-
Wikileaks, news, and the stories within the story
At the start of this month I suggested that Rolling Stone’s McChrystal expose was the story of the year. I was wrong. Whistleblowing website Wikileaks’s release of more than 75,000 classified military documents — collectively referred to as the Afghanistan war logs — is now the story everyone is talking about, and it is unlikely this will change anytime soon.
A security breach/freeing of information (as you like) such as this is pretty much unprecedented, although many are comparing it to the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers (including Daniel Ellsberg, the man behind that leak).
Just as with the Pentagon Papers, the leak and the subsequent publication of previously classified information are just part of a complex knot of stories. Who leaked this? What do we make of what we read? What next for Afghanistan, for the US military and indeed for ISAF as a whole? — these are only the immediate questions.
Last night I attended the Frontline Club’s sell-out Q and A with Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. I wanted to get closer to the story and explore a few of my own questions, specifically — How does a leak like this affect the life cycle of a story and the role of the press? What next for news and investigative journalism if Wikileaks steps in as the official sourcer of unofficial facts? Further, what are the ethics around what Wikileaks is doing — both Assange as an individual and the organisation as a whole?
I don’t believe in censorship and I do believe in freedom of information, but no matter how I look at this, none of it is black and white.
-
Collaborative working. New approaches.
We’re working on a side project, the details of which can wait for another post, and the very nature of it has prompted us to devise new methods for team collaboration.
Without giving too much away (I’m a bit over-excited and secretive about it) the service we’re designing consists of two parts: a website and an iPhone app strung together with an API. There are dependencies between each part of the service. Things that happen on the iPhone app need to be reflected on the site and vice versa. There are other nuances but at that’s the core of it, a simultaneous broadcast / receive from app to site and back.
Working out where to begin wireframing the service proved tricky. With so many interdependencies it all became a bit chicken and egg.
I could work on two things at once. I could go as far as possible with the mobile bit, then switch. And then back again. But it just didn’t feel comfortable. I thought I’d end up re-doing things over and over.
Why not, though, recruit another team member and work simultaneously?
-
Service principles for the post-modern news organisation
Service principles illustrate the way a service creates, captures and sustains value for customers and shareholders.They’re a useful benchmark in making decisions, (eg. ‘‘Should we retain a proprietary or open service platform?’. ‘Does this process deliver value to the customer or simply make life easier for the business?’).This is a heavily adapted set of service principles we created for a client, a specialist financial newspaper behind a paywall (hence the first two principles) which we think might work for any news organisation making the treacherous journey from industrial to post-modern media. We’ve called this organisation The Newspaper.The list must have lots of holes – are there any big ones? – and is much too long – how should we shorten it? - and shifts between strategic and tactical issues – does that matter?1. Shape the business model to sustain print subscriptions, but not at the cost of standing stillOK, this is very specific to subscription services, and reflects the reality that print circulation and advertising still account for the vast majority of revenue. How do you make the transition to new revenue streams without killing the old ones. Digital revenues tend to cannibalise print revenues, yet you need to demonstrate the explicit value of digital. Ask Rupert. There’s more than one answer though: charging a stupidly small amount of money for print for a short period of time is one way, or a stupidly high amount for premium online services is another. However the latter only works in a niche market with exclusive value. Here’s an example of the no brainer ‘get print too’ deal (not our client).2. Launch against yourself (in a strictly controlled way)The Newspaper brand strengthens our ability to create new revenue streams, but The Newspaper legacy restricts our scope for action. We should act to limit these restrictions by thinking creatively, changing culture and ‘failing fast’ in a Laboratory environment (cf.); this will enable The Newspaper to confront digital native start-ups at lower risk to our existing business. Here’s another example of what we mean, from the same source:3. Establish online and mobile as integral components of The Newspaper’s valued services, not just an add-on.This principle has implications for everything we do and especially the way we organise and reward individuals and teams. The value of online content and commercial revenues should be re-evaluated and the status of achieving online financial and editorial success raised. (In other words, don’t save the story for the front page, get it online; and stop the ad team giving away free online ads to sell juicy full page print display)4. Make regular assessments of what lies inside or outside the paywallThings move quickly on the internet and