BueLax

Big Idea: A Steady-State Economy

2009-03-14T07:12:00.000-07:00

The growth economy is failing and we have to attempt a steady-state economy. The steady state answer is that the rich should reduce their throughput growth to free up resources and ecological space for use by the poor, while focusing their domestic efforts on development, technical and social improvements, that can be freely shared with poor countries.
.....
Ecological economists have offered empirical evidence that growth is already uneconomic in high-consumption countries. Since neoclassical economists are unable to demonstrate that growth, either in throughput or GDP, is currently making us better off rather than worse off, it is blind arrogance on their part to continue preaching aggregate growth as the solution to our problems. Yes, most of our problems (poverty, unemployment, environmental degradation) would be easier to solve if we were richer – that is not the issue. The issue is: Does growth in GDP any longer really make us richer? Or is it now making us poorer?

For poor countries GDP growth still increases welfare, at least if reasonably distributed. The question is, what is the best thing for rich countries to do to help poor countries? The World Bank’s answer is that the rich should continue to grow as rapidly as possible to provide markets for the poor and to accumulate capital to invest in poor countries. The steady state answer is that the rich should reduce their throughput growth to free up resources and ecological space for use by the poor, while focusing their domestic efforts on development, technical and social improvements, that can be freely shared with poor countries.

_This article is adapted from Towards a Steady-State Economy, a paper Herman Daly wrote for the UK Sustainable Development Commission in 2008. The complete text can be found at www.theoildrum.com.

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/81/steady_state_economy.html

How to Save Your Newspaper

2009-02-22T13:58:00.000-08:00

TIME MAGAZINE

Thursday, Feb. 05, 2009

By Walter Isaacson

During the past few months, the crisis in journalism has reached meltdown proportions. It is now possible to contemplate a time when some major cities will no longer have a newspaper and when magazines and network-news operations will employ no more than a handful of reporters.

There is, however, a striking and somewhat odd fact about this crisis. Newspapers have more readers than ever. Their content, as well as that of newsmagazines and other producers of traditional journalism, is more popular than ever — even (in fact, especially) among young people.

The problem is that fewer of these consumers are paying. Instead, news organizations are merrily giving away their news. According to a Pew Research Center study, a tipping point occurred last year: more people in the U.S. got their news online for free than paid for it by buying newspapers and magazines. Who can blame them? Even an old print junkie like me has quit subscribing to the New York Times, because if it doesn't see fit to charge for its content, I'd feel like a fool paying for it.

This is not a business model that makes sense. Perhaps it appeared to when Web advertising was booming and every half-sentient publisher could pretend to be among the clan who "got it" by chanting the mantra that the ad-supported Web was "the future." But when Web advertising declined in the fourth quarter of 2008, free felt like the future of journalism only in the sense that a steep cliff is the future for a herd of lemmings. (See who got the world into this financial mess.)

....

When I used to go fishing in the bayous of Louisiana as a boy, my friend Thomas would sometimes steal ice from those machines outside gas stations. He had the theory that ice should be free. We didn't reflect much on who would make the ice if it were free, but fortunately we grew out of that phase. Likewise, those who believe that all content should be free should reflect on who will open bureaus in Baghdad or be able to fly off as freelancers to report in Rwanda under such a system.

I say this not because I am "evil," which is the description my daughter slings at those who want to charge for their Web content, music or apps. Instead, I say this because my daughter is very creative, and when she gets older, I want her to get paid for producing really neat stuff rather than come to me for money or decide that it makes more sense to be an investment banker.

I say this, too, because I love journalism. I think it is valuable and should be valued by its consumers. Charging for content forces discipline on journalists: they must produce things that people actually value. I suspect we will find that this necessity is actually liberating. The need to be valued by readers — serving them first and foremost rather than relying solely on advertising revenue — will allow the media once again to set their compass true to what journalism should always be about.

Isaacson, a former managing editor of TIME, is president and CEO of the Aspen Institute and author, most recently, of Einstein: His Life and Universe.

* Find this article at:
* http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1877191,00.html

2008-05-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

Música | Madonna

Los dilemas del estrellato pop

La aparición de Hard Candy, el nuevo disco de la cantante, sirve para reflexionar sobre el rumbo que ha tomado la cultura popular -y su correspondiente star system- en tiempos marcados por un nuevo marketing: el impuesto por el espíritu hacker que brilla en Internet. Cambios y tendencias sociales en una época en la que podría pensarse a MySpace, Fickr y You Tube como los verdaderos ídolos de los adolescentes

LANACION.com | ADN Cultura | Sábado 17 de mayo de 2008

> Ir a la nota

The Future web 2.0 Social Experience

2008-05-10T18:31:00.001-07:00

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/future-social-web-experience.cfm

It doesn't matter how much bigger or smarter these systems get, they're limited by the fragmented web version 1.0. Google or Ask.com will never be able to know what you really want when you search for "home run". This is because the current web is still locked into reductionism. Because all these applications are just part of a disconnected world of data, they're forced to reduce everything to their basic component parts.

clipped from www.webdesignfromscratch.com

The Social Future of Web2.0 / Web3.0

Ben Hunt casts an eye to the future of a more connected web and how we will experience it through new social applications.

This vision features insights into new search engines, an online marketplace, and solutions for phishing and spam.

Ben also predicts that Yahoo will be the dominant online brand for the next 5 years

Promoting your Blog

2008-05-10T17:33:00.001-07:00

Social Media Optimization: An Easy Guide to Marketing and Promoting Your Blog

From: rohitbhargava, 1 year ago

| View | Upload your own

This presentation, originally given at the SixApart Business Blogging Seminar in November, 2006 offers ideas for using the emerging concept of SMO to market and promote your blog.

SlideShare Link

The press becomes the press-sphere

2008-05-10T17:05:00.001-07:00

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/04/14/the-press-becomes-the-press-sphere/

clipped from www.buzzmachine.com

One problem I’ve had with much discussion about the future of news lately is that it’s too press-centric. It focuses on the press as if it were at the center of the world, as if it owned news, as if news depended on it, as if solving the press’ problems solves news. That’s not the ecosystem of news now. There’s a fundamentally new structure to media and there are many different ways to look at it. And until we realize that, I don’t think we’ll begin to create successful new models for news. So pardon my simplistic drawings, but here’s an attempt to begin to illustrate that new ecosystem of news and media.

Community

2008-03-12T07:41:00.001-07:00

http://edbrenegar.typepad.com/leading_questions/2008/03/a-counter-intui.html

clipped from edbrenegar.typepad.com

Community

clipped from edbrenegar.typepad.com

A Counter-intuitive Paradoxical Social Being

There are some paradoxical notions that float around about networks and community. One of those notions is the more diverse your network the better. The other is is having a tight network of close associates is
better. The problem comes from thinking too superficially about networks and community building.

A closed network like the one on the left is filled with people who know one another well, who think alike, who share similar values, aims, ambitions and approaches.

An open, diverse network serves a different function. It provides access to information and influence that your close group of buddies cannot provide. It would be nice if it is just so simple to have both. This is more difficult that it may seem. The solution is not making a choice between open or closed networks, but rather how you function within both.

Interesante forma de presentar un Blog

2008-02-02T05:57:00.001-08:00

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/arts/subjects.html

Everybody´s a network

2008-02-01T20:22:00.001-08:00

by Jeff Jarvis

clipped from www.buzzmachine.com

In the future of media, which is now, everybody is a network. In the past, networks were defined by control of content or distribution. But now, you can’t own all distribution and content is controlled where it’s created. So, I wonder, where’s the value and where’s the money in the fully networked world?

What is a network now? Your friend pointing you to something to read or watch is a network. The collection of people putting a YouTube video on their blogs makes a network. BlogAds bringing together 800 blogs for an MSNBC.com ad buy is a network. When you subscribe to a collection of feeds, or when you publish up a blogroll, or when you put a tag on your blog post, or when you use a Flickr tag that others use, you are a network.

Media 2.0 - Umair explained

2008-02-01T20:05:00.001-08:00

by Scott Karp

clipped from publishing2.com

When there were only a handful of distribution channels, and the cost of entry was high, a handful of players could profitably compete for a slice of the attention pie.

Digital and network technology has lead to an explosion of content and distribution channels, i.e. a proliferation of media.

The proliferation of media is a bubble because it’s being driven by speculation — the 20 million bloggers and dozens of Web 2.0 sites popping up everyday are speculating on the unbundling of content and distribution.

The negative economic consequence is that attention is not being allocated efficiently — it’s becoming increasing difficult for people to figure out which of the infinite number of content choices at their fingertips are most worth their time.

When there were only a handful of content choices, there was plenty of attention to go around — and attention could be bought through marketing.

As a result of the speculation in media, there is now too much media competing for too little attention.

Is the Tipping Point Toast?

2008-02-01T19:28:00.001-08:00

Fast Company From: Issue 122 | February 2008 |

clipped from www.fastcompany.com

Is the Tipping Point Toast?

Marketers spend a billion dollars a year targeting influentials. Duncan Watts says they're wasting their money.

Don't get Duncan Watts started on the Hush Puppies. "Oh, God," he groans when the subject comes up. "Not them." The Hush Puppies in question are the ones that kick off The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell's best-seller about how trends work. As Gladwell tells it, the fuzzy footwear was a dying brand by late 1994--until a few New York hipsters brought it back from the brink. Other fashionistas followed suit, whereupon the cool kids copied them, the less-cool kids copied them, and so on, until, voilà! Within two years, sales of Hush Puppies had exploded by a stunning 5,000%, without a penny spent on advertising. All because, as Gladwell puts it, a tiny number of superinfluential types ("Twenty? Fifty? One hundred--at the most?") began wearing the shoes.

Que es el management 2.0

2008-01-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

En Internet se está produciendo en estos días una profunda transformación. Una descripción simple sería: la disponibilidad de cierto tipo de software, el software social(wiki) , está permitiendo que la web se transforme de un reservorio de información en un espacio de interacción social, en el cual los contenidos son creados colaborativamente y los internautas son simultáneamente consumidores y creadores de dichos contenidos.

