Companies are flocking to social media and crowdsourcing platforms in the hopes of finding cheaper or more effective ways to market their wares. This is understandable for we all need to make a living, however, I think the real promise of social media is bigger than just a financial transaction. People give their time and money for reasons above and beyond financial gain.

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter is a great example of non-financial motives for giving. Kickstarter is a platform to fund creative ideas. It is not investing, project creators retain complete ownership of their projects.

“Project creators inspire people to open their wallets by offering products, benefits and fun experiences.”

The great thing is that people do fund projects for “fun experiences.” There are many people completely willing to part with a little cash in order to play a small role in a community. And yes, each project is a community because like minded individuals are connecting around a single idea.

At the time of writing this post, Bud Caddell has attracted $6377 in funding from 88 backers for his book project, The Bucket Brigade: How Everything in the Attention Economy Actually Works and 10 Rules to Profit from it. Pledges of $25 or more get their name and URL in the book. More than $100 earns editorial membership. Backing of more than $500 gets “special attention from me (Caddell) far beyond the production of this book.”

Think about that for a moment, if you donate more than $100 you also get to edit the book for free. Caddell’s successful funding proves that money isn’t the only motivator. I think this is a positive and very powerful cultural advancement. Some professional connections and engagements are more valuable than a mere financial exchange.

That to me is the real power of social media. We are connecting around ideas and beliefs and not only trying to sell each other something. As we develop as societies and continue to climb Maslow’s Hierarcy, money is becoming less of a motivator.

Caddell was only asking for $5000 in funding, which is not a lot of money to write, edit and publish a book. Clearly it is not only about the money for him either. Lumi Co. on Kickstarter said,

“Kickstarter is an incredible platform. Its obvious purpose is funding, but we find ourselves gaining so much outside of collecting pledges. For us, Kickstarter has been a powerful tool to connect with a community passionate about our work.”

Many of us blog, upload videos and pictures, contribute to open source projects like Wikipedia and Linux with little or zero financial benefit. There is definitely more to life than money. Being part of a community and connecting with fellow humans has value in and of itself. We really are putting the ’social’ into social media.

Thanks to Edward Boches for inspiring this post.

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It has been almost 600 years since Gutenberg invented the printing press, so next generation books are long over due. I have written several times about the inevitable revolution in book publishing. The introduction of Apple’s iPad is a major advancement  in the transformation of the idea of a book as printed words to a full multi-media experience. There is now an iPad application for three interactive children’s stories.

TheNextWeb has a great post about the interactive experience of games and animations within books.

This is nothing short of a revolution in children’s books. The adult can read while the child plays with the screen’s attractions, making reading not only a fun, but also an interactive experience.

This is just the beginning of what I have been calling unbooks. The real advancements will come when readers connect and form communities around the ideas in the books. Perhaps they will be ’social books.’ There are problems with using the word ‘book’ because these interactive experiences will be part book, part video, part discussion, part website, part curation, etc. I don’t know if the old idea of a ‘book’ encapsulates the new concepts accurately. One thing is certain; there are some exciting opportunities for authors and forward-thinking publishers.

More Links

Vook – Interactive books

TheUnbook A print based concept of the future of books as regularly updated and improved publications.

My Posts
The Future of Books
Unbooks: Leo Babauta of ZenHabits is an Early Pioneer of the New Model of Book Publishing

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Here is a fascinating video by the BBC called The Century of the Self. It is about public relations master and nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays. Bernays was instrumental in creating our consumerism culture, invented PR, advised governments and was a key influence on the propaganda of Nazi Germany.

Edward Bernays took Freud’s ideas about the primitive aggressive and sexual forces driving people and used them to manipulate the masses.

He showed American corporations, for the first time, how they could make people want things they didn’t need, by linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. Out of this would come a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying people’s inner selfish desires, one made them happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate our world today.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are some high-lights of the video.

• Sold World War I to Americans.
• ‘Propaganda’ was the word used by Nazis so Bernay re-named it as Public Relations.
• He persuaded women to smoke by branding them as ‘torches of freedom’ and linking smoking to the suffrage movement.
• Helped link products and services to emotions and feelings and how people wanted to be seen by others. It was a shift from purchases based on needs to desires.
• Created the idea of cars as symbols of male sexuality.
• Started the shift from the notion of active citizens to passive consumers.
• Helped popularize President Coolidge by linking him to movie stars.
• Popularized Freud’s ideas in the US.
• Key influence to  Joseph Goebbel, the Nazi propagandist.
• Created the vision that democracy was only possible in a free-market capitalist society in the 1939 New York World Fair.

