Curatorialist

I was quoted today in CNN’s piece about how Social Media is changing the marketing of movies. In the article, the author points to a website that catalogs all the movie critics that have been fired from traditional print publications in recent years due to the decline of the medium. As a person who grew up loving movies, along with every other kind of pop culture, film reviews have been a big part of my life. Hearing about its decline (in the traditional sense) certainly fills me with some nostalgia and maybe a sprinkle of “what’s happened to us?”

Also today, a heated debate through E-Mail with some friends about Bill Simmons’ (The Sports Guy) article on his (questionable) admission that Laker fans actually know a little bit about basketball – well, 2/3rds of them. Simmons is an acknowledged die hard Celtics fan (and all the bias that that entails) but attempts to offer critical thinking on the NBA. It’s the Daily Show of sports analysis. The Lakers and Kobe are the GOP. You can’t blame Simmons so much as ESPN. Sure, Boston and Los Angeles have one of the most storied rivalries in all of sports, if you’re going to provide balanced reporting, you can’t only have one half represented. But aren’t we used to this, by now? Everyone loves to hate L.A. – NY, SF, Seattle, Boston… hell, even cities within our own state hate us. But of course we know why. It becomes laughably apparent when we see Bill Simmons lugging his fake tan up to the trendy and expensive SoHo House in LOS ANGELES, where he LIVES, to rub shoulders with all the people he proposes to not like. As one of the folks on the E-Mail chain puts it, he’s like “a politician who has won elections and committed his life to passing laws incriminating and marginalizing homosexuals, while at night, he’s secretly sneaking away to airport mens rooms to secretly blow strangers.”

And I learned recently that Bob Garfield, the long-time salty and acerbic AdWeek op-ed guy, is no longer employed. This is a guy who has embraced the word critic way more literally than it was intended. At least with Simmons, the allegiance to the Celtics provides a little back story. Some context. Garfield hated on advertising in the same kind of spewing and personal way that commenters on YouTube rail against, well, everything. But, at least with Garfield, there seemed to be an equal opportunity for greatness and although it was hard to get that accolade from him, it seemed that he wasn’t going to stonewall any agency from the chance.

It all adds up to a new day for the reviewer. What we know is that the old method is changing – it’s not like it was anymore: a guy or girl on staff of a print publication who submits his review by some kind of deadline and then gets some sleep. For one thing, those publications are losing their shirts and the critic seems like an extemporaneous piece of content, like music in schools. Never mind the soul-crushing reality of an entity without opinion or standards. But sure, with no advertisers, you have to kill some babies – why not the whiny ones? Half the readers hate them anyway. If the Los Angeles Times ever asks me who to let go, I put T.J. Simers on the top of the list. To me, he’s not a reason to buy that paper. Others may disagree, but appealing to 50% of your audience isn’t job security.

But another big change is, of course, the Internet. The syndicated critic was a way to market something in short supply to the masses: access. If you had a movie, book, play, art show, ad or album coming out, you gave access to a reviewer and the general public paid for that glimpse. But we have access now, ourselves. I’m hearing about art from the artist. I’m hearing about Kobe from Kobe. I’m listening to the music online. The creator of the content holds all the cards because they can grant access, or deny it, to whomever they want. Or just take it on themselves. That’s why all Simers complains about anymore is that he’s getting stonewalled at press conferences. He knows. It’s the last thread you hold onto before you float out into space.

Unless you’re great. If you’re great, then it’s about more than access. But it’s hard to be great. As it should be.

The great critics/reviewers won’t ever die. Christgau, Kale. Damn, Roger Ebert literally loses his voice and he’s still making it happen. So, yes, the list of the fallen critic is going to make some headlines, but the real story is who remains. Crowd-sourcing is not the answer. We want a curation. We want intelligence. And we SHOULD want to be challenged, but for the right reasons – to increase the public discourse, not decrease it. Don’t be fooled by devil’s advocacy. There is a kind of critique that is all too easy – the kind that simply hates. You can gain followers by being a hater, it’s true. But to what end? When it’s all said and done, we’re going to be remembered for what we say yes to, not no. True passion for something, anything, comes from what you commit to. Something you stick your neck out for and, despite criticism and roadblocks, do great at. If you’re simply critical, then your life’s work is just to be something that someone else has to overcome.

