like stories, not being left out of secret knowledge.

At the very least, I found the video charming. Maybe a little bit more so because it all takes place a couple blocks from my old apartment, along streets where I used to go for walks pretty much every night for the year before moving up here to NorCal.

……….

This article from Grantland is over a month old, but it’s SO fascinating. Essentially, Oregon had a crappy football team, until Nike stepped in. Not by helping them play better, but by redesigning their facilities and uniforms:

The football Ducks of Oregon are something new. They didn’t get people to watch because they got good. They got good because they got people to watch. They are college sports’ undisputed champions of the 21st century’s attention economy.

…

So after the Cotton Bowl loss, [Nike boss Phil] Knight asked the Ducks’ coach a question, and he asked Nike’s designers a question.

He asked the coach: What do you need from me?

He asked the designers: How can we make teenagers who are good at football want to come to the University of Oregon?

…

The answer Knight got from the coach was an indoor practice facility. The coach got that and more. Since then, Knight has spent some $300 million on stadium additions, luxury boxes, and palatial locker rooms. All of these things obviously are on the list of reasons Oregon’s football team got good.

But back in Beaverton, the Nike designers did their part, using the Ducks program as part laboratory, part showroom.

It’s a glorious chicken-and-egg problem, totally turned on its head by smart design, and a really non-traditional case study on of the power of sexy packaging. It certainly gave me a new reason to respect how incredibly smart the Nike team is at solving problems creatively.

Talent in sports is the equivalent of ‘influencers’ in any other market, and if you have strong visual style, you just might stand out enough to interest the people who matter most. Attract the right small core group, and the rest follows from there. Pretty brilliant.

we love what you love

Every business based on a physical location selling us media products is having a tougher and tougher time of it. We’ve grown used to saying goodbye to local record stores. Video stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are finished; even LA’s classic Rocket Video is on its last days. Borders is dissolving as we speak, surely Barnes & Noble is facing some tough decisions. We even heard recently that this was the lowest box office summer since 1997, and seen small theaters fold and multiplexes with huge, empty lobbies.

Part of the problem, surely, is that these places either a) feel like sterile dispensaries of product, in the case of the large chains, or b) serve a small niche very well and loyally, but just can’t pull a sufficient profit when faced with the low-priced, conveniently distributed digital version of their products. A chain store may be able to stay afloat on volume, but doesn’t inspire loyalty. A beloved local shop inspires loyalty, but can’t maintain volume serving their small following.  No matter how much we enjoy books, or comics, or records, we can’t spend enough to keep their lights on. And so we, as lovers of culture, stand to lose both.

I recently heard about a seemingly wonderful place that may offer an alternate solution, as well as some hope. The Bookshelf, an independent outlet in Guelph, Ontario, pulls a sort of hipster hat-trick (an appropriately Canadian metaphor): it’s a book store, an independent art-house cinema, and a gourmet bistro all in one.

Now I haven’t been to Guelph to check it out — if you can believe it, Ontario college towns aren’t in my regular travel calendar. Nor do I know how well they’re doing business-wise. But there’s a bit of magic about this.

Instead of struggling to serve one slice of the local cultural appetite well while still making a living, they’ve found a few closely tied, overlapping segments to serve in one place. This lets them sell tickets, paperbacks and meals to the same community. By offering more in one place, they’re forced to use the space smarter, which means curating their selection more personally — one of the only remaining reasons to keep going back to a physical store run by real humans anyway. And by offering more of the things that specific community loves, they give that community more little reasons to love them and keep coming back.

Personally, I’ve had similar fantasies of a book club/comedy venue/beer bar. An intimate, not-too-loud place to celebrate the written and spoken word with a pint to ease the ensuing conversations. Of course, those may just be my own eccentric tastes overlapping in a venue that would only do a good job of serving me and a few of my nerdiest, brew-lovingest friends.

be a giver, not a taker

A recent video I really enjoyed provides an extremely memorable anecdote, and some thoughts:

Simon Sinek (the speaker, an ethnographer and leadership guru-type) approached a homeless woman with a typical sign asking for handouts, reading something like, “I’m hungry, I’m homeless, I have children, please help.” He volunteered another approach, making the plea less about her and more about her potential donors: “If you only give once a month, please think of me next time.”