Here is a link to a free PDF version of  Edward Bernay’s 1928 book, Propaganda. (You may have to right click and save as to download to a PC.)

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What does it take to find a job in this economy? Does sending out generic emails out to hundreds of companies work? How about using the popular employment sites and applying for all jobs vaguely interesting? You can’t differentiate yourself by doing what everyone else is doing.

$6 on Google Adwords to Get Your Dream Job

Alec Brownstein landed two job offers for his dream job with a $6 investment in Google Adwords advertising targeting the names of top New York creative directors. Watch the short video to see.

Create your Own Dream Job

Any sane business owner will happily offer employment to anyone who can prove they can offer more value than they cost. Unfortunately, larger businesses are not particularly sane. Focus on smaller, entrepreneurial companies and you just may be able to create any job you want. Check out Charlie Hoehn’s free SlideShare ebook to see how he managed to work with Seth Godin,  Ramit Sethi of Iwillteachyoutoberich.com, Tim Ferriss of The Four Hour Workweek and movie director Tucker Max.

Forget a Resume

Seth Godin wrote in his latest book Linchpin

Having a resume begs for you to go into that big machine that looks for relevant keywords and begs for you to get a job as a cog in a giant machine.

Godin goes on to say,

If you don’t have a resume, what do you have?

How about three extraordinary letters of recommendations from people the employer knows or respects?

Or a sophisticated project an employer can see or touch?

Or a reputation that precedes you?

Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up?

Some say, “Well , that’s fine, but I don’t have those.”

Yeah, that’s my point. If you don’t have these things, what leads you to believe that you are remarkable, amazing, or just plain spectacular?

It sounds to me like if you don’t have more than a resume, you’ve been brainwashed into compliance.
Great jobs, world-class jobs, jobs people kill for – those jobs don’t get filled by people e-mailing in resumes.

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Here is a fantastic hand drawn animated explanation of Dan Pink’s latest book Drive by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA)

I have selected some excerpts of the animation but I highly recommend the 10 minute video for the content and the entertainment of watching the artist illustrate in fast motion.

For simple, straight forward, rudimentary tasks, bonuses work as expected; the higher the pay the higher the performance.

When a task gets more complicated, requiring some conceptual, creative thinking; larger rewards lead to poorer performance.

Money motivates people only if you don’t pay them enough to want to do the work.

There are three factors that lead to better performance and personal satisfaction:

• Autonomy – our desire to direct our own lives
• Mastery – our urge to get better at stuff (Like playing a musical instrument.)
• Contribution – making a difference (Linux, Wikipedia)

More and more corporations have a transcendent purpose. Partly because it makes coming to work better and partly because it attracts better talent.

We are purpose maximizers, not just profit maximizers.

I think we are all looking for more meaning in our work and lives but the research that Dan Pink offers is somewhat counter-intuitive on the surface. Money turns out to not be a very good motivator for more creative and cognitive work.

The question for each of us is whether or not we can create inspiring projects and businesses that attract talented employees and volunteers while giving everyone the freedom to choose what they want to work on. Could you create the next Wikipedia or Linux?

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Book publishing is an archaic industry long over due for a revolution. In this Internet age, when information is instantly available from anywhere on the planet, it doesn’t make sense to go through a long publishing cycle only to have a product that is already dated. Books should be a work-in-progress of constantly enhanced and updated material. Books need to be a community, not a static product. While there are many experiments with the new model of publishing, Leo Babauta of ZenHabits, latest book Focus is most likely going to be one of the early large scale successes.

What is an Unbook?

Dave Gray and Jay Cross believe that unbooks are a ‘living book’ that ‘accelerates the path from idea to object’ and the ‘evolution of the living’ object. Watch the full ShareShare presentation below.

Focus, the Unbook

Babauta’s current book, Focus is a perfect example of Gray and Cross’s idea. Here is how Babauta describes his book model:

Write just the core content, in short chapters.

Publish this on the web in “beta” form. Share it with a small group of readers, for free.

Ask them to comment and even make contributions. I’ll decide what goes in, of course.

I’ll revise and expand on the book, based on input from early readers. Will publish new versions as they’re done.

More readers will be invited, and more feedback welcomed. More revisions will come out.