Se trata, entonces, de una web donde lo central no es acceder a información sino acceder a conversaciones y participar de ellas como pares. Este fenómeno recibió muchos nombres, web social, web de lecto-escritura, web P2P, pero seguramente la denominación más popular es la de Web 2.0(wiki) . Esta web, a diferencia de la 1.0 que está caracterizada por contenidos estáticos que no son actualizados con mucha frecuencia, es una verdadera plataforma de colaboración, interacción y despliegue de inteligencia colectiva.

Esto se traduce en un renacimiento del emprendimiento en el mundo de Internet. De manera cotidiana se generan start-ups(wiki) con nuevas propuestas de colaboración y participación online y el fenómeno empieza a tener repercusión en diferentes ámbitos. Se habla de Empresa 2.0(wiki) , Oficina 2.0(wiki) , Innovación 2.0(wiki) , Marketing 2.0(wiki) , y muchas otras denominaciones más. Cuando se hace referencia a una disciplina o dominio y se adosa el "2.0" se trata de aludir al despliegue de aplicaciones y entornos de trabajo que promuevan la interacción, la colaboración y la construcción de comunidades online. Emerge, entonces, la posibilidad de hablar de Management 2.0, pero ésto implica algo más que el simple uso de nuevas tecnologías, aunque éstas sean importantes.

Es una web donde lo central no es acceder a información sino acceder a conversaciones y participar de ellas como pares

El cambio que trae la Web 2.0 es uno muy especial. Toda tecnología que se traduce en una innovación implica nuevas o mejores prácticas, una suerte de develamiento de un nuevo espacio de posibilidades. En este caso, el uso del software social devela un rasgo medular del fenómeno humano: los seres humanos se constituyen y crean su mundo en el lenguaje, en conversaciones . La Web 2.0 está mostrando palmariamente algo que Fernando Flores dijo hace dos décadas y que, más recientemente se complementó en el influyente libro "Clue Train Manifiesto" en forma de genial síntesis, al describir las tendencias que prometía Internet. Algunas de las ideas mencionadas se pueden resumir en estos tres puntos:

• Los mercados son conversaciones .
• Las organizaciones son conversaciones .
• Administrar es conversar .

La web social está mostrando la médula del fenómeno humano. Lo que nos constituye a personas, empresas y mercados es la posibilidad de desarrollar las conversaciones necesarias. En muchos casos esta nueva web está permitiendo que se lleven adelante conversaciones que antes eran imposibles. El impacto de este fenómeno se relaciona con la posibilidad de expandir un aspecto central de lo social: la comunicación. La que se da entre pares, en el desarrollo de comunidades con identidades compartidas, etc. Sin duda, otra vuelta de tuerca del fenómeno de la globalización.

Management 2.0 y el desafío de los negocios abiertos. Si administrar es conversar, la comunicación y el management tienen una estrecha relación . Si la web 2.0 expande las capacidades de sostener conversaciones, de impulsar la comunicación, es lógico que tenga un gran impacto en el management. De hecho, en los próximos años, seguramente se asistirá a la virtualización de muchas prácticas del management.

Por otro lado, si comienzan a estar disponibles formas nuevas de trabajar, comunicarse, colaborar, vincularse, aprender, etc., es esperable que esas herramientas tengan un rol decisivo en las actividades creativas en general y en especial en la innovación. La innovación se volverá informático-intensiva como ha dicho recientemente Alejandro Piscitelli.

Las nuevas tecnologías sociales, vuelven al trabajo y a las conversaciones más horizontales, abiertas, transparentes y globales. Esto desafía las prácticas tradicionales del management, generalmente basadas en la planificación jerárquica, el control y los premios y castigos. Por lo tanto, esta denominación no tiene que ver estrictamente con la web sino con algo mucho más central en el management: la producción de acción colectiva y efectiva. Este nuevo paradigma 2.0 para la producción de acción requerirá el desarrollo de nuevas habilidades y prácticas .

Entre las primeras comunidades abiertas, colaborativas y globales que se crearon y dieron lugar al fenómeno de la web 2.0 estuvieron precisamente las comunidades de programadores que dieron origen al movimiento del software de código abierto (open source). Este es quizás uno de los fenómenos más sorprendentes de innovación colectiva de la historia.

La esencia del software de código abierto es que su desarrollo es abierto y transparente: los códigos están disponibles para que cualquiera pueda utilizarlos y mejorarlos. Esto produce dos resultados reveladores. Por un lado las soluciones "open source" son más flexibles, ya que los propios usuarios pueden participar en el desarrollo de dichas soluciones. Por otro lado, el costo es bajo o nulo en muchos casos. Un ejemplo, entre muchísimos, es el navegador web Firefox, cuyo desarrollo fue iniciado en los últimos años por un grupo de jóvenes y está sacando cada vez más participación de mercado al Internet Explorer. Estas comunidades generan mucho del software social que está motorizando el fenómeno de la web por estos días. Estos softwares permiten el funcionamiento de wikis, blogs, marcadores sociales, redes sociales, etc.

Ahora bien, siendo un producto gratuito, en la mayoría de los casos, ¿cómo se pueden articular modelos de negocio que permitan ganar dinero a las empresas/individuos sobre la base del "open source"? De hecho, hay muchas posibilidades: capacitadores que faciliten el uso, implementadores que desarrollen aplicaciones a medida para el cliente, consultores que asesoren en las posibilidades de elección, uso e implementación, etc. No es que no haya posibilidades de ganar dinero con el "open source", sino que el dinero puede estar en otro lado y hay que buscar el modelo adecuado.

Dr. Juan Carlos Lucas
Director INNOVA Consulting / Profesor UCA
Blog: Innova

Link permanente: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/909765

Cybersphere: A discussion with Jean Baudrillard

2008-01-23T23:48:00.000-08:00

Jean Baudrillard is perhaps the most important theorist of the "after modern". Though he says himself he has "nothing to do with postmodernism", many interpret him as (along with Jean-François Lyotard) as among the most important prophets of a truly "postmodern" era. His works have attracted high praise and derision all over the world. Among his most important works are: In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities, Fatal Strategies, America, Cool Memories, The Transparency of Evil, The Illusion of the End, The Mirror of Production, Forget Foucault, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, Symbolic Exchange and Death, The Perfect Crime, and most recently Paroxysm.

by Claude Thibaut

Mankind face to the machine and to its own reflection: corollary of the new technologies' boom. Jean Baudrillard deals with the universe of virtuality,the consequences of which are not so virtua l...

CLAUDE THIBAUT: From your point of view, what potential do the new technologies offer?

JEAN BAUDRILLARD: I don't know much about this subject. I haven't gone beyond the fax and the automatic answering machine. I have a very hard time getting down to work on the screen because all I see there is a text in the form of an image which I have a hard time entering. With my typewriter, the text is at a distance; it is visible and I can work with it. With the screen, it's different; one has to be inside; it is possible to play with it but only if one is on the other side, and immerses oneself in it. That scares me a little, and Cyberspace is not of great use to me personally.

CLAUDE THIBAUT:
In what domains can these new technologies be used: communication, education, simulation? Are they likely to modify the attitudes and behavior of those who use them?

JEAN BAUDRILLARD: I think that it will no doubt explode in all directions, because this is a sprawling medium, and it will grow in all of the domains. But do the ends remain the same; that is doubtless the main problem. Let’s take pedagogy for example: doesn't information kill education? I have friends who are experiencing this in the domain of writing, and for my part I find that their behavior changes in a way. The possibility of indefinitely adjusting the correct version creates a sort of fantasy of perfection of the text which gives the latter another allure, another construction than those which their earlier writing possessed. The result of this quest for perfection remains problematic. We have the impression that the machine operated beyond the ends of the writing.

CLAUDE THIBAUT:
Is there a distortion of the personality?

JEAN BAUDRILLARD: Perhaps there is a distortion, not necessarily one that will consume one's personality. It is possible that the machine can metabolize the mind.

Web 2.0, ¿revolución del conocimiento o culto de la mediocridad amateur?

2008-01-23T23:31:00.001-08:00

clipped from www.materiabiz.com

Web 2.0, ¿revolución del conocimiento o culto de la mediocridad amateur?

Por Hugo Pardo Kuklinski (autor de digitalismo.com y Visiting Professor de Stanford University)

Me refiero a Everything is miscellaneous. The power of the new digital disorder, de David Weinberger (Times Books. New York. 2007), y a The cult of the amateur. How today's internet is killing our culture, de Andrew Keen (Double Day/Currency. New York. 2007).

El caso es que ambos autores exponen ideas casi opuestas. Weinberger analiza la escritura colaborativa y su lógica miscelánea en el contexto de un nuevo orden digital que tiene un efecto de contra-poder. En tanto, Keen está directamente en contra de la producción amateur que rodea a la Web 2.0.

The Cluetrain Manifiesto

2008-01-23T23:16:00.000-08:00

These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.

http://www.cluetrain.com/

Diferencia entre Branding, Advertisement & PR

2007-06-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

Prophet sharing

2007-03-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

by Mark Williams

Peter Drucker is 90. For six decades, he has advised the heads of corporations and governments. He is modest about it all, remembering legendary figures like -->IBM (NYSE : IBM)'s founder Thomas J. Watson Sr. as friends. Once, after he told us something remarkable, we asked whether some historian we might read could tell us more. "No," he responded in his measured, gravelly, Viennese-accented tones, "I am the single survivor of that commission of Mr. Eisenhower's." What he had told us was that a project to establish universal health care had been suggested in the '50s, but the United Auto Workers union had blocked it. When contacted, UAW officials groused that Mr. Drucker was an "exalted curmudgeon," yet didn't deny his claim outright.
Mr. Drucker lives in a middle-class home in Claremont, a Los Angeles suburb, donating much of the money from his books, lectures, and consulting to charity. Wearing a blue blazer, sharply pressed trousers, and a red tie, he ushered us in when we rang. Nowadays he leans on a cane to get around. Still, he maintains a vigorous pace: writing, teaching five days a week at Claremont Graduate University, and preparing online management courses for Corpedia Training Technologies.
Privatization, outsourcing, management theory, knowledge workers, and the knowledge economy are concepts Mr. Drucker originated. They've changed both the past and the present. But while ranging over a variety of topics -- from Bill Gates's disgruntled ex-employees to Franz Kafka inventing the safety helmet -- we knew that Mr. Drucker had been thinking hard about the future: the world beyond the information revolution. We steered him toward that. His answers, we believe, will startle you.

