the current and future driver of the economy

September 15, 2013 8:36 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Ideas.

No big surprise.  But the way that these ideas are being served up in the present and near future is changing.  Traditionally ideas (whether they were inventions, concepts, music, games, whatever) were served up to the public by big bulky corporate structures that could market, distribute, and sell these to a wide audience.

The advent of the internet economy has changed the rules.  You can now literally take something from your mind and put it out there for the public at large to buy or support directly without the filters of the corporations getting in the way.

This poses unique opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs.

Opportunities:

Profit

This would allow a severe redistribution of the profits from grossly favoring corporations to totally favoring artists.  Something that those in the music industry have wanted for a long time.

Creative license

Too often it is that when someone with an idea goes to a corporation that they not only “tweek” the idea to suit some corporate requirement but they may actually change the total intent and purpose of the idea.

Distribution control

Corporations need to make profit on all their product lines.  Often they will bundle bad products with good ones to try to make money on all that they make.  With distribution control you get the right to sell your own product individually.

 

Challenges

Marketing and advertising

The thing that corporations bring to the table is their support abilities.  In particular they can research potential markets and craft advertising campaigns to help promote the product.  Not something that an individual can do easily.

legal challenges

Whether its patent infringement or researching copyright laws.  Again something big corporations can easily do that individuals cannot.

 

I think the biggest challenge in the future information economy is simply finding ideas to present to the public.  The people with the ideas need to wake up and begin moving onto the internet stage to make themselves heard.  Collectives of artists, designers, inventors need to form to band together to be able to present their ideas to the public on an equal footing with the corporations.

Posted in: business, future, ideas

Ink

September 13, 2013 7:43 AM , 2 Comments ,

I’m going to be 100% honest here.  Overall I don’t like tattoos.  They’re definitely not for me.

I find most tattoos to be ugly, ill-conceived, badly executed, and poorly planned.  Most people put little if no thought into getting a tattoo.  Usually it’s a spur of the moment decision brought about by too much peer pressure, liquor, emotion or a combination of all three.

To me it represents a juvenile thought process that doesn’t take into consideration any future repercussions of a decision that will be with you for most of your life.

Now, all that being said there are some exceptional examples of body art out there.  Some people have embraced tattooing and have put months if not years into crafting a whole body mosaic of what they want to express to the world through the tattoos on their bodies.  They pick out a style, they consult with top-level tattoo artists for weeks or months and together they go through and come up with a unified plan of how they will execute this plan.  The individuals that do this understand and embrace a lifestyle that will include if not make tattoos the centerpiece of their lives.  It is a carefully considered and adult decision process.

These people also understand that their bodies are living canvases for their art.  They take care of their bodies and keep fit.  They understand that in order to keep the art at its peak condition that they must take care of their skin.

These people I can respect.

But for most people I have to say tattoos are not for you.  Think about your life as a whole, what is it you want to accomplish?   What is it you want to be?  Where is it you want to be in ten years?  Is it going to be part of some counter-culture clique?  Will you be a bohemian artist in Soho?  A biker in southern California?  A Maori warrior?  A yakuza?  A top model in London?

Or will you instead be working at Giant Corp and living in the ‘burbs wearing dockers and a long sleeve button down to cover your tribal armband that you got in Cabo back on spring break of ’94?  Will you be regretting that “tramp stamp” you got at your cousin Suzie’s bridal shower when you and the girls went to the “bad side” of town and you had one too many tequila shooters?  Is it worth getting Sheila, Mary, Melissa, Angelica, or Deidre inked on your arm when you’re 18 and falling in love every other week?  Is it really worth getting that pithy little quote you picked up last week stenciled on your body?

I can’t tell you what to do with your body or your life.  That’s up to you.  I can however tell you to appreciate the body you have.  If it needs enhancing, then work out.  Make yourself the best you that you can be.  It’s a lot more permanent and more satisfying than any tattoo will ever be.

Posted in: art, life in general

cutting cable TV

September 11, 2013 8:18 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Among the worst habits that I’ve had in this lifetime has been an acute addiction to television.  I was addicted to the video nanny since I was a kid and kept up the habit over the years.

It’s only been in the last decade that the addiction has waned.  I first started noticing the disturbing trend on regular network television of substituting “reality” programming for actual writing.  Shows like “Survivor”, “amazing race”, and “Big brother” pulled in viewers and allowed programmers to skimp on the writing.

Regular shows got bad too.  The writing became uninspired, sometimes it was almost directly lifted from shows I had seen from the last quarter century.  Formulaic approaches played ad nauseam.

A few gems still exist of course.  “Big Bang theory” is a notable example and it has garnered fans for coming up with fresh new material but by and large it’s a wasteland.  Reality shows that are scripted, fake TV drama, more violence, more sex, more appeal to the lowest common denominator.