what’s exclusive to The Newspaper one day may not be the next. When charging for content or services, ask: Is it essential for its intended audience? Is it exclusively or first available at The Newspaper? Is it conveniently delivered; does it enable the audience to create value themselves? If none of these apply then the offer has become commodified – put it outside the paywall.5. The Newspaper online is a service as well as a product, and this means treating readers as partners, not consumersService-not-product means that the brand, the services, the organisation (especially journalists and editors) come into more direct and frequent contact with customers and should act as a solicitous and considerate host; it means that The Newspaper is involved in more parts of the value chain between a customer’s desires and their fulfillment, including interactions in which the customer is a participant, not a consumer. This has an impact on design, culture and on resources, especially editorial culture and resources. Here’s an example of services (in green) around different content types (in pink) and their valuable bi-produts (in blue). Remember, the value is in the service around the content, not the content itself.6. Users may create the most valued content for each other.So give them the tools to make it. And add services to your content that enable your customers to increase its value – as above.7. Give customers a voice; their voice has value.Services that enable customers to express opinion (vote, rate, comment, share) create trend data and customer data with value in its own right that can be played back to the audience and/or sold on to premium subscribers, advertisers or corporate customers. And likewise, we no longer have a monopoly of privileged sources or information: our readers may no more than we do, better than we do.8. Services that enable users to personalize and store data encourage loyaltyThe audience has invested time to obtain utility, as well as generating useful customer information with value to advertisers. They won’t want to waste that effort.9. Creating valued niche products is vital to online successThe Newspaper as one big package doesn’t translate online. The Newspaper online need not be one thing for all customers. Digital enables products and services to be packaged and sold and deconstructed with infinite variety, according to need, to niche markets; The Newspaper can and should vary the scope, scale and voice of the proposition for different audiences within the boundaries of quality set by the brand.10. Foster synergies between channels and recognise channel differencesThe Newspaper is the brand champion; the web has infinite depth and breadth; mobile offers ubiquity and convenience. Each product niche can exploit multiple channels. Each channel should point to the others (eg. a permalink for every newspaper page).11. The Newspaper is not of itself merely ‘a newspaper’ – The Newspaper is a brand.The brand offers information and products for the financial professional, the business manager, the private investor and the corporation. The brand can be extended into any area where its qualities – such as inside knowledge, professional network, good with money – have value12. Protect and build the value of The Newspaper brandThere’s a tried and tested set of commercial and professional standards in newspapers – everyone knew the rules (around the separation of advertising and editorial, for example) that preserve the integrity of the editorial product. New principles are needed, and especially around commercial recommendations. Readers don’t mind being sold too, but they’ll buy because they trust you, so it better be the best. Don’t enter into partnerships that destroy the value of the brand.13. Print web first It’s not sustainable to behave as though the newspaper is the one and only place that important news can be published.14. We have unlimited space online, use itThis means opening up the filing cabinet, replacing the news pyramid with the news iceberg – it goes deep down into the waters. Use the web to publish or link to everything you have: background, archive, source material, images – become a curator of themes.15. Connect to the rest of the web openlyThe Newspaper’s content and tools will live as effectively outside its URL as inside. If we make our content available widely, paid or unpaid, we raise our profile and increase our reach internationally and domestically; we also undercut clippings agencies and other copiers. Remember, the value is in the service around the content, not the content itself. So, use rss, third party feeds, The Newspaper API(s) and widgets to give people access to The Newspaper outside The Newspaper.com. And if in doubt, give it out.Our competition isn’t just other newspapersWe’re up against every source of news over every channel and many news organisations act very differently to traditional newspapers, and so we will too, which leads us to…17. Treat competitors as partnersThis is how the rest of the web works. What makes us so different that we don’t have to give, share and collaborate?Service principles encapsulate the way a service creates, captures and sustains value for customers and shareholders.
They’re a useful benchmark in making decisions in unfamiliar territory, (eg. ‘‘Should we retain a proprietary or open service platform?’. ‘Does this process deliver value to the customer or simply make life easier for the business?’, ‘What limit should we place on advertising that interrupts the customer experience?).