You think he was a great writer, don't you? But Franz Kafka invented the safety helmet. He was the great man in factory inspection and workman's compensation. Kafka was the workman's compensation-factory safety man for what's now the Czech Republic, which was Bohemia and Moravia before World War I. Our next-door neighbor was the top workman's compensation-factory safety man for Austria. Kafka was his idol. When Kafka [was dying] outside of Vienna of throat tuberculosis, Dr. Kuiper -- our neighbor -- pedaled on his bike at 5 each morning for two hours to visit the dying Kafka, then took the train to work. After Kafka's death, nobody was more surprised than Dr. Kuiper to discover he'd been a writer. Kafka got the gold medal of, I think, the American Safety Congress for 1912 because as a result of his safety helmet, the steel mills in what is [now] the Czech Republic for the first time killed fewer than 25 workers per 1,000 a year.

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=6941&hed=Prophet+sharing+with+Peter+Drucker

Web 2.0 Conference

2007-03-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 Conference: "

Presentation files
Files are available sometime after the session has concluded and the speaker has given us the files. Check back if you don't see the file you're looking for -- it might be available later!
From the Labs
Speaker(s): John Battelle Peter Norvig, Ph.D., Richard F. Rashid, Ph.D., Jim Spohrer
Presentation Date: 10/07/2004
Download presentation files
High Order Bit: MMORPG
Speaker(s): Bill Gurley
Presentation Date: 10/07/2004
Download presentation files
High Order Bit: Research Examining "

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/32/presentations.html

web 2.0

2007-03-16T18:26:00.001-07:00

ver WWeb 2.0 in youtube

clipped from battellemedia.com

After I saw the film, I had to talk to the man who made it. Michael is a very thoughtful fellow, as one might expect, but he comes to "Web 2.0" from an entirely different perspective than your typical Valley entrepreneur (yet he seems to know more than most of us!). For more, read on....and keep in mind the Michael has agreed to answer your questions in the comments field, should any come up!

web 2.0 beyond etext

2007-03-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

Prof Wesch

For me, cultural anthropology is a continuous exercise in expanding my mind and my empathy, building primarily from one simple principle: everything is connected. This is true on many levels. First, everything including the environment, technology, economy, social structure, politics, religion, art and more are all interconnected. As I tried to illustrate in the video, this means that a change in one area (such as the way we communicate) can have a profound effect on everything else, including family, love, and our sense of being itself. Second, everything is connected throughout all time, and so as anthropologists we take a very broad view of human history, looking thousands or even millions of years into the past and into the future as well. And finally, all people on the planet are connected. This has always been true environmentally because we share the same planet. Today it is even more true with increasing economic and media globalization.

http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=69

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

Soul Trainer

2007-03-16T08:40:00.001-07:00

by Marc Gunther

Who are you without your job? If it takes you a while to answer, perhaps you need to reevaluate. Marc Gunther visits a clinic in Florida that claims it can help you find the right balance--and become a better worker in the process.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2002/01/07/316035/index.htm

Marketing in Hypermedia Computer-Mediated Environments: Conceptual Foundations

2007-03-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

by Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak

This paper addresses the role of marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments (CMEs). Our approach considers hypermedia CMEs to be large-scale (i.e. national or global) networked environments, of which the World Wide Web on the Internet is the first and current global implementation. We introduce marketers to this revolutionary new medium, propose a structural model of consumer behavior in a CME that incorporates the notion of flow, and examine the set of consequent testable research propositions and marketing implications that follow from the model.

http://sloan.ucr.edu/blog/uploads/papers/Marketing%20in%20Hypermedia%20Computer-Mediated%20Environments-Conceptual%20Foundations%20%5BHoffman,%20Novak%20-%20July%201995%5D.pdf

Unleash Your Ideavirus

2007-03-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

by Seth Godin

You're at your business-school reunion. Everyone's bragging about how successful they already are -- and trading lies about what they're doing to become even more successful. Frank the Jock talks about the dotcom he's just started. Suzie the Wallstreeter says that she has already made her money and is now turning her energy toward rebuilding Eastern Europe. And then the group looks at you.
"Well," you say, "I think the future -- the really big money -- is in owning a farm. A really small one, no more than 100 acres. Of course, I'll invest in a tractor. I expect that in just a few years my husband and I can cash out and buy ourselves a nice little brownstone in the city."
Ludicrous, no? Owning a farm may bring tremendous lifestyle benefits, but it hasn't been a ticket to wealth for more than 200 years.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/37/ideavirus.html

The Next Agenda - Introduction

2007-03-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

by Fast Company

It is one of the trademarks of the new economy: You can play the game almost any way you choose. You can craft a business model that shocks your competitors. You can commit your operation to delivering customer service that delights your clients. You can think global from the day that you open your doors. You can find a local niche that the global giants have overlooked and turn it into your own private enterprise zone. The way that you position your company, the way that you brand your operation, the way that you differentiate your product or service from others on the market -- today more than ever, those critical factors of success are a matter of personal choice, personal expression, and personal work style.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/33/agendaopen.html

Hey, i have an idea

2007-03-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

by Curtis Sittenfeld

For a brief period last winter, my role as a Fast Company writer took me to a place that neither my undergraduate transcript nor my résumé could have taken me: the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Okay, so I was a business-school student for just a few days (I probably won't hear from the recruiters at Intuit or Goldman Sachs anytime soon). But as a temporary observer in BUS G341, Michael Ray's "Personal Creativity in Business" course, I was able to experience a class so popular that enrollment is generally limited to second-year students.

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/35/ray2.html

Group Genius

2007-03-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

by Paul Roberts

Frustration. It's 7 PM on the second day of a two-day seminar on Hilton Head, South Carolina, and the entire executive team from New York-based AM Cosmetics is incredulous. Smack-dab in the middle of a brainstorming session that was producing a concrete business plan, creativity guru Matt Taylor has pulled the plug. As the executives look on in astonishment, Taylor's colleagues silently pile candles, rubber bands, paper clips, Play-Doh, wing nuts, fishing line, and 40 other items unrelated to cosmetics at the front of the workshop space.

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/11/genius.html

Creative Domains

2007-03-15T14:38:00.001-07:00

by Paul Roberts

The Taylor mantra on managing for creativity goes something like this: All employees are inherently creative. That creativity is typically blocked by structural elements within a company. Eliminate the blockages, and you enable "group genius." In other words, you don't manage people; you manage the world in which they work, a world the Taylor's divide into seven key components, or domains.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/11/domains.html

What´s the Big Idea?

2007-03-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

by Curtis Sittenfeld

"You're not epileptic, are you?"
That's the question I get as I enter the Chicago headquarters of the Creative Solutions Network. I answer no -- and immediately find myself in a reclining chair, with my back parallel to the floor and my legs in the air. Suddenly I'm wearing something called the Orion Brain Machine. It features headphones that emit an erratic pulse and glasses that display a kaleidoscopic light show. Oh, by the way, the chair -- called the Symmetron -- is moving.
Have I entered some postmodern torture chamber? Hardly. I'm just spending some time at the Thinkubator.
The Thinkubator is the brainchild of Gerald Haman, 39, who founded the Creative Solutions Network in 1988. An alumnus of Procter & Gamble and Arthur Andersen, Haman works with such clients as AT&T, BP Amoco, American Express, and Kraft Foods -- all of which have sent executives to the Thinkubator. What brings people from such respectable companies to such a strange place? The desperate search for creativity -- since, when it comes to enhancing creativity, few people have as many creative ideas as Haman.

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/23/rftf.html

Great Ideas in Aisle 9

2007-03-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

by Anna Muoio

Where do great ideas come from? They come from right here, actually. At the intersection of Plankestrasse and Rueschlistrasse, in Biel, Switzerland (also home to Rolex and Swatch), there is a cream-colored industrial building -- a factory that manufactures and sells ideas. All kinds of clients have come here, seeking all kinds of ideas: Novartis, the pharmaceuticals giant, came to find ideas for new food products; the Swiss Cancer Association came looking for ideas on how to promote the use of sun-protection products; and a 70-year-old woman once came in search of an idea that might help her fall in love again.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/33/rftf.html

