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Stereotypes
The soundtrack that flattens culture to amplify margins—the gain temporary, the collateral effects long-lasting. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s what you get when you try to compress a whole idea into a formula. An attempt to capture a category of things with a simple, generalized belief. You declare: ‘I expect you’re…
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Making Headlines with the Wrong Story
Instead of investigating the funneling of Euroscepticism into Brexit and the reasons why Britain, once a land of ambitious colonizers, is descending into a dramatic spiral, The Economist decides to make fun of Italy. Perhaps cucumber on pizza (must be a British thing) can paper over the Government’s embarrassment for the ridiculous twists and turns…
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How Disinformation Became Part of the Current Narrative
Genuine two-way communication is not just dissemination. Information doesn't equal indoctrination. There's a line between getting attention and agitprop. Providing proof or evidence is not the same as the truth. Truth is a conclusion the other person gets to make. These were some of the principles I discussed in a conversation at Web 2.0…
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Is the Internet a Significant Break from the Past?
And if so, how should we think about what we do with it? Innovation is not a single thing, a eureka (Greek for I have found) moment. There are many factors that go into taking a discovery to making an impact. Bringing something new to the world means standing on the shoulders of giants across…
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What if Ordinary People had Actual Power in Social Media Platform Decisions?
If it were up to me — and many other people who love using Twitter to find ideas — Twitter lists would have been a much better product. Better than hashtags, Twitter lists are a simple way to signal interest and focus. The image above in just a small snapshot of the lists other…
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Does the World Need New Storytelling?
“If all you offer is money, all you get are mercenaries,” says Frederik Gieschen. Incentives shape behavior. Wall Street may indeed need new storytelling.# Michael Lewis says the system is stale and needs a breath of new imagination. When a story gets stale, the business attached to it is stuck. Perhaps Wall Street's story…
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Design of Story, the Sensual Way
This photograph by Helmut Newton for Pirelli, the Italian group famous for its iconic and sensual calendars, never made it to a calendar. If the project had come to completion twenty-one years ago, there would be another prize out there for icon hunters to chase — the first, and only, Pirelli calendar made in…
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Language and the Media Narrative
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” said Ludwig Wittgenstein. Most people prefer the use of known and simple words, to cover a lot of ground. Yet when we learn more words, we expand not just our verbal tool set, but also our mind and thinking. Yes, too many words…
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Reclaiming Personal Power
“Look, part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history, and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it's necessary to distort history and make it look as if Great Men did everything — that's part of…
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Social Media Bubbles
Social media algorithms determine what you see when you search and scroll the platforms. Not your friends. Due to their serving tech companies business model, these algorithms are always changing. The changes can be difficult to measure for subsets of industries, never mind individuals. But these changes affect your business, if you rely on them.…