Snakes on a [your industry here]

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I cross-posted this to my blog at work. It seems to apply equally to the outside world.

This blog post from the CTO of Cap Gemini got me thinking. He references something propethic Peter Drucker said years ago, about the first technology innovation being all about printing (I can’t find the original Drucker quotes, so I assume he meant Gutenberg) and how it displaced monks as the sole source of knowledge management. Publishers now held all the distribution power, but the general public had much freer access to information.

Fast forward a few hundred years and things haven’t changed much; a tiny minority of publishers hold all the power in deciding what gets bound, distributed and sold. Sure, there are underground ‘zines and such, but their reach is miniscule. Drucker’s afore-mentioned comments were about the PC, which signalled changes to the way information was gathered (like Gutenberg’s movable type machine supplanting the monk’s pen), but he probably didn’t know about the internet (still called Arpanet at the time) which would go on to provide an incredibly efficient distribution network reaching practically everyone (which Gutenberg couldn’t have even conceived of). In recent years we’ve seen personal publishing tools like blogs get us past the PC limitation; even five years ago to get any content online you pretty much needed to know how to write HTML and secure web hosting, but now anyone can fire up a blogger or wordpress account and let ‘er rip. Continuing the analogy, this is not unlike Gutenberg delivering one of his presses to every household who wanted one, complete with a team of messengers who could run printed copies around the world in a few seconds.

So what does this mean? Who cares if everyone can now blog about their cat or what they ate for dinner last night or whether Ubuntu Linux is better than OSX? Well, it goes beyond that. Consider this other example I found this morning on Church Of The Customer: given the interesting way in which Snakes On A Plane has developed, Samuel Jackson is advocating an open-source, script-by-committee movie.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia‘s been judged to be about as accurate as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, artists are posting their music on MySpace and winning over fans they would never have found living under the thumb of the recording industry (just ask the Arctic Monkeys) and products like Dell and Kryptonite bike locks are finding out the hard way that bad news travels fast.

Think this doesn’t apply to you? Wrong. It applies to everyone. As of today, no one controls their own marketing.

[tags]cap gemini, peter drucker, gutenberg, social marketing, social computing, wikipedia, snakes on a plane, dell hell, arctic monkeys[/tags]

"Yes, absolutely…what?"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

As I lay on the couch last night, trying desperately not to feel like crap, Nellie popped in Shopgirl (imdb | rotten tomatoes). It was better than I thought it would be; I’d heard poor reviews when it first came out, and the trailers made it look like more of a cliche than it turned out to be. I’d say “elegant” is a pretty good word for it, perhaps “minimalist” fits as well. However, I’m doomed to always associate it with light-headedness and mild nausea.

.:.

I’m feeling better this morning, but hope to feel even better by tonight as we have dinner at Canoe (finally!) with T-Bone and I don’t want the experience to be muddied by, you know, feelings of impending death.

[tags]shopgirl, canoe[/tags]

Anglos make me spit

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last night we called up CBGB to see if they wanted a bite to eat. They did (after some phone tag) and we met them at The Auld Spot, which is quickly becoming a favourite spot. CB brought her mother along, and also arrived with some impressive news: she has passed her black belt test. Anyway, it was a good, jovial time, topped off by Nellie spitting her drink on CB’s mom when I told the story about confusing the waiter in Quebec City. Good times.

.:.

This morning I felt like crap. It wasn’t from overindulging last night; I felt the same as I did on Monday when I barely made it through a Summerlicious dinner. It actually got worse throughout the day, and we had to cancel our plans to attend T-Bone’s party. Speaking feeling sick, I’m getting lightheaded. Gotta finish this and lie down.

[tags]auld spot, feeling like ass[/tags]

rrr

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Let’s Get Out Of This Country, the new Camera Obscura album, is pretty good. I bought it last night. Downloaded it on Soulseek around 8:00, listened to it between 8:30 – 9:30 while I did work, liked it, signed on to eMusic and downloaded the real version around 9:35.

.:.

Also good (so far…I’m only a few songs in) is Or from a Japanese band called Spangle Call Lilli Line. I don’t know what it is with me and Japanese bands (or at least Japanese lyrics) lately. I heard about them on an old 75minutes podcast; I’m several months behind but doing my best to catch up.

.:.

It’s fun to meet and talk to people who’re smarter than you, but it’s a little intimidating when they’re a freaking student. I mean, I’d like to think I’m a pretty smart guy; I read Wealth Of Nations, and I think I even understood it. It was about girls, right? Just kidding. Anyway, I should just never google people before I meet them; it’s depressing how little I’ve accomplished at the age of 30, let alone 20-whatever.

[tags]camera obscura, emusic, spangle call lilli line, 75minutes, wealth of nations, paraphrasing high fidelity[/tags]

An apology in point form

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Sorry, I’ve been too busy to blog anything terribly interesting because:

  • The course I’m doing right now is killer. I was talking to a classmate today, and he concurred: the workload for this one is much, much heavier than anything else we’ve done. It’s interesting, but it’s time-consuming. I guess I was due for one of these; too many so far have been crazy easy.
  • It’s the summer. Days that aren’t hotter than the hubs of hell draw me outside.
  • Family’s been visiting, and family trumps blogging.
  • I seem to be reading (for fun, in addition to for school; I finally finished Cluetrain, Planet Simpson and No War: America’s Read Business In Iraq) again, not to mention finally putting a dent in our Zip queue.
  • Work is busy…not so much because I have impending deadlines, but because I feel a bit rejuvenated. It’s just as frustrating and bureaucratic as ever, but I seem more determined than ever to kick bureaucracy’s ass. I’ll let you know how that goes.

However, I can report some things that grabbed my eye today, but only in point-form:

Music:

  • I’m going to miss Asobi Seksu at the Horseshoe in September as I’ll be away on course. Frig.
  • There’ll be a new Trail Of Dead album in October.
  • The Mercury Prize shortlist has been announced, and I couldn’t give a toss about any of the finalists. The only one I liked at all is the Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan album, and even that wasn’t great.
  • The Weeds theme song next season will be sung by a different artist every week. Lined up so far: Death Cab For Cutie, Regina Spektor, Elvis Costello and Jenny Lewis. Cool. “Little boxes…”
  • The new Johnny Cash disc, American V…magnifique.

Movies:

Sports:

  • Bill Simmons has picked a favourite English Premiership League team. He settled on Tottenham Hotspur, because “If London was the Corleone family, Manchester United was Sonny and Arsenal was Michael, then the Spurs would be Fredo with a little more street smarts.” Brilliant.

Right, that’s it. Back to work for me.

[tags]cluetrain, planet simpson, no war, asobi seksu, trail of dead, mercury prize, isobel campbell, mark lanegan, weeds, johnny cash, clerks ii, lady in the water, arrested development movie, all your snakes are belong to us, bill simmons, tottenham hotspur[/tags]