Ideas and action, talent is a species of vigor

Hopefully you have had the opportunity to read something from Eric Hoffer. His philosophies, writing and social commentary are always enlightening. His personal story is very interesting as well. Richard Florida, within the last four years, has been an influential voice regarding the creative class (someting Hoffer often spoke of) within societies and communities. I thought I would pull some quotes of Hoffers for readers to absorb. Enjoy. If you have the time, check out some of Richard's writing and research, too.

"The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. De Tocqueville points out that it is at times when passions start to govern human affairs that ideas are most obviously translated into political action. The translation of ideas into action is usually in the hands of people least likely to follow rational motives. Hence, it is that action is often the nemesis of ideas, and sometimes of the men who formulate them. One of the marks of the truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action."

(And this excerpt is more interesting.)

"They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor."

-Eric Hoffer

Apples, Nikes, Cokes, Facebooks, Zappos

Forget About Harley and Apple. On Dim Bulb, Baskin's recent article opens nicely:

"Marketing's dim science lets itself get distracted and misled by the stand-outs and exceptions. It's no surprise, since we're in the standing-out business (and think of ourselves as quite exceptional, thank you very much), but we tend to read a lot of meaning into uniquely complex accomplishments that can't be copied because of their unique complexity:"

Jump to the Article

Has the Internet Killed Print Journalism

Originally on Adholes

Events being validated by the people experiencing them as they happen, will be the News. The mountain top known as Media or journalsm, in theory, is becoming a mountain range. There is nothing wrong with that. If an algorithm can be written to aggregate events from the cloud as they happen using geo-specific data, and then delivered to your computer or mobile device--why would you need someone to report it?

Here's why: The News organizations are already practicing that old tried-and-true model for commoditization; scarcity. News is up, then down. It won't be crawled, so it won't be indexed, which means you can't search for it. Egalitarian information or News?

Technically, News is independent of the medium. It can be news, no matter how it is delivered.
The internet hasn't changed journalism, people have.

To add to my initial response above, Journalism is medium-independent, as well.

UPDATE: 11.22.09 David Weinberger writes about Transparency and Objectivity

5 things that inspire me

I sourced this from a recent manifesto that I read.
Great thoughts worth reading.

"Some of what inspires us:

1. new ‘wealth’.
Traditionally, wealth has been based on money, family name, education, etc. But this definition of wealth is exclusionary, and even destructive. We believe that as we move into a conceptual age, the valued currencies around ‘new wealth’ should be based on creativity, innovation, and social benefit.

2.social origins of good ideas.
Ronald S. Burt of University of Chicago explains that “people who live in the intersection of social worlds are at higher risk of having good ideas.” In other words, the more people you know who aren’t just like you, the better chance you have of thinking and behaving differently.

3. the straddle.
Technology should exist as a means to facilitate and enhance real-world interactions, and should not be treated as an end in itself. We believe in networking that is actually social.

4. better filters.
Communication is now more efficient than at any other point in human history, but forces us to accept irrelevant interactions. Quality still trumps quantity. The movement towards an increasingly fleeting and fragmented world must be balanced by smart filters. And we believe these filters should be ‘human’ in nature.

5. littlewood’s law.
According to Cambridge University professor J.E. Littlewood, mathematically, individuals can expect a miracle (an exceptional event of special significance) to happen to them at the rate of about one per month. We would like to guarantee those odds for you."

Left and Right Flutter

Wish I had a better headline for this one. Couldn't think of anything while I was creating it. Simple though.

2 Great visual concepts about Humans

Received these in an email from a good friend/designer. I would consider these to be award winners.

I'm not sure where these originated from or who's portfolio they came from but, they're amazing. Very simple, in comprehension--complex in execution.

Slacktivists

Via Designer's Who Blog, in reference to Design Altruism Project and quoting David Stairs:

"My concern with the popularity of Facebook design groups and socially conscientious design blogs is that, rather than muster wider awareness, they will cause both a false sense of general accomplishment, and result in donor-fatigue.

The growth of a category of what are called “slacktivists,” people who use their interest in design/politics to justify joining online groups and building websites for remote non-profits, fails to address the world’s problems with feet-on-the-ground solutions.

At the end of the day isn’t it the person with the most mud on his or her shoes, not the one with the most conference speaking engagements, who is doing the important work?"

As Cat noted, this is something worth thinking about however, I believe David was politely suggesting that we do less thinking and more doing.

Remember this gem? I do.

5 Principals of Invention

Scientist: Jacob Bronowski
" A man brings together two facets of reality and by discovering a likeness between them, suddenly makes them one."

Writer: Arthur Koestler
"...and mental occurrence simultaneously associated with two habitually incompatible contexts."

Mathematician: Jacques Hadamard
"...invention or discovery takes place by combining ideas."

