Wishing you a brilliant and stylish end to 2011

Can you Make it? Makers are the new inventors.

Is it a way to compensate for the economic crunch, a counter-culture reaction to copyright law gone wild,  or just a severe case of technological curiosity? It may very well be all of the above, but nevertheless, rest assured that a generation of makers is on the rise. Or should that be Makers?

For now they might be “simply” the next generation of (crazy) inventors, hacking into devices, and modifying them for things they were not initially created for. From modifying toasters to opening up the Microsoft Kinect as controller for all kinds of other things than just the XBox 360.

It’s an extremely interesting development, which will expose manufacturers to all kinds of new and interesting challenges they never before experienced on such a wide scale, and they would do well to prepare for it, and find ways to embrace it unlike the music & film industry, which is still struggling with a tech savvy audience.

Have a look at this short movie, giving some more info and examples of Maker culture:

Can speed of change lead to total immobilization?

The speed at which the world moves is increasing, so much even that it almost gives me a physical sensation just by thinking about it. I’m of course not talking about the actual speed of our planet, but rather the unfolding of events and the speed with which they follow each other.

Couple to that the fact that most of these high-impact events turned out to be nigh unpredictable, or hidden so deep in a web of interconnectedness that their obfuscation was complete.

So, if now I hear politicians plan for the future, and they throw around dates like 2020 or even further in the future, I wonder… Are these people solid strategists, brave for abandoning the short-term and working for the long-term, or are they just (deliberately) naïve in thinking that it’s still possible to plan that far ahead.

Maybe better to have a plan than to not have a plan, I’ll hear some people say. We’ll see.

One thing however which can always get my attention is when scientists make predictions for the future of technological innovation. In these matters I’m one to think that speed of change, unlike in the financial markets, can’t come fast enough. And so I was pleasantly surprised to come across this post on the Institute for the Future website. A map laying out  the future of science until 2021. Great read!

Need some inspiration for the holidays? Here’s my 2nd list of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books I read during 2011

With darkness setting early, the holidays approaching fast, and the weather turning cold lots of people look for something to read in the evening by a crackling fire. So,  I thought I’d share with you my 2nd part of  the list of books I’ve read in 2011. The first half of my book list you can read here.

Be warned, as the title says, it’s my Sci-Fi & Fantasy book list, so no Literature (notice the sarcastic capital l) or business & management books to be found on this list…

1. Horns – Joe Hill (5/5) – Not hard to see where he learned the craft, but he also has talent. He manages to pack the same character development and mood his father is so known for in less pages, which makes him close to brilliant I guess…
2. Kill the Dead: A Sandman Slim Novel – Richard Kadrey (4/5) – So far I really like this series, it’s hard boiled detective noir with devils and magic.
3. Watchmen – Alan Moore (6/5) – yes, that’s a 6, and that’s how good it was…
4. Rule 34 – Charles Stross (5/5) – Stross knows how to write about the near future, it’s funny, witty and above all engaging.
5. Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut (5/5) – So there is Literature on this list after all, sue me…
6. The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1) – Stephen King (4/5) – King’s writing is just really good, and this story intrigues me, so I will pick up part 2 sometime soon.
7. The Forever War – Joe Haldeman (5/5) – Classic, must read, and so forth…
8. Bitter Seeds – Ian Tregillis (2/5) – Self-indulgent writing resulting in cardboard characters I never cared about.
9. The Wise Man’s Fear – Patrick Rothfuss (3/5) – Not bad, but some people just need better or more strict editors.
10. Y: The Last Man vol. 1 to 10 – Brian Vaughan (overall 4/5) – It has its share of ups and downs but overall it’s really good.
11. God of Clocks (Deepgate Codex part 3) – Alan Campbell (2/5) – An unworthy ending to a trilogy that started really well with Scar Night.
12. PopCo – Scarlett Thomas (3/5) – Book with a bigger promise than it delivers…

Anything you would recommend to me?

Belgacom brings music service Deezer to Belgium

I must admit, I had not heard of this French music streaming service before today. We’ll have to wait a few weeks before the actual details on to whom, how, and for how much this service will become available, but the current marketing blurb however talks about the unlimited availability of about 13 million music titles to Belgacom customers.

In itself these kind of music streaming services are nothing new, in fact they have been around for over a decade now. Biggest thing we as Belgians know about them however is the fact that over time, less and less of them became available to us due to all kinds of international licensing issues.