Unleashing the ideavirus

2007-03-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

by seth godin

The Internet industry has been enamored of buzz-based marketing ever since venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson coined the phrase "viral marketing" in 1997 to describe Hotmail's strategy of tagging every e-mail message with a promotion for its service. The self-replicating promotion helped the company achieve an epidemic growth rate of zero to 12 million users in a mere 18 months. Since then, viral marketing has propelled everything from Napster to The Blair Witch Project to legendary success.
Even with all the buzz about buzz, though, many Internet companies still pour the bulk of their marketing budgets into ill-conceived TV advertising (who could forget January's orgy of dot-com expenditures on Super Bowl ads?) and other ineffective channels, like banner ads. Depending on whose numbers you use, last year online and offline companies spent $3.5 billion to $4.6 billion on Net ads. Yet, according to Nielsen NetRatings, average click-through rates for banner ads have fallen to a pitiful half a percent.
There has to be a better way. With investors increasingly focusing on profits, the time is right to do more than just talk about viral marketing. And here to lead the rally are two new primers on the subject - Seth Godin's flashy Unleashing the Ideavirus and Emanuel Rosen's more pedantic but meatier The Anatomy of Buzz.
Both agree on the basic tenets. Instead of blindly (and expensively) advertising to mass audiences, companies should focus on creating buzz among key potential customers - early adopters - and let them market to everybody else.
Godin, who fills his book with infectious analogies, calls these folks "sneezers," whereas Rosen dubs them "network hubs." They could be celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, influential members of a particular industry or ordinary people involved in their neighborhoods, schools, church groups or companies who consciously and consistently spread the word about new things they encounter.
The trick is to reward such efforts. Give away samples or discounts. Create affiliate programs a la Amazon or run promotions that reward early customers for signing up new users. Post testimonials from happy customers on your Web site. All simple stuff, but according to Godin, "too much work for most sites."
Both authors warn that none of these efforts will work with a lousy product. Hotmail, Polaroid's iZone camera, the new Volkswagen Beetle and the Palm are all top-notch products - they're simple to understand and use, they work and look great - that benefited from good buzz. Godin, who founded an online promotions company he sold to Yahoo and authored last year's Permission Marketing [see "Permission Marketing"], calls these killer products "ideaviruses" because they're easy to launch and spread quickly from person to person until they're ubiquitous, like Napster or The Sopranos.
If you have a great product, give buzz a boost by first giving it away or selling it dirt cheap, a lesson many Net companies already apply. As Rosen relates, the publisher of Cold Mountain gave away 4,000 galley copies to bookstore owners and others to help make the Civil War novel an unexpected hit that eventually sold 1.6 million hardcover copies. Microsoft gave away 450,000 copies of Windows 95 before the software was commercially available.
Of course, you can't give away everything. So how to make money? Aim low. Pick a small market with no established leader and use buzz to dominate it before anybody else does. "If you can fill a vacuum aggressively and permanently, it is far easier to extract money," Godin writes. The jury is still out, however, on whether that theory will fly with standalone online retailers and companies such as Napster that don't charge for their services.
Because the Net speeds up communication exponentially, dot-com companies have come to rely solely on online means for creating buzz. Big mistake, Rosen says. For buzz to work, companies need a multichannel strategy. Cisco, he points out, prides itself on connecting with customers online, but also arranges 1,000 offline seminars a year for potential customers, holds even more events for current customers and attends dozens of trade shows.
Likewise, don't rest on your laurels. Once you've successfully used buzz to launch a product or service, leverage it to launch your next big thing.
There may be no such thing as bad publicity, Rosen cautions, but negative buzz can be lethal. Apple was vilified for the Newton, as was long-dead company Momenta for its early '90s pen computer - the device was so buggy that people who got free demo units ditched them, something even a $40 million marketing budget couldn't rectify. For that reason, both authors suggest that companies actively track what people are saying about their products through all media, including on consumer feedback Web sites such as PlanetFeedback.com or Epinions.com.
Both Godin and Rosen also pay homage to Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary theorist who first came up with the concept of the meme, an idea that replicates itself like a living organism, growing and evolving as it passes from one person to another.
But while they cover much of the same intellectual territory, they diverge radically in execution. Godin, an unabashed self-promoter and online marketing industry fixture, offers, hands down, the faster, sexier read, with pictures, to-do lists and up-to-the-minute examples. But he fails to provide much historical perspective. He calls his slim, 197-page book a "manifesto," penned a cover story about it for Fast Company's August issue and made it available on the Web a month before its September publication date. In notices posted between pages of the online version, he encourages readers to "Steal This Idea" by downloading the text file and circulating it to friends. As of mid-August, Godin claimed more than 400,000 copies had been downloaded.
If Godin's Ideavirus is fast food, Rosen's tome is an eight-course meal. Rosen stuffs his 303-page book, due in October, with examples of good and bad buzz taken from 40 years of innovations inside and outside the technology industry, and offers copious scientific research to back up his assumptions and conclusions. He includes extensive interview footnotes for each chapter and a lengthy bibliography.
Such an approach is not surprising coming from the former marketing VP who helped launch EndNote, a program that helps academics compile the bibliographic material found at the end of scholarly papers. (It eventually sold 200,000 copies - mainly by word of mouth.) Though Rosen's is the better researched and structured of the two books, it's a drier read that would have benefited from a dash of Godin's peppy prose style.
Together, both books make a convincing case for viral marketing - just keep in mind that no amount of buzz-building will turn a dog into a winner. And tell a friend.

http://www.sethgodin.com/ideavirus/downloads/IdeavirusReadandShare.pdf

Internet is no Media by Dominique Wolton

2007-03-03T05:34:00.000-08:00

In conversation with Catherine Mallaval (Liberation, 20/21March 1999)
After his "Eloge du grand public" (In praise of mass audiences), in 1990,and "Penser la communication" ((Re)thinking Communication) in 1997,Dominique Wolton closes of his trilogy with "Internet et apres? Une theoriecritique des nouveaux medias" (Internet, and then what? A critical theoryof the new media).

Exerpts:Catherine Mallaval (DM): Your take is that the Net is not a true media.Aren't you being bellicose here?Dominique Wolton (DW): Not at all. A pipe, however performing, is not amedia. A true media stems from the supply side, as is the case with a newspaper, a radio station, a television channel. They offer their servicesto a public, which may or may not 'buy' them. Conversely, the Net standson the demand side: the users come and take whatever they want, wheneverthey want. That's one. Second, a true media is build upon a conceived, oreven pre-conceived idea of an audience. Whereas the Net is targeted to anyand everybody, to a "world citizen" that does not exist, but titilates the imagination. Finally, there is no media without a pre-constructedprogramme, a grid of references that is not a jail-house, but on thecontrary, a statement of ambition, a desire to organise an incrediblenumber of despatches according to a certain conception of one's audienceand of what one wishes to tell it. Here again, the Net does not fit thebill.

All this would not be problematic at all, but for the fact that thistype of communication is being bandied as a big step forward, particularlyin contrasting passive potato couches in front of their TV sets and active,intelligent internauts behind their keyboards! Direct, unmediatedcommunication, as a mere technical performance. It caters to dreams ofindividual freedom, but it is illusory. The Net may well give access to amass of informations, but nobody is a world citizen wanting to knoweverything about the entire world. The more information there is, thegreater the need for intermediaries - journalists, archivers, editors, etc- who filter, organise, prioritise. Nobody wants to play for cheif editorevery morning. The equality of access opportunity to information does notcreate equality of competence in handling information. Mistaking the onefor the other is techno-ideology (ideologie technique).
-----------------
"The changes for the better that may be expected from the development of these self-media are numerous: a catharsis, and thus a civilisatory effect, which stems from being able to handle a mean of expression as a remedy against social violence; a mending of the gap between generation,> and more specifically between the school system (which is largelly text-based) and the youth (the Lego, zapping generation); development of new forms of knowledge which enable a better understanding of the rational and the relational; dissemination of a world-wide culture and language that for once, would be a collective creation, and not that of one caste."

http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9908/msg00118.html

"La TV construye lazos con los otros",

2007-02-25T05:55:00.001-08:00

afirma Luis Alberto Quevedo
El sociólogo, en defensa de la "caja boba"

“El vínculo que establece el televidente con el televisor es muy complejo. Una de sus características consiste en que el espectador desea ver ciertos programas porque hay millones de personas que los ven y él no quiere quedar afuera de las conversaciones. Ocurre que, en definitiva, la televisión no es una tecnología, sino un discurso: construye lazos con los otros, con las demás personas”, sostiene el sociólogo Luis Alberto Quevedo, director del Proyecto Comunicación y del posgrado Gestión y Política en Cultura y Comunicación de la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Flacso).

Puesto a pensar en la televisión, Quevedo cuenta con las mejores armas: una sólida formación académica y una marcada vocación de televidente. Se graduó en la prestigiosa Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales de la Universidad de París, donde hizo la maestría en Sociología. Fue director de la carrera de Ciencias de la Comunicación de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, donde actualmente se desempeña como profesor titular regular de Sociología Política. Es codirector de los estudios sobre el Sistema Nacional de Consumos Culturales, que desarrolla la Secretaría de Medios de la Presidencia de la Nación. Además, Luis Alberto Quevedo mira la televisión, la misma que el resto de los argentinos. El dato no es menor, porque esa práctica le permite analizar en detalle los motivos por los que ciertos programas fascinan a millones de personas y se instalan como tema de conversación en la agenda colectiva.

-¿Cómo miramos televisión los espectadores del siglo XXI?

-Muchas de las tecnologías de la comunicación nacieron como medios para ser consumidos socialmente. En sus comienzos, la radio era escuchada en familia y hasta en las plazas de pueblo. La TV, que también nació como un tipo de consumo comunitario, ahora está ante un proceso de personalización. La duda es si llegaremos al punto de que cada uno tenga su propia televisión, dicho esto en dos sentidos: un televisor por persona y una apropiación personal de los contenidos televisivos.

-¿Por qué se fue pasando del consumo televisivo familiar al personal?

-La respuesta está en la historia de la TV. Hasta los años 60 sólo se conocía la televisión en vivo: quien no estaba frente al televisor en tiempo real se perdía el programa. Con la aparición del videotape comenzó un lento proceso de abolición del tiempo: los programas se grababan para ser emitidos en otro tiempo. En la década del 80, con la difusión de las grabadoras de TV hogareñas, la ruptura de la temporalidad televisiva empezó a estar en manos del televidente: yo grabo un programa a la hora en que es emitido y lo miro cuando quiero. En los 90, el cable transformó a la TV en una cinta sinfín: un mismo programa sale al aire en diferentes horarios. En mi opinión, el último desafío de la ruptura del tiempo se asocia con la ruptura del espacio: ¿será el teléfono celular el lugar desde el que yo bajaré paquetes de contenidos televisivos para verlos después? Yo creo que ésa es la promesa del celular, pero no la de la TV. La convergencia entre el teléfono y la TV es muy difícil.

-Bill Gates declaró, en Davos, que dentro de cinco años caducará el modo actual de mirar televisión, gracias a la combinación de Internet y celulares. ¿Qué piensa al respecto?

