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?

Related posts:

1. Unbooks: Leo Babauta of ZenHabits is an Early Pioneer of the New Model of Book Publishing Book publishing is an archaic industry long over due for...
2. Crowdfunding is Much More than Just Raising Capital Companies are flocking to social media and crowdsourcing platforms in...
3. Derek Sivers Offers a Great Lesson in Leadership: A First Follower is Needed to Create a Movement A great video clearly demonstrating how a movement is created...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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.

Related posts:

1. Business Model Generation Book Business Model Generation is a brilliant idea. “Business Model...
2. Interactive Story Books Delivered on the iPad It has been almost 600 years since Gutenberg invented the...
3. Business Model Management is the Only Way to Stay Competive If your business is struggling maybe it is time to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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.

Related posts:

1. Abundance Breaks More Things than Scarcity Economic success is no longer a product of the scarce...
2. Business Model Management is the Only Way to Stay Competive If your business is struggling maybe it is time to...
3. How to Get a Job In the 21st Century What does it take to find a job in this...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

We live in an age of abundance. If you disagree, go to any supermarket and look at all the different brands of toothpaste, cereal, coffee, soap or any other product. We have surpluses of food, automobiles and every other product imaginable. Relative to western standards of living, goods are essentially free. Even the poorest employed person can afford a quality of life beyond that of royalty just a couple of centuries ago.

Online abundance is incomprehensible. How many millions of blogs and websites are publishing free content and services? We are living in world when the old rules of economic scarcity have essentially vanished.

In traditional hierarchical corporations it made sense for managers to hoard information. That is how they kept control and increased their own value to the firm. It was in their self-interest to keep their knowledge scarce.

The economics have flipped. Time and attention are the only two resources that are not in infinite abundance. Everything else is basically in endless supply. We have to share and give valuable content and ideas just to catch the attention of a world awash in information, advertising and goods. Success is more a function of how much you give rather than what you keep for yourself.

Clay Shirky articulated this new reality in the quote;

“Abundance breaks more things than scarcity.” (Quote via Edward Boches)

That is a very powerful idea. Markets are being destroyed because of too much, NOT too little. Here are some examples.

• Craiglist (Free classified ads)  versus the newspaper industry.
• Blogs and websites versus magazines.
• MP3 songs versus the music industry.
• Amazon versus book stores.
• Skype versus long-distance phone charges.
• Wikipedia versus Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Chinese manufacturing versus US manufacturing.

The oil industry is not going to implode because of a shortage of fossil fuels. It will be made irrelevant when alternate and abundant alternative energy sources are developed. Storage and bandwidth are rapidly approaching zero marginal costs, just wait to see what clean and abundant energy will do to the world.

What happens when supply is infinite and prices are zero?
In an abundance economy, supply and demand are irrelevant. Supply is infinite and demand is almost non-existence because finicky consumers can not be interrupted to even consider your firm’s offering. It is a winner take all world.

A better exemplar of the new economic reality is the cult of celebrity. Riches go to only the top performer. Winner takes all.  A famous actor, musician, athlete or blogger can command huge incomes while all the wannabes struggle in obscurity.  Economic success is no longer  a product of the scarce resources you control. The only real differentiation arises from the quality of ideas and your ability to command an audience.

How will your company survive when you product or service is given away for free?
How can you  become a celebrity in your niche?

Related posts:

1. Unbooks: Leo Babauta of ZenHabits is an Early Pioneer of the New Model of Book Publishing Book publishing is an archaic industry long over due for...
2. The Future of Magazines and Blogging- Micro-Magazines RSS feeds and blogs are a good fast way to...
3. Social Media Marketing is all about Free Content Companies, bloggers and authors are not giving away free content,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

There is still ongoing debate about free versus paid content since the release of Chris Anderson’s latest book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Companies, bloggers and authors are not giving away free content, they are buying attention. That is what social media marketing is, free content. Free blog posts, free Youtube videos, free tweets on Twitter, free images on Flikr, free comments on other blogs. People give away content online because that is the only way to develop relationships.

Try charging a subscription to a new blog. The only thing worse than zero profits, is having no one visit your website. A large and loyal audience can be sold something. Try profiting when no one cares who you are. “FREE” is the new advertising. Instead of paying for TV commercials, radio spots and print ads, forward thinking companies are investing that money into free content. The trick is to have something that some of those free readers are going to want to buy.

Your local pizza shop isn’t giving away free flyers. The flyers are advertising to get you to buy pizzas. Bloggers and other online content providers are not giving away free content, they are trying to get your attention so that maybe you will buy their products and services in the future.

It is happening in virtually every industry, but online the changes are coming much faster. Graphic designers used to be able to charge a lot more money. Now with cheap wordpress themes, inexpensive overseas artists and crowdsourcing sites, design got a lot cheaper. Sure great designers will always be able to make decent money, however everyone in the middle is competing for a shrinking piece of the pie. That drives prices down.

