Sounds + Food 'n' Retail

Read it on Tech IT Easy!

I've been planning to write about cinemas again for some time now, but that's going to be a long piece and will have to wait for disposable time and inspiration. Here's some films, I've enjoyed these last months, however.

• Starting with a lecture by Robert J. Sawyer, regarding the difference between Star Trek & Star Wars. I had no idea that the phrase "A long-long time ago, in a place far-far away" makes such a big difference. Essentially, while science fiction was originally a commentary on issues in our own society, that phrase gave George Lucas the license to not-comment, or rather to accept things like racism (towards robots), slavery (robots again), and countless of other stuff. Really a good lecture to listen to, if you're into sci-fi.


• On a related note, I recently (re-)watched Star Trek 1-6. You really notice the shift from slow cinematics in Star Trek 1 and 2 (a la Kubrik's 2001, which I'm not a fan of), followed by more intense action-scenes in the later ones. I think I recorded the social values more on a sub-conscious level. Numbers 4-6 were my favourite, regarding nature (transporting whales through time); the search for God; and retirement. But I have to say, Kirk was at his strongest in the first two movies. Also, something else I didn't know: Leonard Lemoy (Spock) is a multi-talented individual: writer for several films, producer, and of course actor.


• My favourite adventure movie these last few months: Lawrence of Arabia.


• My favourite cartoon: The girl that leapt through time.


• My favourite fantasy: Pan's Labyrinth (picture is my interpretation of Pan)


• A film, which is taking me a long time to watch, but which I will finish because it's good: Francis Ford Coppola's Youth without Youth.


• Excellent commercial, but not mainstream, movies: Into the Wild; There will be blood; No Country for Old Men (the last three, somewhat depressing too); and Juno.


• An excellent series that recently finished and everyone should watch: The Wire. Seasons 1-4 especially.


• An series with potential that will hopefully not be cancelled: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

That's about it, I probably missed a few. But all are, I think, excellent choices to watch in 2008!

Hey, a little busy at the moment, but here's some links, I've enjoyed recently.

• Jim Donald's, former Starbucks' CEO, month by Patricia Sellers (Fortune): After listening to an interview with Frank Addante on Venture Voice, where he said "Time is a finite asset!", I looked up "time-management CEO" on Google, and this is the first thing I found. Some good tips on meetings, getting up at 6, and generally managing your time.


• Monocle design-notes by Dan Hill: I printed this 32-page (!) document out this morning, and it will probably take me a few days to digest it, but I'm already enjoying the first few pages, where he writes about the vision behind Monocle as a mag. and as an internet-publication and how the multi-disciplinary team reflected this.


• 10 Ways to Improve Your Programming Productivity by Matt Moore: I love productivity-stuff, and think most of these tips apply to any activity really.


• The 7th Deadly Claim — “Best Value” by Jeff Sexton (Future Now): "The problem for most companies is that they don’t do BOTH well: Either they don’t do enough to persuade customers of the product’s value, or they price their high-quality item even higher than what they’ve been able to substantiate to the market."


• How Facebook Is Like Ikea by Tim Harford (Slate): Considering I wrote about something related a few months ago…

The picture is courtesy of shoutwire.com

Read it on Tech IT Easy!

This is as much a celebration of technologies like MixWit, which make publishing playlists (legally) possible, as it is a spotlight on one of my favourite musical discoveries last year.

Róisín (Pronounced "Roshiin") Murphy, former lead-singer in the British band Moloko, with a voice that reminds me a lot of Annie Lennox. I have to confess that, except for some remixes, I wasn't a big fan of either of these artists back in the day.

Still, Ms. Murphy is a breath of fresh air in what often seems like a stale and regurgitated pop-scene (I exaggerate). And… I simply can't get the first song on this playlist, "Dear Miami", out of my head!

Not for you, if you don't like electronica or pop.

Enjoy!

The reason I like Star Trek, most sci-fi in fact, is because of the space-opera aspect. You don't just tell a story, you design a universe around it. I've been a fan of the show, ever since the age of 10 when I got to watch TV at home. In some ways, sure, the time spent watching the show impoverished my life by taking me away from other endeavours, in other ways, it enriched it by contributing to my ability to dream.