So, what caught my attention about Deezer is first the wide support of devices, from the predictable iPhone & iPod Touch, but also Android devices to Blackberry. And, more importantly, the possibility to also take your music offline. Clever, as a streaming only service in Belgium would never have worked. Why? Well, queue the longstanding complaint that mobile bandwidth is just too expensive for us Belgians, and especially when roaming. Streaming 1 song while roaming will probably cost you as much as getting the actual physical CD.

I have to admire Belgacom for pioneering this kind of service in Belgium, and this could very well open and accelerate the debate about the availability and delivery of movies & tv-series as well. If only we could get rid of this global patchwork of licencing restrictions. You just can’t justify to people that Internet content has to stop at country borders…

Lessons to learn from lesser known businesses

Just a short post with some observations.

Crowdsourcing & crowd funding, 2 very hot topics lately. Something I’ve been saying for a long time already is that these 2 concepts, including the online platforms to go with it, have been around for quite some time. Not in big business though, but in a niche business which embraced these very concepts already almost 10 years ago as a way out further decline.

I’m talking about the board game & roleplaying games business (and I mean RPGs as in tabletop gaming like D&D, not via computer).

First off a big part of the business went the electronic publishing route, just because printing small quantities with a hard time to predict success was killing plenty of smaller businesses. Self-publishing and electronic distribution was already a standard alternative for lots of printed material even before companies like amazon got into the eBook business.

Another part of the business went partially print-on-demand, and some, especially the board game companies set up systems whereby they pitched a game concept to their prospective customers, who can then “pledge” to buy it when it comes out. Up front the company then tells them that the game will get produced once it gets a certain number of pledges.

To reboot the business and drastically increase engagement and community building, lots of companies published their games using the OGL (Open Gaming License), giving permission to anyone to modify, copy and redistribute some of the content of the games. This did away with the years of 2-way frustration over the copyright issues involving fan-created content. At last it was viewed that these community-created products were actually the key to extending the lifeblood of these games, and games using this OGL principal were of course a lot more discussed in online media.

These things seriously changed the business itself, but made sure that it had a future. The reason these changes worked is simply because both the companies and the customers are very passionate about the products as often they are part of hobbies on which many hours per week are spent. The perfect mix of course to get involved with all these crowd-something things…

My take on the real challenges for Television

The past few days, probably under impulse from the publication of Jo Cauldron’s book “Media Morgen” I’ve heard a lot of talk about the future of television and the changes coming at the media in general. I recently blogged on the Communication, Innovation & Frustration blog at De Tijd about the old-fashioned way we get access to television content, especially in Belgium, so I’ve also been thinking about the same topic.

When I hear people like Jo Caudron talk about “television”, it seems they are implicitly talking about the channels. But a television is just a device to access and deliver content, just as the internet is just a way to access and deliver content.

So, will the biggest change and challenge not be that we are heading towards internet based television without channels, almost completely devoid of the real-time aspect, except of course live events and breaking news. So we’ll just get companies that create and provide content that as a viewer, I will pick and choose what I want, when I want it, from whomever offers what I like. Loyalty will no longer be based on the feel of the created identity of the channel but solely on the desirability of the content provided. Of course some kind of content specialization or consistency may lead to an identity, but in the end this is a result and about as relevant or true as claiming that Amazon has no identity because they aren’t specialized in a specific category of books. “If we build it they will come”, will not be true.

Channels might endure in a role of content aggregators, but their current role as content dictators will be hard if not impossible to maintain. Concepts such as prime-time will become meaningless, scheduling high-profile programs to lead people into the next one won’t work anymore and so they will really have to open up quite a different bag of tricks to attract an audience. In its current format the very praised second screen is in my opinion also nothing more than a passing novelty, because as viewers also move towards a content consumption on-demand, the concept of it becomes pointless. By this I don’t mean that there is no point in engaging the viewer through the use of mobile and social media, on the contrary, but it just won’t be through the current second screen concept.

Interesting times ahead, but they better move fast. (Belgian) TV channels should focus first on how they can become part of this big media content world where viewers don’t want to be told they can’t watch the pilot of a new American series yet because nobody in Belgium bought the transmission right yet. They should best figure out fast how to deliver all the content the viewers may want, because you can’t build an experience or community if you don’t have the appealing content.

And if you don’t believe me when I tell you that the TV channels themselves are losing importance as content creators and providers, then I invite you to check up on some past and current internet series successes such as Sanctuary, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and very current Pioneer One.