Over the last three months, I’ve had zero emails in my inbox about 75% of the time. It rarely gets above 20 emails and, when it does, I can get it down to zero in minutes. I implemented a custom system for myself that has freed me from the chains of piling-up emails which, let’s be honest, becomes your daily To-Do list. But worse, it’s a source of constant stress and actually works against productivity.  The camel’s back broke for me one night when Amanda asked me what I did at work all day, and my answer was: Emails. I didn’t ever want to have to say that again. So, I came up with a system. Works for me, so I thought I’d share it.

1. Divert.

Emails must be sorted and filed BEFORE you read them. This cuts down the largest portion of incoming mail. Here’s how you do it:

1. Create a folder structure for your mail. Mine looks like this: Articles, CC’d, Events, Newsletters, Personal, To Do, Travel, URLs, Work. Then I have sub-folders within Personal and Work. You don’t have to follow that structure, your life is what it is. But for me, this covers just about any kind of email that could come in (or needs to be filed). And some of them are very strategic. I’ll get to that.
2. Use Rules. This is a big one. In Entourage, it’s under Tools. Click on New and you’ll get something like this:  As you’ll see, the options are plenty. They key is to create enough rules to handle nearly every TYPE of email that comes in.
3. Specific Rules. Some Rules apply to just you – I get a lot of All Company emails, for example, so I made a rule that sends anything that has our all-company address in the To: field straight to a folder called All Company. I also get a lot of “Hot sheets,” sometimes spelled as two words, sometimes as one. I have ONE rule that sends any email with either spelling to a folder called “Hot sheets.”
4. Key Rules. Here’s where we get to the important stuff. You need a rule for any email that comes in with HTML in it. I send all those to the folder called “Newsletters.”  This covers ALL junk that isn’t being caught by my Junk filter. It also covers anything you’ve subscribed to. Because they all use HTML to embed images. And then I highly recommend one for CC’s. Any time you are CC’d on an email, have it go to a CC’s folder. And then, lastly, make a To Do folder. The rule on this is to have any email where the subject is “To Do” and the sender is YOU to be moved to a folder called To Do.

You can see what’s happened here. For the most part, all your emails will now be sent to sub-folders. I know what you’re saying. What if I miss an important email from my boss, family, friend, girlfriend??

2. Exemptions.

The Rules box is broken up into two main sections: IF and THEN. And you can add as many IFs and as many THENs as you want. And one of the IFs functions is called “Is Not.” For any rule that you want an exemption for, add another If/Is Not. Those will be unaffected by the rule and go straight to your inbox.

3. To-Do.

This is a new habit. Get ready. I noticed that I was keeping emails in my inbox as a reminder to take care of something. It had become my To Do list. I would even send myself emails to remind myself to do something. The problem with this is that a) it doesn’t prioritize your To-Do’s very well and b) you’re mixing To-Do’s with memos and everything else. Untie yourself from this construct. If an email prompts you to do something, add the To-Do item to an ongoing email, called To Do, that you respond to and email back to yourself . Then delete the former one.  This does a couple things:

1. It keeps all your action items in one place, which you can print or adjust whenever you want.
2. Psychologically, it’s one email instead of tens, or hundreds. It has an amazing calming effect.
3. You will start to prioritize in a completely different way. When it’s not in your inbox, you have to make a decision: am I doing my To-Do’s right now, or am I in a meeting, or am I brainstorming, or writing an article, or whatever. Just the act of forcing that behavior starts to reorganize your life in better, more productive ways.

And then, because you have a rule for your To-Do to go to its own folder, that’s not even in your in-box. And there you go.

But what to do with all the emails going into those other folders?

4. Reading behavior.

We tend to read emails in order, by date. Until one comes in that catches our eye, or is from someone that pushes a hot button. It’s not necessarily more “important” than what we’re doing, but it’s shiny. And we can’t avoid it. The reading behavior gets all messed up because you’re simultaneously answering in order AND by shiny-ness. The hummingbird effect. Diverting emails eliminates this behavior.

But emails will start to compile within folders.

