"then we begin to craft around our intention"→

Apple's WWDC 2013 keynote began with a rare sight, an intro video, a beautiful and brilliant sequence. A direct and clear declaration of Apple's intentions. Simple, in black and white, with prose that elegantly addressed many of the recent criticisms aimed at the company. My fellow artists, artisans and technicians, may our intentions be this specific and clear so we may craft our works around them.  

From the newly launched Designed by Apple page on their site:  

This is it.
This is what matters.
The experience of a product.
How it makes someone feel.
When you start imagining
What that might be like, 
You step back. 
You think. 

Who will this help? 
Will it make life better? 
Does this deserve to exist?
If you are busy making everything, 
How can you perfect anything? 

We don't believe in coincidence.
Or dumb luck. 
There are a thousand "no's"
For every "yes."
We spend a lot of time
On a few great things. 
Until every idea we touch
Enhances each life it touches. 

We're engineers and artists.
Craftsmen and inventors.
We sign our work. 
You may rarely look at it. 
But you'll always feel it. 
This is our signature.
And it means everything. 

Designed by Apple in California

Theater Business Models: The Next Frontier→

Scott Walters, Professor of Drama at the University of North Carolina, encouraging arts organizations to really consider innovation in performing arts' business models: 

I’m a theatre historian, and as such I am prone to making sweeping generalizations without batting an eye, especially when I am trying to cover 2500 years of theatre history in a single semester course. Here’s an example of such a generality: theatre people spent the first 2000+ years innovating about theatre spaces: they invented the arena theatre of ancient campfire storytelling, the thrust stage of the Greeks and Elizabethans, the moveable stages of the medieval mysteries and commedia, the proscenium of the Italian Renaissance. Throughout most of that time, while storytelling techniques waxed and waned, generally speaking we had a fairly consistent form: plays written in verse with a presentational relationship between the actors and the audience (i.e., usually somebody talked directly to the audience), and a mixture of words, music, and dance. We then spent about 300 years getting really good at writing plays — Shakespeare, Moliere, etc. Then in the 20th century (if you extend the 20th century back to the 1870s), we spent most of our time developing “isms“: realism, naturalism, expressionism, symbolism, dadaism, theatricalism, absurdism, and so on. Postmodernism stands as the end point of the “ism” period, an admission that we’ve pretty much discovered all the isms there are and now all that’s left is to create mashups out of them.

So we up until now innovated about space and about form — what’s next? Well, in my opinion, the next area for innovation is (drum roll, please) in theatre’s business model. […] Back in 1947, Albert Einstein said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Well, without a new business model (or, better yet, many new models), I predict theatre will end up back gathered in a circle on the threshing floor telling stories around the fire, the theatrical equivalent of sticks and stones.

This is a subject that really fascinates me, particularly when I'm at board meetings for arts organizations.  Most artists work very hard to look ahead, to create ahead. Sure the great ones know the history of their craft very well, respect it, and they look ahead. On the other hand the boards and operations, in essence those artists' support systems, seem determined to continue to do their work, their art, only in ways that worked before.  

The fact is, as Walters mentions on his blog, most regional theaters, and I would venture most performing arts organizations, are working on the business model first made popular by Danny Newman's Subscribe Now!, first available in 1977. 

Marketing and advertising struggle with this as well, with a changing world that may not be interested in what they have to offer unless is presented in a better, more relatable way.

Technology on the other hand is all about innovative models, sometimes very risky but often revolutionary. Arts organizations need to start thinking a bit more like startups, reconsider how they get funding and how they make, market and sell their "product." We don't like to think about art as a product but the truth is the audience we need for the arts to survive thinks of it that way. 

We need to learn to trust the artists we align ourselves with that they will create worthwhile art, while they in turn have to learn to trust us, the behind the scenes, that we will create worthwhile ways of telling the world and make money. The status quo is no longer a successful business model. 

IBM On Brand

“_____ on Brand” is a series of short films created by VSA to capture the current thinking behind leadership brands—specifically, their origins and intent, audiences and ingredients, and business or societal impact.

In this two-minute tour, the roots of the IBM brand are traced to the company’s management of its character. Narrated by Jon Iwata, IBM Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, 

It's fascinating to see how a company with so much history, and so much history of change, has managed to maintain branding consistency over time. It goes to show how in addition to the visual identity, consistent behavior is really important to a brand and it's usually the first thing to go in the pursuit of rebranding. 

Are Piracy, Knock Offs and Minecraft Good For Us?