As I grew older, I started paying much more attention to the story-telling aspects of the franchise. For instance, did you know that until the second season of Star Trek, the next generation, the writers didn't create a place for the crew to relax? It was only then that the makers came up with the concept of Ten Forward, hosted by the infamous Guinan (see pic). Later, in its spin-offs, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, we also saw a big role being played by the "lounge", hosted by Quark and Neelix respectively.

It was felt that by introducing this aspect into the show, a third place, it allowed the characters to show a different side of their lives, necessary if you want to teach a complete philosophy about society, as Gene Roddenberry was in fact doing. And of course, it spawned plenty of dramatic stories, that would otherwise never have happened. It allowed for romance, friendship, and conflict to happen, for aliens to meet and interact with one another.

What's interesting about the franchise that each series had a different archetype, which also affected the room for "drama." You could see it as both an evolution and devolution of a story. Star Trek, the original series, was the raw outline of Roddenberry's philosophy about the future of society. The next generation was much more developed and allowed for deeper interpersonal relationships. Deep Space Nine was again an evolutionary step, and much of the stories centred around "life" on the station.

Both Voyager and Enterprise represented a devolution. Voyager introduced the "morale officer", in my opinion, an engineered effort to bring a certain warmth to the story. But it was much less about teaching philosophy, as it was about survival. It showed that Roddenberry's universe was in fact small and could break apart at the edges. But it was still a good story.

Enterprise represents a return to those raw ideas. Perhaps it was felt that the franchise could cover no more new ground, and that a new philosophy had to be designed. It was also a story of survival and the raw pioneering spirit, shown in part in Voyager. But it felt like a military mission, there was little room to form complete characters. Instead we were presented with deep dramas, echoing the 9/11 events, which turned the characters into one-dimensional creatures, much perhaps the way the news depicts the main characters involved in the post-9/11 era.

To me, at least, Star Trek is a good analogy for certain principles in life. That it is not enough to search, but also to build. That friendships and societies are built, not only from the hard work they require, but from the breaks we take to reflect on our actions, and the places that are engineered to cater for that need.

Food for thought.

Funny how moods influence musical preference. Last week on my run, I would've told you that Junior Jack is the sh*t; a few weeks ago, on a lonely walk through a misty and deserted street, it would've have been Lisa Gerard's haunting voice. But last night, as my eyes were feeling heavy with sleep, it was Grant Green that touched me most.

I first stumbled on Mr. Green's music after trying to prove to my brother that many rap-songs are sampled from other (better) songs. Turns out Grant Green performed a song, named "Better Tomorrow," that was later sampled in Dr. Dre's hit-song "Still DRE." Even though it's not my favourite track of Green's, it's one of the few I could find on YouTube. So here you go, a very recognisable melody after 1:20 mins.



P.S. The Grant Green album I like the most, is called "Ballads."

Addendum
Thanks to the power of Mixwit, you can listen to a whole playlist of Grant Green songs, sourced from all over the web. Enjoy!

These next few weeks, my posting-rhythm will slow down due to personal issues, sorry about that. It does however feed into this topic here.

Premise: A couple of things happened these last few days, which I think are noteworthy. The Zuckerberg-interview on SXSW got slaughtered by the twitter-crowd (though there's a human behind every trigger), and which is an example of a BAD interview. There's Steve Balmer, who came across as both human (sympathetic) and capable, an example of a GOOD interview. And there's John Battelle, who wrote two good posts on that every business is a media-business and every business should find a way to engage with its customers.

It's all about PR of course, and somehow some people got it into their head that social media—blogs, social networks, web-sms (my term for Twitter, Pounce, Jaiku,etc.)—is a good way to relate to the public. The problem, if I may call it that, is that these are two-way conversations between people that are essentially observers: users + media. And that, as the Zuckerberg-interview shows, when users + media get angry, they get ANGRY. Now, you could argue, bad publicity is still publicity, I just consider it disruptive.

Business, in my opinion, is two things: a machine that produces output, and engineers that seek to optimise the machine and increase its output. Arguably, user-feedback is useful for tweaking the machine to perform better, and optimally get more users to purchase its output. And outward PR (marketing) also means that more people are aware of your great machine and want the output. Ah, machine-analogies, gotta love them.

Just like the life-cycle-model of a product, which evolves from slow to strong growth, to maturity, and ultimately decline, our machine is very susceptible to tweaking at the early stages, can produce extra output, etc., but ultimately reaches a saturation-point. The same, I believe applies to user-feedback and marketing. The return on investment levels off after a while.

