The best things in life are FREE

In case you haven't heard of Chris Anderson (actually there are two of them. One is the curator for the TED events and the other, the one this post is about), is the seminal thinker on two thought provoking and controversial ideas.  The Long Tail and Free. 

The Long Tail is a concept put forth by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article   which described the niche strategy of businesses, such as Amazon.com or Netflix, that sell a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities. Anderson elaborated the Long Tail concept in his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More .

With Free Chris states that the most effective price is no price at all. He explores new business model ideas such as cross-premiums (giving away a DVR to sell cable service) and freemiums (offering Flickr for free while selling the superior FlickrPro to serious users) that are beginning to dictate the new approach to business and generating revenue in today's changing market.

If you want to begin strategically thinking about how to succeed in today's market think very closely about these ideas from Chris about Free:

• Digital economics has created a deflationary economy in which there is near zero marginal costs for distribution. Hence, content is getting cheaper and approaching free.

• Today’s generation expects things for free because people have internalized these digital economics. Adults, by contrast, grew up believing that “free” is a gimmick—i.e. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” (Watch this panel of young people to see the accuracy of this observation.)

• Quality is more and more defined by relevance and not price. Thus, you can’t use price to win market share when everything is free. You have to use product differentiation and relevance.

• The challenge for companies is to create premium goods and services that they can sell to “free” customers. Companies need to offer people ways to save time, increase their status, or heighten their reputation and convert these ways to cash.

These are by no means the only ideas that you should be aware of, or take into consideration when navigating today's market, but they're not a bad place to start.  

It's crazy how. . .

Things really are!!

Ok. . . some of you may have read my previous post, Experiences: Where the Wild Things should be. Now my blog post was based on a Creativity Magazine article written by Tali Krakowsky. After I read her article and how she likened the movie (Where the Wild Things Are) to space and design, it really got me thinking about space, design and experience in a very different light. 

So I'm loving the article right, and I'm thinking to myself "you know what, let me find out more about Tali Krakowsky.  I do a little Googling and come to find out she was the former Director of Experience Design at Imaginary Forces (one of my favorite companies in the world!). For those of you have never heard of Imaginary Forces. . .click the hyperlink and check them out! I can only explain what they do in two words: the sickness. 

Next I find out she is the current Director of WET.  The design company who did the iconic water fountains at the Bellagio in Vegas; and I grew up in sin city, so this lil' tidbit of information becomes that much cooler. 

Ok, so now I'm thinking it would be cool to connect with her, not only because she wrote a kick ass article, but because I'm totally diggin' her workplaces of choice. But what are the chances of that?!  WET is in L.A. I'm in DC. I don't know her.  She doesn't know me. We have NO shared colleagues or business contacts, at all. But I said what the hell, I'll try anyway. 

I find out she has a linkedin profile and I send a shout out to her. I tell her I liked the article, I reposted it on my blog and thanks for the inspiration.  Now if any of you have ever sent out messages, or tried to reach out to someone who wasn't your friend on linkedin, then you know that someone responding to you may happen after a few days, maybe months or sometimes never.  Low and behold, Tali hits me back after 10 minutes! (holy cow!!). She's really engaging with just the 3 sentences she writes in response to me as well.

Now this is the killer right here...

She writes back a second message about 5 minutes later saying "Oh you're in DC! I'm there next weekend for some meetings. We should get together for coffee or drinks, let me know."

Wow! Are you kidding me?!

The lesson here ladies and gents. . .blog, don't give up on linkedin, reach out, take a chance, (and practice being lucky). You just never know what's going to happen. . .

Experiences: Where the Wild Things should be

Brands should be inseparable from culture, the voice through which the human condition speaks. Every individual has something to say, a story to tell, or a dream to share. At a particular moment in time there is an opportunity to make that "space" memorable. That place could be at the local ice cream shop, at a party in a room full of friends and strangers, or on a park bench with a loved one. There's an opportunity for that experience to put a smile on your face, make you want to share it with your friends, or take you back to a place that you once forgot. 

As a design thinker (my degree is in architecture) I look at life through the lens of "space," both physical and abstract. So when i came across an article, written by Tali Krakowsky, in Creativity Magazine, about Where the Wild Things Are (and I just saw the movie this past weekend), it deepened how I thought about the movie, space and experience.

More than an exploration of anger, escape or even storytelling, Where the Wild Things Are is a stunning reminder that spaces and how they are designed transform experiences - whether in film, in reality or in the imagination. By Tali Krakowsky

Max, fortuitously played by Max Records, is a little boy who imagines running away from his family to an island inhabited by giant, cuddly, child-like creatures.

He meets the Wild Things in a forest - a place for wilderness where animal-like behavior is cultivated and celebrated.

In close proximity is a a desert - an uninhabited place for more personal exchanges that are exposing and revealing. It is through this journey that Max discovers Carol's secret cave.

 Inspired by a safely hidden physical model of a fantastical dream land constructed by Carol, Max decides to bring the group together to build a home for the Wild Things.

The collaborative construction effort of the fort leads to excitement, creation, friendship, leadership, war, injury and pain – the stuff of everyday life.

Ultimately, Max decides that it's time to return. . .

craving his home and the familiarity that he left behind, he returns to devour his dinner in front of a lovingly staring mother.

He returns changed. Although no real-world time has passed, Max's imagined journey has actually taken place. In the virtual world of his dreams he lived, loved, laughed, learned and he returns to his real world transformed.

As we travel through our physical environments into where our Wild Things are and back again, we might want to remember that our virtual and tangible experiences are equally as real and that they all operate in space – a place that shapes and effects them. As we construct the environments around us we shape our ideas and behavior. That's why we sometimes fear books becoming films or our imagination becoming real.

Space matters. Let's stop talking about just what's in our screens and talk about how it fits into our bedrooms, living rooms, offices, restaurants, stores, museums, entertainment spaces, hospitals, trains, airplanes and landscapes.

Business is Art

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.” “Making money is art and work is art and good business is the best art.”

                                                         - Andy Warhol

If it's Hot, make it Sweat!

At Cnvrgnc, it's our motto to to think at the intersection, not outside the box (the first of our 7 principles). Thinking at the intersection allows remarkable products, services and/or experiences for your audience. Because in today's market, the channels available for our entertainment, informative and voyeuristic pleasures, have multiplied beyond our wildest imaginations, and standing out from the crowd will no longer suffice.

You have to do something radically different.

Enter Sweatshoppe.

At the intersection of grafitti writing, videos and architecture the multimedia duo has developed a new interactive technology dubbed "video painting." This technology allows them to essentially "paint" video onto any surface. Shooting in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, the duo spent weeks documenting their work in urban settings to create "The Landing" the first in a series of episodes that showcases their work as artist, technologist and performers.

SWEATSHOPPE, The Landing from SWEATSHOPPE on Vimeo.