She says, “Portland needs real people with real experience” in City Hall. Which means experience earned in business, not politics.
According to The Oregonian, if elected Brady would give her cellphone number to city workers so they could call her directly with problems. I like that “Call me and I will help” mentality.
Brady also said she’d work to accelerate the city’s business permitting process to encourage job creation and build an economic development team.
I don’t know much about Brady or the other candidates, but I do know Portland is a place with the potential to become an engine of 21st century commerce. Whoever can best harness the copious talent here is going to win — not just elections, but also hearts and minds.
Portland-based essayist and author William Deresiewicz explores what kind of values support the hipster persona in the opinion pages of The New York Times.
“What’s the affect of today’s youth culture?” he asks. In other words, what’s going on underneath those pork pie hats and ironic t-shirts?
Today’s polite, pleasant personality is, above all, a commercial personality. It is the salesman’s smile and hearty handshake, because the customer is always right and you should always keep the customer happy. If you want to get ahead, said Benjamin Franklin, the original business guru, make yourself pleasing to others.
…Today’s ideal social form is not the commune or the movement or even the individual creator as such; it’s the small business. Every artistic or moral aspiration — music, food, good works, what have you — is expressed in those terms.
Deresiewicz also says the term “sell out” has no resonance in the culture today–it’s “an idea that has rather tellingly disappeared from our vocabulary.” I’m not sure that’s bad.
Also, I don’t think it is wise to lay the “youth culture” label on hipsters and be done with it. As I write this post, there are young people of another class occupying city centers across North America and they have a very different set of concerns, “affability” nowhere among them.
At the same time, I do relate to what Deresiewicz is saying. Hipsters, and the Bobos who share their values, are selling themselves in increasingly obvious ways and he’s right to question where it all leads. Can you really be friends with someone who’s always selling? I guess it depends on what’s being sold and how, but the concept is mostly off-putting (even though I can see myself in this particular mirror).
I see myself not just because I’m a Bobo who frequents Portland’s hipster coffee shops, I’m also a writer who has to sell to survive and a Netizen who is “always on.” And I believe, like the hipsters in Deresiewicz’s piece, that business is a powerful engine for social change. When you run a business the right way, you’re literally changing things for the better for your customers and your staff. A conscious business like Patagonia, for instance, is worthy of our praise and a great example of how it can be (and needs to be) moving forward.
Of course, Patagonia is not born of hipster values, nor run by hipsters.
It’s hard for me to see people “taking care of business” and each other as anything but a good thing, especially when the business in question is focusing on the triple bottom line.
Let’s encourage, not discourage, more social entrepreneurship. At the same time, let’s find a balance and value much more than crafty commercial solutions to today’s problems.
Eugene Register-Guard columnist Bob Welch paid a visit to Ken Kesey’s mom, Geneva Jolley, who turned 95 two weeks ago.
In the interview, Mrs. Jolley reflects on her son’s firsttwo novels…
“When the books came out, they were not red-letter days for me,” Geneva says. “They should have been. But I didn’t appreciate all that he had put into those books. I didn’t appreciate how famous they were going to become.”
She wonders if it was a mother’s protective instincts. “Maybe I didn’t want him to be a big turnip in a little turnip patch,” she says. “He always liked a crowd.”
Mrs. Jolley also says, “I never gave him credit for all he accomplished.”
I hope Kesey understood and I imagine he did. Lavishing praise on a writer, even a famous one in the family, isn’t normal. Asking said writer when he’s going to get a real job, now that’s normal.
Portland is home to a number of top flight coffee shops–Barista, Albina Press, Spella, Stumptown, Ristretto, Heart and Extracto all contribute mightily to the thriving coffee scene in Portland. But their largess does not extend to the suburbs, and as a resident of West Linn I’m somewhat put out by that.
The best place in West Linn to order an espresso drink isn’t even at a coffee shop, it’s inside the Market of Choice supermarket, where they serve Stumptown. Of course, there are coffee shops in West Linn, Oregon City and Lake Oswego, but none of them compare in quality or atmosphere to the shops named above. And none of the shops named above have a location outside the city, except for Stumptown which has locations in Seattle and New York City.
Is it because the ‘burbs belong to Starbucks? Or do the ‘burbs belong to Starbucks because there’s a lack of outstanding indie coffee shops to choose from and support? It’s a “chicken or the egg?” question, and I don’t want to get lost in philosophy. Instead, I prefer to focus on the present-day market opportunities and how culture spreads (or does not spread) from one community to the next.
