Video of the Future of Social Media

Where do all the new channels lead? Here is an interesting visual meditation on the next 100 years in media. It is a year-old, and it is interesting in that it articulates what many have been predicting for the past ten years. It is worth a re-look as we get full swing into 2009 and an unpredictable economic model.

Experience it…

Spot-On Short Films for Books

About five years ago, I authored 35 early readers for an educational publisher. Spot-On Reading. It was one long, 416 page pun dedicated to early reading. Dick and Jane books introduced our parents to reading. This time when you “see Spot run”, Spot is just a spot, not a dog.

As part of the promotion, we put together a short animated film about the books.

Today, almost all major book publishers use the concept of the Hollywood trailer to promote books. When we did it, almost nobody promoted a book with online video.

Of course with Youtube, now everybody can do an informercial about anything. Even small, remote publishers. But are they?

Not nearly enough in this blogger’s opinion.

Watch the reprise of Spot-On Reading and imagine your product or service benefiting from a “preview”, for all audiences of course.

My Nine Year Old Cheats Media

After the Holiday rush, I strolled into my home office computer to catch up on some odds and ends. My nine year old was in my chair researching some cheats for the new Wii game the kids were starting to master. This was not news to me. My eleven year-old had done it before him and my fourteen year old has researched cheats for years. It is part of the fun of video games; the assumption that things are rigged to be cheated.

So why, as a parent, am I not afraid of raising cheaters? Because I think the word “cheat” in this case is a misnomer. I could use the word “hack” instead. But I don’t think it fits the definition of hacking either. A hacker wants to access something his target does not want to give up.

The designers in the gaming world intentionally create massive shortcuts which are not advertised on the box or in the basic instructions on the console or help section fo the software. And gradually this information makes it’s way to the web for the researching youth of the world to discover. What a great skill to encourage.

Anyone over fifty would sit down as a neophyte, and work out how to play by the directions displayed on the software interface. They might be able to become proficient in the game too. But they would only be starting. Mastery takes research. It takes finding the cheats.

My nine year old knows he’s part of a vast community of gamers. He also knows the web will deliver if he looks hard enough. It will deliver secret powers for his player, shortcuts through mazes, extra players which come to his aid, button combinations for turbo boosts known only to the programmers, etc.

Game designers and programmers love this. They make a digital onion; layers within layers within layers of playablity and discovery. They know this hooks the player and creates value.

So is it cheating or hacking to find the items on a scavenger hunt? No! The thing is rigged for discovery.

What if we approached learning, or finding new skills, like this?

Tim Ferriss has a great post on his cheats for swimming, tango, and learning Japanese here. He treats these subjects like my boys treat video games. He assumes that the general rules of learning have deeper, more efficient cheats. He then dives in with the total expectation he will find the hidden treasures of whatever subject matter he seeks to master. He might seem like a short cut junky, but I think it is more the drive to find efficiency and effectiveness and the core issues.

This is how I’d like to approach media, health, and economic resources in 2009. I have to adapt to what Tim and my nine year old have come to expect. There is a better way, and you have to dig for it. And if you love the process enough, any subject gives up it’s secrets.