The great thing about this system is that each folder is a different mindset. Newsletters is a mindset. You can scan and purge newsletters very quickly. I get over a hundred a day, but I can scan them all in under 60 seconds and then Mark All As Read: Command+Option+T. That’s 100 emails in a minute, dealt with. Because they all obey the same function in my life: information/news. In essence, that folder is an RSS feed.

CC’d is a different mindset. That’s work stuff, but that isn’t directly to me. I can check that throughout the day, knowing that it’s not urgent. I’ll take a little more time with those, scanning for issues or things I might want to chime in on. But it’s not stressful, not urgent.

All Company Emails I check maybe once a day, sometimes twice. And the ones from the brass go straight to my inbox, because of my exemption, anyway. That’s a 30 second scan.

And then there’s emails from friends and family. This is a tough one. You know who these people are in your life – your circle. This is going to hurt, but you have to send it all to a folder, too. Mine is called “Discussions” and is nestled into Personal. I hope any friends or family reading this aren’t offended, but it is specifically because of how interesting these people are that I must divert them. When I’m at work, there is almost no down time. It is constant. And when there isn’t a meeting going on, I want to be focused on my clients’ business. Discussing things with friends and family on email is actually one of my favorite things to do, that’s the problem. I could do it ALL DAY LONG. I have to force myself into the habit of carving out that time, not having it carve into mine. And I actually pay more attention to the words this way.

So, what does end up in my in-box? They tend to be important issues. Emails come in to my inbox slowly now, but each one is a very valid need, almost always about work. And that’s how it should be. It has decreased my stress and focused my attention. Email is barely an issue for me anymore.

Hope that’s helpful. Wait’ll I tell you about my bookmark system.

You know what I learned from SXSW? That I could totally make TED better.

From my POV, TED and SXSW are almost completely opposite from each other – but each needs what the other has.

TED’s motto is “Ideas Worth Spreading.” SXSW’s is “Tomorrow Happens Here.” And that says a lot. TED speeches are amazing. My mind has been blown many times from the videos I’ve seen coming out of there. But the next day, I’m onto my business and it hardly ever comes up again, except in dinner conversations. The ideas are worth spreading, but the emphasis is on the worthiness of the ideas, not the spreadability of them. Enter SXSW…

SXSW is about the spreading, often at the expense of the idea. People gather, make plans, share code, talk shop and scheme about new systems and collaborations. And usually the subject is the social web; new tools for connecting. And they’re do-ers. Makers. Tinkerers. Sure, a major portion of the ideas you hear about will end up being nothing more than lonely code, but there’s an energy of making things happen at SXSW. It has a laboratory feel. I was sitting at a table last night, talking through an idea and the people at that table, literally, could have made that idea. There were coders sitting next to artists, writers, producers and publicists. All we needed was computers and phones. And the likeliness of that idea getting made is actually pretty high. Because I know who to call and we all broke bread together.

SXSW is kind of strangely devoid of tangible results – that is, there are so many ideas, proposals, speeches and programs that you tend to get cynical because you just know they’re not all going to get traction. Just check out Paul Carr’s rant on Tech Crunch. It’s not that Carr is completely wrong, it’s that he belongs at TED. He’s looking for a finished idea for proof of worthiness. He should be at the conference that celebrates that. But that conference could learn something from SXSW, too.

I know I could turn TED into a place where ideas actually do spread. But it would be a chiropractic shift in how they organize it. I doubt that they’d ever embrace or try it, for two major reasons:

1. It’s apostle-based. TED does celebrate the inventor, the genius and the bringer of good, there is no doubt. It is an event for the “best and brightest” and those that are allowed to attend are of the same ilk. I think the strategy is to invite influencers and those with the kind of capital and following to make these ideas come true, It’s an old process for the spreading of ideas, invented in Ancient Greece and Rome. And it’s outdated.

I know people who go to TED. They’re leaders. And leaders are delegators. They tackle large issues and hand off the small ones – whatever system they work in needs that kind of top down approach. But that’s not how spreading happens anymore, not on a grand scale. Even the most dynamically enthused TED conference-goer, is too limited, in terms of reach. Impassioned speeches are simply not the tipping point for great ideas.

