HENRI WEIJO*
This was so cool:
We went there yesterday with Sami and our good friend Tuija. The weird thing was that there was nobody there when we arrived, we got the wall all to ourselves! We played around for a while, but to me the interface doesn’t work as smoothly as in the video, but it was still very Minority Report-esque. Maybe the lighting conditions were a bit bad or something. But if you’re around Lasipalatsi be sure to check it out!
Finally a city project to get excited about!
Spotted this at Digg. The New York Times just released another editorial piece defending the status quo, this time it’s about copyright. The Times has been vocal about how bad blog news sources are and I guess they feel threatened by them. My gut feeling is that this piece is a sort of tangent of that phenomenon, but I’m still surprised at how blatantly ignorant some of the arguments made in this piece were.
For example:
Were I tomorrow to write the great American novel (again?), 70 years after my death the rights to it, though taxed at inheritance, would be stripped from my children and grandchildren. To the claim that this provision strikes malefactors of great wealth, one might ask, first, where the heirs of Sylvia Plath berth their 200-foot yachts. And, second, why, when such a stiff penalty is not applied to the owners of Rockefeller Center or Wal-Mart, it is brought to bear against legions of harmless drudges who, other than a handful of literary plutocrats (manufacturers, really), are destined by the nature of things to be no more financially secure than a seal in the Central Park Zoo.
or:
“Freeing†a literary work into the public domain is less a public benefit than a transfer of wealth from the families of American writers to the executives and stockholders of various businesses who will continue to profit from, for example, “The Garden Party,†while the descendants of Katherine Mansfield will not.
I mean good God. If you want to use the copyright and real estate analogy ask yourself this: would it make any sense that if I were to build a house, I could thus prohibit you from building a similar house? Not on the same location, mind you, but a similar looking house? Copyright laws being as they are, that’s how it happens in the copyright world. Somebody at TechDirt did a pretty good rebuttal of this yesterday.
Copyright laws are way outdated now and it’s hurting artists more than it’s helping. When DJ Shadow has to go through a long and painful legal process to clear hundreds of samples that only around 10% would be recognizable anyway, you know something is wrong. I just can’t quite understand how somebody could argue that for example a producer sampling a long forgotten record somehow owes that original artist something. I mean if the original song is not selling anymore, shouldn’t the original artist be paying the producer something for “reviving” the old song, not the other way around? I’m pretty sure when producers sample old tunes both the new song AND the original get more airplay and sales. This happens all the time with hip hop producers and old soul, R ‘n’ B and funk song that they sample. As a funny side note, I’m pretty sure that a local black music station here in Finland called Groove FM actually goes out of its way to play the original songs when a new song becomes a hit. I guess it’s their way of paying tribute or just showing off their connoisseurism or something.
I’m pro relinquishing ALL copyright. This is not about being some sort of idealistic neo-hippie or anything, I just think it makes economical sense. People are afraid that if we don’t protect the copyright of for example songs, other bands might start recording them and playing them live. But you know what, so what? I’m fairly sure that people will reward the originators of said songs. In today’s connected society, copycats and frauds are exposed in a matter of minutes. If a band tries to steal another band’s song, mark my words, they will get caught. And bands playing other bands’ songs is just a great way to spread the message of those smaller bands. Imagine a big rock band playing a smaller indie band’s song live? Would there be a better way of spreading the smaller band’s art?
Chris Anderson wrote about this a while back, and it’s going to be the premise of his new book, due to be released in mid 2008.
1. Douglas Holt – How Brands Become Icons. A must read for all those who have gone a bit too gaa gaa for viral marketing. A really eye-opening book, it’s extremely well argued and researched. I’m writing my master’s thesis combining this book’s theory with some much older research in a pretty cool way, even if I do say so myself. I’ll write more about my thesis once I get it rolling and find a company who’s willing to collaborate with me. I’ll just say that the only real weakness this book has is that it shows you how to identify brands performing myths (the core notion of building iconic brands) after the fact, but it doesn’t really give you clear guidelines how you could identify the right myth for YOUR brand and start building one. It sort of assumes you know which myth you should be practicing with your brand. I’m trying to change that with my thesis. Wish me luck.
2. Malcolm Gladwell – The Tipping Point. Yes, I know it’s been out for ages now and it’s a cliché to list it. But it really is one of the better “biz” books ever written. Marketers have studied the book’s teachings on how to create social epidemics to death, but I think the most valuable advice is on how you should organize your workforce (the 150 rule). I’m somewhat surprised that we haven’t heard more organizations try and incorporate some of the ideas this book is suggesting. I guess it’s one of those books that everybody agrees is brilliant, but very few take back to the office and actually put to good use. I sure as hell plan to if I ever get the chance. A must read.
3. Chip & Dan Heath – Made to Stick. You know it’s a good book when you’ve read only 60 odd pages (like I have, so I guess I’m a liar considering this posts title) and you feel that it could top this list easily. It’s somewhat similar to Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” in style and even content – the authors even mention Tipping Point as a source of inspiration. When reading this I just started thinking how unnecessarily hard we make “the sell” sometimes. I guess we have this inbuilt need of convincing people the hard way; I know I like to argue (in a nice way) and try to convince people through reason and facts. With this book, you won’t have to. The situations where you could apply the book’s teachings seem endless. I’m already a fan and I’m not even done yet. Highly recommended, anyway.
