Scott Berkun's Blog, page 56

I’ll be on NPR Tuesday 6/19, 1pm EST (WGBH – Boston)

I’ll be on WGBH Boston talking about innovation tomorrow, Tuesday, at 1pm EST. You should be able to listen live, and if it’s recorded I’ll follow up with a link.

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Published on June 18, 2012 20:25

Quote of the month

I begin my novels knowing what happens. I write endings first. I write last sentences, sometimes last paragraphs first. I write collision course stories. There is always something coming that the reader anticipates. What you can’t know is when and who the casualties and survivors will be, but you see the what. You know what’s coming…

Many of my wrestling friends find it odd that I’m a writer. Just as many of friends in the writing world find it odd that for so many years I was a wrestler and a wrestling coach. But they seem very similar to me. In both cases, you have to be devoted to tireless repetition and small details for many more hours than you will be in competition. You will be with a nameless workout partner, a sparring partner, drilling the same outside single leg dive, inside collar tie, hundreds upon thousands of times. Well, how many times as a writer should you rewrite the same sentence? The same paragraph? The same chapter? If you’re good you never tire of that.

I don’t intend to stop. Dropping dead at my desk sounds pretty good to me.

- John Irving, from interview on NPR

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Published on June 14, 2012 16:30

A few weeks ago I let Matt, my boss, know I was stepping down from my role at WordPress.com. It might be a surprise to some of you that I’d taken a job at all, but I’ve been there for nearly 2 years as the lead of Team Social, a team of developers and designers working on WordPress.com (We made things like Jetpack, Publicize, and dozens of features on WordPress.com). My experience there was amazing, but as my deepest passion is writing books and speaking it was time to return to what I do best. I’d planned to stay for just a year, but it was harder than I expected to leave.

The good news: Until this change I’d been dividing my time since August 2010, when I took the job, between two different careers. Its been a relief these last weeks to return to having just one set of ambitions to chase. And more importantly, have some time to do almost nothing at all. You’ll see more output from me here on the blog and in the world in general, as I’m now again focused on one goal: filling that bookshelf.

The next book I’m working on will be about my experience working at Automattic on WordPress.com. It’s a great company whose unusual culture (everyone works remotely) asks many important questions about not only how software should be made, but how all work should be done. I’ll have more for you soon about this project so stay tuned.

I hope you’ll wish me well on my return to independence.

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Published on June 14, 2012 08:32

The three piles of life

Here’s an oversimplified theory to play with for today: there are only three piles in life.

Things that are important
Things that are unimportant
Things that are unimportant but distract you from what is important

Most suffering in life comes from #3.

Marketers go to great lengths to generate a large 3rd pile in our lives. Expensive sneakers won’t make you a better athlete. A fancy car or necklace won’t make you a better, more fulfilled person. The important things in your life are rarely dependent on what you own. Or what your neighbors and extended family think of you in any way. Yet these are often the primary forces that drive our most important decisions and how we spend our time. We live lives based on other people’s flawed piles.

Unless you take explicit action to define #1 and #2 on your own, you are inheriting the value system that defines your biggest life choices. And you are inheriting it from people who likely were failed by that very framework. Why copy their system? Make your own piles and ask for feedback from those closest to you. Only they can guide you in shaping the piles most likely to shape your life into the experience you desire.

We all need other people to point out #3 for us. We’re all victim to our whims, weaknesses and egos. But if our friends know our piles, they can help us spot when too much of our lives are falling into #3.

Lastly, inventory your time. It should match neatly with your piles. How we spend our time defines what is important more than any other measure.

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Published on June 13, 2012 16:01

Johnny Mnemonic in Hecklevision: review

Last night I finally made it to Hecklevision at Central Cinema in Seattle. They show bad movies and allow the audience to heckle in real time using their cell phones. Anyone in the audience can participate and it instantly appears on the screen. It’s an idea likely originated at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin.

The movie of the night was 1995′s Johnny Mnemonic, staring Keanu Reeves. An awful movie that seems worse when you consider it’d be followed by The Matrix just 4 years later.