TED would have to break down the structure of who’s invited and who participates in order for this to work and I worry they’re not interested in that. They have created a club that I think appeals to the egos of those who get to go (it certainly would if I went), and that ego-stroking is tough to let go of. It’s too seductive.

2. Open source is complex. The other major hurdle to TED becoming more contemporary in how it spreads ideas is that the organization of their program is a relatively simple closed loop system. There are a number of complexities that surround the event – certainly the work being done by the participants is enormously complex – but the conference itself could be organized by any event planner. The invitations process, the event production and the website all employ very standard approaches.

TED needs to look at how SXSW organizes their event, perhaps even hijack it. It is a study in de-centralization. It is, itself, an open API. For TED to do that, they’d need to make available a lot more data, besides just the videos. In fact, the videos are perhaps the least important part of it. The videos should be the invitation to the event, not the result of the event. What happens next needs to be a collaborative and iterative process of geniuses, organizers, builders and social media experts.

Is TED ready to organize an open source event of that complexity? I doubt it. They have too gorgeous a package right now. It would mean a Charlize Theron-in-Monster-like ability to let go of what it’s famous for and expand itself through a destruction of its current image. Tough stuff.

TED needs what SXSW has. And SXSW needs what TED has. In some combined way, though, they could Make Ideas Happen. I wish they would.

Hell, I would organize it myself. I could do it, too. Just let me in the club.

So, here are the sites that I noticed on guru of new @scobleizer’s Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox during his presentation. Not that I was staring, obsessing, learning, adapting, growing… stronger. If these sites are good enough for him to keep prominent, they’re good enough for the rest of us:

1. New York Times – Bits Blog

2. Boing Boing

3. Switched

4. Engadget

5. BuzzFeed

And these were sites/apps he mentioned or visited during the presentation:

Google Buzz

TweetDeck

Foursquare

Techmeme

Google Blue Dot

The Cadmus

Gowalla

Bonus: this site was actually shown during a discussion with @bs from Twitter itself. I guess they just put this together for SXSW this year, you know, on a whim. Cuz they do that:

SXSW/Twitter

Extra Bonus: I recommend requesting your free trial of Tap11. It’s like TweetDeck, but with charts and metrics and numbers. Keep track of your brand, natch!

Tap11

As I prepare myself for my first trip to SXSW, I’m trying to sift through this insane dust cloud of activity that seems to descend upon Austin. But, you know, I’ve been to conferences before. I’ve sifted through complication before. I’m not a little baby, wandering naked into a zoo with no locks on the cages. Not since the 70’s. This is an event, after all, like any other – panels, speeches, discussions, movies, get-togethers, etc. I think I’ve done this before. It gets slightly more noisy at SXSW, I guess, because of all the social networking. But haven’t all conferences had social networking… forever? You participate, or you don’t. And, really, it’s just talk. Once again, those of use who make messages are getting caught up in the medium.The real sifting one has to do is news versus noise. I’m on a mission to learn something and although the experience of being at SXSW sounds kind of exciting, so are a lot of things. I’m not on a mission to be excited. The last 10 years have been too exciting, as far as I’m concerned. Digital has become legitimate on the knotted shoulders of those of us who’ve stuck with it and built it. And make no mistake, hype is not what built the Internet – real companies, like the ones we work for, are who build it, for their real business needs. The rest is entertainment. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m more interested in what’s going to change the way businesses run.

So, I’m preparing myself. How to take in the best panels, hear from the top minds and maybe accomplish the promise that SXSW poses: TOMORROW HAPPENS HERE. We can’t rely on Twitter to tell us what the future holds. Twitter just is now. Oh, I’ll be hooked in to the hashtag hoi poloi, don’t worry. But I don’t want to look back, I want to look forward. But first… prepare.

So, I’m at the page for “first timers:” http://sxsw.com/first_time and I am greeted with this nice lead-in paragraph: “SXSW can be overwhelming to first-timers. All the things that make SXSW amazingly informative, fun and unique are also what can make it so daunting. We’ve made a video to show you what SXSW is. Watch it below:” Okay, I’m on it. Don’t love being categorized as a noob, but whatever, nobody’s watching…

HOLY CRAP. Am I supposed to be less daunted from this? A montage? And not just a montage, which daunts me, but a sped-up montage, with music! And the organization of information in this video seems to follow a “5 Days Of…” mechanism. You fit all this into five days? Even if this were put to Yo-Yo Ma, I’d be a little stressed out with how to take it all in. But scroll down; travel tips, hotel tips, dress tips… hold on, are they really giving me dressing tips? Hm. Starting to feel a little like that naked baby, all of the sudden. And, content-wise, what’s new here that I haven’t seen on a hundred conference websites? Let’s look at the panels.

