His second quote, where he gives a tip for making a popular app, makes me sad:
“work out that most of the people that download free apps are immature and seriously uncool. Then wrap an average idea that you think will appeal to immature and uncool people with some average graphics, and boom, top 10 app”
To me, this kind of app is more akin to buying something from a vending machine. It satisfies (mildly), but only for a brief moment. But the price is so low that it essentially doesn’t matter. So are all people that buy from a vending machine “immature” or “uncool”? Maybe, but I don’t think so.
My favorite part of work is ideation - the process of collaboration that leads to new ideas. It’s the most fun, dynamic, and exciting work I do.
Given that I love ideation, I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few years about how to facilitate ideation in more areas of my life. In fact, I’d love to start a web-based solution to foster idea generation among people. And I wonder if Twitter isn’t the perfect solution for fostering ideation.
…the revolutionary twist of twitter is that it allows “mass, real-time conversations in a scalable way”, permitting “a constant, dynamic, ‘eavesdroppable’ conversation…
The quote is specific to StockTwits.com, but I think it works as a descriptor for how twitter could be an ideation engine as well.
The Times Online suggests what might happen when technology fuels in-depth reportage—and more radically, when readers are encouraged to invest their own analytical skills in the site’s raw resources, when some kid in Kansas finds fresh patterns in an open electoral database, then posts on his blog with a link back to the Times, enabling an expansive, self-correcting interpretative voice.
— NY Mag - The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady
Nine Inch Nails understands how to use the Internet
I wrote recently that the Internet is a haven for fans because it allows such unique and exclusive two-way access for fans to interact with the sources of their fandom.
Why do we make lists, grind away at our desks and generally try to get things done? For most, including me, it’s so that we can go home, which is a great reason.
But I want to offer up another reason (even though I’m a huge fan and advocate of going home):
Get things done so that you can explore:
New ideas
New companies
New relationships
New projects
I think exploration should be a part of everyone’s job, and a motivator for getting things done, because once all of our “work” is done, exploration can begin. Exploration is exciting and *can* lead to new and interesting ventures, projects, relationships, etc., which is what work should be all about.
With the avalanche of information coming at us from twitter and facebook updates, RSS reader news items, emails, phone calls, text messages, etc. many people have one of a few reactions:
I can’t keep up but I try and thus I’m overwhelmed
I can’t keep up and I don’t try thus I ignore most of the information
I can’t keep up, so I limit the # of blogs / people I follow to the minimum
These are among a few responses to this dilemma and they are all legitimate, but none satisfy me.
I want to know that I’m keeping tabs on all of the information / people that might (potentially) matter to me without getting overwhelmed by all of the information AND I don’t want to just ignore anything I can’t yet find time (or mental space) to focus on.
So what do I want? I want both the greatest quantity of information / people possible, while being able to only read the most quality / relevant updates and information at any given moment.
What’s needed are better ways for us to find information online. And better ways for us to aggregate information online. And better ways for us to keep up with our friends online. In my opinion finding a lot of quality information online is still in its infancy, and I can only hope it gets better before I resort to one of the 3 tactics outlined above.
In this TED Talk, Benjamin Wallace explores some of the world’s most luxurious products all the while asking the question, “Can happiness be bought?”
His findings are interesting and suggest that if we perceive something to be more expensive we will in fact enjoy it more than something less expensive.
This article in the NYT (click on the title of this post to read the full article) details Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s latest attempt at redefining what an ad agency is / does to make money. Instead of merely creating ads for clients, agencies are now creating products and services themselves. In the case of BBH, it’s a blog, called Mrs.O, that chronicles Michelle Obama’s fashion and style.
It seems that agencies are hoping to refocus their creative energy into building new companies, not just new ad campaigns.
In order to do my job well I need to ask interesting questions of people and listen intently to understand their underlying motivations, which is actually quite difficult because I have (we all do) all sorts of biases about why people do what they do when they do.
But our biases block us from actually hearing what people are saying. And if we don’t actually hear what people are saying, we can’t effectively uncover insight into anything.
Additionally, in order for me to effectively convince others that an insight is important I need to help them understand their own bias so that they can then see the insight afresh. And the only way I can do this is by fully understanding my own bias first.
But the curious aspect of most great insights is that they are fairly obvious, but we are just blind to them because of our biases.
