DIYBA at CUE Arts Foundation
This past week I gave a talk for the DIY Business Association about the impact of the internet and digital media on creative industries. Hosted by the CUE Arts Foundation, Amy Schroeder and I talked with artists about how to market their work and begin to view marketing as a creative undertaking at which they are ideally suited to succeed.
I’ll share the video of the event once it’s ready. My main take-away was the importance of putting yourself on the line. I owe a debt of gratitude to a number of very smart people for influencing my thinking and perspective over the past year, but I didn’t realize the depth of that influence until I committed myself to the talk and started writing.
So in this season of gratitude, I extend a big thank you to the following people for their work and words: Seth Godin, Steven Pressfield, Derek Sivers, Bob Lefsetz, Mike Shatzkin, Jason Hirschhorn, Debbie Millman, Carin Goldberg, JA Konrath, Leo Tolstoy, Nick Hornsby, Neal Stephenson, Kevin Kelly, Chris Anderson, Craig Mod, Jeff Jarvis, and to a number of people unnamed who’ve always taken the time to write back to me when I’ve got questions, problems I’m trying to work out, or things I don’t understand.
Your help has made all the difference.
Happy Holidays.
Thank you Reading Rainbow
I love reading. It helps me understand the world, it introduces me to new ideas, and it entertains me. I have my parents to thank for turning me into a reader, but they didn’t do it alone. Growing up I was surrounded by teachers, friends, and role-models all encouraging me to try new books and fixing me up with their favorite authors.
Not least among these people is LeVar Burton, the host (for over 25 years) of Reading Rainbow. Even the lyrics of the theme song were words to live by:
“I can be anything. Take a look, it’s in a book.”
I was thrilled to learn that LeVar Burton is bringing Reading Rainbow to a new generation of kids, and embracing the changing landscape of publishing to do it in an interesting way.
Burton is launching a new company, RRKidz, that will offer a regular stream of educational, interactive eBooks optimized for iPads, smartphones, and other tablets. The company is setting this service up with a subscription model, which I’ve talked about before as the likely future for eBooks, and with content curated by Burton.
Curation is becoming crucial in the digital age, especially as it becomes easier for everyone to create content and share it online. I love that the internet has created such fertile ground for exchanging ideas, but the information overload can be a real problem.
There’s no getting past how important it is that LeVar Burton’s at the helm for this project. I trust him to curate RRKidz because of the years he spent turning me on to great books and inspiring a love of reading. He believed in everything he recommended enough to tell me not to just take his word for it, but to try things for myself. His famous phrase “but you don’t have to take my word for it” encouraged my curiosity, it reminded me that adults don’t always have the answers, and that above all, I could make my own choices.
The kind of trust I feel for Reading Rainbow and LeVar Burton is something you can’t buy. For that, I’m grateful. Because that level of respect and trust has to be earned, it serves as a reminder of the hard work we all need to do if we want to become leaders in our field and make an impact on people’s lives.
So, thank you, LeVar Burton, for teaching me the importance of honest communication, respecting my audience, and not recommending something unless I stand behind it 100%.
End Malaria Day
It isn’t very often that a book has the power to save a life. Yes, good books can improve lives, shape lives, even change lives. But when was the last time a book literally helped save a life?
The Domino Project is launching its latest book with an audacious and necessary proposal: end malaria.
In conjunction with Box of Crayons and Malaria No More, The Domino Project is helping to end malaria by donating $20 from every book sold to Malaria No More.
“At its core, End Malaria is about doing great work, and at The Domino Project we believe there’s no better work than saving a life.”
I’m so glad to be a part of this, and I hope you’ll join me.
Netflix for books
UPDATE: It looks like Amazon is making the first move in creating an eBook subscription service.
If you care about the way we publish and share books, do yourself a favor and read Craig Mod’s thought-provoking essay Post-Artifact Books and Publishing.
He asks the right question: How does digital change books?
In the article he links to Kevin Kelly’s blog post What Books Will Become. Here’s an excerpt that I think is too smart to ignore:
In the long run (next 10-20 years) we won’t pay for individual books any more than we’ll pay for individual songs or movies. All will be streamed in paid subscription services; you’ll just “borrow” what you want.
Who’s going to lead the charge and create the site that allows us to subscribe once and read everywhere? Who’s going to negotiate the licensing fees with publishers and independent artists?
Who’s going to find the right algorithm for recommending new books based on our reading habits? Is it based on our reviews? Is it based on the books liked and listed on our friend’s social media profiles? Is it based on the books ranked highly by people who highlighted the same sections of of an ebook that we did?
Will we subscribe to reading lists curated by our favorite authors, publishers, or culture shapers?
Will this be the library of the future or the bookstore of the future? Will they become the same thing once we stop buying individual books and start paying for a membership that allows us unlimited “streaming” of books and articles?
At least there’s coffee
You’re stuck in a meeting. Trapped. More bad powerpoint. More things you could have learned by reading an email. At least there’s coffee.
If you work at a 9-5 job, you probably know what I’m talking about.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Meetings can change. They’re our invention. They’re our tool. We’ve just been running them in the wrong way. We’ve been running them in the wrong way for so long we forgot there was a better way.
Read This Before Our Next Meeting (free on the Kindle for the next week) is the catalyst we’ve been waiting for. Written by the whip-smart Al Pittampalli, it’s aiming to kill the meeting culture we hate.
I designed the print edtion of this book for Al, and I’m so glad to have done my part to help end bad meetings.
Book Cover Design