Finally, the book will be done, freely available on the web to read. Credits included for contributions from readers.

Will turn into an ebook, also freely downloadable, encourage people to spread it widely.

Will get a publisher to publish and distribute the print version, or failing that, self publish. Will sell this for a fee.

There might be some additional info in the different versions, to encourage people to check out all versions if they like.

When a Book Stops Being a Book

In a previous post, I wrote about what I think the future of books should be.  Babauta’s Future is one of those books, but there still is another dimension in the evolution of books and that is multimedia content. With the rapid adoption of Apple’s iPad, it shouldn’t be long before our concept of books as a container of text morphs into an experience complete with audio, video, animations, discussion forums, on and offline events and meet ups. Some books should be a service, not a product. Connecting people to people is the real value of ideas.  Reading is great but there are so many more possibilities on the horizon.

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This is another brilliant idea via Seth Godin, PDF Micro-Magazines.

Here is what Seth Godin wrote:

While there are still people hoping to make a living writing a blog (not as a tool for something else, but as an end into itself), that’s awfully difficult to do. Micro-magazines, on the other hand, feel very different to me. They have elements that make them very attractive to advertisers and readers.

I’ll define one as:

• Being digital (probably a PDF), that’s free to ‘print’, fast to make and easy to share. (Newsweek spends seventeen million dollars a year on paper.)
• Having subscribers, either by email or RSS
• Focused on issues that appeal to some, but not all
• Having a very specific audience (call it a tribe)
• Enabling that tribe to connect by sharing the ideas in the magazine among them, as well as supporting it with a forum or blog
• Containing ads that are relevant to that audience
• Being longer than 140 characters or even a blog post, so significant ideas can be exposed in detail

Godin also has found a perfect example of one of these Micro-Magazines, Fear.less. The PDF magazine has a beautiful design and professional quality articles. Truly a fantastic business model for so many niches.

RSS feeds and blogs are a good fast way to get information but there is definitely a need for professional level content somewhere in the middle between magazines and blogs. This is a great opportunity for aspiring publisher/ entrepreneurs. This format is also likely to reach a much larger audience of readers who are not comfortable with social media yet. It is a familiar magazine format, except it is delivered digitally. Advertising definitely makes sense for targeted publications like this.

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I have just finished reading Seth Godin’s Linchpin for the second time. It really is a fantastic book with insights into what it takes to be successful now.

I have to say that I find most business books underwhelming. Virtually all just regurgitate common sense ideas or follow popular trends.  Linchpin is NOT one of these books.

I love Godin’s take on how we have all been trained from childhood to conform and consume. Our societies have produced armies of people who follow the rules and produce only what is required. It is no wonder that so many jobs are lost to automation or outsourcing. If you are just following procedures and policies in your work or business then don’t be surprised if your job disappears.

Godin’s antidote for our economic malaise is to become an artist. He uses the term ‘artist’ in a broad sense;

Art is an original gift, a connection that changes the recipient, a human ability to make a difference.
Art isn’t a painting or even a poem, it’s something that any of us can do. If you interact with others,
you have the platform to create something new—something that changes everything. I call that art.

This is a great book that I highly recommend for anyone interested in personal development and success. I felt the book spoke to me personally on many levels and many of the ideas are similar to the topics I am focusing on my blogs. Here is a video I recently did for Untemplater.com covering some of the same concepts.

Seth Godin gave a great talk about the ideas in Linchpin which you can listen for free on his blog.

There is also a related ebook called Brainwashed that Godin wrote on ChangeThis.com.

Do work that matters.
Four words available to anyone. They’re here if you want them. The economy just gave you lever-
age—the leverage to make a difference, the leverage to spread your ideas and the leverage to
have impact. More people have more leverage (more chances and more power) to change the world
than at any other time in history. What are you going to do about it? When?

The99Percent.com has a great video of Seth Godin talking about overcoming the resistance that stops people from executing their ideas.

Go and buy the book! Then take action to become an artist. If you are not trying to connect and contribute to the world, then what is the point?

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It is safe to say that we conquered the cheap revolution. Everything from MP3s to food to automobiles are cheaper than ever. Food production has declined from 97% of our economy to less than 3%. This is an age of affluence.

What do you get for the person that has everything?

After you get your three automobiles, four TVs and computers in every room of your house what is left to buy?

There is a growing movement of perpetual travelers living an anywhere lifestyle by living cheaply and shunning material possessions. Many, including myself, are finding that it can be cheaper to travel and live abroad just by getting off of the consumerism bandwagon.