This is a remade set of service principles we originally created for a client, a specialist financial newspaper behind a paywall (hence the first and second in the list, which we shouldn’t get too hung up about) and which we’ve since adapted quite heavily to work for a generic organisation we’ve called The Newspaper embarking on the treacherous journey from industrial to post-modern media.
See what you think. The list must have lots of holes – are there any big ones? – and it’s much too long at an unmemorable 15! – how should we shorten it? - and it shifts between strategic and tactical issues – does that matter? How should we reorder them to reflect importance? It’s an unformed lump of clay, published on the principle ‘just get it out there’. Please weigh in, feel free. Here goes:
1. Shape the business model to sustain print subscriptions and build new revenue sources
This is very specific to paid subscription services where there’s a print legacy, and it’s hard to do; it reflects the reality that print circulation matters hugely because it determines the value of the biggest source of advertising revenue. How do you make the transition to new revenue streams without killing the old ones? Digital revenues tend to cannibalise print revenues, yet you might need to demonstrate the explicit value of digital. Ask Rupert. There’s more than one answer as to how to do it: charging a stupidly small amount of money for print for a short period of time is one way, or a stupidly high amount for premium online services is another. . Here’s an example of the no brainer ‘get print too’ deal (not our client).
2. Make regular assessments of what should be inside or outside the paywall
Paid-for news services only work in a niche market with exclusive value. Things move quickly on the internet and what’s exclusive to The Newspaper one day may not be the next. When charging for content or services, ask: Is it essential for its intended audience? Is it exclusively or first available at The Newspaper? Is it more conveniently delivered; does it enable the audience to create value themselves? If none of these apply then the offer has become commodified – put it outside the paywall.
3. Launch against yourself (in a controlled way)
The Newspaper brand strengthens our ability to create new revenue streams, but The Newspaper legacy restricts our scope for action. We should act to limit these restrictions by thinking creatively, changing culture and ‘failing fast’ in a Laboratory environment; this will enable The Newspaper to confront digital native start-ups at lower risk to our existing business.
4. Establish online and mobile as integral components of The Newspaper’s valued services, not just an add-on.
This principle has implications for everything we do and especially the way we organise and reward individuals and teams. The value of online content and commercial revenues should be re-evaluated and the status of achieving online financial and editorial success raised. (In other words, don’t save the story for the front page, get it online; and stop the ad team giving away free online ads to sell juicy full page print display)
5. The Newspaper online is a service as well as a product, and this means treating readers as partners, not consumers
Service-not-product means that the brand, the services, the organisation (especially journalists and editors) come into more direct and frequent contact with customers and they should act as solicitous and considerate hosts; it means that The Newspaper is involved in more parts of the value chain between a customer’s desires and their fulfillment, including interactions in which the customer is a participant, not a consumer. This has an impact on design, culture and on resources, especially the editorial culture that says “put the copy on the spike and move on”. Here’s an example of services (in green) around different content types (in pink) and their valuable bi-produts (in blue). Remember, value lies in the service around the content, not just the content itself.
6. Users may create the most valued content for each other.
So give them the tools to make it. And add services to our content that enable our customers to increase its value – as above.
7. Give customers a voice; their voice has value.
Services that enable customers to express opinion (vote, rate, comment, share) create trend data and customer data with value in its own right that can be played back to the audience and/or sold on to premium subscribers, advertisers or corporate customers. And likewise, we no longer have a monopoly of privileged sources or information: our readers may know more than we do or better than we do, let’s use their knowledge.
8. Services that enable users to personalize and store data encourage loyalty
The audience has invested time to obtain utility, as well as generating useful customer information with value to advertisers. They won’t want to waste that effort.
9. Creating valued niche products is vital to online success
The Newspaper as one big package doesn’t translate online. The Newspaper online need not and should not be one thing for all customers. Digital enables products and services to be packaged and sold and deconstructed with infinite variety, according to need, to niche markets; The Newspaper can and should vary the scope, scale and voice of the proposition for different audiences within the boundaries of quality set by the brand. We might want to create a portfolio of service brands to reflect this.
10. Foster synergies between channels and recognise channel differences
The print edition is the brand champion; the web has infinite depth and breadth; mobile offers ubiquity and convenience. So each product niche can exploit multiple channels and each channel can point to the others (eg. a permalink for every newspaper page).