He claims she went from her average 20-30 dollars a day to making 40 dollars in two hours. All by addressing her audiences’ needs instead of her own. The new message alleviates potential guilt (“See, I understand you can’t always give, and that’s okay.”), as well as any worries about her motivations (“Yes, I really do need it, I’ve been here before and will be here again.”). I hope that story is true, because it’s totally brilliant.

This is 20 minutes into an interesting talk about how we crave connection with others more than anything, and are constantly on the lookout for symbols that help us establish that connection. The woman’s sign connects because it’s her considering your position, not just broadcasting hers. If you’re traveling overseas, just hearing someone speaking the same language is an excuse to connect. In your home city, maybe it’s a sports cap or an accent.

But it could also be the brand of clothes you wear or electronics you carry. All the most-loved companies got that way not just by making the best stuff (though many also do that), but by having a badge value. A great brand stands for something that its fans want to be seen as standing for too. Which can sometimes be mistaken for “cool”, but is more about conveying meaning — broadcasting something about ourselves in the hope others will pick up on it.  It’s the same reason people tweet or update or blog or share anything online. We’re all just hoping someone notices and responds. We want to connect with each other.

It’s a desire a lot of companies seem to get slightly wrong, though. There’s a persistent idea that they should be having a ‘conversation’ with their audience now that these new technologies exist. But do most people want a connection with their TV brand? Their potato chip company? Their car dealership? They may want information or service from those entities, occasionally, but ongoing conversation? Not really. What people really want is better, more interesting conversations with other people. If they’re doing a good job, sometimes those companies will do or create something worth talking about. If they do it often enough, the symbol becomes shorthand for lots of interesting conversations past and present, and people who want to seem interesting display their interest in that symbol by putting it on their car or backpack or even body.

Really interesting people don’t just join conversations, or keep conversations going for the purpose of filling the silence. They start ones that everyone wants to join. Ones that are worth having again with new people they talk to later, because they can’t stop thinking about them, because they matter.

long time coming

Excuses aside, one would imagine that having as eventful a summer as I have, there’d be lots to write about. Non-stop excitement and life changes around every corner. To provide a full list:

May:
final stages of planning a wedding
interviewing, getting an offer for, and accepting a new job in a new city

June:
getting married (only the most fun/wonderful weekend a person can probably ever have)
honeymooning around the Greek islands (with a layover in Belgium for a few beers)

July:
the final two weeks at a job I’ve held for over 8 years
packing for a move to San Francisco, after living in LA for twelve years
being in the wedding of one of my best friends
starting a new job for only the second time as an adult
getting to know a new city and feeling both disoriented and delighted all over again

But having done all that and at least approaching a period of normalcy again, I figure I can get back to things I like doing when my life is under control, such as writing.

The hope is that these changes — new job, new city, new lots of other things — will keep me even more stimulated than before and thinking sharper than ever. Now it’s time to find out.

reading for the feeling

I’m the type of person who is always in the middle of some book or another. Finish one, pick up the next. Lots of people are like this I know, it’s not that special.

I do feel like a lot of my colleagues, however, tend toward reading for their profession a majority of the time. I get the impression that they’re constantly ’studying up’, if you will. And sure, any spare moment during my day at the computer, I’m likely to be reading trade publications, inspiring blogs, research studies and all that.

When it comes to extracurricular time, however, I read novels almost exclusively — with the occasional well-written essay collection, short story volume or graphic novel for fun. And I’d started to wonder if maybe this was a detriment in the long run. Thank you, then, to the Psychology Today blog for pointing out it may not be after all:

I [ed: Susan Cain, author of the blog post] just came across a study suggesting that fiction readers tend to be more empathic than non-fiction readers. This could of course be correlation rather than causation — maybe the kind of person who likes fiction is more empathic to start with — but the researchers think not. They believe that there’s something about exposure to fiction — the direct immersion in another person’s mind and body — that stimulates our empathic muscles.

