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Luck is where Preparation Meets Opportunity: CMU’s Randy Pausch July 12, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Career, Video, Trends, floridacreatives, Disney, Teaching, Storytelling, Love , 1 comment so far

So many great things in this video - it’s an hour and fifteen minutes, but you really should watch this.

Not only did Randy achieve his childhood dreams, but he has taken his process for doing so and boiled it down to this talk, which we can now pass on to others. This guy is dying, yet he is so positive. I love it and I love this talk. Thanks @supaben34 for bringing up my day (actually, my whole year).

Some key points:

Falling in Love 5 Seconds at a Time April 25, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Twitter, Love , add a comment

As a follow-up to my last post, I will give the additional point that on Twitter your 5 minutes are reduced to something more like 5 seconds

What every small town local bookstore should do April 1, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Markteting, HowTo, Video, Film, Shopping, Trends, Books, Travel, Contributors, OrlandoScene, Teaching, open source, Branding, Storytelling, Love , 2 comments

I jsut finished reading Rent Girl by Michelle Tea. It’s a neat little book - half novella and half graphic novel. There are some beautiful illustrations by Laurenn McCubbin in there that were a big reason for my picking up the book in the first place - it just drew you right in, you wanted to know what was up with this young girl from Boston and why she was into being a hooker in the first place - and the back of the book says something about her quitting, but still needing to pay the bills? I’m there.

However Michelle Tea and this book are not the subject of this blog. At least, not directly.

I picked up this indy book at an indy book shop - I was on vacation, visiting Tempe, Arizona, walking to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, hiking the Grand Canyon, getting yummy sandwiches from the co-op and drinking local beer. And next to the Trader Joe’s in the adobe-colored shopping center (really, they all were) was this little book store, Changing Hands.

Wait YUMMY!

Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe Arizona, corner of McClintock and Guadalupe. There was a café, I think, and there was a section up front with fun games - the kinds of stuff you’d see on the bookshelves of Barnes and Noble next year once they hit critical mass. Like all indy book shops, there was a table near the customer service desk with eye-catching books, new arrivals, and the ever-present signed-or-to-be-signed books. And here was Rent Girl. I had spent my time there checking out art books - graphic novels, collections of illustrations, and a couple of re-printed sketchbooks. I always love looking at stuff like that, but I don’t ever know what I would do with it. Then there was this illustrated storybook, but with naked girls and lesbianism and drug dealing.

I only read a few pages on the plane, it was too naughty. I actually couldn’t wrap my head around this book until recently, somehow I feel that by absorbing some women’s media I can try to understand the industry a bit better - things aimed at guys are too easy to understand, low hanging fruit - women’s music, film and books are another beast.

But I digress. I want to plant a seed at Changing Hands in Tempe and Urban Think in Orlando and the Bookmine in Jacksonville, and all the other places where you feel proud buying a naughty graphic novel. This advice isn’t exactly ground-shaking, but I think it makes sense:

Every small town book shop should:

  1. Print their own books.
  2. Teach classes about how to print your own books.
  3. Sell said hand-made and self-published books.
  4. Sell books by local authors on the internet.
  5. Show and sell art on the walls.
  6. Have free and open wi-fi.
  7. Record video/audio podcasts with visiting authors.
  8. Have a space in-store and online for customers to have a conversation, either about books or what happened on last night’s LOST.
  9. Be a place where you want to come to read a book.
  10. Be a place where you would hang out with your friends.
  11. Be the first place you want to visit when you get off of work.
  12. Have space for local groups to hold meetings.

In London I saw a store that only sells Chess and Bridge supplies. They’ve got the largest selection of that stuff you’ve ever seen - no big box store could compete. And on the same block is a store that only sells Flutes. I’m told there’s a store on the other side of the river that only sells French Horns. Granted, in a big city there is a need for places that specialized, but I think even a small town book store can take some tips from these places.

All Flutes Plus Villandry

I saw another place that was a grocery, bookstore, gift shop and restaurant all in one. They wouldn’t let me take pictures in there, it was so unique. They press their own olive oil.

In a certain way, Stardust Video & Coffee here in Orlando has achieved so much of what’s on my list, but the utility of the store, renting movies, was not lucrative enough for them, so they opened up to being more cafe-and-performance-space than video rental space. They’ve recently added a second stage with a strict “no dry-humping” policy, and they also sell hard liquor in addition to their amazing selection of beers, decent wine, tea, coffee, baked goods and original food.

I suppose if there was a local printer, they could achieve something similar without needing to do the actual printing themselves, but I guess that’s part of the point of the bookstore, yes?