11. The Newspaper is not of itself merely ‘a newspaper’ – The Newspaper is a brand and that’s where its value lies.
We’ve built a reputation that represents a point of view and a set of values over the past [insert number] years. Under our imprint and around our content we offer all sorts of products and services that fit with our point of view and values. The brand can be extended into any area where its qualities – such as, for example, inside knowledge, professional network, good with money, political nouse – have value. So funnily enough it’s not content that’s king, it’s the brand.
12. Protect and build the value of The Newspaper brand
There’s a tried and tested set of commercial and professional standards in newspapers. Everyone knows the rules (around the separation of advertising and editorial, for example) that preserved the integrity of the old editorial product. In digital, where fact and opinion and product and purchase start to merge dangerously into each other, new principles are needed and especially around commercial recommendations. Readers don’t mind being sold too if they’ve chosen to express an interest, and they’ll buy because they trust us so long as what we sell fits with how they perceive us at our best. In short, we mustn’t enter into partnerships that make short term commercial sense but destroy the value of our reputation (it’s amazing how often companies do this, especially where individuals are paid commissions for short term gain).
13. Print web first
It’s not sustainable to behave as though the newspaper is the one and only place where important news can be published.
14. We have unlimited space online, use it
This means opening up the filing cabinet and putting it online, replacing the news pyramid with the news iceberg that goes deep down into the waters. Use the web to publish or link to everything we have: background, archive, source material, images – become a curator of stories and themes.
15. Connect to the rest of the web openly
The Newspaper’s content and tools will live as effectively outside its URL as inside. If we make our content available widely, paid or unpaid, we raise our profile and increase our reach internationally and domestically; we also undercut clippings agencies and other copier/reusers. Remember, the value is in the service around the content, not just the content itself. So, use rss, third party feeds, The Newspaper API(s) and widgets to give people access to The Newspaper, paid for or free, as we decide, outside The Newspaper.com. If in doubt, we give it out, because we treat people who share and re-use our content as friends not threats.
That’s enough principles [Ed.]
-
Twitter Annotations are going to change your life
While the news of Twitter Annotations has been around for quite a while, it was announced at Chirp in April, outside of a geeky developer audience it hasn’t captured the imagination of the Twitter global echo-chamber. For me the potential of Annotations could mean, for Twitter, this changes everything. Again. At the same time it could lead to a lot of divergence and confusion in the client marketplace.
Twitter Annotations allow metadata to be delivered along with a tweet, that is additional structured data outside of the 140 character limit. Now some Tweet metadata already exists, such as geolocation and a specific tweet you may be replying to and there is also some unstructured user created metadata such as #hashtags and @replies. Twitter Annotations is going to allow developers through the API to deliver any form of structured metadata they want to.
How it looks inside the machine
For the technical inclined the Annotation format is going to look something like
[{type1 => {attribute1 => val1, attribute2 => val2, ..... attributen => valn}},{type2 => {attributen+1 => valn+1 ... }},
......
]
For the not technically inclined, this means that a tweet can contain a number of keys and values, grouped into a type of attribute. For example if you were watching the awesome Argentina v Germany match. You might send a tweet like this, that Tweet may contain an attribute like:
[{"world cup match" => {"round" => "Quarter Final", "home_team" => "Germany", "away_team" => "Argentina", "home_score" => "4", "away_score" => "0", minutes => "89"}]This information is very unlikely to be entered by the user Tweeting but instead added by the client dynamically depending on the context of how it is being used, much like how a mobile Twiiter application will use GPS to insert your current location into a Tweet at the moment (random statistic as of late last year only 0.23% of tweets were geotagged.) You could easily see how a BBC iPlayer Live Twitter application, or Google TV Twitter application could add that data while watching a match.