Now I feel so much more justified in my choices, it’s a great relief. My peers in the field of “knowing how people think and why they do what they do” can all read the same trend reports and look at the same sources of data and we can all say we understand people so well. But it’s gratifying to know that scientists back me up on what I’ve thought all along: you can always research the details, but a real sense of people and how they work — what they feel, how they tick — is a much deeper skill. Knowing that that skill can be strengthened by reading fiction, something I’ve always adored, makes me think I’m in the right business for the right reasons. Not to mention letting me breathe a sight of relief that I don’t have to start browsing the business section to stay good at it.

……….

As a side note, I think this applies to some degree to my favorite bands as well. Several of them are what you’d call quite literary. Storytellers. Creators of well-fashioned characters and scenes that evoke emotion. Maybe all these things are related, maybe not. Do I tend to favor more ‘empathic’ bands, or am I just a geek for language and its skillful application to song, I don’t know. Nonetheless, one of my favorites has put out a record this spring that ranks among his best, so do check out The Mountain Goats’ All Eternals Deck if you’re in the mood for an album of stirring songwriting. I’ve been especially likely to be singing “Prowl Great Cain” these past few weeks.

women judging men judging women (times infinity)

I love when two contrasting opinion pieces get passed around, especially within the same week, and everyone is all, “Oh, you have to read this! Amen to this!”, even though they are essentially saying opposing things.

This week, one article was from Wall Street Journal titled, “Where Have The Good Men Gone?”, lamenteing the prevalence of ‘guys’ over ‘real men’:

Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children. Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This “pre-adulthood” has much to recommend it, especially for the college-educated. But it’s time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn’t bring out the best in men.

….

Still, for these women, one key question won’t go away: Where have the good men gone? Their male peers often come across as aging frat boys, maladroit geeks or grubby slackers…

….

What explains this puerile shallowness? I see it as an expression of our cultural uncertainty about the social role of men. It’s been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. The goal was to prove their competence as protectors and providers. Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing.

It’s easy to complain, of course, but would the same argument fly if a man wrote a piece bemoaning the lack of ‘real women’ in a world where the traditional stereotypes no longer apply? Some credit is due for the fact that despite the sensational title and confrontational opening, the article does come around to a concession that there isn’t yet an answer of what a modern “man” is supposed to be in a newly-more-equalized world. Still, the overall article gives the strong impression that men are letting women down somehow, that women are collectively wishing for some good old-fashioned manly maleness in their men, and the current crop just aren’t cutting it.

Then contrast that perspective with an article from This Recording that takes the opposing tack, “In Which We Teach You How To Be A Woman In Any Boys’ Club,” which is mostly about survival strategies for smart women in a (sadly, still) male-dominated world. That is, until it gets to this point rather succinctly:

All I ever witness is straight men showing me how miserable they are with the expectations placed on them as men, how much they hate trying to live up to this impossible standard and how unhappy they still are if they manage to succeed. They have a hard time acknowledging there are other modes of being because they are fucking terrified to deviate from the known, even though the known is horrible and hurts them.

“Masculinity” is as damaging to men as “Femininity” is to women. Neither is something to aspire to. Women who understand this are called feminists. Men who understand this aren’t called anything yet, but maybe they can just be called feminists too.

SO much more constructive! The first article celebrates that women are no longer trapped in a pre-determined identity, then complains that men are no longer adhering to theirs (or at least, not enough men for the number of women who find that identity appealing). The second says that the fight isn’t over for women (probably more true on a cultural level, even if things are improving), but at least concedes that men also derive no benefit from expectations being thrust upon them.

As far as attraction goes, it would seem that both men and women are looking for a strong but sensitive, beautiful but approachable, sexual but modest, talented but humble, funny but non-cynical uber-specimen that is everything possibly desirable all at once. Perhaps the problem is that no individual is all of those things, and all of our solution should be to accept that a) our ideal doesn’t exist, b) the perfect ideal may be an impossible goal, but, c) we’re all just trying our best here.

your imperfections, reflected

An intriguing passage from a terrific essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education…

What’s not asked in the review and the interview and the profile is whether a King book is worth writing or worth reading. It seems that no one anymore has the wherewithal to say that reading a King novel is a major waste of time. No chance. If people want to read it, if they get pleasure from it, then it must be good. What other standard is there?