My set lays idle every night gathering dust.  I don’t even try to look for shows anymore.  I’m filling my time nowadays with books, the internet, and friends.  I find it much more satisfying.  I was afraid that by quitting TV I would miss something important.  The opposite is true.  By spending so much time on TV I have missed so much of my life.  I should have made the change sooner.

 

 

Posted in: television

The wisdom

September 10, 2013 7:56 AM , Leave a Comment ,

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

– Reinhold Niebuhr

I was always given to understand that this was the U.S. Army Ranger prayer but recently I found out that it wasn’t and that in fact it’s part of a prayer used by Alcoholics Anonymous.

I suppose it’s good for both cases.  Both sets of people face daunting challenges after all and everyone can benefit from the good advice given.

The Serenity

When I was younger and more bright-eyed I believed that any and every problem was solvable not just by the world at large but by me in particular.  What a shock it was to find out that it wasn’t.  It felt something like being punched for the first time to find out that you have limitations.  You want to get back up and try to make that change but some things in life are not going to turn out the way you want them to.  You can make yourself miserable by trying and failing over and over again at the same task.  This misery can metastasize into a feeling of futility about not just that particular problem but about your life in general.  Somewhere along the line I learned that in some things I have to let go.

The courage

In the original version I heard this was the “the strength to change the things I can“.  We all need to realize that yes we have to accept some things in life as unsolvable.  Not everything is going to work out the way you want it to but first we need to look deep inside and see if we do have the strength to make things better.  Many times when we get pushed and pushed to our extreme limits we find that yes indeed we do have that inner core of strength just waiting to come out.  Deep inside lies the untapped potential of our being just waiting for the opportunity to come to our rescue in our darkest hours.  Realize that it is in all of us to make our situation better.  We don’t have to accept every situation as is.  Remember that line from the Pet Shop boys.

There’s a lot of opportunities
If there aren’t, you can make them  – “Opportunities”

The Wisdom

This is where most of us trip up.  how can you tell which is the solvable problem and which is not?  That I can’t say.  Each is unique and has its own characteristics and there are no easy answers.  A part of wisdom is persistence.  You have to look over a problem from every possible and impossible angle to see if there is a solution.  Part of it is courage.  You have to look deep inside yourself and see if you have the will inside of you to carry out a solution no matter how much it may cost you personally.  The last part is the serenity.  You have to sometimes accept that it’s okay to walk away.

Posted in: life in general, motivation, religion

Online lives – Everquest

September 9, 2013 8:41 PM , Leave a Comment ,

So there we “were”.  My girlfriend and I doing the same old thing on a Friday night.  Hanging out in greater faydark killing orcs in Everquest.  We had 2 low-level players and weren’t really advancing in the game.  She got bored (as she often did) and suggested we make human characters.

We decided on Freeport as our home city and she made a Bard and I made a Cleric.  I figured these characters would last maybe a week before she got bored and deleted the new character (I was right in her case).  I was playing and watching Adult swim on the cartoon network at the same time and the “Brack show” was on.  So I called my new character Brackie since I figured this was going to be a short-term character and that the name wouldn’t be important.

As I had some money and some experience I was able to outfit the new character better than most and he was soon zooming up the levels.  What’s more I found that healers were in wide demand.  In a game that’s very proactive and promotes aggressive playing, players that are willing to sit back and play support roles are extremely sought after.  I could get into any group I wanted and I soon was accepted into a guild (a player club).

I was soon raiding.  Raids are large encounters where sometimes as many as 72 people gather together to do a multi hour adventure.  These raids require special tactics and planning.  I was the senior most healer in the guild and got assigned the task of developing our healing strategies.  I turned to the healing chain.

In the ultimate encounter of a raid the toughest meanest fighter takes on the boss monster.  All the other warriors take up supporting roles while the healers in the raid form the chain.  A single healer would be overwhelmed by the encounter but a whole host of healers working in concert could sustain that one lone fighter.  So I organized our chain of healers.  One healer would heal and then the next and the next.  We kept the chain going on a nice steady pace.  Casting spells with machine like precision.  Usually it might last 5 or 10 minutes.  One encounter lasted a full hour.  Over time we got to be pretty good at this and we attracted players due to our reputation.

Still amazes me how much time and effort I invested into all of this.  How involved the community was in the whole game.  I mean we had online worldwide rankings!  Items in the game (computer files) could be sold in the real world for real world money.  People would dress up as their characters.  We had our own language of online terms that we could use easily and freely with each other.

Eventually all good things come to an end.  That character that I was going to throw away in a week lasted me nearly five years.  I had reached the ultimate level (at that time) that was allowed in the game.  His equipment was the best and we had beaten all the boss monsters available.  New expansions were coming out and new content and adventures but I felt that I had accomplished what I set out to do with that character.