How this data is then used depends if the receiving client (or website) knows about that annotation format and what it means. In the Tweet above I added some metadata using the unstructured format that is the #hashtag, by adding #ger Twitter have displayed a little German flag, a nice touch but you could see how this data can be expanded to provide awesome insight and commerce potential. Twitter have said annotation tracking will be supported in the Streaming API and likely in the Search API which means in the example above, a site or app will be able to collect and display all the tweets of people watching that match or TV programme (combine that with some demographics analysis and you could get an awesome contextual advertising)
Changing everything
Now the example above is quite complex but it could be as simple as including metadata for a link to a website article you are Tweeting about, saving those valuable characters and making link shorteners less relevant. It could also include an image or video URL to be shown inline in a Tweet. The possibilities are quite literally limitless.
And it is those limitless possibilities that also cause the problems. For Twitter Annotations to be relevant, they need to be produced by and application and consumed by a Twitter client in the same way. This could lead to a free-for-all of competing standards and markup. Twitter have announced they will do no annotation “validation” on their side, but they will lead by example and have already published some recommendations for recommended types. The annotation structures that “win” will likely be a darwinistic process driven by the crowd depending on usefulness and adoption by popular clients. Twitter will need to get this right for annotations to be successful and plan to publish an Annotations “explorer” with statistics of most used, most adopted and trending annotations to identify “winners”.
What we are likely to see first
Twitter’s recommended types give us an indication of what the first use cases will be:
Read full post -
In case of emergency: Kevin Kelly
There’s nothing like a dose of Kevin Kelly to blast away any weak thoughts that might start creeping into one’s brain after reading something like this super-alarmist article in the NY Times.
The article – Your Brain on Computers – says technology is frying our brains and destroying our families and social lives. We’ve all read the same article at a dozen different newspaper websites a dozen times before: lots of information about how much time we spend (delete as appropriate) online/on Twitter/on Facebook/at work/with a computer/on our mobile phones. But actually very little in the way of any hard evidence – and in fact in the NY Times article even admits that:
“The bottom line is, the brain is wired to adapt,” said Steven Yantis, a professor of brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. “There’s no question that rewiring goes on all the time,” he added. But he said it was too early to say whether the changes caused by technology were materially different from others in the past.
Nevertheless, five pages of heart-rending personal stories about a bunch of white-livered, malingering chicken-shits later, the dark thoughts come creeping back. Am I on Twitter too much? Am I addicted? Am I some kind of faint-hearted quitter?
That’s where Kelly comes in, and I must say thank you to the @AdHack blog – discovered via Twitter btw – for pointing me towards the only rehabilitation I need. AdHack has posted NOT MERELY a full transcript of Kelly talking about The Technium but ALSO a hypnotic video that makes it easier to swallow these words directly through the eyes and into the brain. Even a few minutes of exposure to this will help. I have picked out a few of the choice phrases below for those who are too busy even to watch online video these days.
-
Somewhere over the paywall: 3 predictions for news media
Two weeks ago, some colleagues and I attended a Frontline Club talk on apps, paywalls and the future of journalism (for a recap, see William Owen’s excellent post). I found the experience very interesting but also very frustrating. I should say up front that this post is deliberately provocative: I am heartsick at the state of the news industry (one I respect and value to no end) and I want to do something about it — or at least start a discussion that does.
Publishers are erecting paywalls all over the place — The Times last week, The New York Times next year — but to what end? By throwing their content behind paywalls, publishers are indulging themselves in a knee-jerk reaction that — I think — will decimate their market share and brand value, ultimately to fatal consequences.
Publishers should be rethinking digital as a universe of potential profit. They should be embracing change and changing with it, but instead they’re freaking out and locking up the content. This just won’t work.
The internet has irrevocably — and nearly globally — democratised information. Content as content is free, and content producers cannot ask consumers to change their behaviour or expectations to meet a bottom line. That’s just not how it works. There is so much good content out there, people will simply decline to pay and move on to a free content source — and there are many.
In order to survive, publishers must change the way they approach the business of content, newspapers, and digital news platforms. Here are my three predictions for the industry.
-
My name is Tim Malbon, and I am a Soreen Addict
I’ve been meaning to post thanks and share my exciting Soreen unboxing moment. Yup, *amazingly*, the good people who look after Soreen’s PR sent me a hamper of malty goodies for my birthday recently.
Yes, they sent it addressed to “@Malbonster”. Nice touch.
