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Here is a great video featuring Seth Godin on how Small is the New Big. It’s full of reasons why social media is changing how things get marketed by going to peer-to-peer, as opposed to more traditional approaches that simply try to buy people’s attention. Enjoy!
Check it out. Koyono’s BlackCoat Made for iPod is reviewed by TechCast Network in the UK. It’s an in depth review and they really “get” our approach to Style, Performance and Utility.
Thanks for the review guys!
PS - Here is a link to the great photos thet took, which are up on Flickr.
I am in the middle reading a few books and decided to throw another one in the mix. What the heck, it’s only another 100 pages. The Book of Five Rings is something I read 7 years ago and decided to re-read it because of the first page in the book. It reads:
The Winning Strategy
1) Do not harbor sinister designs.
2) Diligently pursue the Path of Two-Swords-as-One.
3) Cultivate a wide range of interests in the arts.
4) Be knowledgeable in a variety of occupations.
5) Be discrete regarding one’s commercial dealings.
6) Nurture the ability to see the truth in all matters.
7) Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye.
Do not be negligent, even in trifling matters.
9) Do not engage in useless activity.
Miyamoto Musashi, the books original author, was a Samurai during the late 1500s and early 1600s. While Musashi-san is one of Japan’s most prolific Samurais, with an undefeated record, he later when on to become skilled craftsman, sculpting in wood and metal, as well as a calligrapher. He applied Zen and the same process of mastering the way of the Samurai to these other areas of his life, eventually reaching enlightenment.
It’s all about the “way.”
Here is an interesting video featuring Innovation Strategist and Consultant Larry Keeley. He challenges conventional wisdom on innovation and proclaims that what we think and know about it is “wrong.” This is mainly due to the fact that innovation is riddled with failure (95% of the time) and cliches (eg. “think outside the box”) and that “thinking inside the box” is the key. He insists that focusing on what you do best will improve your success rate three fold.
I take Larry’s advice with a grain of salt as he is mainly focused on large corporations (most of which are not suited for true innovators who adhore hierarchy, bureaucracy and politics). I think he has some good insights (e.g. customer experience), but like most people collapses innovation with evolution/optimization and focuses much more on process as opposed to who are the right people to innovate and the power of adhocracies. He even blasts “brainstorming” as a carcinogen that “the Sergeon General has not gotten around to regulating.” (LOL) Enjoy the video.
Pandora is a “Music Genome Project” that,“…ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it’s about what each individual song sounds like.”
It’s been around since 2000 and has evolved into a unique way of listening to streamed music, bookmarking your favorites and even liking directly to iTunes. You can select an artist, (eg. LTJ Bukem) and Pandora will stream relevent music making it easy to discover independent artists and music that otherwise would take some effort. This would be an awesome thing to have with a future Apple iPhone, or any high speed hand held. Check it out.