4. Malcolm Gladwell – Blink. I already mentioned this in one of my previous posts on NBA officiating. The unofficial sequel to The Tipping Point, it’s almost every bit as good as its predecessor. This book is more crucial for sociologists and politicians, but I still found it very relevant to marketers and other business people as well. It further confirms my belief in intuition being way underrated in marketing and that we tend to overthink when making business decisions. I’m not a fan of market research, because even though I realize it’s invaluable in doing incremental improvements in products and services, it sometimes totally paralyzes companies (especially big ones) and their ability to innovate. Relying too much on market research makes for committee decision marketing and playing it safe. I’d hate to work in a company that’s afraid to roll the dice every once in a while. In other works, I hate companies that don’t blink. Thank you, I’ll be here all night.
5. Seth Godin – Purple Cow. Another fairly obvious choice, but this is the kind of book you NEED to read to remind you of what marketing should be about. Don’t settle for second best, push forward. Aim for the top, even if it’s in a niche market. This is one of the fastest books to read, ever, since it’s so well written and quite short. It also works for a great Marketing 101 for somebody with little business background.
I’ve also read some other books as well. Martin Lindstrom’s “Brand Sense” was a bit disappointing, even though I managed to get some ideas out of it, his idea of “smashing the brand” for example is very good and something to consider at all times. He’s a bit too unscientific for my taste, especially since he’s talking about affecting every touch point of a brand. Sometimes intuition and “common sense” can lead to mistakes. For example, Lindstrom advocates using scents in retail to trigger behavior. However, some studies have shown that constant exposure to smells (think emloyees) can be allergenic and nauseating. Also, scents should be passing in nature, not ever-present. But like I said, I managed to get some things out of it so it wasn’t a wasted read.
I’m reading Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” now too. It’s an absolute must read for anybody who’s in the new media business, though I guess the gist of the book is easy to learn with out actually reading it. I’m a bit further along than I am with “Made to Stick” but I’m starting to get a feel that the book is very repetitive. The idea of the Long Tail isn’t too hard to grasp so I guess Anderson needs to fill pages, it feels like I’m reading the same stuff over and over again. I loved the bits about the tools of production being democratized, everybody is a creator now. I’ll have to read it through and see if the book goes any deeper.
Any books I should be reading?
And yes, I’m too lazy to post Amazon links.
My good friend Sami Viitamäki has completed his blog series detailing his FLIRT model of crowdsourcing. You can find it here, scroll down to start from Facilities (F).
Get it while it’s hot!
I thought I’d add my thoughts on this. The debate around the study of NBA referees and racial bias still hasn’t died down. The NBA has been in full propaganda mode since the study was reported in the New York Times a week or so ago.
In short, two grad students compiled box score data from 1991 all the way till 2004 and crunched the numbers. They found that white referees called fouls on black players at a higher rate, and vice versa (although the disparity was smaller with black referees). Naturally, it caused a major ruckus and cries of racism.
The NBA promptly slammed the study claiming it was “junk science” (conveniently forgetting that the study had gone through proper academic scrutiny and was peer approved). NBA personnel and even some players attacked that study with Bulls forwards P.J. Brown saying it’s just a case of “somebody having too much time on their hands”. The NBA then released their own “study” that used a smaller sample size and when reviewed by experts was found “incomprehensible”. Just yesterday, by sheer coincidence, ANOTHER study was released that praised the NBA for incorporating minorities in VP positions, showing that the NBA PR department has been working overtime these past few days.
The Times has been on the defensive as of late, but has stood by the grad students and the integrity of the study. The guys at Freakonomics agreed that the study is properly done and the science is sound. Other experts have lined up to defend the study as well, a major inconvenience for the NBA.
As you might expect, everybody has an opinion on this, but relatively few have actually taken a look at the results of the study to see if the findings warrant any reaction or not. ESPN’s John Hollinger was one of the only experts to actually take a look at the study (Insider subscription required, sorry) and evaluate it. He had this to say:
But the bigger point that everyone is missing is that, in fact, this study showed remarkably little bias as well. Maybe I’m a cynic here, but I had expected there would be some level of bias by both black and white officials — refs are human too, after all, and when they step on the court they unwittingly bring their life experiences and values with them.
Yet the affect is almost totally insignificant. The study reports that a black player will rack up an added 0.16 fouls per 48 minutes with an all-white officiating crew, as compared to an all-black one.
0.16 fouls more per 48 minutes.
That’s one extra foul every six games, not an awful lot. The odds of that “racist” foul occurring in a critical junction of the game is basically irrelevant, I’d say an individual player’s reputation has 99% more relevance on whether a foul is called or not. As Hollinger puts it, I think the referees do almost exceptionally well when you put things in perspective.
If you’ve read “Blink” by Malcom Gladwell you’d find that the referees are almost borderline phenomenal in hiding their racial bias. Basketball is a fast paced game, probably the hardest game to officiate because the rules are so strict compared to the speed of the game. For the referees, this means a lot of “snap judgments”, as Gladwell calls them. And with snap judgments, your subconsciousness takes over. Even if you are by nature “not racist”, your subconscious mind will start tapping into racial stereotypes and experiences. For a white NBA referee it means that in a split second your sub-conscious mind asks your brain “QUICK! WHOM DO YOU RESEMBLE MORE: PAT BURKE OR RASHEED WALLACE?” Don’t believe me (or Gladwell, for that matter)? Take the IAT test and see how well you’ll be able to cheat your subconsciousness.
I’m really surprised that Blink hasn’t been brought up more when this topic has been discussed. I think the study validates much of Blink’s findings and actually puts the referees in a good light compared to the rest of us. I guess it goes to show you how sensitive a topic racism is in America.
It’s kinda sad that the aftermath of the study revealed more about race relations in America than the study itself.
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