As a “video and coffee” establishment, I don’t see where Stardust is the last word on video other than the selection, but I always felt like I wasn’t smart enough to rent there, that the right to rent a film was reserved for someone with a more cultured taste than I. However, the Thursday night Broken Speech Poetry Slam or the local rock shows they have are completely accessible, and I’ve played drums on stage at Stardust many times. Maybe that’s just partly attributed to my training as a musician, but why do I feel I’m below the film?

I guess I’m trying to encourage these book shops to become the Third Place that we are all craving here in Orlando right now. In the land of corporate coffee, the local coffee shop has evolved, mostly in order to survive. I think the local bookstore has a few more steps to take before they’re all grown up.

Which bookstores have you noticed fitting into their niche?

…continued…

This is an old meme I found via Tara Hunt and Pinko Marketing. I’ve been trying to describe local media (or at least the goals of the media I’ve been trying to produce) and what’s supposed to be for sale at Petentials and similar sites. The point isn’t to sell 24,000 of an item priced $1 but 1,000 of an item priced $24, let’s say.

Boutique (from my mac dictionary): French, literally ‘small shop,’ via Latin from Greek apothēkē ‘storehouse.’ Compare with bodega .

Some people are getting my reference to boutique mixed up with luxury brands. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead with Louis Vuitton bag and I’m sure most Boutiquers wouldn’t be either. The difference, as the diagram suggests (and there are many more differences than I quickly plotted in this image) is the motivations for buying. I said, “Bought for connection” because, as Sanford commented in the previous posts comment section:

“People go out of their way to purchase certain goods - like moleskine notebooks - or buy cheese from specific vendors because it broadcasts something about who they are. This statement can be personal/internal, shared with a small audience…”

The “small shop” concept is the feeling I got at Villandry in London - it was right in the heart of downtown, near the international embassy district, but instead of being generic, they were hyper-specialized. It was the kind of place you’d bring your aunts and uncles who were visiting town, to show off the awesome places that can grown up in your backyard, and they’d sit back and go “I would never buy anything in here, but I’m in awe of the place.” That’s how I feel at Stardust, that’s likely how some folks feel in the front room at Dandelion Communitea, or the co-op area at Infusion Tea in College Park. What does it all mean? How did these people come to create this art, or this custom stationery, or eco-friendly teacups, or press their own olive oil? Why are there hundreds of movies I’ve never heard of, and how in the hell can they organize them by country and director instead of genre? Who does that?

Boutiques do that. The perfect local bookstore would do that.

Villandry Villandry

Take a look at people who use open source software, you’ll find the same aesthetic. Hand-made, personalized, specific, and powerful in the hands of a well-informed user, but you don’t need to be the guy who wrote it to use it or change it. You think there should be a French translation? That’s up to you. A sixth checkbox? Hack it in, contribute it to the repository. Make this the best tool for you, and therefore the best tool for folks who know where to look.

I could go on all night. Maybe I’ll go on this weekend at BarCamp. But I don’t title it “indy bookstore”. What is it?

The 80/20 Rule and Win-Win-Win March 21, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Markteting, Podcasts, Links, Quotes, Video, Trends, Entrepreneurship, open source, Love , 2 comments

Gary Vaynerchuk talks about a secret that he thinks is at the core of much of his success.

Reposted from: The 80/20 Business rule…..heck Life - my 2 minute take on life

Many folks who were at Future of Web Apps in Miami had nice things to say about Gary V’s talk. I’ve also seen some other really nice videos by this guy on the web, and probably bookmarked them on my Ma.gnolia - check the RSS or link over there to check my bookmarks.

I can’t say that Gary has all these ideas himself, and he does credit Kathy Sierra and Tara Hunt at the beginning of his video (google those people if you don’t know who we’re talking about).

Right, I don’t think all his ideas are too super-original, but he has a very large and very rabid audience, and he understands how he got them, and he also presents it in a very down-to-earth manner. There is no barrier to entry for Gary unless you’re afraid of spelling his name or people from New York.

I also like how he tells us not to channel Calacanis (or whoever), but just to be ourselves and do it really well and look out for other people.

If you look at your seemingly selfless (my brother would say altruistic) efforts in the ways you are benefiting yourself, the other person and those around you (or you, your partners in business and the community, or you, your fellow artists and the people who enjoy your art), you’re going to have not only success, but a great feeling about how you got there.

Win-Win is not enough, you have to look for Win3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, true, but if you paid attention in physics, there is always a release of heat or some byproduct of the reaction. If you can find the way to set up a reaction with a happy byproduct, everyone wins.