Reluctantly I pulled the plug on that chapter of my online life.  I had a wonderful time but I felt that I had new places to visit and new experiences to be explored.

Posted in: games, hobbies, internet

Introspection

September 7, 2013 2:07 PM , Leave a Comment ,

The act of looking within oneself and examining your thought process or how you live your life.

Many Peoples around the world have this as part of the culture.  For some it merely took a quiet place and time to look within.  Others required more complex rituals.

Among some native Americans it took deprivation and extreme physical duress to reach this state.  They would either starve or thirst or endure harsh conditions in isolation until a revelation was made.  Sometimes hallucinogenics were used.

Some early indo-europeans believed the opposite to be true.  A state of extreme bliss usually brought about by alcohol or poppy derived substances could lead to profound revelations.

The idea was an is to separate the mind from the body. To disengage the physical world from the mind and allow it to operate independently.  Have you ever been in pain? hungry? sad? cold?  You know how distracting this is to your mind.  When you’re at work and you have a headache or you ate something bad or you’re worried about your home life.  You can’t get anything done because your mind is preoccupied.

But beyond that is something else.  When you go past simple hunger, beyond thirst, beyond pain.  When the mind becomes so saturated by these that it no longer accepts stimuli from these then the mind disengages.  It exists in a space all its own.  A mind free to think just for the sake of thinking.

I suppose some use meditation techniques to do the same thing.  Others exercise and let the repetitive motion lull them.  I wonder though if the results are the same.

All I need is some “quiet” time which is basically some time to myself to think.  No “distractions” and the reason I use the quotes is that sometimes I will go into a noisy hectic bar and find a corner to myself and start thinking.  I tune out the noise and lights and let people do their thing while I do mine.  I could sit in my room and do the same but there I wouldn’t have the guarantee that someone wouldn’t come looking for me needing me to do something.  In a noisy crowded place like that I can be by myself.  It’s like hiding in plain sight.

Haven’t had much time for this lately and I desperately need to.

Posted in: myths, thought

Houstocanes

September 5, 2013 6:41 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Houstonians are generally laid back about weather events.  Perhaps it’s something to do with the inevitability of the humidity.  No matter how many Summers you’ve spent here you know that first blast of 100% humidity in the Spring will knock you flat and that it won’t let up till mid to late November.

But some time in late August Houstonians get a queer expression on their faces.  Nothing that you can pin down during conversations but a certain something.  They begin to linger a little longer over the weather page in the paper.  Stay up a little later for the 10 o’clock news to catch the weatherman.  Their eyes focused on some spot in the Caribbean.  Looking searchingly at a fuzzy satellite picture for the slightest sign of a hurricane.

Having weathered so many you’d think that you would become accustomed to it and in some sense I suppose this does happen.  As I’m sure that southern Californians don’t even notice small tremors and that Midwesterners accept the coming of tornado season.

But even the most die-hard gulf coaster gets to look round at this time of year.  Is that tree going to withstand a Cat 2 storm?  Are the storm drains going to overflow and fill up my first floor?  How old is that can of Spam in the cupboard?  We nonchalantly prepare for it on the weekends.  An extra couple gallon bottles of water, some cans of soup here and there.  Maybe some late spring trimming of branches.  Nothing to get excited about.  Nobody admits to being nervous about hurricanes.  Admitting that would be a gross breach of decorum.

They get ready as best they can for the big event without really trying.  They leave the panic for when the weatherman officially gives them leave to panic.  Then they take it in stride like any other American to panic.

It’s only in the waning days of September that they begin to relax slightly.  The high hurricane season unofficially ends and they begin to relax a bit more and become a little more complacent.  Life can return to normalcy for another ten months.

Houstonians will return to their normal pastimes and once more forget about the possible monsters of the Gulf.

 

 

Posted in: Houston, weather , Tagged: ,

Public speaking and rhetoric

September 3, 2013 6:09 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Public speaking has always been a bane to me.  I found out way back when in 6th grade.  We were all required to take a semester of speech communications and I knew that I would never make a good speaker.  I can’t keep the audience interested let alone persuade them to come over to my point of view.  I do so much better through the written word as far as persuasion goes.

My theory is that it has something to do with my voice.  Maybe the pitch, the tone, maybe I need to sound more assertive or confident.  Possibly explains why I get shot down so much when asking for dates.

Another possibility that I have been exploring lately is the role of body language plays when speakers engage a person one on one or speak to a group.

Look at the following YouTube clip with the sound off.

speaking example

Notice the way the people in the video pose, the expressions on their faces, the attitude that they present.  They are interesting without the sound.  They tend to draw the audience in to whatever they’re doing.