West Linn is a relatively affluent community, just to the south of extremely affluent Lake Oswego. I mention the economic reality of these two “South Shore” communities because it’s plainly obvious that the residents of West Linn and Lake Oswego can afford to support high-end coffee shops, to say nothing of better restaurants, a food cart scene and a handful of local breweries. Yet, as it stands today there are zero food carts in Lake Oswego and West Linn, although Clackamas County officials are working to create a streamlined, affordable process for entrepreneurs looking to open mobile food carts, drive-through espresso stands and similar developments.
I can imagine that the best coffee purveyors in Portland don’t believe their shops would prosper in a suburb where the number of skinny jeans-wearing hipsters is at a minimum. But I beg to differ. People of the Pacific Northwest who wear wide-legged jeans, chinos and cords also drink coffee, and they will drink exceptionally well made coffee, every day, when provided the opportunity.
I loathe the state of TV news today. The American public is fed such a distorted view of events, filtered as they are by bought-and-paid-for pundits, not reporters.
Clearly, this sad state of affairs calls for a response, and The White House, for one, has one.
Since April of 2010, White House videographer Arun Chaudhary and Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest have been creating West Wing Week, a newsreel-like recap of the President’s week.
I know it’s PR, but it’s so much better than the news. On the news, it’s all vitriol all the time, which limits our idea about what government is. On TV, government is nothing more than a game to be won or lost, like football. But online, we see it’s much more than that and we get a much better feel for who this President is.
I do not agree with many of the things Obama does, or all that he stands for. He’s much too conservative for me. Yet, I like knowing that he’s a smart and charming guy busy working on our problems.
As the field of right wing contenders narrows down, and an alternate to Obama is offered, it will be all the more important for the President to showcase his looser digital self, not just online but on TV, as well. The challenger is going to be a starched suit, we know that much, but the contrast between the two needs to be magnified in order for the Dems to hold the executive branch.
Two weeks ago in Boston, author and speaker David Meerman Scott came off the stage at DMA2011 to hand me a copy of the book he co-authored with Brian Halligan of HubSpot.
Interestingly, there’s now another book due to be released about the band’s keen understanding of marketing, which gives me reason to pause. Because marketing wasn’t on the minds of Garcia, Lesh and company. Delivering an exceptional musical experience (product) was the thing that mattered most to Grateful Dead.
My AdPulp colleague, Dan Goldgeier, reviewed the book when it came out last year. Now, having just read the book myself, I’ll share a few thoughts.
I like how the authors identify present-day companies doing the things that the band helped to pioneer, like cultivating community and treating one’s best customers like the VIPs that they are. But I don’t like how there’s an unspoken thought that the managers of today’s companies somehow picked up their best practices from the band. There’s no need to imply a connection in these case studies and I believe the book would be better if this non-link was made more clear.
The book also makes no mention of Grateful Dead’s anti-corporate stance. It was this outsider position that drove a lot of the band’s innovation and do-it-yourself work ethic. Grateful Dead was a successful enterprise not because they knew how to bring their music and lifestyle to market. The band’s music spread from college town to college town and well beyond because the music and the concert experience in particular was extraordinary. This point too often gets glossed over in “How To” books. Scott and Halligan attempt to illustrate how a company today can achieve “viral marketing” success by following in the band’s footsteps. I see the connective fiber and understand why the authors want to help others see it too, but unless you or your company is undertaking the kind of exploratory problem solving that led to 27-minute long “Dark Star” jams, you’re unlikely to experience the same kind of results.
If you’re genuinely interested in the factors that made Grateful Dead hum, explore their decision to live together at 710 Ashbury Street and practice eight plus hours a day. Look into the man that Jerry Garcia was and realize how few musicians are endowed with his relentless dedication to craft. Grapple with the band’s insistence on consensus. Also, admit that LSD had a major role in shaping both the music and the scene. Scott and Halligan mention several times in the book that it’s a marijuana-fueled party, and it is, but that’s far from the whole story. LSD opens minds and frees people to express themselves in ways they’ve never experienced before. Once that happens, people are converted – not just to the band and its music – but to a new way of thinking. When you combine LSD and the band’s hard work and extraordinary talents, the result is magic.