Media no longer seek to shape taste. They do not try to educate the public. And this is so in part because no one seems to know what literary and cultural education would consist of. What does make a book great, anyway? And the media have another reason for not trying to shape taste: It pisses off the readers. They feel insulted, condescended to; they feel dumb. And no one will pay you for making him feel dumb. Public entertainment generally works in just the opposite way—by making the consumer feel like a genius. Even the most august publications and broadcasts no longer attempt to shape taste. They merely seek to reflect it. They hold the cultural mirror up to the reader—what the reader likes, the writer and the editor like. They hold the mirror up and the reader and—what else can he do?—the reader falls in love. The common reader today is someone who has fallen in love, with himself.

Narcissus looks into the book review and finds it good. Narcissus peers into Amazon’s top 100 and, lo, he feels the love. Nothing insults him; nothing pulls him away from that gorgeous smooth watery image below. The editor sells it to him cheap; the professor who might—coming on like the Miltonic voice does to Eve gazing lovingly on herself in the pool: “What thou seest / What there thou seest … is thyself,” it says—the professor has other things to do.

…which brings up a point I sometimes wonder about. Today’s best mathematicians and programmers spend entire careers perfecting algorithms to define our tastes based on past choices. Amazon, Netflix, and increasingly even places like Google and Facebook try their darnedest to figure out what we like, so they can find more of it to feed back to us. The social-sphere makes it so we only ever see and hear things we like from sources an awful lot like us.

Are we maybe losing out on a huge opportunity to grow by shutting ourselves into a predictive model of experience? Who will make the opposing model, that doesn’t load you up with similar stimulus to what you’ve had, but seeks to help fill in the gaps you’ve never explored? Where is the model that challenges us by offering: “You seem to listen exclusively to music influenced by 90’s alt-rock… maybe try a neo-classical cellist for once?” (may I personally recommend Julia Kent, a recent discovery whose album Delay got its hooks in me to a surprising degree).

As everyone races to prove they know what you like based on where you’ve been, there could be a huge opportunity for the person or company who arrives to help you learn based on where you haven’t.

no more backwaters, only backwash

Thought I had seen this William Gibson quote, or at least part of it, somewhere before, and it turned up this week in a post by BBH labs:
“Bohemias. Alternative subcultures. They were a crucial aspect of industrial civilization in the previous two centuries. They were where industrial civilization went to dream. A sort of unconscious R&D, exploring alternate societal strategies. Each one would have a dress code, characteristic forms of artistic expression, a substance or substances of choice, and a set of sexual values at odds with those of the culture at large… But they became extinct…. We started picking them before they could ripen. A certain crucial growing period was lost, as marketing evolved and the mechanisms of recommodification became quicker, more rapacious. Authentic subcultures required backwaters, and time, and there are no more backwaters.”~ William Gibson, All Tomorrow’s Parties (1999)

I love this for two reasons.

One, it seems to accurately describe the odd problem we’re having more and more, which Patton Oswalt recently described in Wired as “etewaf” — Everything That Ever Was, Available Forever. Nothing has time to gestate and get cool, because too many people are spending their whole lives scouring for the next cool thing.

Two, I feel like that person sometimes. Scouring the web, the world, the recesses of my brain for bits of newness or pithy factoids or fresh perspectives that just aren’t there. Infinite information isn’t always the road to inspiration; it’s often limits that inspire greatness, not limitlessness.

……….

Once, I saw Irvin Kershner, director of Empire Strikes Back, doing a Q&A after a screening at the Arclight in Hollywood. This was post-prequels. He was taking questions about behind-the-scenes stuff like making Yoda work, and someone asked him what he thought of the new movies. He tactfully dodged, and said something to the effect of, “You know, it’s because we were so limited in what we could do with Yoda that we had to work so hard to give him a personality. That was the only way to make him a believable character. When you’re unlimited in what you can do, you spend less time thinking about what you should do. It’s often the limits that push you to make great art.” (I may be paraphrasing or making that pithier than it was when he said it, but it’s a good point all the same.)

It may be worth noting that he passed away a few months ago. The true limit of us all.

Did I mention I’m turning 30 in a few days? A good a time as any to focus less on what I can do, and more on what I should. Like write more. Figure out what I’m doing to celebrate this pivotal moment in my life. And figure out which limits will push me to make something great out of this year to come.

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