I’m here for Interactive, specifically. Some interesting topics, to be sure: “The Young and the Digital.” Sounds good. “How Sci-Fi Shapes the Internet.” Interested. But, hey, what’s this: “How to Rowk SXSW.” Uh oh. That sounds awfully self-reflective. Especially when described as “Veteran SXSW speakers and attendees give their light-hearted insights and tips on making the most of your next few days in geek wunderland.” Whaaaa… where’s my bottle! And, as an aside, is misspelling words with the same amount of letters as the original word really our future? Didn’t that end with using Z’s instead of S’s? Moving on. Oh no, look at this: “How Not to be a Douchebag at SXSW.” Yeah, that’s a real panel. And perhaps the single most perfect example of irony ever constructed. So, you self-prescribed elitists, with your superior knowledge would like to impart upon us lesser-thans a warning about how not to be elitist and superior sounding, I suppose? Can somebody please call Keith Olbermann? I’d like him tackle this.

Let’s look outside the SXSW fold for a minute. Mmm, this is getting worse. Here’s an article called, oh god, “10 Ways Not To Be A Jerk at SXSW.”

Well, now I’m angry.

I’m angry, not just because this couldn’t be less helpful or more obvious, but because of the tone. Is this the voice of a new generation? It sounds like the voice of the old generation. It sounds like Silicon Valley elitism and entitlement all over again. It sounds like people I don’t want to work with, or know, or follow, or put on my Twitter List. And, unlike the pre-2000 days, where I didn’t have a choice, I really do have a choice now. Digital is legitimate. The best minds are the winners of the day, not the biggest attitudes. I know that’s what the article is trying to convey, too. But name calling isn’t necessary. We’re big boys now.

So, I believe my preparation is complete. Noise is, as it turns out, noise. I unfortunately won’t be attending the Music portion of SXSW, but I will be tackling this like I would that: trusting my ear and listening to one thing at a time with the kind of attention and appreciation that the people who are singing deserve. In that video, at 1:20, some dude dressed in all black said it pretty well, “The joy of learning and doing something new and doing something the way it really feels right – right here, right here and right here.” And he pointed to his gut, his heart and his head.

Sometimes you can hit a bullseye and still miss.

The We Are The World remake for Haiti, 25 years after Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie rocked the world for USA for Africa, is sort of its own disaster in and of itself. My emotional preference would be to just go down the list of artists then and now and discuss the vast difference in artistic quality. Not that there aren’t some real deals in this video: Jennifer Hudson, Barbara Streisand, Celine Dion, Tony Bennet, Beyonce, Wyclef Jean, Usher, even Pink. There were some heavy hitters in there, to be sure. But the lows were so much lower as to bring down the overall quality quotient too dramatically. Popularity was never the casting spec in the ‘85 version. Jonas Brothers? Justin Bieber? Will i Am? Enrique Iglesias? Josh Groban? Miley Cyrus? I don’t need to discuss the differences between those artists and Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers or any single person who was invited into that studio in 1985. This isn’t an old guy’s “times were better when” speech, either. It’s a pure, one-to-one look at artistic integrity. Not about album sales, but about having undeniable expressive art in your soul. The kind that lasts. If you play the ‘85 video right this second (I just did), every one of those artists is undeniable. One look at the Haiti video and you just know that 25 years from now, nobody is going to want to open that time capsule. That’s a miss. Should have been part of the consideration process for something important, like disaster relief. It detracts from the integrity of the message and this message deserves it. The Jonas Brothers should have bowed out. T-Pain should have said, you know what, I’m honored to have been asked but the message is too important to make this about the trend I represent. Same with Miley Cyrus. But that’s not what goes through their minds. Not that they don’t care about the cause, I’m certain they do, but it’s the lack of soul-searching about the true meaning of something, obscured by the false rationale that popularity, in and of itself, is also a contribution to the cause, that disappoints. And nothing could sum that up better than the difference between Lionel Ritchie introducing the video in ‘85 and Jamie Foxx introducing the video in’10.