Cutting out a significant part of consumption means that it is possible to work much less as well. It was less than a century ago that 40 hour workweeks were legislated in the US. Prior to that, it was normal for even children to work 60 plus hours per week in terrible working conditions.

We were able to cut back  from 60 to 40 hour workweeks, what will happen when we cut back to 30 or even 20 hours per week of work? France is on the forefront with a 35 hour workweek and several weeks of vacation per year. When will it arrive in other developed nations? More importantly, what will we do with the extra time?

The Meaning Economy

Umair Haque said, (via Taylor Davidson)

Today, the meaning is the message. The “message” of the Internet’s social revolution is more meaningful work, economics, politics, society, and organization. It promises radically more meaning: to make stuff matter, once again, in human terms, not just financial ones.

It is clear that we are reaching the top of the pyramid of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. All of our physical needs have been met ten-fold, now we are focusing on self-actualization and finding real meaning in our lives.

That meaning is not coming from buying more things or having more leisure time. Quality of life is not measured by how many calories we consume, how many hours we spend in front of the TV or how many stamps we have in our passports. What are the new metrics? What is the next incarnation of the American Dream?

The End of Work

Consider all the non-economic value that is being created by bloggers and users of social media around the world. There are millions of people contributing free content and services without direct or immediate personal gain. If that is hard to imagine, spend some time on Wikipedia and try to formulate a guess on the number of volunteer man-hours that have been invested.

There will always be economic exchanges between people, however I think we are just starting to see the value of non-monetary transactions. We give because it gives us pleasure, not because it puts money into our bank accounts. Personal development, stronger relationships and contribution are becoming more important requisites than just a paycheck. More people will be working less simply because traditional industrial age employment is  becoming less necessary.

I have heard a lot of disagreement with this contention but consider technological advancements in every industry. Less man hours are required to produce everything imaginable. Even Henry Ford’s assembly line cut the man hours required to build a car from 12.5 to 1 hour and 33 minutes. Those freed up hours have always been employed to produce even more goods and services however, there is a limit to the amount we can consume and to what the environment can sustain. Perhaps this will finally be the first generation to consume less than the previous.

In the future, I think the turning of the 21st Century will be marked as the start of the quest for meaning. I wonder how long it will take to purge our industrial age mindsets from the collective psyche?

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Has our current educational system outlived its usefulness?

Seth Godin explains that our current educational system was established to produce factory workers in the following video.

Ken Robinson feels that schools are killing creativity.

Indeed, it is difficult to find many people with anything good to say about our current educational system. Traditional schools are not able to keep up with changing demands and technological advancements. How can universities possibly deliver graduates with in-demand skills when the world is changing so fast?

Generation Y entrepreneurs are questioning the importance of university when they can forgo an education and just go out and build a company or change the world. Founders at companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Virgin have proven that advanced education is not a prerequisite for business success

Here are some interesting models for the future of education.

University of the People
The United Nations sponsored University of the People is the

world’s first tuition free online academic institution dedicated to the global advancement and democratization of higher education.

Knowledge Nomads
Netherlands based, Knowmads has a small group of students that work on real projects with various businesses and experts.

Our purpose is to create a life-long learning community that starts with a one –year-program and the possibility to add on half a year after that. We work from the principle of a team setting based on Action Learning; meaning we we work with our heads, hearts and hands. First we discover what is going on around us, then we design, then we start to build and then we amplify it in a learning setting and as a socio-economic venture. You will experience this setting with 29 other people, 3 members of staff as well as as experts invited from business, politics and media, from all over the world.

Alternative MBA
Marketing super-guru, Seth Godin offered a one-time Alternative MBA consisting of:

One hour a day of class/dialogue
Four hours a day of working on my projects
Three hours a day of working on your personal project
Five hours a day of living, noticing, doing and connecting

Personal MBA
Josh Kaufman’s Personal MBA starts with the premise that you don’t need to go to school to get an education.

The PMBA is more flexible than a traditional MBA program, doesn’t involve going into massive debt, and won’t interrupt your income stream for two years. Just pick up one of the best business books available, learn as much as you can, discuss what you learn with others, then go out into the real world and make great things happen.

Would you benefit more from spending two or more years of your life and a lot of money in a classroom with professors with limited industry experience or from working on real projects with real people and companies? Education is not about school anymore.

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