Look at the costs of virtually anything over the last two decades. Blank CD-ROMs used to cost more than $20 now they are under a dollar. Email accounts used to cost more than $10 per month, now they are free. Online storage is so ubiquitous as to be free. Even our food and clothing have become ridiculously cheap.

The key point in this debate is not about free versus paid. Creative and talented artists and entrepreneurs will always be inventing new products and art that people will be willing to pay for. The way this argument should be phrased is, “Anything that has a marginal cost of production of zero and is being sold now will tend to be offered for free over time.”

Every big marketer is offering free ebooks, videos or both to gain attention in an increasingly competitive world. What is important is that the quality of the free offerings keep increasing. Many of the same resources would have been sold in the past. Sean d’Souza’s calls it the bikini concept. Give away 90% of what you have for free but make sure the last 10% has a strong enough pull so that some of your readers will pay for it.

If I had a band, I would be giving away CDs and songs on every online platform I could find. Musicians should be ecstatic if new listeners give their music a listen. Trying to charge money is just another barrier to building a relationship with future customers. The way to make money is by doing concerts and selling merchandise.

If I was an author. I would be looking at publishing a free ‘unbook.’ If it was SEO optimized, then internet users would find my content and hopefully find some value in what I offered and would tell others. I would make money by charging for consulting, seminars or specialized follow up content.

If I was a magazine, I would be giving all the content away for free and develop an online community of active readers. There could be premium membership areas for the most serious fans. I would have seminars, conferences and meets ups regularly traveling the world to solidify the relationships of the community. I would have corporate sponsors that would value the highly targeted and deep connections with fans.

If you try to charge for everything from the beginning it is unlikely that you will ever get any sort of following. Even trying to charge a few pennies puts too much friction into the process and people will not be bothered to check out your offering. The real secret is to constantly increase the quality of your free products so that the world is continually astounded at the value your provide. This is what  successful bloggers do, mainstream companies won’t be too far behind.

Related posts:

1. Forget Social Media, the Future is Content Strategy Effective social media campaigns take a lot of work because...
2. Sharing is the First Law of Social Media: A Lesson from Chris Brogan We all know that sharing is everything in a...
3. Abundance Breaks More Things than Scarcity Economic success is no longer a product of the scarce...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

There is a great article on BusinessModelAlchemist called,

Business Model Management – a defining topic for the next decade

Staying ahead of competition requires more than an impressive one-time business model innovation stunt. It requires the careful evaluation and improvement of one’s more established business model (cash cows), while proactively playing with a portfolio of new business models. This can be presented as a spectrum ranging from “improving business models” to “disrupting/inventing business models”.

I couldn’t agree more. I constantly read about people and companies complaining about too much competition, customers who only care about prices, and declining sales. They seem to feel that it is unfair that they have to work harder for less profits.

If your business is struggling maybe it is time to start implementing new business models. Actually, the time was probably a lot earlier then when you noticed the problem. People are not going to pay thousands of dollars more to buy a car just because GM can’t sell them at a competitive price. It is not a market problem. It is a business model problem.

Jonathan Fields has a great article called  If your Business Sucks, Don’t Blame the Market about the tough times retail eyeglass businesses are facing and some ideas to fix the problem.

Seth Godin has a short post about how Groucho Marx managed to reinvent himself with the advent of films and then again television.

Godin, in another post about the discussion of Chris Anderson’s book Free: The future of a Radical Price also addresses a similar issue.

The first argument that makes no sense is, “should we want free to be the future?”

Who cares if we want it? It is.

The second argument that makes no sense is, “how will this new business model support the world as we know it today?”

Who cares if it does? It is. It’s happening. The world will change around it, because the world has no choice. I’m sorry if that’s inconvenient, but it’s true.

Be sure to check out the fantastic book, Business Model Generation and the process of how it was created. Very cool!

Related posts:

1. Business Model Generation Book Business Model Generation is a brilliant idea. “Business Model...
2. Unbooks: Leo Babauta of ZenHabits is an Early Pioneer of the New Model of Book Publishing Book publishing is an archaic industry long over due for...
3. The Future of Magazines and Blogging- Micro-Magazines RSS feeds and blogs are a good fast way to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Business Model Generation is a brilliant idea.

“Business Model Generation practices what it preaches. Co-authored by 470 Business Model Canvas practitioners from 45 countries, the book was financed and produced independently of the traditional publishing industry. It features a tightly-integrated, visual, lie-flat design that enables immediate hands-on use.”

Business models are such an integral part of the entrepreneurship process that I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these books. I love everything about it; design, content and how it was created are all fantastic!

Lead Author, Alexander Osterwalder’s site, Business Model Alchemist

Related posts:

1. Business Model Management is the Only Way to Stay Competive If your business is struggling maybe it is time to...
2. Unbooks: Leo Babauta of ZenHabits is an Early Pioneer of the New Model of Book Publishing Book publishing is an archaic industry long over due for...
3. The Future of Magazines and Blogging- Micro-Magazines RSS feeds and blogs are a good fast way to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.