You have the PR, which is the interviews and other kinds of marketing, and there's the user-feedback, which should be restricted to the product-level. And, aside from the life-cycle-model, there is general a limit to the value of both. You don't want a mob disrupting your interviews, no matter how bad they go. You don't want a mob disrupting your business, period, unless you're developing something like a nuclear weapon.

What I'm essentially arguing against is that companies should be 100% social. They should be social enough in order to improve their products and let the people know about them. Should they engage in a two-way conversation? Only if it's directly product-related or your business is bad for the environment (arguably a government-issue), should you engage and customers should vote with their wallets. Note that I'm referring to business-PR here; individuals can blog about whatever they want, if you ask me.

There will always be the "backroom-talk," the social-media people who have opinions on anything, from using Plaxo-scripts to milk Facebook-data, to 17+ ways on how you should (not) run your start-up. And there will always be "Skynet"—the realm of the machines—which have to keep running because social media will not put that food on your table, the farmer will.

This somewhat-cynical article will NOT be mirror-posted on Tech IT Easy tomorrow

Time for those Sunday-links again. Today, I'll discuss the cocktail that is smell and how some things just don't mix; how green is not all it's cut out to be; a possible shift of power from retail to farming (or not); how lego came to be and where it is going; and how to sell me online shopping.

Previous link-discussions can be found here and my bookmarks here.

Link 1: Starbucks Admits Sensory Mistake - These are the kinds of stories that make me I like the NeuroscienceMarketing-blog. If you follow the science-section of the Economist, you'll know that neuroscience is a big deal anyway. In any case, this story is about how Starbucks designs atmosphere, largely influenced by smells. Apparently, smell of heating egg and cheese sandwiches doesn't mix well with the coffee aroma.

Link 2: False 'Green' Ads Draw Global Scrutiny - Two problems linked to green adverts these days, I think. One is that consumers are growing tired of it. And two is that, as this story shows, just because companies say they are, doesn't mean they are. I like the Norwegian approach to this. They ban green adverts by products that cause more problems, no matter how innovative they are (about hiding it).

Link 3: Farmers Wonder if Boom In Grain Prices Is a Bubble That food-prices are rising is an inescapable fact. But it also presents an interesting shift in the status quo. In the food-chain of the grocery-business, farmers are pretty much at the bottom. Now, even though their own costs are increasing also, they can charge more on top of it and decrease retailers' margins. Time will tell if this is something that will be acceptable for a long time. Certain signals very much suggest to me that farmers may be in the right position to cut out the middle-man and become retailers themselves.

Link 4: The Making of…a LEGO - I'm still a kid at heart, so I love anything to do with games and toys. My parents never bought me much lego as a child, which I regret as I hear it breeds geniuses. In essentially two pages, the article describes how lego came to be, what makes it so perfect, and what the company's strategy is. I was always impressed with the brand-extensions they did with the games, the robots, and the theme-park. A company to follow.

Link 5: Online shopping at Hema.nl - I've linked to this on twitter before, but it brought another smile to my face watching it again. Just when I think that online-shopping has no future, innovative uses of technology surprise me again.

One of the things I do on this blog is deciding on the potential of industry-segments, ranging from farming to coffee-shops, and from grocery to other types of retail. On Tech IT Easy I've previously expressed my scepticism at media (in which I include text, art, audio, video, and gaming), especially in terms of business-models, which I think that segment lacks.

Equally so, I see fairly little space for it in the physical retail segment, simply because it is so much more convenient to purchase and consume it via digital means. The PC (and other tech-gadgets) have essentially become the hub for all things media, and creating barriers to that experience just leads consumers to pursue more convenient ways of experiencing that media. That search for convenience is something that I've also approached in a previous post on this blog.

Let's look at some media-types and how they are being sold online.

For Video - there's iTunes, consoles, and set-top boxes that are controlled by media-producers. In any case, the power-differentials between producers and intermediaries is very unbalanced and it isn't a nice segment to enter as a retailer. Also, let's not forget the free alternatives: YouTube et. al and piracy.

For Audio - again iTunes, Rhapsody, and Amazon MP3 Store, but also smaller digital store for independent artists, like CD-Baby (which operates through iTunes also). Let us again not forget piracy and the fact that much of music is being produced through digital means and it makes sense to organise distribution that way also.