I say “amazingly” because along with some other fans of ‘the dark loave of malty fruitfulness’ (notably @SaulPims) I initiated an experiment…
-
ARG-tastic, the world of the Alternate Reality Game.
Before I go on… ARG = Alternative Reality Game – an interactive, cross-media narrative. ARGs are cross platform games that explore storytelling in an interesting and non-linear way. They tend to be used as a form of viral advertising, a way to get people involved and engaged in a product so they continue to support it. However, as the genre grows, self-supporting ARGs are created which function in a similar way, but aren’t based on the back of another media product.I was first introduced to these through a TV show – Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse which aired on the FOX network. This show was pretty much doomed from the start, under the constant threat of cancellation but against all odds (and poor ratings) managed to get renewed for a second season. To try and build some intrigue between the seasons and hopefully win more viewers, Fox launched an ARG.
This began with an email from one of the show’s characters to several prominent fans of the show who were active in the online community. It contained links to websites that had been set up for companies and characters in the show. From these, several personas emerged, said to work for the companies and they began to communicate with people via email and Twitter. This led into a web of mystery where codes were gleaned from the sites which were then put into other sites to get messages from characters and so on… By this point, quite frankly I was lost but I continued to follow the story (via the wiki) with interest and it occupied me whilst I waited for the show to restart, keeping the world fresh in my mind. A good summary of the basics of ARGs is here
My introduction came pretty late and there are hundreds of others ARGs, many much more successful and for bigger shows (such as the True Blood ARG) but they often link into the idea of a bigger world around a media product. They tap into the childish urge to make up imaginary worlds around a toy or a place, changing the world to the reality we want. They also tap into personal desire for knowledge and provide a sense of discovery. And of course, ARGs are a more interactive and “approved” way for fans to become involved in a form of fan fiction. By letting fans become involved in an extended universe, they become much more invested in the product and more likely to continue to support it.
When the ARG comes before the product, much as with True Blood or “The Beast” (another successful ARG, for the film AI, involving 40,000 people) it acts as a sophisticated way to gain interest, involving users so much in the game that they might not even realise the product being promoted – “So sure, we were being hit by marketing, but it was really cool marketing that gave us something to talk about, something to enjoy.” They can also act as an informal feedback, testing concepts on users during the game and then later incorporating them within the product.
ARGs provide value for both player and observer. In my case, although I find them incredibly interesting, I tend to prefer to watch them from a distance, enjoying the discovery of clues and the solutions they provide, but never actually dedicated (or clever!) enough to become involved. They do require a time investment that other games don’t need and constant revisiting to keep up with clues and solutions. This does tend to create a niche club of users who have been there since the off, exploring and solving and it can be difficult to join in the middle.
Despite this ARG niche, they are edging ever closer to the mainstream, as I realised when I saw an article in Metro about the latest ARG featuring Lewis Hamilton as an “art rescuer”. This game is sponsored by Reebok and incorporates real world locations, clue following and online collaboration, along with..well Lewis Hamilton. “Lewis Hamilton: Secret Life, is one of the most ambitious projects of its kind, building a multi-lingual community of players from every corner of the globe. Staged on a truly international scale the entire adventure will be played out in nine languages simultaneously.”
Although this game is just in its early stages at the moment, it seems like a sign that ARGs might be evolving to appeal to a broader range of people, something I will definitely be watching with interest.
-
Steve Jobs: How to live before you die
Yesterday I listened to a very inspirational talk on TED by Steve Jobs ’How to live before you die‘. By telling 3 stories from his life Steve is urging people to pursue their dreams and trust their intuition.
Connecting the dots
Steve always followed his intuition. He never graduated from the university. He didn’t know what he wanted to do in his life and didn’t think that college would help him figure it out. He dropped out of Reed College just after 6 months. By dropping out he could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest him and join the ones that looked interesting. For example he took calligraphy class to learn about typefaces, about what makes great typography great. 10 years later when designing the first Macintosh computer he used his knowledge and skills to design the first computer with beautiful typography. Much of what he stumbled into by following his curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Key learning points:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards”
“You have to trust in something, like your destiny, life, karma, etc. Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even if it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference.”