We are right to want to explore the magic and right to keep it alive and growing today, but let’s not get confused when we listen to the music play. A band of this caliber, or a company with a category-defying product or service, hardly needs marketing. When a thing, or a series of performances truly is great, people develop a deep passion for it and actively seek ways to share “their find” with friends. So, if you want to market like Grateful Dead, do it, but don’t expect the magic to happen without a product or service–and an active catalyst–that consistently blows peoples’ minds.
I do appreciate the authors’ willingness to jump into this pond, because there are legitimate themes to explore here. But when the words “Grateful Dead” are attached to something like a business book, the book really has to rock.
“Portland is where young people go to retire.” That’s the rap laid down by Portlandia, a funny send up of life in Oregon’s biggest city. However, the issue of few jobs and low wages is not very funny for the Oregon citizens searching for their first job or in the midst of a non-elective “career change.”
Oregon Transformation wants to put pressure on politicians in Salem to fix the state budget crisis and make the state a friendlier place for business. “With new ideas and new leaders we can rebuild a robust private sector, which is essential to maintain Oregon’s quality of life,” argues the group.
It’s an expanse of the city without a single Zipcar spot or independent microbrewery, where you’ll see more pajama bottoms than skinny jeans. It’s a landscape of chain link and surface parking that, by contrast, makes 82nd Avenue look positively gentrified. It’s a cookie-cutter residential sprawl so devoid of landmarks, public spaces and commercial centers that some residents simply call it “The Numbers.â€
I don’t know who is responsible, or what combination of forces are responsible for Oregon’s weakened economy. It’s a topic I’ve taken up in this space before, and my guess is it will keep coming up until a new dawn rises over the volcanoes. Not knowing is troubling to me because it’s important to trace trouble to its source, so we know how to fix what’s wrong and how to avoid making the same mistakes again in the future. Yet, we can’t as a state lose much time pouring through the record books, because what Oregonians need most is a solution, a.k.a. the kind of jobs that support a family. In other words, we need an honest assessment of what went wrong and an instant and effective response to the problem.
Imagine that a friend from school wants to relocate his non-polluting company to the Pacific Northwest, and calls you for your trusted insight and advise. Can you honestly say that Oregon is a better place for business than Washington state? Or California, for that matter? Oregon has to compete, on the gridiron as in the C suite. Anything less than that is simply unacceptable, and it’s not just “quality of life” that hangs in the balance, but life itself. Oregon can provide the education and social services required of a great state, but the state needs increased revenue from lots of healthy companies to make it work.
Personally, I moved here in 1994 and left in 1995 after finding nothing more than temp work. I returned 13 years later with more skills and experiences under my belt, ready to propel my own engine forward. But success isn’t something a person achieves on their own. For me to be successful here, I am dependent on others being successful here. So, my concerns are both selfish and selfless. The better shape Oregon is in, the more I and every Oregonian can achieve.
“It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want.†-Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs passed away from a rare form of cancer last week at the age of 56. Since then, I’ve read a handful of articles about the man and the impact he made on modern culture. Maybe you have too.
The one article that stands out for me is by Christopher Bonanos, an editor at New York magazine. He helps us understand Jobs by revealing the connection between Jobs and Edwin H. Land, the “genius domus” of Polaroid Corporation and inventor of instant photography.
Land, in his time, was nearly as visible as Jobs was in his. In 1972, he made the covers of both Time and Life magazines, probably the only chemist ever to do so…
Both built multibillion-dollar corporations on inventions that were guarded by relentless patent enforcement. (That also kept the competition at bay, and the profit margins up.) Both were autodidacts, college dropouts (Land from Harvard, Jobs from Reed) who more than made up for their lapsed educations by cultivating extremely refined taste.
Land, like Jobs, was a perfectionist-aesthete, exhaustively obsessive about product design. The amount he spent on research and development, on buffing out flaws, sometimes left Wall Street analysts discouraging the purchase of Polaroid stock, because they thought the company wasn’t paying enough attention to the bottom line. (When a shareholder once buttonholed Land about that, he responded, “The bottom line is in heaven.â€)
In other words, both men were difficult to work with, which is something corporate culture seriously frowns upon.
I also took note of some articles where Jobs is not saluted for his singular vision, work style nor his enormous contributions. Free software advocate, Richard Stallman, wrote, “Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.” Clearly, Stallman has another, more radical, vision for the advance of digital culture, and it’s a vision where sharing is central to the enterprise.