For text - there's again online outlets like Amazon for eBooks (Kindle) and Zinio for magazines. And let's not forget that 99% of text-based media is viewable for free online. Still, admittedly, electronic devices for consumption are not yet able to compete with paper-based methods, at least where price is concerned. Also Audible should not be forgotten as a source for audio-books, recently bought up by Amazon and partially distributed through iTunes again.

For Gaming - I'm not too familiar with the online market for this one. Even so, there's Steam, a digital distribution system by Valve, a platform which they recently opened up for use by other game-publishers. There's also plenty of smaller games being distributed through Xbox-live, the future Playstation Home, and of course the internet.

Finally, Art - here the situation is more complex, while on the other hand being relatively simple. It is complex for artists like my mother, who paints, and conducts business on a personal level by interacting with her customers. On the other hand, there's photography and digital art, arguably the evolution of traditional art, which is easy (for some) to produce digitally and distribute online. I suppose every industry has that friction between the traditional way of doing things and "the new way."

All in all, I don't see media as a big cash-cow for physical retail. I like to think that, because production and distribution becomes cheaper, that its cost will eventually fall to a very low price, allowing for it to be included as an added-value component in the service-proposition of physical retail-outlets (to which I also include restaurants, etc.). I also like to think that creating environments that make the consumption of media a comfortable process (e.g. cinemas) also has some potential.

But my outlook for selling media as a product, something that could easily be sold digitally, remains bleak. Please let me know if there are arguments against my point of view, as I'm here to learn.

I'm writing today's post mostly as a way to relax me. I've been in a bit of a panic these last few days because my main machine, my trustworthy mac, is giving me kernel panics and I'm in the middle of a project. It's not a nice feeling, and any repairs, I've been informed, are bound to take 10 days. So, blogging to relax, yes, but don't expect regular ones, especially considering this machine can "explode" at any time.

NYTimes recently wrote about a strategy employed by US cinemas to draw in more people. I quote:

"Reserved seating, plush rocking chairs and made-to-order food make Mr. Redford’s Sundance Kabuki theater feel more like a restaurant than a traditional cinema. It also has a 50-foot-high lobby with live bamboo, a glass atrium and reclaimed wood walls. Here, a night at the movies is less about enduring the hordes at the mall and more about feeling pampered."

According to the article, big US-chains are building such upscale cinemas to draw people back into the experience.

While I am a big fan of the cinema-experience and actually worked at exactly such a venue, years ago, as a cocktail-mixing barkeeper, I think there are several reasons why such a strategy won't work.

The nature of movie-viewing (1): regardless of how luxurious a place like that is, you'll still have to sit in a dark room and won't actively notice the luxury or people around you, except for before and after the movie. The reason why people like dining in luxury-restaurants is because of the luxury, yes, but also because you share it with a group of people. In cinemas, luxury is not an emotional draw.

The nature of cinemas: cinemas are still very much in a mind-frame of providing experience of the masses. That manifests itself in a McDonalds' mentality of serving guests standardised services, having a lot of seat-rotation, cleaning big rooms (badly) in less than 10 mins, etc. It's a lot of little things, but they add up to a reputation for mediocrity, and people really just come to view the movie and be with their friends.

The nature of movie-viewing (2): YouTube, the internet, modern lifestyles, etc. have created different viewing-patterns, and there is a much greater focus towards viewing media in bursts. I think that the cinema-industry thinks that it is competing with some kind of emulated experience at home, but I don't think that's generally the case. So what are cinemas competing with and should they compete with it?

Luxury is not mass: Cinemas need masses of people coming in, and luxury cinemas actually only aim to address the (imagined!) needs of a few. In my opinion, it is not a customer-focussed strategy, and is for that reason alone bound to fail.

What should cinemas do?
Now, I'm not all against a certain level of luxury. I like comfortable seats as much as the next guy and I'd love a good cocktail every once in a while. But I think standards should be upgraded throughout the cinema, all the way down to the lowest seats, and that everyone should have the option to get a cocktail (if they have the budget).

There's two main selling-points for cinemas, I think, and those are timing and technology. They are still the first to air a film (ignoring piracy), which will hopefully not change. So, for blockbusters, cinemas reign is pretty much guaranteed.

Apart from blockbusters, there's something special about seeing indie movies in cinemas, which I include into timing. I'll never forget watching "Howl's moving castle" in the cinema, it was a magical experience, one that I could never have at home.