Poet: Pierre Reverdy
"The more distant and distinct the relationship between the two realities that are brought together, the more powerful the image."

Psychiatrist: Anthony Starr
"New discoveries in science and mathematics often consist of a synthesis between theories or concepts which have hitherto been regarded as unconnected."

Five completely different disciplines arrive at the same conclusion.
All separated by semantics not thoughts or actions.

Typedia

"In a nutshell, Typedia is a community website to classify typefaces and educate people about them. Think of it like a mix between IMDb and Wikipedia, but just for type. Anyone can join, add, and edit pages for typefaces or for the people behind the type.

We love type, and we have a burning desire to learn as much as possible about typefaces: where they come from, who made them, and why they look the way they do. We want everyone to be able to share in that rich knowledge and enjoy the art and artists of type design. Over time, we think Typedia could grow into a great educational resource for people to learn about their favorite typefaces and discover new ones."

Typedia

Whuffie Bank

The Whuffie Bank A nonprofit organization dedicated to building a new currency based on reputation that could be redeemed for real and virtual products and services.

And from their twitter profile (@whuffiebank); In a world where reputation is wealth, only those that do good and well onto others are the richest.




And here is what Wikipedia has to offer. "Whuffie is the ephemeral, reputation-based currency of Cory Doctorow's science fiction novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. This book describes a post-scarcity economy: All the necessities (and most of the luxuries) of life are free for the taking. A person's current Whuffie is instantly viewable to anyone, as everybody has a brain-implant giving them an interface with the Net. The term has since seen some adoption as a synonym for Social capital, including its use in the title of the Tara Hunt book The Whuffie Factor.

Fluid HTML: Flash and HTML Markup

Free to use and will have an open API for developers to contribute code and objects.
Vist Fluid HTML for more information.

I wonder how Adobe feels about this. Despite what some have said, I'm not sure it is a competitor to Flex or Flash Builder.
I'll need to poke around some.

Crowdsourcing is Schmoofty Part 1

Years ago (so odd, typing that), just after the Desktop Publisher's Scare, in between the Dot Bomb Massacre and during the subsequent Bubble-Bursting of every other middle-men industry, we had the Clip-Art Cornucopia–

Endless stacks of CDs in Staples, Office Depot, Creative Guy/Girls cubicle and links to complimentary websites all selling video, audio, sound-bites, icons, logos, typefaces, photography (web and print-based), even short story ideas and scripting/screenplay summaries. The supply of usable, open-sourced-creative (for $19.95) was endless. How long ago was that–8, 5, 4 years ago?

It was an interesting marketing premise; Large quantities of creative assets available to the masses (who considered themselves creative thinkers but not creative executers) that needed a special something to support their project, presentation or campaign. That special something to compliment and effectively communicate their new idea, product or service. Let's call this small, almost forgotten age, The Age of Schmoofty. (shoe-moo-f-t)

People argued and debated and celebrated; "This is great for creative people!", "This is great for businesses!", "This is great!". If greatness begets greatness, nothing remains great. In-fact, it becomes mundane. Schmoofty was mediocrity.

Companies where happy with everything being Schmoofty. It meant lower overhead and costs accrued by third-parties (those pesky creative elitists)where eliminated. Then–the internet happened, on a mass scale, this time around. Social-Media happened. Communication between markets, micro or macro was becoming seamless. All-smack-in-the-middle of the Schmoofty age...damn.

Everyone looking for that something special to compliment their new ideas, products and services, noticed their Schmoofty looked like everyone else's Schmoofty. It was similar, if not, a simple iteration of an identical Schmoofty being used by another Creative Thinker (sans the ability to do). You used a flag in your logo or an image of a house for an ad or an icon placed in a layout to represent a service or message–you and 30 other companies. Schmoofty had its skirt pulled up. Markets where communicating with each other. They began sharing and exchanging their favorite ideas, products and services. But the market–people who thought that they found something unique and special, saw the same schmoofty used for something entirely different. It seemed that their favorite companies and brands hadn't been that unique after all. Schmoofty wasn't looking so unique, as everyone was pulling from the same creative assets.

Schmoofty looking similar to other Schmoofty was bad. Some argued it was competitive. In-fact, it meant that only a select few Schmoofties where being noticed. Everything looking the same meant, nothing was standing out. Everyone pulling from the same creative assets meant no one had anything unique to say or demonstrate. Ideas, products and services where lost among the homogenization of Schmoofty. It was sad for many, profitable for a few, detrimental to those pesky creative elitists.

Schmoofty left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. People seemed to think that nothing was going to replace Schmoofty. Everyone stopped believing in Schmoofty because everyone had the same Schmoofty. Some charged more for it. Others simply copied another company's schmoofty-ness while the newer companies inadvertently copied Schmoofty.