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Impacts of the Financial Crisis
Only a small fraction of funding by investment banks, mortgage companies, brokerages, equity funds, hedge funds, commodities futures speculators, etc., comes from actual investor capital. The rest—up to ninety-seven percent, in the case of commodities futures contracts—is credit self-created by the banks. Where did the banks get this credit? The answer is that they simply [...]
Google and the power of words
The dominance of Google is radically changing written language on the internet – through their search engine and advertising programmes such as AdSense they are homogenising the meanings of words. This provides a strong impetus for newspapers to ignore whatever editorial ethics they had left in their desperate rush towards the money from online advertising. [...]
Posted in Asides, Technology Also tagged advertising, Language, words
Ah, Freedom
In all of these cases, U.S. multinationals have offered the same defense: Cooperating with draconian demands to turn in customers and censor material is, unfortunately, the price of doing business in China. Some, like Google, have argued that despite having to limit access to the Internet, they are contributing to an overall increase of freedom [...]
Posted in Anthropology, Asides, Business, Politics, Technology Also tagged Politics, rights, Technology
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus
So I tell her all this stuff, and I think, “Okay, we’re going to have a conversation about authority or social construction or whatever.” That wasn’t her question. She heard this story and she shook her head and said, “Where do people find the time?” That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. [...]
Posted in Anthropology, Asides, Business, History, Technology Also tagged electronic revolution, History, industrial revolution, media, Technology, tv, web, web 2.0, work
Design conversations, not products
For designers, the task at hand is to listen to all these crossover conversations and design the conditions for them to take place in hybrid forms and formats, enabling, facilitating, and curating them without creating them. via Matter/Anti-Matter
Posted in Asides, Business, Design Also tagged experience, resonance, social media, web 2.0 2 Comments
Exactly.
But there is something about messes that lead to great successes. I think it often has to do with teams that focus almost exclusively on the product and the market to the exclusion of everything else. They don’t build the rest of the infrastructure that it takes to be a stable well executing business and [...]
Posted in Asides Also tagged Art, Good Ideas
Getting Real Digest
Outside money is plan B The first priority of many startups is acquiring funding from investors. But remember, if you turn to outsiders for funding, you’ll have to answer to them too. Expectations are raised. Investors want their money back – and quickly. The sad fact is cashing in often begins to trump building a [...]
The Beauty, Secrets and Utility of Twitter
The Beauty, Secrets and Utility of Twitter for Business Lots of people laugh at Twitter, call it a waste of time and worse, and, that’s just fine with me. While they’re laughing, I’m learning, listening, meeting, and enjoying a global view of an endless flow of creative thought – 140 characters at a time…[Continue reading [...]
Posted in Asides, Technology Also tagged awareness, collective perception, communication, consciousness, conversation, interactive, life, sharing, social media, social networking, Technology, twitter, web 2.0 2 Comments
You Weren’t Meant to Have a Boss
You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss
A few days ago I was sitting in a cafe in Palo Alto and a group of programmers came in on some kind of scavenger hunt. It was obviously one of those corporate "team-building" exercises.
They looked familiar. I spend nearly all my time working with programmers in their twenties and early thirties. But something seemed wrong about these. There was something missing.
And yet the company they worked for is considered a good one, and from what I overheard of their conversation, they seemed smart enough. In fact, they seemed to be from one of the more prestigious groups within the company.
So why did it seem there was something odd about them?
Posted in Anthropology, Asides, Business Also tagged Anthropology, Asides, creativity, ideas, Social Commentary, work
Quick vs. Slow (Quality Control in Art and Business)
Roskilde Univ. Prof says: Quick working = low quality (like fast food), slow working = high quality (fine food). Interesting analysis. [via steverubel | Twitter University]
Small vs. Big
I always wanted the biggest box of crayons. It was always a really cool thing to have. But as I think about it now, someone that would have taught me how to color, to actually do something with 8 crayons, that could have changed my life. I might have moved from being a consumer to [...]
Legalization and Regulation