Michael Wolff of Adweek also has some bite in his eulogy.
The rebel and poet and romantic figure, was, too, an authoritarian and despot. Microsoft, heretofore the gold standard in corporate hegemony, was left looking like a disorganized and mealy mouth liberal regime next to Apple’s ultimate dictatorship.
The irony of Jay Chiat’s “1984” Big Brother Apple ad was most of all that Big Brother turned out to have a great sense of style.
Dictatorship seems like a poor word choice, as I believe Apple employees are free to quit their jobs whenever they feel like it. Wolff also says he argued with Jobs when he met him years ago. Why anyone other than Wolff would care, I can’t say.
On a more positive note, Jobs’ friend, the great ad man Lee Clow, wrote in a memo to staff at TBWAChiatDay (Apple’s long-standing ad agency), “He was the most amazing person I have ever known. He was a genius. He was an innovator. He was the best client we ever had.”
The man’s legacy will no doubt be discussed casually and seriously for years to come. Some will insist Jobs was a humanitarian, others will only see the draconian nature of the corporation he led to unquestionable greatness.
In 1985, Jobs said about his hero, Edwin Land, “The man is a national treasure. I don’t understand why people like that can’t be held up as models: This is the most incredible thing to be — not an astronaut, not a football player — but this.†It’s a great point. We need American inventors like Land and Jobs to inspire millions of others to pursue their own dreams and to make things that deliver utility and beauty. We do not need them to coddle the press, or cut corners on the path to perfecting their offerings.
Last night a friend visiting from Seattle said, “We don’t really listen to music anymore.” He’s right, the emphasis today is on portability, not audio quality, and that’s one reason we don’t listen like we once did. When you’re proud of your record collection and your stereo system, you take time to experience the music. And that act makes the music important.
Sadly, it is not just music that we no longer listen to. Thanks to the sound-bite nature of TV news, and the politically toxic environment fueled by right wing radio, we no longer pay much attention to current events.
That’s where video comes in. Digital media, video in particular, allows us to invest in the full story.
Because things haven’t been going President Obama’s way in Washington of late, I came to the flimsy conclusion that he was not properly defending his position and his ideas–ideas which happen to be shared by the millions of Americans who elected the man.
I’m wrong though, the President is forwarding his best ideas, often powerfully, but you have to go to YouTube to hear them. You have to dig a bit, and then sit back and take it in, which isn’t easy to do when Facebook and every other digistraction under the sun is looming a click away.
After investing some of my time to hear from the President in the videos above, I have to say I’m happiest with Obama when he’s in touch with his racial identity, and when he’s making politically incorrect statements and jokes. In other words, when he’s a real person not a packaged tool of the corporate paradigm, I like him.
Steward Brand is an icon, and a man I’m learning more about. His thinking is central to a talk I’m preparing to give at Geekend in Boston next month.
It was in 1984 that Brand, founder of Whole Earth Catalog, helped put together the first ever Hacker’s Conference, held in a remote part of Marin County, north of San Francisco.
At the conference Brand famously said, “On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.â€
This tension between free and paid is at the heart of my upcoming talk, so it was a pleasure to find this half-hour public television program that documented the pivotal event where the words were first uttered.
http://youtu.be/bl_1OybdteY
I watched the program last night and was struck by how early the free versus paid argument shows itself. Some of the hackers present believed all software should be free, given that each new solution is a building block for the next problem to be solved by them or by someone else. Others in attendance held to a more traditional point of view, claiming that they didn’t want anyone tampering with their product.
Today, these themes continue to play out. Apple is a closed systems design shop, whereas open source developers continue to make not just great products, like Word Press, but also solid businesses built on support for the free software.
I don’t typically think of software as content, but it is. Brand says information wants to be expensive, or free. Information is broad enough to contain both software and content. But what makes one offering free and the other paid? Is it the whims of the producer that dictates price, or is the price set by market conditions?
My own answer to this question is both. You set the price on a whim, then adjust it over time as you get a sense for what the market will allow. For example, many content-driven projects begin as free offerings focused on building an audience. Once the audience shows up in droves every day, the company, or individual, can start to introduce paid offerings in the form of subscriptions (typically for premium content), merchandise, events and consulting, to name a few of the possibilities.