But there’s deeper issues at play here. On the surface, 2010 WATW seems to have the same premise as 1985 WATW – bring artists together for a cause. Did artists come together in 2010? In the 1985 WATW, disparate musicians stood shoulder to shoulder and finished each others’ sentences. You could barely tell where Lionel became Lionel and Stevie. Where Paul became Kenny. Where Warwick became Willie. And wasn’t that sort of the point? Quincy’s magic was in the pairings and the way the individual gave way to the duet, the duet gave way to the song and the song gave way to the message. Can we say the same about 2010 WATW? I hear the overlaps in the mix, but from the video, it appears that all of them were recorded separately. We open on Justin Bieber, HEAR Jennifer Hudson and Nicole Scherzinger come in and then hard cut to them by themselves. Where’s the sharing of the mic? Where’s two artists working it out? Where’s the “Check your ego at the door” sign? Seems to me, this is one big ego enabler: separate recordings, close-ups and a who’s who of most-Tweeted-about flavors of the month. What, Jennifer and Nicole don’t want to bend down to Justin’s height? Too good for that, are we? What a missed opportunity. And if you think that none of that matters as long as it gets people to watch and donate to Haiti, I’d beg to differ. I’d like to ask how much more money might be raised, how many more relief workers might be enlisted, how many more concerned and helpful people might come out of the woodwork with a better product? If you set out to make something of value, make it great – or you underachieved. This version drafts off the success of a predecessor, lazily substitutes artistic effort with buzz metrics and propels an already suffering industry of music into further chaos by continuing to confuse popularity for genius. Haiti and Music deserved better.

And I can applaud the intention of the people who put this together while still disliking how they went about it.

Group rapping is terrible. It should have just been Snoop, Wyclef, Kanye or maybe Lil Wayne. Diverging into a group rap segment belittles rap and misses the point of the whole get together. Let’s mix it up. It’s okay to blend Mary J. Blige in with Tony Bennet (sort of) but rappers need their own interlude? So much for creativity. Speaking of which, auto tune? Why why why would you employ a technique like this to a song with such a heartfelt message? Auto tune corrects tone at the expense of humanity, that’s why the more it’s used, the more robotic it sounds. Conceptually, where does that help in a situation where you’re asking people to have empathy for a cause?

The irony of all of this is that the ‘85 WATW starts with a slate of the USA for AFRICA logo with all the artist’s signatures on it, but all you remember is their voices. The ‘10 WATW video is a lot of voices, but all you remember are their signatures.

Fame and the system killed the time-honored farming of talent. Somewhere in our lifetime, fame and talent switched positions on the time line. Guys were geniuses first, then they went mad. For real. Then, guys were genius and they wanted the image of going mad, so they wrecked hotel rooms, laced people’s drinks for fun and caroused with women, because they could, it was fun and they didn’t seem to get in trouble for it. The “bad boy” was invented. And girls loved it because, underneath, the bad boy had a genius to it – a skewed outlook. Something admirable. But Street Car Named Desire became Rebel Without a Cause. Then Rebel Rebel. Then Rebel Yell. Then Tom Petty’s Rebel Without a Clue. Then Courtney sang “Celebrity Skin” and then the whole world just started watching American Idol and Rock Star: INXS and the process reversed itself. We asked the audience to vote and to find a star that had “it.” But these boys and girls are music academy snobs with helicopter parents who’ve never really lived. We elect them based on a history of what genius is supposed to look like. Carrie Underwood? There’s no there there. There’s no genius. There was never any genius. There’s a look and there’s a voice. The rest is all manufactured.

And not to get political, but Ronald Reagan had a part in this, too. I know history has rewritten all of it, but I will die knowing that that man was a dumb actor, not a genius. And although he wasn’t the worst, he paved the way for guys like W. Bush to become POTUS. It’s a straight line from there to Carrie Underwood.

