A community isn't just about numbers

Mashable reports that Angry Birds Space had 10 million downloads since its release on Thursday.

10 million.

Think of the scare Alfred Hitchcock could’ve put into people with that many birds.

What’s most interesting about it, though, is that while the number seems pretty impressive, thanks to Steve Jobs, and his little buddy Mark Zuckerberg, it just doesn’t knock you over.

Music- (and trend-) hungry people from around the world bought over 100 million ipods in six years.

The numbers always changing, but Facebook users are now estimated at about 650,000,000 worldwide.

The digital world has made numbers a subjective measurement, which has both raised the importance of, and exploded, the idea of connection. And whether its using birds, music, or pictures of each other’s kids, it's more important than ever to find ways to connect people and build communities.

The answer, of course, isn’t in numbers. It’s in finding ways to find like-minded passionate people who will join a conversation and be willing to become active around a brand or an idea.

So keep flying, Angry Birds. You’ve got work to do.

Big Brother may not be your Friend, but he can still check you out

This news is a couple of days old, but no less timely. Be careful how you, and especially your kids, manage social media. Potential future employers are watching.

To paraphrase Miranda, anything you post on Facebook can, and now will, be held against you in a court of public opinion.

A move towards less litigation and more collaboration

Two articles that scream the need for creativity in the world caught my eye in the New York Times today.

One was a review of a new book called “The Idea Factory,” about Bell Labs in the 1920’s. If you think all great ideas have been created since Steve Jobs cobbled together that first Mac in his garage, consider Mervin Kelly, who led the charge to visionary technological thinking decades earlier. Granted, as the book points out, Bell had lots and lot of phone-bill money coming in, so they could afford to spend time tinkering with the future. Either way, they had a drive to creatively think about the technology that made our digital world possible well before the Mac was an Apple in Steve Jobs’ eye.

The other was an article on the drastically dropping rate of law school applicants. First line of the article: “Legal diplomas are apparently losing luster.”

The article makes the mostly business case that low-end legal fees will continue to be shipped overseas and corporations will continue to demand more cost-efficient lawyering. I’d suggest it’s also a result of the ever-increasing importance of right-brained thinking in the world, as business people (and the rest of the world, too) figure out how to get to solutions in more creative ways. Hence, a decline in law school applications, and an increase in varied interests, like bakeries, brain stores, and meeting in awesome varied locations to debate (and solve!) the problems of the world.

Less litigation, more collaboration.

Fewer torts, more tarts.

You get the point…

Stop at nothing, indeed

78 million views on Youtube, 16 million on Vimeo.

All in under a couple of weeks.

Yes, that’s inarguable, staggering social media success, numbers that seem Joe Dimaggio-like in their untouchability.

How did Kony 2012 do it? Many different explanations have been given—with sporadic interruptions by various haters villifying the effort—and perhaps the most thorough came from the forward thinking Sean X Cummings. A lot of provocative food for thought.

Credibility aside, though, the best explanation may have come from Oscar Wilde, who insightfully told us that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

Any politician, musician, artist or actor could tell you that any kind of fame is better than none at all.

And ironically enough, it’s exactly what Kony 2012 set out to do from the start. So that’s the one single lesson I’d suggest you take away: get your client famous, however, wherever, whenever.

Stop at nothing, indeed.

Or to put a finer point on it, consider this adaptation of Wilde’s famous admonition, from Brendan Behan, the “drinker with a writing problem:”

There's no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.

When is a community not a community?

What would you say are the factors that make up a community?

A group of people who are connected by a common interest? Sure, but that’s just scratching the surface.

Because if that were the only prerequisite, then this group of 850 people who recently set a Guinness World Record for Mattress Dominoes could surely be called a community. And while they’re obviously a wonderfully fun, creative, and charity-minded group of La Quinters, with their (lack of) depth of connection, I wouldn’t qualify them as a community.

For more depth, you could say a community is tied together by a skill that the members share.

Like computer hackers.

People with a secret language of code and Girl-with-dragon-tattoo-like crazy digital skills that send intelligence gathering organizations running for cover. Tied together through their own safer-than-the-Pentagon ether-networks.

And therein lies the problem.

They don’t know each other face to face. They don’t have coffee or a few beers together. Which has meant that their basic trust level, purely by the nature of their structure, is somewhere between precarious and Spy vs Spy-like. And now, the bubble has burst, as one of their insiders turned on them to get out of his own trouble. Huge story. Because now the members of that “community” don’t even know if they can trust each other.

When people within a community are stabbing others in the back, that’s not a community.

More on what actually makes a community will be coming in future posts. But rest assured, it goes a lot deeper than merely having a similar cause or talent.

And no, Cubs fans aren’t a community either. Not even 112 years of shared misery is a strong enough qualification…

Go here

Watch this video. It's a 1/2 hr. Wait til tonight when you can watch or do it over lunch. But it's unique and important. And it says more about the power of community than any White Paper or blog entry ever could.

The painting ain’t done til the rubinesque lady smirks

I don’t know much about the National Endowment for the Arts. I know that they give money to artists, most of whom couldn’t make their art without the support.

So I went on their website to find out more. I found out that the Chairman is named Rocco, and his three sons are named North, Nash, and Dodge (So artistic!).

And after some detectiving, I read about what they’ve actually done. Cool stuff, but suffice to say, I don’t think marketing themselves is their strong suit.

Ain’t it the way with artists? They’ll be the first to tell you that they suck at the business side of their business. So thank goodness for the NEA, and for heroic businesses like the web-based Thumbtack Press, out there to celebrate and advocate for artists like Bob Dob, who's awesome work is featured at the top of this post.

And thank goodness for art and culture lovers in Chicago, who told the world through their actions that people in the city of warm shoulders are more than willing to have skin in the game of growing the local art scenes.

They came together in force during a series of town hall meetings in February. They were asked to brainstorm and contribute ideas to help nurture and grow the cultural roots of Chicago and they did just that. They papered the walls with great ideas. Now comes the hard part: putting them into play.

In an email answer to the reporter’s question, one of the project organizers said “You ask if…anything will come out of this…something has already come of this—a public declaration that residents care passionately about the cultural life of their city.”

All well and good, but the true test of community building—especially fueled from within—is if they can bring their ideas to fruition. Bravo to the participants, and good luck. I hope you’re taking curtain calls in a few years.

This is not a good sign

We can spend hours alone with angry birds, but we have a hard time paying attention to beauty for longer than 4 seconds.

Let me back up. I heard on the radio this morning that the average time a person looks at a painting in a museum or gallery is 4 seconds.

Does that surprise you?

I suppose it’s a somewhat relative statistic. If you’re in a museum with hundreds of works or art, it’s hard to stay with one piece for a long time without thinking about what other pieces you may be missing. So for some people, 4 seconds may be longer than they can process.

That one has people in the park. Next. That one has a train in the fireplace. Next. That one is a hut, that one has a bowl of fruit, that one is basically just red paint. Next, next, next.

Shame.

In the story I heard, about the Ocean Park paintings by Richard Diebenkorn, the reporter almost pleads with us to spend more time on his work, especially since he created some huge canvasses. So much to see and take in, notice and think about. So much inspiration to consider. Worth a little more than 4 seconds, I’d say.

Noticing things leads to discovery. What about the graffiti on that building, the design in that cappuccino, the stitching in that dress, or the sprinkles on your cupcake? What about finding the amazing in the mundane, once you start paying attention? Isn’t that where inspiration comes from?

Actually, that could happen in 4 seconds. Just pay attention.