As far as technology is concerned, admittedly we are in an age where big screens and high-def visuals and sounds are becoming commoditised, though no one is as yet planning to install a 50 ft. screen in their house, afaik. I do think that cinema-technolgy should be upgraded, all the way to the point of the IMAX-experience.

Admittedly, there are some problems with 3D-tech. It increases the cost of producing a film and won't translate well to home-viewing (I think). But my point is that cinemas should keep differentiating themselves technologically.

People is a third selling-point, though I think that unless you like going with 8+ people to the cinema, you will be able to emulate that at home.

As far as luxury is concerned, again the basics should be present, and cinemas have to make money, but cinemas would become a lot more popular if they kept the price of seats down, increased the quality of service, and charged what they charged for luxuries. The one thing that I can't stress enough is staying a leader in technology (video & audio) as that is truly where the emotional draw for cinemas comes from.

But maybe I'm wrong!? Feel free to let me know in the comments.

Nothing to do with HotorNot's 20 million sale, which I just heard about today, I'm afraid. No, I watched Juno in the cinema today (great flick!), and saw following two commercials: Axe's "Chocolate Man," which was great, vs. Eristoff Black, which was not.

What I like about this short film is that it does give you a similar feeling to what it's like to walk around with a good scent and feel good about yourself. It's so hard to portray smell on video, I can imagine, and chocolate's just a great vehicle for it. The cinema-crowd's reaction was great also, laughing throughout the film.

*************
Update: apparently this is part of a whole viral campaign by Axe. I just found the matching game: Maneater
*************

In contrast…

I don't know about you, but this film just made me feel nervous. It's a commercial for an alcoholic beverage, ok, but nothing in the film suggested anything positive about the experience of drinking it. Instead you have this paranoid image of someone being locked in a glass sphere, pursued by bloodthirsty animals. Even the scene at the end, where it's a guy who apparently hit a shopping-window, is not reassuring, rather it confirms that this is a drink to be treated with caution. The cinema-crowd was totally not into this commercial either.

That's all from me this weekend. Have a nice one!

I'm a little distracted from blogging, I'm sorry. My current activities include a last-minute scrabble-play of my thesis, to make it a more logical read, and applying for jobs. And, not unsurprisingly, I'm having some writer's block as a result.

My post from a few weeks ago, about my anonymous friend, who's running a lifestyle-orientated business in a developing market, certainly opened my eyes to this area of the market.

Today, I'll talk about another company, Milner (cheese). There was an interesting article in Dutch marketing-magazine, Tijdschrift voor Marketing, on Milner's positioning-strategy from mass to lifestyle, which I'll discuss now, and which also lead to a post on Tech IT Easy about social networks as a strategic marketing-tool.

Milner = FMCG
Milner is considered a FMCG-company, that's fast-moving consumer goods, and falls into segment 2 on my food-industry map from last week. As I observed there also, this segment is usually the driver, if not always the conductor, of consumer-marketing.

The company is currently strongly present within the health-segment for cheese in the Netherlands, with over 50% market-share. This segment is also seeing between 60-70% growth from cheeses in general.

One thing that is clear for FMCGs is that margins are generally low (generally under 10%), competition is high, and as I made clear in my post on Tech IT Easy, features can easily be emulated by other companies.

Generating complex competitive advantages
The differentiating factor is the relationship the brand has with the consumer and vice versa. A brand that is designed for a lifestyle will generally have a much higher emotional value to consumers, than one based on features like cost or taste alone.

The logical conclusion is that those companies with deeper relationships to their customers will enjoy a higher competitive advantages over companies that do not focus on these relationships. And the complex nature of relationship is one that is difficult to emulate, hence giving companies a sustainable lead in the market.

But how to do that?

Paradigm-shift towards lifestyle
A lifestyle-product can be defined as a product that is built around the context of a certain group of consumers, resulting in an emotional value, as well as one based on features. This also has implications on the product-marketing strategies that a lifestyle-orientated company undertakes. As you may remember, the company my friend operates, still spends a considerable amount on marketing-activities after 2 years.

The theory that Milner cheese employs goes as follows. A great pain for food is health—which is really just an after-effect of the lifestyle people are leading. People are constantly looking for answers, so-called lifehacks, or more diet and exercise-related advice, all to regain power over their lives, minds, and bodies.