And the radio stations play them because the people know them. And we say “see, it’s successful because people buy it” or in the case of politics “look at the approval rating!” All backwards. Having made it USED to be the proof that you were talented, now I don’t assume you’re talented just because I know your name, or you’re on TV, or you won an award.  And, consequently, the predominant style of music today is not “beat” or “pop” or “rap” or “rock” or “country.” The predominant style of music today is a formula. Sure, blues is a formula, too. But genius does something with it. Blues is a raw material. There’s no raw material anymore. Manufactured cardboard cutouts just do what the computer prints out. Rick Rubin, Timbaland, will.i.am, John Shanks – they aren’t supposed to BE the talent, they’re supposed to help the talent put some shine on their raw genius. Mold the clay. That’s how it used to work. No longer. Linda Perry had one hit as a singer. She couldn’t sell an album as an artist today. Then all of the sudden she’s writing songs for Kelly Osbourne??? The un-genius daughter of one of the true geniuses? All  backwards. Ozzy was the old way, Kelly is the new way.

We can’t look for talent within the system anymore. The system develops money, not talent. And the formula, although designed to make money is also designed NOT to make genius. Shave off all the corners and call it a perfect shape. That’s not why we love music. I don’t need it perfect, I need it pure, driven, full of life. And the system is lifeless and creates the veneer of art out of a composite of lifeless elements. We’re not building out of clay anymore, we’re carving out of cardboard.

There’s something more than a little thought-provoking about this video. Be warned, it’s graphic:

RAD OMEN – “Rad Anthem” from Nicholaus Goossen on Vimeo.

This video forces you to look at the advertising business, both from a creation standpoint and a consumer standpoint. Jack, from the Jack in the Box ads, has become over the years a complex character. He, and The King in fact, have become pretty edgy. Willing to get in fist fights, blow up boardrooms, show up in people’s houses unannounced, etc. But they are still, in their fictitious bones, kid-like cartoon characters. The disintegration of innocence didn’t start with this video, it started with how advertising has evolved the characters to reflect ourselves. But how far do we take it? Advertising’s job is to connect to people, up to a point. There’s also a responsibility that comes with being a public message. So, advertising takes things right up to that line of appropriateness. It’s fascinating to see the other side of that line. Especially when that place somehow doesn’t feel so far away.

Interesting what happens when you become a grown-up. The hard truth is, there is no “balance.” Balance is an ideal, but it doesn’t play out like that. You don’t work for an hour, relax an hour, eat healthy, work out at exactly the right time, have time to yourself, be social… it sounds nice, but life goes more like this: work really hard and sacrifice your social life, family life and health. Then cram a bunch of social activities in, get on the road for a few days, get sick for a few days, take a vacation, go on a diet. Things happen in bunches, phases, often in reaction to pendulum swings in other directions. THAT’S life. The average height of a roller coaster is somewhere between the ground and the highest point, but that doesn’t explain what it’s like to ride one.

Mobile technology is important because whether you’re on the upswing or downswing, it is there with you. Not many things can travel with you through all your phases. I think we are just starting to see the potential of what that can mean to us as we watch our behaviors change. We often evaluate technology on the big shifts that it creates – the printing press brought news to the world, airplanes made the world smaller, etc. – but not on the personal shifts. The applications that are coming out for mobile devices affect our smaller moments. So that while we often find ourselves pinned to one side of the car or the other, we can start to envision a life with a little more center.

The following are 5 apps that have changed my life. Not in the enormous sense, just in the behavioral sense. And, really, these are the kinds of shifts that affect us the most – personal ones.

1. Runmeter. It was a new year’s resolution to start running again. I said it, but I still didn’t want to do it. Saying it was part of my way of getting myself motivated. But then came the time to pony up. I found Runmeter and it’s actually made running somewhat enjoyable. Runmeter does everything that Nike+ can do; log runs, give you audio split times, compare how you’re doing to previous runs, show you routes on a map, all while you listen to your music mix, etc. But where Nike+ entails using a combination of their shoe, their chip, your iPod and their website, Runmeter does all of it through the iPhone. Way way easier to set up. Way way easier to use and enjoy. Also, it has incorporated social networking in a really innovative way. You can set it to tweet that you’ve gone for a run and it will fade out your music and text-to-voice you the encouraging replies from your Twitter followers. That’s smart, and it makes you smile while you run. And I never smile while I run. The calendaring function is great and you really get a macro view of how you’re doing. I’m looking forward to my runs and the in-depth look at how I’m doing adds a game-like aspect to the whole thing that I enjoy. That’s a behavior changer.