So a good place to start when trying to uncover insight into a given topic is with oneself. Try to recognize your own bias as a starting point as it will make you much more effective in both uncovering and communicating great insights.
As I’ve become more and more hooked on tumblr as my place online to share thoughts, ideas, pictures, critiques, etc., I’ve also been finding myself more and more interested in finding other tumblelogs that I might find interesting, which has led me to the tumblr explore page.
The tumblr explore page is divided into 5 sections:
New Posts - a section showing the number of new posts thus far, with 18 icons of posts that contain pictures. (This section seems too random to be useful)
On Our Radar - presumably this is a staff curated section of some of their favorite posts of the day. (This is interesting, but has nothing to do with me at all as it’s all about an anonymous editor with no justification as to why it was posted).
Browse - this section is basically a directory with 6 categories: staff picks, music, arts & artists, sweet themes, the tumblettes, and on our radar. (This could be useful if there were more categories, especially ones that focused on the type of content typically posted).
The Tumblverse - a visual representation of current posts overlaid on a map. (I wish it weren’t so much work to find tumblrs near me using this functionality)
Into Your Music - this section is very confusing to me. It categorizes 9 tumblelogs based on a particular artist, say Sufjan Stevens, but then when I click through there is no music posted by that artist (and sometimes at all).
So, in my opinion, this page has a lot of room for improvement, and I’d like to offer up a few new ideas in hopes of sparking more ideas from all the people that read this blog.
Dashboard: I would love to have a dashboard with basic stats such as number of followers, number of posts, average posts per day / week / month, # of posts liked or rebloged.
Top 10: “liked” posts of the day, “rebloged” posts of the day, most obscure, and closest to you (both geographically and based on content)
Tumble Like This: I would love to be able to read a post and then click “Find more like this” which would then provide me a list of similar posts / tumblelogs.
I’m sure there are better and more useful ways to improve the tumblr explore page, so please reblog this post or leave a comment with your suggestions and who knows, maybe this post will make it on to the tumblr explore page.
Today’s consumers want a richer, higher-quality media experience, and they want access to more kinds of content than ever before. They want to enjoy the same kind interactivity, personalization, and control that they have come to expect from the Internet with their video entertainment. And they want the ability to access any type of content they choose, whenever and wherever they choose, over a variety of devices and screens.
— Simon Aspinall, Managing Director of Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group via Telco 2.0
I was over at infochachkie reading a great post titled, “Where have all the ideas gone”, when I stumbled upon this quote:
“Ideas are plentiful and cheap. Solid execution is rare and expensive.”
The point of his post is not lost on me, that is - good ideas are not, in fact, gone. We just need to see the world differently in order to understand one when we see it (and have patience as they can take time to unfold fully).
Now I want to come back to this notion that ideas are cheap, but solid execution is rare and expensive because it made me wonder which is more important - a good idea or solid execution (notice I’m adding “good” as an adjective of idea as I think it was missing, although should have been included in the above quote). More on this later.
I think the essence of what is being communicated here is that good ideas can come with what feels like minimal work and commitment. This I agree with, but would argue that although it feels like minimal work, in actuality it is a lot of work to come up with a good idea:
You have to be committed to understanding a particular situation, movement, business, etc.
You have to think hard about how the world could be made better.
You have to be patient in convincing others it’s a good idea (i.e. if I have a good idea, but tell no one, is it really a good idea?)
You have to see the future different than most everyone else (i.e. be a loner)
Arguably coming up with a good idea is hard, but perhaps for the folks that come up with them it feels easy, which is why execution feels hard. Maybe.
Ok, coming back to the question of whether ideas or execution are more important I’m going to sidestep the question and say that they are of equal importance. And they are both equally hard.
I’ve been thinking about the auto industry lately (for obvious reasons), and one thing that struck me is their practice of introducing Concept Cars. According to Wikipedia, the goal of the concept car is to “showcase a concept, new styling, technology and more.”
They can’t be built right away (and most likely ever) because of safety, regulatory, and monetary reasons, but they give a sense as to where the future of the auto industry may be heading, but not necessarily.
The Internet is basically one big concept car. Because it is not heavily regulated and because there is a low cost of entry, experimentation and innovation are the standard, not the exception. And that’s a good thing. And something we should continue to fight for.
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