So many times when a speaker gets behind the lectern they turn into speaking statues.  They might as well turn on a tape recording of their voice and just leave the stage.  Obviously you can go overboard doing this but a lack of body language is often one of the biggest sins out there.

Not knowing your subject and not practicing are other sins.  I can tell you from experience that not practicing a speech before you need to deliver that speech is deadly.  So is not properly developing and thinking out a speech.  It’s no sin to make a speech too short but it really is a sin to make a speech way too long and leaving some glaring error in the speech because you didn’t research the subject enough.

Lastly, know your audience.  Know what they may be interested in hearing, know what they don’t want to hear about.  When you know a little something about how your audience is apt to respond you can craft a more effective message.

motivating a crowd

In this example the speaker slowly warms to his subject by stating the obvious problem.  He speaks softly encouraging the audience to scoot up to listen.  He relates his own frustration with the problem and shares his own deficiencies.

Almost imperceptibly he starts to turn the crowd over to his views of the problem.  He very softly introduces his solution to the problem and begins to build on it.  As he does the crowd reaction grows and encourages him.  His volume starts increasing and he loses the meekness in his voice.  He is now almost commanding because the crowd allows him to.  He finishes by asking the audience “what are you going to do?”  This allows him to command the listeners with their willing assent.

Speaking has so many nuances and little tricks that it would be impossible to learn them all.  The best we can do is to study up on the subject and find a style that best suits us.  Something that you find comfortable and builds on your strengths and masks your weaknesses.  You will find it a useful tool in so many different parts of your life.

Posted in: business, language, talking

Success. Pushing and being pushed

September 1, 2013 7:50 PM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been advising some folks lately about their life situation.  Something I like doing because it gives me a peek into their lives and makes me feel I’m doing something useful.  In particular I find that while folks are generally talented that they lack the motivation to do whatever it is that they do.

I spent some time reading up on motivation techniques and seeing what works best and how to push someone to just release their inner fire and do what they can do.

One of the points that really resonated with me in my research is the effect that successful people can have on people around them.  I don’t just mean like your immediate boss or knowing someone who’s situation is slightly better than yours, but a truly successful individual.  That person that seems to be doing exactly what they want to and seemingly does so without effort.

Something about having a successful person in your life makes you want to try harder just by their being in your life.  When you know that person that had a dream and went after that dream and made it happen something wakes up inside of you.  A mental block is suddenly removed from your mind and you realize that you can do that thing you wanted to.

Have you ever noticed how successful people tend to cluster together?  You go to some ritzy party or art gallery or museum and you find the doers and shakers and people who are making a go of it mingling, talking, exchanging stories and ideas.  Maybe even inspiring more success.  Do you think that it’s by chance that they group together?

On the other hand you go to some dank dive bar and you find the losers of life sitting together in the dark complaining about their failed businesses, relationships, and lives.  Generally depressing the hell out of each other and making any sort of progress just short of impossible.

So what’s my advice for these folks?  Well firstly stop hanging out with the losers of life.  Start looking for those people with dreams similar to yours.  Realize that a transformation in your attitude is the first step in improving your life and that it’s not something reserved for the wealthy or lucky or “special”.  Anyone can make this transformation.  You just have to allow yourself to do it,

Posted in: life in general, motivation

Vacations

August 30, 2013 9:30 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Used to be that vacations were about cutting loose, getting wild, seeing how much I could get away with without landing in jail and the only real limitation was how much my liver could take.

Oh how the time’s have changed….

Here I am planning my next vacation and do I choose Acapulco or the Caribbean?  Do I go in high summer or spring break?  Hell no!  I’m going upstate to New York in the Fall.

I’m going to sit on a lake shore with a fishing pole and pretend to fish while I sleep, I’m going to climb mountains and hills and sit at the top and just stare out at creation.  Going to drive round and find farmer’s markets and honest to God pumpkin patches with scarecrows.  Oooh and aaah at all the pretty leaves as they come down.  Sit at some roadside cafe with terrible coffee and stale pie for a couple of hours while the rain falls outside.

Going to find a nice quiet forest and yell.

Recharge the mental and spiritual batteries for another 51 weeks.

Mainly I’m going to try to gather up the threads of my life and figure out what’s what and where do I go from here.

Lately I’ve been feeling like a desperate fencer endlessly parrying thrusts from life left and right and not even being able to catch up much less mount an offense.  Somewhere, somehow I’ve got to make a stand.  I hope this will give me the time to plan that out.

Don’t fancy my prospects otherwise.

When I was younger I relished living life out on the edge and at the moment.  Recklessly plunging on regardless of the consequences and then figuring my way out of my latest scrape.  Maybe it’s wisdom, maybe it’s old age but I don’t want to continue on like that.  I haven’t tried to live like that in years but lately I’ve had to.  Time to get back on the path.

Posted in: vacations