The key-issue is how to reach these customers. By addressing the pain that customers are feeling, by helping them live a healthier life, Milner is engaging in a relationship with its customers.

How does it do that?

How the internet fits into this
Traditionally, internet-marketing expenditure for FMCGs is quite low, around the 2% mark. Milner's budget currently assigns 10-15% to internet-marketing. It is able to do so, because it is already relatively well-positioned in terms of its brand and communication, so it feels more confident to experiment with new mediums.

As mentioned in my post on the food-industry-map, marketing to consumers is the responsibility of the consumer-goods-segment, however the degree that this activity is outsourced, depends on the amount of resources available to the company and the level of complexity of the activity. Arguably, both the novelty of internet-marketing to Milner, and particularly engaging into a relationship with consumers, make marketing fairly complex affair and the company did this via a third party, Advance, an interactive marking agency.

Advance set up a site called Je Beste Dag (translated: your best day), which advises visitors on how to have better days, based on a questionnaire they fill out. The first stage of the strategy is to build up a large mass of consumers that give out their email-adresses for further advice. Currently, there's 1 million people connected to the site. The second stage is to deepen that relationship, by encouraging return-visits and ultimately start a conversation.

It's both a time- and cost-consuming process for Milner. Essentially it is the sole sponsor of the campaign and has been running this campaign for nearly half a year no, without seeing any types of new product-developments yet. It is however working together with (other) marketing-agencies to develop its brands, which includes the design, positioning, quality, etc., as well as new product developments.

The interesting part of the whole process is that the majority of visitors already knows Milner, before even visiting the site. In other words, this clearly is an interactive marketing-campaign, which deepens the relationship between company and customer beyond the brand. Also, while the segment that Milner markets to via traditional channels, usually falls in the age-groups of 40-60, the age-group it is reaching now falls between 25-45, 60% of which don't yet have children.

Final thoughts
It is uncertain what exactly will come out of this. Milner is treating their internet-campaign as just another marketing-channel and holding Advance to targets it must meet. Which also allows them to measure its effectiveness. However, with a million young people connected to the site, and the communication-channels open, my gut tells me that they will be pretty happy.

The conversational aspects that the internet provides are certainly no surprise to the regular internet-user, however many web-companies are finding it difficult to generate sustainable business-models (e.g. Twitter / Facebook). As I made clear in my post on Tech IT Easy, I think these kinds of marketing-campaigns open up some possibilities there.

One of the downsides of not being at home for three months is that the mail tends to pile up. The culprit is The (weekly) Economist, which forced my landlord to dedicate a special cabinet just to accommodate them all. He was happy to see me.

My thesis is handed in, and while I'm anxiously waiting for the feedback / grade, I'm doing a variety of stuff to diffuse the thesis-haze that was in my head these last months. One of these is thinking about how I will organise the research that I collect for my work / blog. This is part of a dual trajectory I'm pursuing—one side is research, which I use to build up my knowledge about the field of food & retail, the other side the practical path, which I can now finally pursue freely.

The pile of 15 or so Economists is actually a good exercise to think about what really matters, and I'm going through them quickly, marking the articles that are interesting to read, and later cutting them out and adding them to special folder, after which I may categorise them by country and subject perhaps.

It's easy with The Economist, but there other publications that I'm much less eager to chop into pieces. My books are filled with pencil-marks, as are my Harvard Business Reviews, but there's no way that they'll ever feel the cold blade of my scissors. With those publications, I'm forced to keep all that extra paper and try to get my thoughts to paper as quickly as possible.

The other, sort of, complication are web-articles. I've been printing stuff to pdf and have a special S+FNR folder, reserved for anything from fashion-trends to human-resource management. I'm also going to print them out and add them to my folder for future analysis.

As you can see, I take my research seriously. A probable after-effect of writing a 180-page thesis, studying three academic fields—innovation, entrepreneurship, and finance—and interviewing roughly 300 businesses.

But I wonder how the real bloggers do it. If you're someone who takes blogging seriously, how do you organise your material, or do you organise it? If you do so on paper, I'm curious as to what kind of folders you use (incl. a link to a photo if possible).

Note: If you use a computer to store stuff digitally, I assume you use a personal database, like Devonthink or Jojimbo for the Mac. I'll tell you right now, I've used them all (to organise my thesis) and found it frustrating that they wouldn't do everything I wanted and tried to lock me in in the process (I've spent many hours migrating everything from app to app—it sucks!). They also don't help you much with paper-based materials, like mags, journals, and books. No, on the computer, I prefer a regular folder and to add text & pdf to it. Simple, portable, and cross-platform.

