First, if you’re in the Bay Area be aware of the 9th annual Independent Film Festival.

Next, the Onion has become a powerful voice in the world of cultural criticism. Their AV Club continues to produce impressive content with consistently timely, smart, and unusual subjects.

In a recent interview with Edward Norton, Onion writer Scott Tobias invites Norton to contrast today’s indie film world with that of the 70’s. Here’s part of Norton’s response:

“I think there’s more ways to get a movie made today than ever in the history of the entertainment industry. It’s a very exciting time to work in movies, if you’re a creative person looking to make a very personal, weird vision.”

“You know, independent films have been institutionalized, practically. Every studio has got a boutique arthouse label. There’s like, 18 different independent film-financing funds.”

Seems counterintuitive to have an institutionalized indie anything, but we do, and Norton makes a good point.

Norton also takes credit for writing the Frida screenplay. Nice work there. Frida was my bigscreen debut.

[tags]San Francisco Independent Film Festival, The Onion, Frida[/tags]

Here’s a picture of blogger Nick Aster. You’re looking his reflection in a Madrid storefront window.

Nick has been writing about sustainable management for years; at Treehugger.com, TriplePundit.com, and others. Treehugger is one of the top 50 widest read blogs in the world. They focus on sexy design as seen from a global and well informed perspective.

TriplePundit is a community of business school students discussing the technicalities of effective sustainable management. Nick and I met at Presidio School of Management, a few short years ago, back when it wasn’t so clear that mainstream America was ever going to care about sustainable management.

Nick wrote yesterday:

“I’ve been absolutely amazed at the amount of coverage “Green” is getting in business publications lately.”

It’s unreal. Sustainable management is a hot story for serious minded management publications like the Economist, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Wired, and Fast Company. Public awareness has traveled so far in such a relatively short period of time.

One interesting component in the recent media wave is that people are doing a good job refocusing what are often relatively old ideas. There are new technologies to talk about - and new movies. Perhaps more importantly there are new media channels to help spread the word. From what I can tell most of the ideas have been around. This is a positive sign.

People are now widely beginning to interpret and respond to signals that have been discussed since the 1950’s. The breadth and depth of historic thought on these issues seems to have recently coalesced into a dominant theme that impacts all aspects of public discourse.

Good design can’t exist without a comprehensive consideration of context and life cycle analysis.

Good management techniques help an organization improve profitability, stability, and community engagement while responding to diverse internal and external risks.

Good science is undeniably influenced by many interdisciplinary factors. Sustainability has claimed a legitimate and irreplaceable domain as one of those factors.

This is an exciting moment and something a lot of people have been working toward for a long time. I’ll give the words a break for now. Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: Alex Steffen at WorldChanging has similar thoughts and kindly shared this quote from Bruce Sterling:

“When the Davos Economic Forum steals your clothes, there’s no reason left to wear them any more. We are winning.”

Not bad.

[tags]Sustainability, sustainable management, tipping point[/tags]

I want your internet experience to be pure like a mountain stream.

Try this experiment with your neighbor’s dog…

Hold out your left hand and wiggle your fingers in front of the dog’s face. Quickly (and gently) tap the dog under the chin with your right hand. Immediately remove your right hand from the dog’s attention. Continue to wiggle the fingers of your left hand. Make a playful growling sound and repeat until either you or the dog get bored. Note whom got bored first.

Later, while you reflect on the experiment, ask yourself this:

Am I the Ch1ne5e_C0mmun1st_P@r7y or am I the dog?

[tags]this is not a p0litic@l blog, this is a puredeliciousrefreshing blog, this is a blog about my neighbor’s dog[/tags]

Spamming is cost effective. You don’t have to know anything about running a spam operation to draw that conclusion. Check your inbox. Spam works.

Unfortunately some organizations use spam techniques without any appreciation of what it is they’re actually doing. Either that, or they’re pretending they don’t know and hoping you’ll pretend you don’t care. They use the names of real people, real people leading organizations that you might otherwise actively support. These are organizations that desperately want and need your support. The crazy part is that they let their desperation interfere with their ability to communicate effectively.

When they spam they’re reaching out to everyone they know and saying:

“Hey, we’re building a community of people who read and respond to spam!”

“Hey, don’t you want to join/associate/meetup with all the other spam interactives in your area!”

Most organizations don’t want to send that type of message.
[tags]spam interactives, database marketing, community engagement[/tags]

The announcement of Merlin is interesting if not a little confusing (couldn’t find their website).

I’m all for any business that attempts to improve market conditions for independent artists. Merlin’s deals with MySpace and SNOCAP are being touted as a significant power shift in the music distribution business. Apparently this shift will benefit smaller labels. Theoretically it will benefit independent artists. That would be a good thing.

A couple questions: should we be skeptical of a web oriented new media licensing business that doesn’t appear to have basic website? Not necessarily.

Is this new Merlin non-profit attempting to become the first large scale fair trade body in the music industry? I doubt it. These aren’t bedroom operators. They’re much smaller than the majors and they seem to have a different set of values. They’re also successful organizations with a history of gold and platinum records.

Regardless, there are macro forces at work that strongly affect the music industry’s mid-sized players. Music supply chains have been going through a phase of disintermediation. This has been a good thing for independent artists and producers. Undoubtedly new forms of mediation will emerge and Merlin can be viewed as an alliance of SMB’s proposing their own form. It will be interesting to see if their form of mediation will offer many advantages to media savvy independents.

UPDATE: Grant McCracken has an interesting perspective on pricing strategies for the music industry. He and I have different patterns of music consumption. His proposed system wouldn’t work for someone like me. His ideas are worth a thoughtful read. I’ve been reading him a lot lately. Smart stuff.
[tags]Merlin, independent music, disintermediation[/tags]

One of the highlights of being in Barcelona was spending time with Petz and Sergio of the R3 Project. If you’re interested in green building you should visit their blog. They’re doing impressive work and taking the time to share what they’re learning along the way. It’s no wonder that Petz is becoming a darling of the Barcelona media community. Great job guys and thanks for the hospitality.

[tags]R3 Project, Petz Sholtus, Barcelona[/tags]

It’s been an entire month that I’ve ignored the blog. It was a great month.

I’ve been to Detroit, Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, Paris, and Palo Alto. The traveling was pretty good. New Years eve in Madrid was special. The Fundacio Joan Miro was great. Had memorable feeds at Salero and Inopia.

Completed some interesting work recently too. More on that later.

[tags]you don’t write, you don’t call, I was worried sick[/tags]