-Lo que pronostica Bill Gates es la muerte del broadcasting , es decir, de las grandes audiencias. Según él, surgirá el hábito de que cada uno baje paquetes de imágenes, los registre en la memoria de su teléfono y los consuma individualmente. Pero yo creo que el televidente no está dispuesto a renunciar al goce de la TV masiva. El vínculo que establece el televidente con el televisor es uno de los más difíciles de entender. Una de sus características consiste en que el espectador desea ver ciertos programas porque hay millones de personas que los ven, y él no quiere quedar fuera de las conversaciones. En definitiva, la televisión no es una tecnología sino un discurso, un lazo con los otros. Como sostiene Dominique Wolton, la idea del "gran público" es la idea de construir un nosotros, una comunidad. Es evidente que la TV está asediada por los procesos de personalización y que yo podré bajar una serie completa en un iPod para verla cuando quiera. La pregunta es si a eso lo podemos llamar televisión. ¿Comprar o alquilar un DVD con la serie Seinfeld es mirar televisión? Cualquiera que haga la experiencia de ver de corrido todos los capítulos de 24 comprobará que resulta insoportable, porque esa serie tiene una estructura narrativa pensada para la fragmentación de la TV. Está hecha para ser vista de a media hora por vez. Cuando la miro durante cuatro horas seguidas en un DVD, no tengo el mismo vínculo con la narración. Es como si yo intercambiara cartas con un hermano que vive en Canadá y creyera que la experiencia sería igual si juntara todas las cartas y las leyera de corrido. Si rompemos con la estructura narrativa, con la estructura de recepción, con la estructura tecnológica y con la estructura del goce de las grandes pantallas, yo digo: "¡Señores, esto no es televisión!" Es otro producto cultural. Pero la televisión va a seguir siendo esa práctica hogareña, colectiva y discursiva que me permite llegar al día siguiente a mi trabajo y decirle a un compañero: "¿Viste ayer «Bailando por un sueño»? ¿Viste ayer el último capítulo de Lost ?"

-En el caso de la información, es todavía más difícil imaginar un consumo personalizado, porque uno está habituado a conocer el mundo a través de la mirada que nos presenta el noticiero, aun a riesgo de que el recorte sea sesgado

-Esa es una muy buena observación para empezar a pensar cuánto queremos nosotros, los televidentes, ser programadores y cuánto queremos que nos seduzcan, nos narren historias o nos cuenten qué pasó en el mundo desde la perspectiva de ellos, de los que hacen la televisión. Digo esto porque detrás de algunas promesas tecnológicas está la idea de un ciudadano hiperactivo. Es cierto que hay una lenta activación del consumidor y que, además, al consumidor le gusta tener una distribución propia de su tiempo libre. Pero lo que no es verdad es que yo quiera ser el productor de mi propio entretenimiento. Uno de los grandes atractivos de la TV es su capacidad de sorprendernos. Condenar al espectador a armar su propia fiesta es matar el vínculo que tenemos con la televisión.

-¿Cuál es la reacción de los televidentes ante la creciente fragmentación de la TV por cable, que ofrece canales de series, de noticias, de ciclos para la mujer, de gastronomía, de deportes, etc.?

-En los años 80, cuando apareció el cable, surgió la teoría de que la segmentación iba a permitir que algunos eligieran ver series, otros deportes y otros noticias. Pero en los 90, los análisis de los consumos demostraron que no existe el televidente al que le gusta una sola cosa. Alguien puede tener preferencia por los documentales, las películas o las noticias, pero aun ese televidente de segmentación también quiere ver otras cosas. Quiere zapping, quiere algunas transgresiones, quiere ver programas cuya existencia le resulta inconcebible, quiere ver horrores. Cada tanto, quiere ver ciertas cosas de las que los demás viven hablando, pero que él, por convicciones ideológicas, culturales o políticas, normalmente no mira. En nuestros consumos culturales, todos tenemos una complejidad mucho mayor que la idea de que somos una señal dedicada a un solo tema. Entonces, si la promesa que me hace el teléfono es que yo voy a poder elegir las series que quiero ver, las noticias de las que me quiero enterar y la cantidad de deporte que va a haber en mi paquete televisivo, sostengo que la promesa es pobre, porque implica que yo voy a ser capaz de producir mis propias sorpresas, y eso sería la muerte de la televisión.

Por Adriana Schettini
Para LA NACION

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/nota.asp?nota_id=886252
LA NACION 24.02.2007 Página 1 Política

Adios al Papel??

2007-02-25T05:51:00.000-08:00

Los diarios ante el desafío digital ¿Adiós al papel?
Mientras algunos imaginan un futuro puramente digital, los nombres principales de la industria periodística apuestan a un escenario complejo que logre sintetizar las riquezas de los distintos formatos
Por Juana Libedinsky

LONDRES.- La noticia de que en unos cinco años sería imposible comprar The New York Times y sentarse a leerlo con el típico café comprado en el carrito de la calle dio la vuelta al mundo en pocos minutos y reavivó el debate entre agoreros del fin del papel y la llegada triunfal de la pantalla. Arthur Sulzberger, propietario, presidente y editor del diario internacional más influyente del mundo -la catedral occidental del periodismo impreso- lo deslizó sin demasiado dramatismo al reflexionar sobre el avance de Internet: "El diario en papel podría simplemente no existir más", dijo.

"La naturaleza del desafío que entrañan los medios digitales -explica Bruno Patiño, director de Le Monde Interactif y autor del libro Un mundo sin Guttemberg - hoy es un círculo complicado en el cual se conjugan la fuga de publicidad, el costo del papel y, por supuesto, los hábitos de las nuevas generaciones, más cercanas a las pantallas. Esto último no es nuevo, ya se venía diciendo desde los años 50 con la televisión y la radio, pero con la diferencia de que Internet es activamente participativa y esto sí trajo un cambio revolucionario. Además la publicidad gráfica, ante un lectorado que envejece y se reduce en número, inexorablemente cae". Y, por supuesto, si se va la publicidad, el papel se vuelve más caro, y menos gente puede acceder a comprar el diario.

"En los EE.UU. los diarios están tratando de ver desesperadamente cómo pueden hacer dinero on line (ahora que han perdido gran parte de sus avisos clasificados que se fueron a sitios web especializados), mientras que sus diarios pierden circulación cada tres meses", le dijo a LA NACION, Todd Gitlin, influyente intelectual norteamericano, profesor de periodismo y sociología de la universidad de Columbia.

Philip Meyer, maestro de periodistas y autor del libro The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age, insiste en que hay que ser cautelosos: "Las cifras de la WAN muestran que la circulación paga ha caído en todas partes salvo en el mundo en vías de desarrollo, o sea Asia, América del Sur y Africa. Los diarios son los productos resultantes naturales de la industrialización, porque hacen falta los medios masivos para vender la producción masiva. El desarrollo, sin embargo, eventualmente favorecerá a los medios electrónicos por sobre los impresos en todas partes, a no ser que los editores puedan encontrar un nuevo modelo de negocio". Meyer es de los que creen que los diarios tal como los conocemos hoy tienen los días contados: dice que si tomamos la tendencia actual de caída en lectores de diario, la ponemos en un gráfico y trazamos una línea recta, esta recta tocaría el cero (o sea, ningún lector) para 2043 y un diario deja de imprimirse mucho antes que eso. Meyer, que también es profesor de periodismo de la Universidad de Carolina del Norte en Chapel Hill, cree que sí y afirma que es en Europa donde se están desarrollando los experimentos más interesantes y no en EE.UU. donde los editores, dice, son menos aventureros. "Pero para que los periódicos sobrevivan -sostiene- tendrá que existir una toma de riesgos mucho mayor".

Entre los especialistas consultados por LA NACION hay bastante coincidencia en que en la próxima década seguirá existiendo el diario en papel, aunque en una versión de menor circulación, más cara y personalizada, frente a un potentísimo sitio web. Y las empresas editoras de diarios serán aquellas que pasen a ser gestoras de contenidos y creadoras de opinión pública en los formatos más diversos.

Un caso exitoso es Le Monde Interactif . "El diario papel Le Monde está en una situación económica frágil, pero mantiene su papel de diario de referencia -explica Patiño-. La versión on line se volvió un sitio web de referencia que, por el contrario, está ganando mucho dinero, tanto como para que, en el presupuesto 2007, alcance para cubrir las pérdidas del diario papel".

Patiño, que es profesor de periodismo digital en la Fundación para un Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, resume la relación entre los diarios y sus ediciones on line como la del crecimiento de un hijo. "La primera fase fue de indiferencia hacia el medio digital. La actitud de los medios impresos era es un bebé, dejemos que crezca y veremos después . Luego fue su niñez, en la cual se lo trataba de hacer crecer a imagen y semejanza del padre, el diario escrito. Ahora los medios digitales están en la adolescencia de su relación con los impresos. Los medios impresos se dan cuenta de que son, y serán cada vez más, muy distintos a ellos, y, además, ya empiezan a ganar independencia económica con la que, eventualmente, podrán sostenerlos".

Para la editora de la versión on line de The Times , Anne Spackman, el objetivo es hacer que el sitio web conjugue rapidez y accesibilidad con calidad. Por eso ponemos chicos muy jóvenes, que crecieron con la cultura visual de la web, para las noticias de último momento con una plataforma ultra rápida. Al mismo tiempo tienen la columna vertebral de nuestros periodistas y columnistas avezados, las estrellas del periodismo impreso, dando el análisis y contenido. Pero todo esto no implica que las versiones del diario en papel vayan a desaparecer. Posiblemente cambie la proporción de lectores de uno y otro formato, y el diario papel se vuelva más especializado, caro y para un mercado más sofisticado y reducido, pero ganancias netas no son lo único que motiva a los empresarios a invertir en ellos", dice.