• For Technology, it's arguably Waste-disposal (I'll be writing about this soon on TechITEasy)


• For Media, it's finding a Business-model to compete with free.


• For Food, I would say it's O B E S I T Y.

Check out the TED-lecture below, for a 3-minute take by Dean Ornish.



And yes, I'm back! My 180-page thesis (or 135 at font-size 9) is being checked, and I'm in Rotterdam picking up the pieces of my life and making a delicious milkshake… whoops, I meant a yoghurt-smoothy… gotta watch that diet !!!

Why am I preoccupied with art? Realistically speaking, apart from collecting links and inspiring quotes, all I have time for these days is doing some drawing. I like to hold discussions with artists, both about their art and the state of their industry. And I like to think that thinking in artistic ways helps me in other areas also, e.g. how to be more creative, how to see patterns, perhaps how to set up a business that people enjoy spending time at.

Of course, it's a lot of fun too…

Following is a list of things, I've learned/thought about art, starting specifically with drawing, and then about more general stuff about art—economics, DRM, innovation, etc.

• Details are great, but the big picture is better - try drawing a christmas-tree and find out


• Ways to decrease focus on detail - get some children's tools: wax colours, paint, big markers, etc.


• Every object's colour is made up of a number of sub-colours, which then result in that glorious mish-mash, called a [insert your favourite classical artist here] painting. E.g. a leaf is green, but really there's yellow and blue in there, maybe a taint of orange and purple.


• White and black are not colours because they ignore the principle above.


• Nature is a great way to learn drawing.


• Shadows are hard.


• Perspective is hard.


• Capturing movement is super-hard.


• Abstract art is hard.


• Everything can be mastered with practice.


• Recognising shape is something you learn from practice.


• Drawing upside-down—i.e. taking a picture and turning it upside down—is also a great way to trick the brain into drawing the shape instead of the mental picture your mind has already created of that shape.


• Remembering shape and reproducing it from memory requires even more practice.


• Keep a clean workspace so that you can start with a fresh mind the next day.


• Reading 'The War of Art' will not make you a better artist. Practice, day-in-day-out will may make you a better artist. The book may help you become a more effective artist however.

Broad strokes:

• Drawing is a right-brained activity, as such it is no surprise that most artists don't like or want to engage in the left-brained activity of making money from it. Guilty as charged.


• Art is surprisingly similar to innovation - both are quite incompatible with economic principles, aka. making a quick buck.


• The democratisation of art through the internet and subsidies has levelled the playing-field. Everyone can be (read: call themselves) an artist now. As such, discovering truly unique art becomes hard.


• As soon as something can become digital, it loses tremendous value. Outlook for the market-place for digital products: bleak.


• As painful as it sounds to all thieves out there, DRM is a necessary measure in making money from art—at least if you're a producer. That, or become a communist and get paid by the government. Recent discussion on DRM on Tech IT Easy.


• Collaboration is another great way to make money from art.


• Just like in innovation, using both methods and creating art/end-products that are hard to replicate, is an important component of success.

The picture is, incidentally, total crap, and shows how much I still need to learn. Nature is beautiful and oh so hard to replicate on paper.

• Cordless earplugs that are also headphones - imagine going to bed and blocking out your partner's snoring, and waking up to the sweet sounds of […insert your sweet sound here…].


• Fluorescent permanent marker - to convert my non-pro Apple laptop-keyboard, into one that lights up in the dark.


• A binder/folder that allows me to bind printed web-articles into an easy to read non-webzine.


• A mobile (!) pad that allows me to draw on paper, which stores these drawings electronically, and allows me to later transfer them to my computer - saw this somewhere for €80, always regret not buying it.


• Some kickin' clothes.


• For my Laptop and iPod to last me through their 3rd year.


• Anything on my wish-list.

For 2OO9

• An Apple laptop that is as light and as thin as possible - So no disk-drive as that can be external. 3-4 USB-ports to compensate would be nice.


• The next OS (10.6 or 11.0) from Apple.


• An iPod with a nice screen and no phone - for music, video, books on the road.


• A small car (unless I live in a big city, then a good rent-a-car service).


• Orexin A.