Hecklevision is a clever concept. It adds a layer of interaction on top of unintentionally bad films. Like watching bad TV with friends, you can revel in mockery and have a great time at the film’s expense. Central Cinema serves beer and real food (as all theaters should), adding to the communal vibe of film watching.

The problem is unless you are familiar with the movie, watching in Hecklevision requires split attention. You’re trying to follow the movie so that the heckling makes sense, but also giving attention to the comments as they appear. It’s like subtitles, but worse. Unlike subtitles, the presentation of heckles isn’t synced to anything, making it tricky to follow along, especially during action sequences. A film like Star Wars or Top Gun, that many people have seen many times, might make for better Hecklevision as everyone knows what’s coming next.

The other challenge is for hecklers. It takes time to type in a sentence on a cell phone, and by the time many funny snarky things are typed in, the movie is 15 or 20 seconds further along. The joke doesn’t work as well anymore. Unlike real heckling, which is in real time, Hecklevision trails behind. I got halfway through typing some funny comments, but gave up half-way through as by that time they weren’t funny anymore. You need to be fast to participate.

The last observation is the crowd. Since real heckling isn’t allowed, the audience is quiet. Since attention is split between the movie and the comments even when someone laughs its hard to know what is being laughed at. It’s not uncomfortable, but it was disorienting. On several occasions I wanted to say something out loud in response to a heckle, realized I should type it in instead, but gave up as the spirit of the moment was gone. The overall vibe was a calm Monday night in a half-empty theater and few had been drinking. A late Friday crowd likely provides superior results.

I loved the idea and was glad I went. The entertainment value depends heavily on the mockability of the movie, and the quality of hecklers you have in a particular crowd. YMMV. If you’re interested in user experience and interaction design it’s worth it for its novelty alone. For me, if could type on a laptop keyboard my ability to participate would have improved dramatically.

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Published on June 12, 2012 09:56

Prometheus review

It is a beautiful looking film.
There is some intrigue and mystery about sci-fi ideas.
Many stupid things are done by many characters at many points.
The plotting undermines everything else several times. If you expect much, you will be frustrated.

Summary: it’s worth watching. Don’t expect much for your brain, and you’ll be pleased.

It can be entertaining to discuss plot holes and connections to the rest of the series if you watch it with friends.

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Published on June 11, 2012 11:51

Triple inspired by a film: Girl Walk All Day

I’ve said before we live in the best age in history to be a creative. It has never been easier to manifest ideas in the world. The tools, the sources of funding and the means to promote work are easier to access than ever.

I recently watched a film called Girl Walk All Day. It’s a simple movie. A young woman and several other characters dance their way through NYC. It feels like an extended music video. The surprise is I enjoyed it more than The Avengers, which I saw the day before. The Avengers, despite its spectacles, was simply boring, whereas there were dozens of interesting things about Girl Walk All Day.

Girl Walk All Day, directed by Jacob Krupnick, strikes at the challenge of indifference. Much of the film is shot improvisation style, and you can watch how everyone around the actors responds to them dancing in various unusual places. I often feel like we sleep through our days, living life as an endless routine, bored for no good reason with own lives. The film was a poke in the eye for people not to take everything so seriously and to do something. At least something fun.

The soundtrack for the film is a marvel in itself. Created by Gregg Gillis, it is comprised of a continuous remix of hundreds of famous songs from the last 20 years. Combined with the improvisational nature of the film, it’s a perfect mix of surprise and familiarity.

I was thrice inspired:

The idea is simple but they did so many things well it’s better than its parts
The soundtrack is amazing and reinforces the notion that Everything is a Remix
It was done via kickstarter for $25k , and shot in 50 days

It begs the question: what can I do with $25k and 50 days? It should beg that question of anyone who daydreams about ‘what they could do if they got a chance’ while bored out of their minds at work – it proves how easily you can make your own opportunity. If you don’t invest in your own ideas, how can you expect someone else to?

You can download the soundtrack for free. And the movie is online too (divided into chapters, which kills some of the power of the experience).

Here’s the preview:

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Published on May 29, 2012 09:00

I’ll be on CNN at 12:40 EST today

During Suzanne Malveaux’s first hour, I’ll be on CNN for a short segment about commencement addresses. 12:40 EST / 9:40 PST.