PBS Idea Channel recently celebrated their one year anniversary. One year of provocative and funny questions to view the world from a new perspective. I am a big fan of the Idea Channel from PBS Digital Studios. In honor of their anniversary, over the next couple of days I'll be sharing some of their recent work, catching up with some and introducing new ones. 

​Is Piracy Helping Game of Thrones? 

If you're like us, you LOVE Game of Thrones. But if you're also like us, you may not, technically, have... cable. So how are we seeing this amazing show on HBO, which is stuck behind a pay wall? A huge amount of viewers (not us of course, no no no) are downloading the show illegally. But despite being the most pirated show of 2012, the Game of Thrones DVDs are top sellers, breaking HBO's own sales records! Could it be that piracy is actually HELPING the show?

Do Knock-Offs Prove the Value of a Brand?

Living in the consumer culture that we do, we've learned that specific brands can carry very different meanings and values. We're willing to pay hundreds or thousands more for a specific brand name item, but sometimes it can be tempting to go the way of the knock-off for a fraction of the price. The counterfeit industry is huge and isn't going anywhere, and companies spend huge amounts to dissuade people from buying "fakes". But are knock-offs REALLY a negative for the brand?

Is Minecraft the Ultimate Educational Tool?

If you've watched past episodes of Idea Channel, you know we're huge fans of Minecraft. This totally amazing video game allows you to build your own world from scratch, what's not to like? But it may be good for more than just fun and games. Some experts have brought Minecraft into the classroom, allowing teachers to customize lessons and students to engage with concepts in new ways. And while educational games aren't new, Minecraft has some unique advantages that could usher in a new direction in education. In the future, students across the world may spend their class time punching trees.

What Does the Russian Meteorite Tell Us About Surveillance Culture? 

A meteorite crashed into earth! This wasn't the first time and it won't be the last, but it is the first time such an event was captured by SO MANY CAMERAS! The incredible number of views and angles filmed was made possible by Russia's bizarre driving culture and the MILLIONS of car dash cams installed all over the country. But besides providing the world with some hilarious, frightening, and amazing footage, the dash cams also make us think about surveillance, and what role it will play in the future.

Are Bitcoins and Unusual Hats the Future of Currency?

If you've ever played Team Fortress 2, you know how valuable hats are. To those who haven't: yes, HATS! If a community agrees on the value of something, then that thing can become a currency, to exchange for other goods. Just like american dollar bills (or euros, yen, or any other currency), or... bitcoins. Bitcoins are an online currency worth over $200,000,000, and though they are just 1s and 0s, some think that this is the future of money. On the other hand... mo bitcoins mo problems.

Is Futurama the Best Argument Against Transhumanism?

Transhumanism is a scientific philosophy that says technology will solve all our human biological constraints and that immortality is right around the corner (well not RIGHT around the corner, but WAY closer). They envision a world of endlessly euphoric robo-humans that represent the next step in evolution. And while this sounds super awesome, we had to ask, will this really make us happy? If you watch Futurama, than you know that the answer is probably NO. While not an exact illustration of transhumanism, Futurama does show a future of vast technological ability, where today's everyday problems are rendered moot, and yet the characters on the show still seem to find themselves in some very non-euphoric emotional states. Does this disprove what transhumanists expect for our future?

Are MP3s & Vinyl Better than Live Music?

If you've ever talked to a vinyl purist (or are one yourself) you know that people can be pretty passionate about what format is king when it comes to music. And based on how much people like to brag about what band they saw live and how many times, we clearly value the authenticity of the live performance above all else. But when we see a performer live, we're judging them based on what we know from the mp3 or record that we've already listened to 1000 times. . . because what is a song SUPPOSED to sound like anyway? As music has evolved from solely performance into "media", the issue of what the most authentic even IS has become increasingly complicated. So which is the most authentic? 

Previously on the Idea Channel.

A Simple Trick for Tripling People's Charitable Donations→

Offered a choice of donating 150 euros to one poor woman or 450 euros to three, research participants frugally chose the lower option 2-to-1. But they became much more generous and chose the 450-euro option 2-to-1 if they were also offered a choice of donating 500 euros to benefit just two women, say Enrico Rubaltelli and Sergio Agnoli of the University of Padova in Italy. In the second scenario, choosing the 450-euro donation was the most popular option because it allowed participants to help the highest number of people without giving away the highest amount of money. Charitable organizations should take heed, the authors say.

Source: The Emotional Cost of Charitable Donations

This inspires me to completely reconsider how the arts organization I collaborate with do fund raising.