The Morning Benders, Temptation Inside Your Heart (Velvet Underground cover)
One more quicky from The Morning Benders.
Venture Capital, Disruption & The New Media Order
I gave a talk yesterday at the Paley Center for Media to a number of members of the Writer’s Guild of America. The group generally consisted of folks who make or want to make a living by producing content — a job increasingly challenged by the web’s democratizing open platform.
I attempted to explain a little bit about venture capital and its significance in helping fund many of the most innovative companies of our time, how and why those companies tend to disrupt the status quo, the specific impact this disruption has had on the media industry and some practical tips for how to hopefully stay relevant in the new media order.
It was a thoughtful and receptive group. I hope they found the discussion worthwhile. If you’re interested, my slides can be found below.
As an aside, one thing the Internet sure has done is make the process of putting these presentations together so much easier. Images, data and even fully blown charts are all readily available in the public domain for anyone who needs them. Services like Slideshare and Scribd are simply fantastic. The web forces a premium on ideas and richness of discussion vs. the ability to make a fancy graph or chart. Yet another example of how the web enables us to focus on what really matters by making data and information so easily accessible to all.
View more presentations from mokoyfman.
How I Unplug
I was asked recently by an amazing organization called Reboot for my thoughts on what the Sabbath means to me in the current always-on, real-time information age. They follow:
We live in a world of endless information flow. Bits and bytes are our food and water. They move back and forth at a deafening pace. In this world of boundless stimulation and interaction, how does one disconnect, reflect, take stock? One of the defining elements of this information economy is it’s social, connected nature, where we both put out and consume information as part of our shared human experience. For me, it is the information intake that when left unchecked tends to overtake me. Setting aside a fixed weekly time for contemplation, whenever and for however long it is, allows me to disconnect and refocus internally. Then, what I put out more closely reflects my true ‘self’ rather than tending towards a boomerang-like reflection of what I take in. This return to self is my Sabbath, my peace, a chance to reconnect with my inner thoughts and light.
Bobby Birdman, You’d Be Surprised
My friend Arye put out his latest mix yesterday. Kid’s got some serious music chops. Will likely post a few over the coming days.
Alas, though, instead of making nation-building in America his overarching narrative and then fitting health care, energy, educational reform, infrastructure, competitiveness and deficit reduction under that rubric, the president has pursued each separately. This made each initiative appear to be just some stand-alone liberal obsession to pay off a Democratic constituency — not an essential ingredient of a nation-building strategy — and, therefore, they have proved to be easily obstructed, picked off or delegitimized by opponents and lobbyists.
So “Obamism” feels at worst like a hodgepodge, at best like a to-do list — one that got way too dominated by health care instead of innovation and jobs — and not the least like a big, aspirational project that can bring out America’s still vast potential for greatness.
Op-Ed Columnist - The Fat Lady Has Sung - NYTimes.com
Tom Friedman avoiding his usual green rhetoric and actually spot-on in this Sunday’s NYTimes.
Gorillaz, Stylo (featuring Mos Def and Bobby Womack, Chiddy Bang remix)
More greatness from the Gorillaz.
Jj, Ecstasy
Thanks to my man Mike for turning me onto this band.
Was at a pretty cool office on Friday. An agency, of course.
The Morning Benders, Excuses
Clearly I’m on a Morning Bender kick lately. Love this new single. Best heard loud.