Love and loss
He found what he loved early in life. He started Apple with a friend in his parents’ garage when he was 20. In 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of them into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. As Apple grew, his visions of the future of Apple began to diverge and he got fired by the Board of Directors. This was a devastating experience for him. What had been the focus of his entire life was gone.
He felt rejected, but slowly he began to realize that he still was in love with the work he did. He decided to start over again:
“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again”
Now he entered one of the most creative periods of his life. During the next 5 years he started a company named NeXT, and then Pixar, which turned out to be the most successful animation studio in the world, creating the world’s first computer animated feature film ‘Toy Story’.
Ironically Apple bought NeXT, and that is how Steve returned to Apple. The technology they developed at NeXT is now ‘at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance’. Key learning points:
“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. You’ll know when you find it. Like any great relationship it gets better and better as the years roll on.”
Death
When he was 17, he read this quote: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.”
Since then, he has looked in the mirror every morning and asked himself: “If today where the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?” Whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, he knew that something needed to change. Key learning point:
“Almost everything, all expectations, pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. There’s no reason not to follow your heart.”
When he was diagnosed with cancer, at first the doctors told him that he should expect to live no longer than 3-6 months. He lived with that diagnosis for a whole day, until later that evening when he had a biopsy. It turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that was curable. This was the closest he’s been to facing death. Key learning points:
“Death is the destination that we all share, no one has ever escaped it (…). Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”
“Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
I found Steve’s talk very inspiring. I think it’s important that we don’t forget in our everyday life to follow our passions and that we take the time to often look back at our life to make sure that we do what we love. Otherwise we should keep searching until we find the right path. Hopefully we’ll be as lucky as Steve!
-
A Day in the Life of a Project(s) Assistant…
Task: A day in the life of a project assistant (me!) at Made by Many
Tools: Main weapons of choice -
- Lighthouse – The place to report bugs and errors that I find and assign them to people who hopefully can (and will!) fix them.
- Taskboard – this contains all the user stories in the past four iterations, who is working on them, how many points they have and what their status is. It is an easy way for me to see which stories the developers have completed and need me to check.
- Gmail, Google Docs, a MacBook and a notebook.
Optional – copious quantities of coffee, post-its (to promptly lose), Spotify/we7 (prog rock all the way as you can see from my last.fm!), Twitter (TweetDeck is my client of choice) and Pages.
Plan of action
At the moment, I’m mainly working on a fairly large project – V. My tasks are quality assurance (testing by any other name!) and requirements gathering, along with any other bits and pieces that come along. I also work on other projects as needed, anything from helping to compile cool walls for workshops, to CMS population for new site launches.However on this particular day in my life, I was just working on V and its next incarnation – vSchools.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
You are currently browsing the archives for the Uncategorized category.
Our latest tweets
- @chrbutler thanks! glad you like it :) RT @chrbutler @madebymany Your blog is great! It's a never-skip for me. 2 days ago
- @chrbutler mentioned our blog in his post on designing for attention, here: http://bit.ly/aTo8eY 2 days ago
- @apophenia in Technology Review says that people will simply carve out a space for privacy as they think best: http://bit.ly/cbbNdy 2 days ago
- More updates...
Most commented
People
Categories
- advertising (9)
- agile (9)
- Clients (29)
- code (1)
- Conferences (41)
- content (6)
- design (17)
- Games (2)
- Great Stuff (13)
- innovation (25)
- interview (3)
- jobs (1)
- Labs (9)
- Made by Many (142)
- mobile (4)
- New connections (2)
- opinion (50)
- play (1)
- publishing (8)
- Social Web (132)
- technology (2)
- Transmedia (1)
Archives
Sites we like
- Aaron Koblin
- Barbarian Group
- BBH Labs
- Big Spaceship
- Big Spaceship – Think
- Bud Caddell – What Consumes Me
- Creative Applications
- David Armano
- Edward Boches
- Faris Yakob
- Ffffound
- Gareth Kay
- Howard Rheingold
- Iain Tait – Crack Unit
- idsgn
- Manuel Lima
- Mike Arauz
- Neil Perkin – Only Dead Fish
- Noah Brier
- Not For Paper
- Paul Davis – Our illustrator
- TED Blog
- Undercurrent
- We Are Social