• More public wifi / or a pan-European service.


• A Wii / DS and time to play it.


• Some kickin' clothes.

Just a collection of films I enjoyed in 2007.

Eastern Promises - a tale of chasing dreams in cold, criminal London, of finding decency in filth. ★★★☆☆

American Gangster - a tale of value chain analysis and strategy, of pursuing the American dream, a dream that is different for everyone. A great soundtrack also. ★★★★☆

Knocked up - a tale of random accidents that lead to dramatic lifestyle changes, of growing up. A worthy successor to 40 year old virgin. ★★★★☆

Ratatouille - a tale of overcoming any challenge to pursue a dream. Inspired this blogpost a few months ago. ★★★★☆

Bender's Big Score - a tale that binds the whole series together. I was first sceptical but the ending made it all ok. One of the best "episodes" of the series ever. ★★★☆☆

Disturbia - a tale that has been remade over and over again. While I'm getting tired of Mr. LaBeouf, I have to admit that this is the best remake yet. ★★★☆☆

Little Children - a quiet tale of adults being children and children being adults. ★★★☆☆

The Prestige - a tale of pride and a complete disregard for the worthiness of love and people. Great, yet dark, and a hard to watch movie. Can't wait for Batman 2. ★★★☆☆

Freedom Writers - a tale of finding that inner spark in people, one of my most favourite activities in life. I also have a thing for Ms. Swank. Still a story-line that has been remade over and over. ★★★☆☆

Biggest disappointments for 2007
Spider-man - too crowded
1408 - unbalanced
Sunshine - copy of Event Horizon
Zodiac - 30 year long snore-fest
Hot Fuzz - oh, where for art thou, Shaun of the Dead?

Gone with the Wind - a tale of survival, manipulation, machismo, and unconditional love. Thought Clark Gable was great in it, as was the black housekeeper, Hattie McDaniel. But definitely an undertone of male-to-female violence. ★★★☆☆

Breakfast at Tiffany's - a tale of random encounters, quirky characters and personalities, the disloyalty of cats, and how people can be like cats and vice versa. A story with very little plot, yet some jewels don't need a plot. ★★★★☆

Roman Holiday - a tale of wealth and poverty, the search for experiences, the difference that a haircut makes, how old media douchebags are just like new media douchebags, chatty italians, and moped-driving. Basically a rich princess going incognito in Rome. Didn't like it much, though the ending was somewhat touching. ★★☆☆☆

Marathon Man - a tale of endurance, family, greed, suspenseful shadows, hot women named Elsa, and how shaving the middle of your head (i.e. Lawrence Olivier creating a bald spot) makes for a pretty interesting disguise. Was exciting and had some terrific acting. But… is it safe? ★★★★☆

Casablanca - a tale of love, loyalty, honour. The romance that inspired many a celluloid romance. Here's looking at you, kid. ★★★★★

On black & white pictures
Never has black seem so black, white seemed so white. There's something basic about black & white movies, it brings forth the concept of good and evil in very minimalist way. At the same time, the greyness that is life comes across also, impossible to see perhaps with the stark contrasts that some of the more current colour-flicks present.

Metaphor: I am the bunny or rather my thesis is. Everything is progressing well, but of course it's a lot of work. More when I'm done.


(via Kottke)

5 links to let people know I'm not dead:

• How to choose a name for your product / service / business by Scott Trimble - not much to say about it, except it rocks.


• The 8 challenges innovations face by Scott Berkun - there's so much talk about how cool innovation is (flying cars, anyone?), and very little about how hard it is to actually bring it to the market. Exactly the topic of my thesis, btw., mostly focussed on Scott's point 3: "Find a sponsor and funding".


• The 2007 Esquire 100 has some awesome food-related stuff. Namely on Luxardo, Sechuan buttons, New Texas Cuisine, Rum, shrinking cocktails, The Best Breakfast in America (mmmh looks good!), Washington Wine, and other cool stuff.


• Understanding Web Design by Jeffrey Zeldman - "Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity." Kind of applies to designing other kinds of interactive environments as well (don't shoot me Jeff).


• Wal-Mart’s Environmental Report Card (NYTimes) - the point is that Walmart is continuously increasing its competitive advantage in the area of green tech, which is sure to affect businesses bottom-line in the future. So get busy!

I probably missed writing about other cool stuff. Some of which you can find in my bookmarks !