Take Hydrogen Fuel Cells. They last longer, they’re sustainable to produce (I think), and the waste product is water. The customers are happy because of the small powerful battery, the business should be happy because they’re not working with a limited supply of something like oil, and the people of the world should be happy because there isn’t a battery rotting in the ground.

Open source is the same. When everyone is giving 80%, expecting 20%, the products are amazing, the community is healthy and the users of the products are happy. Win-Win-Win.

I can see this especially given my new situation with Petentials. We have all been giving so much for so long, but it’s getting so easy to do things now, our vision is getting really razor-sharp, we’re having a napalm-like burst of awesome ideas, and we can see the next plateau.

Things are just going really well right now. I have my complaints, but if there was nothing to reach for, I think I would lock myself in my apartment and curl up in a ball for lack of something to do. I am addicted to this stuff, and I’m starting to see the rewards.

Will Your Subscribers Miss You? February 23, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Site News, Markteting, Podcasts, Reviews, OrlandoScene, Love , add a comment

Punk Marketing: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution is a super-fantastic book by Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons. I saw it while strolling through the business section at a Books-A-Million and immediately fell in love with the artwork and the aesthetic of the whole book. I’m not exactly the target audience for this book, but considering that most of the media I consume is not about marketing explicitly, it was nice to see so much new millenium marketing material in the same place.

I also downloaded the audio appendix from Audible - Punk Marketing Manifesto: The Arguments (Unabridged) (the Amazon link for this isn’t working right now, but I’m including it so I don’t have to go back later). Both the book and this audio conversation about the book do a great job of setting up the idea that there is a different kind of marketer in the world: the one who understands that people are smart, who uses his day-to-day experiences to construct messages, who is constantly revising his mission. They even left Article #15 of their manifesto as a fill-in-the-blank for the readers of the book. That makes me feel like I belong to a community because I’m in the punk set now.

Today as I was looking over their recent blogs, I noticed this article about an ad campaign where they told customers the whopper was no longer on the menu, or gave them Big Macs or Wendy’s burgers instead, and it got me thinking

New Coke + 22 years = Whopper Freakout
I love the fact they used what happened to Coke in 1985 to create a whopper of an idea, demonstrating in the most entertaining way possible how BK customers really feel about their Whoppers (if you see what I mean).

Even though I haven’t had one in months, if went to Burger King and you told me the Whoppers were gone, I’d be moved to start a riot with the people in the dining room. They can’t get rid of the Whopper! It’s an American institution!

Right?

Then I started thinking about when this happens with media. This is the principle that LOST is built upon - right when you get so attached to the story that there’s no possible way you can get to tomorrow without knowing what happens next, they end the episode (and sometimes go on a 5-week hiatus for Christmas, but they fixed that for Season 4). The worst example of this is Joss Whedon’s Firely, which we learned to love on DVD, only to find out we could never have any more. It’s like ordering an endangered species on the menu of a restaurant.

What about the independent media? Have there been times in my life when I was heartbroken about a podcast’s cancellation, or a blogger’s retirement?

When Amanda left Rocketboom, it was only a matter of time before my curiosity about “How well can they do this show without her?” was satisfied and I stopped subscribing. When my friend Emily moved to another city, the experience I was so in love with, that of creating media, was taken away from me.

I’m certainly in love with the creation process, but are my readers and listeners and viewers in love with me? Have I given them the ability to properly let me know they are? What would happen if I removed all of the permalinks? Would our lives be different if the moment of serendipity, when you find someone else operating on you wavelength, was stifled?

I’m really wondering what I’m going to do with Blogging Fringe this year. Last May, I was completely ready to dump my pocket change into it and get more entrenched in the Fringe community, try to figure out how to afford touring, make it an international experience. Then my dream swelled a little and I started thinking about schemes that would bring a much broader group into an I-love-this situation not just with a 2-week slice of the year, but with every day in a new city. Since then, Orlando Scene TV has proven the possibility of fanning the flames of someone who already possesses the spark of inspiration.

This is what I learned today - maybe for the second or third time - my content (at least in my estimation) is for those who are looking, not those I am looking for. My goals are often stated like I can show this product to anyone and be so confident in the message or the subject matter that they will have no choice but to fall in love. That’s not the kind of media I produce. Maybe that’s not the kind any of us are producing.

I’m broke, I’ve got a job I am in love with that doesn’t pay me, I live where I love and I have people I love all around me. But I think I need to deprive myself of a few of these local comforts in order to learn something about myself, or just to find a way to make money.