Author: JP

“You can unleash the players and be confident that you will like the results”

That’s a quote from a wonderful interview of Pierre Omidyar in Release 1.0, March 2006.

In the article, he says that the challenge is to create the right environment where you can “unleash the players and be confident that you will like the results”. In his view, such an environment has three aspects:

  • open access to all
  • open connection (as in ability to communicate and to transact)
  • skin in the game (ownership and accountability)

What he says about markets and environments is as true for institutions. Every firm needs to know how to attract people, retain them, develop them and extend their potential. Omidyar’s rules rule. You should read the whole article.

I’d saved up the March issue to read en route to PC Forum, and to use to annotate the sessions. Unfortunately circumstances were such I could not go. So I got to read it on holiday.

It is probably the single most important print journal I subscribe to, in terms of things that challenge and educate me. Esther Dyson can be relied upon to bring together the people that matter on subjects that matter, and summarise things her unique way. Opensource. Blogs and wikis. Collaboration in general. Tags. Trust. Attention and intention. Identity. Consumerisation. In each case, things I was experimenting with became clearer in my mind as a result of reading the journal.

Sometimes people come up to me and claim that I have A-list-blogger syndrome, that I like having conversations with the bloggerati. And the way it’s said, it’s a bit like being accused of being studious and a teacher’s pet while at school. My reaction is the same as it was when I was at school. What matters to me is that I learn.

Stop, children, what’s that sound?

…. There’s something happening here.
What it is ain’t exactly clear.
There’s a man with a gun over there,
Telling me I got to beware.
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down

Stephen Stills, For What It’s Worth 

We live in interesting times.

A couple of nonfiction writers (Baigent and Leigh) sue a writer of fiction (Dan Brown), apparently about copyright. Weird that one of the antagonists in the fiction book is called Sir Leigh Teabing (an anagram of Baigent).

Apple Corp and Apple Inc go to court fighting about something to do with their names. And play a Coldplay song to prove some point or the other. I guess I should be glad that they didn’t ask Chris Martin what his daughter’s called, since it could be argued she has some connection with music.

And eBay. And RIM. And Chinese manufacturers suing US ones. And more and more patents being taken out everywhere, just at the point that even legal eagles seem to be agreeing that the system is wrong. Defensive patents. Frivolous patents. Expensive battles.
Everybody look what’s going down.

Smile, it confuses people

My posts are going to be somewhat more sporadic than usual for the next few weeks; I’m in India on holiday with my family.

Which gives me the chance to catch up on stuff I’ve been meaning to do.

Like listen to Sandi Thom. An amazing story. Stuff internet dreams are made of. Here are the highlights:

  • Travelling up and down the country playing to crowds of 200 or less
  • Gigs barely paid for food and shelter and transport
  • Encouraged by the success of the Arctic Monkeys, Sandi and friends decided to use the Web instead of travelling
  • Planned and executed a 3-week set of concerts webcast from home, called Twenty-one Nights from Tooting, just last month
  • 70 fans on day 1, growing to over 70,000 in a fortnight and over 200,000 nightly since.
  • All culminating in a £1m contract signed with RCA/Sony BMG; even the contract signing was broadcast live on the Web.
  • First album (called Smile, It Confuses People) due June.

What I’ve heard so far, I like.

Crazy: More disaggregation of marketing

A band called Gnarls Barkley (which looks like the kind of letters one picks up at Scrabble…) has a number one in the UK charts today, with a song called Crazy. Full story here.

It doesn’t matter that I haven’t heard of it. My children have. (And, believe it or not, my wife as well). What matters is the following:

  • 1. It is the first download-only track to make number 1 in the UK
  • 2. Two weeks ago it topped iTunes.
  • 3. It has reversed a recent trend (maybe the last 10 years) where the biggest selling week for a single was week 1, driven by aggressive (and expensive) marketing.
  • 4. Just two years ago, CD singles outstripped downloads by a factor of about 30:1. This year download singles are outstripping CDs by 3:1.

So. Cheaper to produce and deliver and market. More sustainable chart position as well. It is only a matter of time before CDs (and DVDs) are given free with downloads to act as your “back-up” copy, and you have tiered payments for the digital version. Single-use. Multiple copies allowed provided no commercial use. Sampling allowed. Anything allowed.

And guess what? The “anything allowed” version will sell at around today’s “hardcopy” version.

Cartograms

Check out WorldMapper, which I found out about as a result of Dina Mehta’s post on the subject.

Now if only I could choose what I fed into Worldmapper. And not care about what I need to use to see the output. One step at a time.

So let me get this right. I find out about something happening in Sheffield, maybe two hundred miles from me, because I read Dina’s blog (and she’s based in Mumbai) and I only came across her because of something Halley Suitt posted a while ago. And I haven’t met Halley for three years. Networks.