2. Momento. I’ll be straight up, this is a diary application. I never considered myself a diarist, but here’s the thing, if you partake in social media, you’re a diarist. This app puts it all into a new perspective. The main “new math” is that it imports your social media activity (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Blip.fm) and logs it in the calendar. It also does it retroactively, so as soon as you get the app and give it your info, you can go back and look at all your status updates through a calendar interface and it changes your perception of social media and your life. All of the sudden, I find myself logging little notes about things going on in my day and uploading pictures taken on my iPhone, too. The truth is, we partake in social media for ourselves anyway. We like to mark moments, we want to remember our days and not let life slip by. This app has brought a lot of elements together to make that possible in a way I’ve never seen before.

3. Photo Apps. I use the broad topic because there are so many and which one you use is a matter of preference. I like Camera Bag and Hipstamatic. The thing about these apps is that they do such a great job of making the images look like a Lomo, Diana, viewfinder or old Polaroid camera that they need absolutely no post work for what they are. I have a very good SLR camera and I do a ton of photography and like a lot of other photographers, I make a distinction between shots that just capture a moment and shots that I go create. For the former, you often feel compromised in the quality of the image. You know how you SHOULD compose it, but it’s not that kind of shot. With these apps, you feel better about posting to FB or just having them in your library of captured moments. The idea of EVERY shot in my collection having a certain creativity to them is very exciting.

4. Four Track. Four Track is a legitimate four-track recording application. You can record separate tracks, mix them down, adjust volumes and balance and it has a number of add-on features that surprise you for a $10 app, including the ability to cut and paste drum loops in from another app of theirs. Now, let me be clear, I’m not looking to get my songs on the radio or anything like that, but can I throw down a guitar track and then go back and add in some vocals? Hell yeah I can. And if it’s in my bathroom, it sounds… well, it sounds terrible, but it sounds like me. I gave up the idea of being a musician a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have music inside me. An app like this makes it possible for a regular guy with a guitar to have a little musical outlet without all the expensive software and hardware. And ego.

5. NBA League Pass. Aside from local games, which are blacked out, League Pass plays all the NBA games either live or recorded from that day. The quality is not bad, either. I’m a basketball guy, so for me this app brings me games I never would have been able to see other than through highlights on SportsCenter. And I’m not a SportsCenter guy. Also, more than anything, I’m a Laker fan. So, seeing Laker games on the road with this is a joy that is hard to even explain. Of all the apps I’m talking about here, this one is probably the one that comes closest to a Big Life Change. Watching TV on your mobile device has large implications for many industries, but it is really the deeper personal relationship to a sport that makes this so amazing.

When The NY Times had their typographic face lift of 2003, they obviously put a lot of thought into it. They replaced what was a mishmash of different typefaces with one family: Cheltenham. It was a decision that everyone could live with. Indeed, it was the kind of bold (yeah, I said it) move that screamed of confidence. Even hardcore NY Times stalwarts understood – modernization is necessary, but I can live with this.

Not so lucky is IKEA, who is currently on the receiving end of a Twitterload of abuse online regarding their shift to Verdana for their catalog font of choice. IKEA had been employing some kind of version of Futura which, sure, is an outdated font but it was a) sort of a signature font for them and b) a whole helluva lot more of a distinct opinion than Verdana. Verdana is a dumb-downed font for the web. It is specifically un-designed. Not good for a company like IKEA, which has enthusiasts who care about such things and also, by the way, are designers by trade. They should have known better. Faux pas.

Related: I love typography, but I’m partial to hand drawn lettering. The stuff that gets me really excited is typography layout like this work gathered here. This kind of careful manipulating of typography, drawing and image make you think of craftsman – designers from before computers. The lost art of design that comes from the hand. It’s the kind of work that makes you want to say “Beautiful,” whereas the cold comfort of the perfectly kerned, computer-generated line simply makes you say, “Nice.” There’s a difference.