La imagen que busca es la de un club de fútbol: hay gente que los compra y los gestiona por razones no puramente comerciales, sino que conjugan prestigio e influencia. De hecho, según el Financial Times del viernes último, empresarios exitosos como David Geffen y Jack Welch, con poderosos fondos de inversión detrás, ya han declarado su interés en comprar diarios.

"La información se está moviendo hacia dos polos: gratuita, por un lado, y más cara, por el otro", sintetiza Seamus McCauley, analista estratégico de Associated Northcliffe Digital y autor del blog Virtual Economics. Por un lado están los diarios de distribución gratuita, Internet y algunos tabloides que bajan sus precios a un mínimo casi inexistente para competir en ciertos mercados, y por el otro están los diarios de calidad con un precio inelástico".

Entre las opciones gratuitas se deben mencionar también sitios web de información como OhmyNews , pionero, desde Corea del Sur, del periodismo participativo ciudadano, modelo que está siendo reproducido en todas partes del mundo. Su base fundacional reside en que cada ciudadano puede ser un reportero y, en OhmyNews, las notas enviadas por los voluntarios son luego editadas y comprobadas por un staff permanente.

Según Meyer, los diarios papel más exitosos serán aquellos que se diferencien con notas de opinión y análisis, y crónicas o puntos de vista personales escritos con investigación y una pluma de calidad, es decir avanzar en una línea más similar a la que actualmente se deja para las ediciones dominicales. "Es lo que a mí me parece lógico. Sin embargo, va a haber que experimentar mucho para ver que funciona.

"Suele leer más de un medio on line , además de muchos otros sitios. La relación afectiva es por tanto mucho más complicada. La poética que acompaña a la lectura de "tu periódico" en papel, sentarse en un parque, al sol, a leer el periódico, o simplemente llevarlo bajo el brazo en el colectivo queda diluida en Internet."

Hay distintas estrategias que se están probando para lograrlo. "Algo en que fue pionero Libertad Digital fue en ofrecer un espacio a los lectores para crear sus propios blogs -cuenta Juan Antonio Chinchetru, columnista de temas de Internet en Libertad Digital -. Esto les permite expresarse y además les hace sentirse parte de la publicación, puesto que aportan contenidos. Importantes columnistas han dejado formato de artículo para pasar a tener un blog aquí, con lo que sus seguidores (o detractores) pueden participar en un continuo debate. En definitiva, el mejor modo de responder a la especial relación afectiva que los lectores desarrollan con un diario papel es dándoles on line modos de expresarse, que se sientan parte de una comunidad", dice.

¿Y qué no hay que hacer? "Los intentos de frenar la sangría de lectores del diario papel mediante el cierre de contenidos on line (es decir permitir que estos sólo se vean previo pago) ha sido un fracaso. En Internet, el mayor competidor de un periódico en papel no es su propia edición electrónica, es la totalidad de sitios informativos", señala.

Para John Naughton, esto sería un ejemplo de la compleja simbiosis que se da entre un medio escrito y su versión on line que el presenta con un paralelo a lo que ocurre en la naturaleza. "Lo que ha ocurrido es que un nuevo organismo ha arribado al ecosistema mediático y los organismos existentes tienen que acomodarse al recién llegado, y viceversa también. Relaciones complejas, interesantes y esencialmente simbióticas están emergiendo entre medios nuevos como los blogs y el periodismo impreso más tradicional. Mi conjetura es que será beneficioso para ambos", sostiene.

"La cuestión es saber, entonces, si las empresas editoras de diarios sabrán migrar a un nuevo rol social -concluye Txema Alegre, editor de la edición on line de La Vanguardia , de Barcelona-, dejar de ser editores de diarios para ser gestores de contenidos y creadores de opinión pública en los formatos más diversos: papel, digital, móviles, audiovisual, o el que sea. Todos los formatos son compatibles y están en competencia. Así que, en definitiva, si sobrevive el diario papel o no, eso lo dirán los lectores al elegir".

La gran transformación

Pero, en concreto, ¿en qué se transformará un diario nacional grande en los próximos años? " Le Monde , por ejemplo, existirá en formato papel impreso, con una circulación más baja para un público elitista, en versiones semipersonalizadas que lo diferenciarán de la producción masiva actual y, por supuesto, con un sistema de distribución distinto de los puntos de venta actuales", responde Patiño. No será exactamente un diario hecho a medida de cada lector pero, como los autos que pueden venir hoy con un tapizado en particular o ruedas distintas, será algo más diseñado para quien lo use individualmente. Por otra parte estará el sitio web, mucho más potente que el diario. Si hoy el sitio web ya tiene cuatro veces más lectores que el papel, tendrá por lo menos diez veces más y tendrá todo tipo de videos y conexiones interactivas de alta sofisticación. Todo esto le dará una gran capacidad de ganar mucho dinero con publicidad.

"En cuanto a los periodistas -reflexiona Patiño--, hay muy pocos que pueden ser tan buenos en papel como en formato digital. Los que lo logren, sin duda serán la aristocracia de la profesión. Sin embargo, no habrá ya en los próximos cinco años distinciones de jerarquías entre los que trabajan en un medio u otro, porque el modelo de organización será radicalmente distinto. Los productores de historias, los editores y los gestores se relacionarán entre sí con una enorme complejidad pero partiendo de la base de que son dos medios que se nutren". Finalmente, se habrá llegado a la relación entre adultos.

Cifras y tendecias

En todo el mundo se imprimen 8391 diarios, con una tirada global de algo más de mil millones de copias, o una cada seis habitantes del planeta, aunque la distribución real es muy despareja. En América latina circulan 1309 diarios, 1630 en América del Norte, 2115 en Europa, 224 en Africa, 140 en Medio Oriente, 2870 en Asia y 103 en el Pacífico Sur.

Una de las estrategias para atraer a nuevos lectores ha sido el lanzamiento de los diarios gratuitos, un fenómeno que se ha dado en buena parte del planeta. En febrero de 1995 apareció Metro , de distribución en el subte de Estocolmo. Doce años después, suman ahora 169 los diarios gratuitos, con una tirada de 30 millones de copias en 40 países.

Una de las principales causas que se citan para explicar el retroceso de los diarios en los países más desarrollados es la migración de lectores jóvenes hacia los sitios informativos on line. Una investigación de The Economist indicó que los británicos de entre 15 y 24 años pasan un 30% menos de tiempo leyendo diarios a partir del momento en que comienzan a utilizar Internet.

Pese al atractivo de la inmediatez que plantean los diarios digitales, sin embargo, son muy pocos los casos de periódicos que han abandonado el papel para concentrarse exclusivamente en su edición on line. En este sentido, los diarios impresos han demostrado en términos generales una buena capacidad de adaptación a las exigencias de los lectores y una atractiva complementación con su propia versión digital.

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/edicionimpresa/suplementos/enfoques/nota.asp?nota_id=886315
LA NACION 25.02.2007 Página 1 Enfoques

Human attention span

2007-02-03T17:54:00.000-08:00

Le Grand Content

2007-02-03T17:42:00.000-08:00

Buen uso de PWP. Visto en Mira!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWWKBY7gx_0

Le Grand Content (oficial) de Clemens Kogler es un cortometraje que examina el uso de la exposición sobre Power Point para explorar su potencial filosófico. Diagramas de intersección, tortas, ejes cartesianos sirven acá para explicar temas esenciales de la vida.
Link video en Mojiti Edición sobre Mojiti Duración 03:57

Marketing Creativo

2007-02-03T17:31:00.000-08:00

Grey Advertising Argentina

Once an idea guy…always an idea guy

2007-02-03T16:58:00.000-08:00

The Creative Process by Mattias Konradsson

Creativity and innovation are constantly pushing us forward. I'm talking about scientific breakthroughs like cream cheese, groundbreaking new philosophies: "I procrastinate therefore I'm lazy," and seedless water melons. But ask a friend to think up something creative on the spot and he'll look like he ate a bowl of ice cream in a hurry. It's indeed an elusive process. Creativity and ideas don't come on command, they seem to spring up when we least expect it — like a rod of lightning bending our mind in unexpected directions, showing us the way.
Left and right
Eggheads believe that our two brain halves control different "modes" of thinking. This hypothesis was spearheaded by Roger Sperry, who won a Nobel Prize for his research in 1981. The "modes" are roughly divided like this:

Left brain: Logical Sequential Rational Analyzes Objective Parts

Right brain: Random Intuitive Holistic Synthesizes Subjective Wholes

The left brain (don't get delusions of grandeur; you don't have two brains) is concerned with logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy, while the right focuses on aesthetics, feeling, and creativity.
Seems like the right half is is our creative friend, while the right is plotting against us. New ideas comes from breaking out of the norm, ignoring limits and facts, venturing where no one has gone before, to seek out new galaxies and civi... err sorry.
The left brain, on the other hand, analyzes, sorts stuff, and dwells in details, generally sabotaging our creative thinking.
This is bad news for all who weren't blessed with left-handedness, since that means you don't have a dominant right-brain. Left-handed: right-brained, right-handed: left-brained. Confusing, eh? But before you decide to start doing everything left-handed, listen to what I have to say.
Use your right brain
Basically we want to involve our right brain and numb the left one as much as possible.
Remember, this is brainstorming, we're not in production, things doesn't need to be perfectly logical at this point. We need to extract stuff from the brain and put it on some more tangible medium — to find the seed of the idea that will put a Ferrari in our garage.
The trick is to teach yourself to ignore rules, conventions, and must-be's.
If you're creating art, just doodle. If you're writing, just scribble. If you're a lawyer, change occupation.
Even if you don't have a clue what you're doing, you can't escape your unconscious. It moves in mysterious ways.
After a while, nice ideas will start to surface. This might not happen right away; often, you need to train your brain into this sort of thinking (especially if you're right-handed). So keep at it. If good ideas were cheap we'd all be filthy rich.
In time, you'll have a bunch of ideas. Some might work, some would shred your reputation into tiny tiny pieces.
Take a step back
When you've been brainstorming for a while you need to take a step back and let things settle in your mind. Sleep is excellent for this. While you dream, your subconscious will go through information it has assembled, sorting and chewing it over. When you wake up the next morning you might just have figured things out.
Similarly when you have been working on a project for too long, it's easy to get blindsided. Something is not quite right but you just can't figure out what it is. Another scenario is that you think it's perfect, release it — and after a couple of days you find all sorts of horrid mistakes. So take a break, relax, and let the brain do its thing.
Work this way
When I start writing an article I don't write in any particular order, I don't care about spelling, grammar, or wording. I write fast and keep on writing without looking back. I leave details for later since that entails the left brain. This way I get my right brain working in high gear.
Similarly when I try to come up with a new graphic I don't think: "I think I'll make sad-looking dog with fluffy hair." I simply grab the airbrush, spray like a madman (it's particularly funny watching one's co-workers' expressions if they see the work at this stage), run it through a bunch of filters, crop it, blend it, mix it and shake it all around.
Using this process, eventually you'll create something where you see a glimmer of a shape or concept that is worth pursuing.
When I look at some of my "art" I have almost no clue how I created it. I know approximately how it was done, but the steps I took to get there are blurry.
YES! Meetings
This technique was described at a course I recently attended and it works remarkably well.
The idea is to take a group of people, set a topic and let the ideas flow. Whatever the idea, everyone must encourage it: "Yes!"
This helps the eliminate fear of being ridiculed in a group; loss of fear can spur you to make things up. Wacky, impossible ideas are not only tolerated but encouraged. As people loosen up, the topics seem to gravitate towards sex, fortune, and omnipotence. But these are best-selling concepts, so you needn't worry.

Branding a Perception

2007-02-03T16:42:00.000-08:00

By P.J. Bednarski, Editor -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/11/2001

As strategy, branding seems to be the best way to make the sum much larger than its parts. For most of television's existence, the mantra was "People watch programs, not networks." Branding begs to turn that philosophy on its head, and that's a lucky thing for the cable industry, which has far more networks on its hands than it does hits.

Even if that's not what's on, it's what I think is on. That's branding.

articulo completo:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA85714

Ideation Corporation: If you can change your mind, you can change the world

2007-02-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

But how do you change your mind? By slowing down long enough to think: "Experience the power of a slow company."

When it comes to creativity, Joey Reiman believes that slower is better. Why? "Because of technology and globalization, everyone has been speeding up," he says. "That's fine for everyday problems. But high speeds don't help you crack big problems. For that, you need a deliberate thinking process. It's not about doing things faster -- it's about doing them better. And in this case, 'better' means 'slower.' "

Reiman has lots of other ideas about how to generate big ideas: "If your self-worth is high, your net worth will be high." So he urges people to create -- as he has done -- an "anti-bummer squad," consisting of friends and mentors. "When you're feeling uncreative, call the people on your anti-bummer squad and take them out to dinner," says Reiman. "They'll tell you how wonderful you are and how much they love you."
Creativity also requires comfort, Reiman argues. That's why, when he and his staff hosted a brainstorming session for Inter-Continental Hotels and Resorts, they held it on a yacht. "I thought that being on a yacht would increase people's self-esteem -- which would in turn produce a much more creative atmosphere."
Reiman also recommends doing something new every day. "Instead of telling people to grow up, I tell them to grow down," he says. "All kids, when asked to sing or dance, will do it. But when I ask groups of people in their forties and fifties, 'Will anyone get up and dance?' they all dive under the table. If you want to be creative, you've got to be able to dance."

http://www.thinkbrighthouse.com/

Fast Company: Issue 26 June 1999 Page 58 By: Curtis Sittenfeld

Companies should be idea-led and comsumer-informed

2007-02-03T16:07:00.000-08:00

Change Your Mind, Grow Your Company

In a world filled with dogma, the future of business belongs to the heretics.

The only unsurprising thing about the new economy is that it's full of surprises. Who could have predicted that Dell Computer, a company started by an undergrad at the University of Texas, would outperform the world's most powerful technology company? Or that America Online, long ridiculed as a destination for "newbies," would acquire the world's best-known media company?
These propositions seem downright heretical -- and that's what makes them so powerful. Indeed, the folks at Merkley Newman Harty, a New York City-based, $300 million ad agency with such big-name clients as BellSouth and the motorcycle division of BMW, believe that the only way to lead in the new world of work is to deconstruct the ruling dogma of your industry, to generate heretical ideas to challenge that dogma, and then to build strategies (as well as branding campaigns) around those ideas. "I'm trying to bury the phrase 'We're the voice of the consumer,' " says Douglas Atkin, 43, partner and director of strategic planning at Merkley. "These days, you can't succeed as a company if you're consumer-led -- because, in a world full of so much constant change, consumers can't anticipate the next big thing. Companies should be idea-led and consumer-informed."
And the most important idea is your "governing brand idea" -- an overall perspective that includes original insights about such things as the nature of what you're offering, your values, your personality, and your marketing performance. A governing brand idea distinguishes you from conventional wisdom and creates a compelling alternative in the eyes of customers. "In a world of change," Atkin and his colleagues like to say, "either you make history, or you are history."

http://work.merkleyandpartners.com/site/home.html

Idea Factory

2007-02-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks to BrainStore's Industrial IdeaProduction process and the world's only IdeaMachine, amazing ideas are produced in record time for each assignment, that meet the pre-defined criteria for successful ideas.
BrainStore has specialised in the process of idea development for 17 years. For each project, a new team is created from the BrainStore Community of over 5 000 freelancers. This process guarantees the most diverse viewpoints and wide support by all those involved, not to mention amazement and speed.Clients such as BMW, BASF, Credit Suisse and Nestlé trust BrainStore's unique IdeaProduction in their search for innovation.

All BrainStore projects are processed with the IdeaMachine. The Machine is made up of four elements: IdeaBoosting, Compression, Decision and Management.

IdeaBoostMany different Tools are used to boost the collection of thousands of inspirations. The Tools - NetScouting, TrendScouting, IdeaInterviews and ExpertInterviews - create a wealth of elements, which enrich the ideas and inputs from the various participants of the CreativeTeam workshop, the main function of IdeaBoosting.CompressionThe Compression process is made up of three steps: IdeaCity, in which the inspirations collected in the IdeaBoosting process are combined and forged into concrete ideas by a large team; ThinkTank, where Experts assess the remaining ideas according to the project criteria; and IdeaDesign, in which the ideas are clearly and comparably visualised.SelectionIn the third part of the IdeaMachine the ideas are assessed by many different people, and the favourites are selected. The highlight is the IdeaSelection. ManagementThe ideas are prepared for implementation. In the RoadMap workshops BrainStore develops the further steps required for each idea together with the project team. Answers are found as to whom and what is needed in order to successfully implement the idea.Each idea is visually prepared according to its content, so that it can emotionally inspire the implementation team on an internal or external level, and that the significance of the ideas can be grasped. A catalogue of usage possibilities exists for each idea.

"Cuando los argentinos piensan una cosa, ya creen que está hecha"

2007-02-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

CulturaMiércoles 31 de Enero de 2007

"Lo primero que tienen que hacer es atajar la violencia", dice Puig Picart, especialista en gestión cultural
Foto: Miguel Acevedo Riú

"Cuando los argentinos piensan una cosa, ya creen que está hecha"

Lo afirma el catalán Toni Puig Picart, que pone su lupa sobre Buenos Aires
“El problema de los argentinos es que cuando piensan una cosa, ya creen que está hecha y resuelta”, dice el catalán Toni Puig Picart, asesor en comunicación del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona e impulsor del concepto de “marca ciudad”, que puso a la tierra de Miró y de Gaudí en la primera división de las ciudades europeas.

Especialista en gestión cultural y en marketing público, Puig Picart es autor, entre otros libros, de Se acabó la diversión y La comunicación municipal, cómplice de los ciudadanos (Paidós, 2003). Ahora pone la lupa sobre Buenos Aires para descubrir sus fortalezas y debilidades.
“Esta ciudad debe dar un gran salto cualitativo y plantearse qué quiere ser en el futuro, porque no se trata solamente de arreglar las cosas para que sigan funcionando, sino de dar soluciones a la cantidad de problemas irresueltos que, evidentemente, existen”, dice quien después de estudiar teología, filosofía y arte, y de crear, en 1974, la innovadora y desenfadada revista Ajoblanco, decidió, a principios de los 80, dar un sorpresivo salto a la gestión pública, a la que llegó para quedarse.

Por Carmen María Ramos Para LA NACION

ver la nota completa en:
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/cultura/nota.asp?nota_id=879556

The Society of the Spectacle - Chapter 1

2007-02-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

The Society of the Spectacle
Chapter 1: The Culmination of Separation

“But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence . . . truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.”
—Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity

1
In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.
2
The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudoworld that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomized images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving.
3
The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation.
4
The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.
5
The spectacle cannot be understood as a mere visual deception produced by mass-media technologies. It is a worldview that has actually been materialized, a view of a world that has become objective.
6
Understood in its totality, the spectacle is both the result and the project of the dominant mode of production. It is not a mere decoration added to the real world. It is the very heart of this real society’s unreality. In all of its particular manifestations — news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment — the spectacle represents the dominant model of life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production. In both form and content the spectacle serves as a total justification of the conditions and goals of the existing system. The spectacle also represents the constant presence of this justification since it monopolizes the majority of the time spent outside the production process.
7
Separation is itself an integral part of the unity of this world, of a global social practice split into reality and image. The social practice confronted by an autonomous spectacle is at the same time the real totality which contains that spectacle. But the split within this totality mutilates it to the point that the spectacle seems to be its goal. The language of the spectacle consists of signs of the dominant system of production — signs which are at the same time the ultimate end-products of that system.
8
The spectacle cannot be abstractly contrasted to concrete social activity. Each side of such a duality is itself divided. The spectacle that falsifies reality is nevertheless a real product of that reality. Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it. Objective reality is present on both sides. Each of these seemingly fixed concepts has no other basis than its transformation into its opposite: reality emerges within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the essence and support of the existing society.
9
In a world that is really upside down, the true is a moment of the false.
10
The concept of “the spectacle” interrelates and explains a wide range of seemingly unconnected phenomena. The apparent diversities and contrasts of these phenomena stem from the social organization of appearances, whose essential nature must itself be recognized. Considered in its own terms, the spectacle is an affirmation of appearances and an identification of all human social life with appearances. But a critique that grasps the spectacle’s essential character reveals it to be a visible negation of life — a negation that has taken on a visible form.
11
In order to describe the spectacle, its formation, its functions, and the forces that work against it, it is necessary to make some artificial distinctions. In analyzing the spectacle we are obliged to a certain extent to use the spectacle’s own language, in the sense that we have to operate on the methodological terrain of the society that expresses itself in the spectacle. For the spectacle is both the meaning and the agenda of our particular socio-economic formation. It is the historical moment in which we are caught.
12
The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: “What appears is good; what is good appears.” The passive acceptance it demands is already effectively imposed by its monopoly of appearances, its manner of appearing without allowing any reply.
13
The tautological character of the spectacle stems from the fact that its means and ends are identical. It is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the globe, endlessly basking in its own glory.
14
The society based on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is fundamentally spectaclist. In the spectacle — the visual reflection of the ruling economic order — goals are nothing, development is everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself.
15
As indispensable embellishment of currently produced objects, as general articulation of the system’s rationales, and as advanced economic sector that directly creates an ever-increasing mass of image-objects, the spectacle is the leading production of present-day society.
16
The spectacle is able to subject human beings to itself because the economy has already totally subjugated them. It is nothing other than the economy developing for itself. It is at once a faithful reflection of the production of things and a distorting objectification of the producers.
17
The first stage of the economy’s domination of social life brought about an evident degradation of being into having — human fulfillment was no longer equated with what one was, but with what one possessed. The present stage, in which social life has become completely dominated by the accumulated productions of the economy, is bringing about a general shift from having to appearing — all “having” must now derive its immediate prestige and its ultimate purpose from appearances. At the same time all individual reality has become social, in the sense that it is shaped by social forces and is directly dependent on them. Individual reality is allowed to appear only if it is not actually real.
18
When the real world is transformed into mere images, mere images become real beings — dynamic figments that provide the direct motivations for a hypnotic behavior. Since the spectacle’s job is to use various specialized mediations in order to show us a world that can no longer be directly grasped, it naturally elevates the sense of sight to the special preeminence once occupied by touch: the most abstract and easily deceived sense is the most readily adaptable to the generalized abstraction of present-day society. But the spectacle is not merely a matter of images, nor even of images plus sounds. It is whatever escapes people’s activity, whatever eludes their practical reconsideration and correction. It is the opposite of dialogue. Wherever representation becomes independent, the spectacle regenerates itself.
19
The spectacle inherits the weakness of the Western philosophical project, which attempted to understand activity by means of the categories of vision, and it is based on the relentless development of the particular technical rationality that grew out of that form of thought. The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophizes reality, reducing everyone’s concrete life to a universe of speculation.

Ver resto en link: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/1.htm

"Dentro de la nueva sociedad del espectáculo"

2007-02-03T15:24:00.000-08:00

El poeta Rodolfo Alonso y la cultura banal

“Una auténtica perspectiva ecológica no sólo deberá seguir teniendo en cuenta los daños sufridos por el planeta, sino también por nosotros, los seres humanos, en cuanto especie y en cuanto personas”, dice Rodolfo Alonso, escritor y poeta. Y advierte que el hombre se enfrenta hoy al desafío de preservar su integridad en un mundo que tiende, cada vez más, a producir consumistas compulsivos y acríticos. “Y el consumismo tiene como aliado el ruido y el vértigo de la vida moderna. Hay música ruidosa en los subtes, los colectivos, los bares, los comercios y hasta en los mismos hogares. Y donde hay aturdimiento no se puede pensar bien”, agrega. A la vez, denuncia que la depresión y la ansiedad, cada vez más aguda, del hombre del siglo XXI se debe a que hoy, como nunca antes en la historia, se niega la muerte y la última etapa de la vida, que es la vejez: “Hoy nadie quiere envejecer –dice– y este inútil afán de ser eternos adolescentes lleva a las personas a aturdirse, a llenar su vacío existencial comprando objetos banales, y a alejarse del pensamiento reflexivo y la creatividad”. También opina que Internet no contribuye a la democratización del mundo, sino que es una forma más sofisticada de control social y de homologación cultural, y que la poesía es una de los antídotos más eficaces contra la alienación moderna, debido a que es el género en el que el hombre se expresa más espontánea y sinceramente: "Lo que llamamos poesía es, acaso, una forma de comunicarnos más a fondo, de ser más hombres, de vivir el lenguaje como una experiencia de asombro, celebración y encuentro".

Rodolfo Alonso es poeta, traductor, y ensayista. Fue el más joven de la legendaria revista de vanguardia Poesía Buenos Aires . Tuvo su propio sello editorial. Fue el primer traductor de Fernando Pessoa en América latina. Además, es una de las voces más reconocidas de la poesía latinoamericana contemporánea. -¿Cuál es la situación del artista en este nuevo siglo? -El triunfo de la sociedad industrial blanca, con su sistema agresivo de producción, se propagó por todo el planeta y alcanzó a gigantes como China y la India. Todos los grandes países del mundo se han convertido hoy en sociedades burocráticas y autoritarias de consumo, al decir de un pensador. Pero hay que destacar que, junto a este modelo de sociedad, ha surgido un modelo paralelo, y es la "sociedad del espectáculo", como la llamó Guy Debord, que no es otra cosa que la sociedad de los grandes medios de difusión audiovisuales. Esta nueva sociedad del show surgió del seno de la sociedad de consumo, y ha crecido hasta envolverlo todo, y me atrevo a decir que ha sumido al mundo en una especie de mar de mediocridad, del que el mismo artista rara vez puede salvarse. Para crear se necesita de silencio, y la sociedad de consumo es ruidosa y vertiginosa. -¿De modo que el hombre que desea conservar su independencia de pensamiento y su paz interior debería aislarse para evitar el aturdimiento y la disipación? -Este es el problema con la sociedad del espectáculo: es muy difícil sustraerse a su influencia. Antes los poetas hacían peñas literarias y se reunían en los bares a leer, a conversar. Pero ahora el ruido lo impide. Y me extraña que, a la par de los movimientos ecologistas que bregan por el bien de la naturaleza, no surja un movimiento que luche contra la contaminación del espíritu humano. -¿Un nuevo humanismo? -Es probable. Yo deseo que surja un movimiento que se interese por los daños sufridos por el hombre en esta cultura de la banalización, en la que una especie de tecnolatría ha desplazado a los valores de la cultura. Y la tecnolatría tiene que ver con la entronización de la imagen y la desvalorización de la palabra. Esto no sería algo grave si nuestra cultura no tuviera sus cimientos en el lenguaje, pero todos saben que esto es así.

Ver version completa en link: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/876772
Por Sebastián Dozo Moreno Para LA NACION

First things first 2000 Manifesto

2007-02-03T14:33:00.000-08:00

The First Things First 2000 manifesto, written and launched by Adbusters magazine in 1999, was an updated version of the earlier First Things First manifesto written and published in 1964 by Ken Garland, a British designer. It was signed by a group of 33 figures from the international graphic design community, many of them well known, and simultaneously published in Adbusters (Canada), Emigre and AIGA Journal of Graphic Design (United States), Eye and Blueprint (Britain) and Items (Netherlands). The manifesto was subsequently published in many other magazines and books around the world, sometimes in translation. Its aim was to generate discussion about the graphic design profession's priorities in the design press and at design schools. Some designers welcomed this attempt to reopen the debate, while others rejected the manifesto.
The question of value-free design has been continually contested in the graphic design community between those who are concerned about the need for values in design and those who believe it should be value-free. Those who believe that design can be free from values reject the idea that graphic designers should concern themselves with underlying political questions. Those who are concerned about values believe that designers should be critical and take a stand in their choice of work, for instance by not promoting industries and products perceived to be harmful. Examples of projects that might be classified as unacceptable include many forms of advertising and designs for cigarette manufacturers, arms companies and so on. Adbusters has been a significant outlet for these ideas, especially in its commitment to detournement and culture jamming.

[edit] External links
Text of the Manifesto
Adbusters report on the Manifesto

Navegando UGC

2006-12-17T05:53:00.000-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-generated_content

Packaged Goods Media vs. Conversational Media, Part One (Updated)
http://battellemedia.com/archives/003160.php

wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_TV

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1937496,00.html

Society of Spectacle

2006-12-15T19:22:00.000-08:00

Self-proclaimed leader of the Situationist International, Guy Debord was certainly responsible for the longevity and high profile of Situationist ideas, although the equation of the SI with Guy Debord would be misleading. Brilliant but autocratic, Debord helped both unify situationist praxis and destroy its expansion into areas not explicitly in line with his own ideas. His text The Society of the Spectacle remains today one of the great theoretical works on modern-day capital, cultural imperialism, and the role of mediation in social relationships.
After the dissolution of the Situationist International, Debord was tangentially implicated in the assassination of his friend and publisher Gérard Lebovici. The accusations infuriated Debord, and he consequently prohibited the showing of his films in France during his lifetime. Debord continued writing, and in 1989 he published his Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle, arguing that everything he wrote in 1967 was still true, with one major exeception: the society of the spectacle had reached a new form, that of the integrated spectacle. The prospect of overturning the society of the spectacle seemed more unlikely than ever. In December of 1994, at the age of 62, Debord killed himself. The French press, who had always repudiated the significance of the Situationist International, suddenly made him a celebrity.

Primer dia, nuevo blog

2006-12-15T16:54:00.000-08:00

We shape our tools
and in term they shape us

Marshall McLuhan