You may be able to watch it online here: CNN Live

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Published on May 28, 2012 06:54

The best thing this year: a list

My friend Dan Shapiro stared a mailing list called TBTTY: The best thing this year. Anyone who joins the list can post just once a year. That’s the only rule.

There have only been a few posts so far, but this one by Ben Huh is likely to provoke many people to share some great stories. As documented in the videos below, Ben decided to be one of the first people to ever jump off one of the largest natural arches in the world, while wearing a FailBlog t-shirt (a blog his company runs).

Title: I jumped off a cliff
YOU ARE HERE
On Friday, May 18th, just after sunrise, I stood at the edge of a 150 foot tall natural rock arch in the Moab desert looking over the side, ready to jump. There were an infinite number of reasons why this was a bad idea.

Just how did I get here?

In February, a viral video of the insane jump off Corona Arch was making the rounds. It had accumulated more than 10 million views. So that same month, when Francisco Dao, organizer of the 50 Kings conference asked me if I would do the jump. I didn’t hesitate at all. It looked exciting and fun.

Fast forward to last Friday, I hesitated the morning of the jump trying to pick out what I would wear. I unknowingly brought a FAIL Blog t-shirt. If I wore it, would I be tempting fate? Would it be funny? Would it scare everyone else doing the jump? What if I really did die wearing our own branded shirt?

Friday morning at 5:45 am, the guide showed up to pick up 12 brave souls at our lodge in Moab, Utah. Out of 27 conference attendees, 12 signed up. But there were only 11 waiting in the dark before sunrise. Just one person, Paul Carr of PandoDaily, was missing. He had talked himself out of it after listening to the guide at the rappelling excursion the previous day with Sarah Lacy, his boss.

“Our guide said it was crazy,” Sarah told me, looking directly into my eyes like a negotiator trying to convince a jumper off the Golden Gate bridge. “You can’t use the rope more then four times because of the force. Do you know how few people have done this? You guys are nuts.

“He said people have died doing this.”

It turned out Sarah was correct. The person who invented the jump had died doing it – albeit at a different arch. Sure, but people also die from vending machines that fall on them.

“Sarah, it’ll be totally fine,” I said. “No one is going to die.”

Read the rest of the story here

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Published on May 24, 2012 07:37

The idiot theory of news

One of the simplest stories for a reporter to tell is “An important idiot did something stupid”. This can take the form of “Senator is caught taking bribes”, “Movie star gets arrested driving drunk” or even “religious leader says something offensive to people of other religions.”

1000 years from now, assuming we are still around, we’ll still have these same headlines, just with different people.

Since there will always be important idiots in our population, these stories, as a collective, are not news. They do not express a new trend in idiot behavior, nor do they offer any context for how our view of the world should change simply because this particular important idiot did something stupid.

It is non-news masquerading as news. Unless it’s news that this person is capable of doing stupid things, it’s the telling of a story we already know.

If instead these stories expressed, for example, that there are more incidences of a particular kind of idiot doing a particular idiotic thing, that might be newsworthy. Or what this persons peers or superiors are doing to prevent future idiocy. That would inform us of some trend or change in the world at large we should know about, and hopefully take action on in some way. But to report on a singular instance of these things tells us little about the world we did not already know.

No matter how awesome a government is, you can always find an idiot in it doing something stupid. No matter how peaceful a tribe or a nation is, you can always find an idiot in it committing acts of violence. A singular horrible or wonderful example does nothing to inform us unless the reporter does the work to put that event in context.

Non-news , news without context, is easy to generate. It takes less skill as a journalist to write these stories. Often these stories are more popular than better written stories about important things. The popular news is not the best news. The popular anything is rarely the best anything. The way we see the world is shaped by what sells best as news, rather than what will give us a realistic perspective on the world and our place in it.

Whenever you read the news, or watch Fox or MSNBC, please keep the idiot theory in mind. If the arguing is all about what some idiot did, and how much of an idiot they were or were not, engage your better half and move along.

Related: I highly recommend the book Amusing ourselves to death to anyone who consumes television, video or news of any kind.

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Published on May 23, 2012 15:38