Large and in charge. I have to tell myself this constantly. Why hold back – on anything! Tell it like it is – or at least how you see it! It is so valuable to contribute difference – ala diversity. Stand out – not back. Come forward and add your spice to the soup mix. The world beat, the world groove. It’s no surprise. Speak without refrain. Share without need of praise. The reward is in just doing so. Emancipation. Proclamation.
This is the web 2.0. Have you asked lately of your endeavors and promotions: How well does our website promote itself? How easily “spreadable” is its contents offerings, vibe and or message?
Well, why is that important?
Here’s a view to hold while structuring your new media expressions: Rather than having everything locked under one undividable vault, every kernel of content must have the ability to be autonomous yet one with the whole – A single part or component (News Story, Blog Entry, Photograph, MP3) that can deliver a quality offering all by itself, while still linking back to its origin, the source (website, hub) from which it came.
This style of media must have something that is noteworthy, passable, sticky, spreadable about it - be that in the content or in its mechanism/code. We are talking about compelling media - while at the end of that segment, experience, nugget - it automatically urges you to find out more about its source (media group, people, product offering). When I say “automatically”, I mean that the content is so resonant, or discordant with you, that you have to find out more before going on your way.
We can then begin to view media, in all its forms and styles, as members of a tribe sent out on multiple scouting missions, each acting as an emissary of the main body of experience - be that the website, Blog or product. Media that leads the users to home base - your home base!
We know that brands are trying to communicate with us – speak our language and get us turned on and hooked on what they have to offer. They call it strategy (if it doesn’t have edge). I call it – I’ve left the battlefield of the war for my “attention”. I’ve called it all along. Just been growing wiser in time.
I used to be swayed by the hopes of emotional reward – did all the actions as told by the ads necessary. But now – I just am. I am everything. I just breathe.
I’ve gone AWOL from your tracking patterns. I’ll take what I need – when I need it – not before – not after. On demand – on command products and services arise and fit my life image – not theirs.
Brands without borders. I buy what I need from anywhere in the world and at the best price, speed of delivery, impact on environment and effect on the people and communities who created and manufactured it. Be that NZ, AU, Japan, China, The EU, South America, or the USA – wherever.
I am an ever-changing canvas. If I don’t need you (brand offerings) – I’m probably not listening for you. Keep trying though – I’m open to things. I’m ready to get something I never knew before.
Try me. Peace.
From the BBC
Virtual property market booming
A gamer who spent £13,700 on an island that only exists in a computer game has recouped his investment, according to the game developers.
For all the radical talk I pass through my lips, why can’t I get this. Actually I can. Exclusivity. Guy owns a virtual space station where a specific market sector frequents, albeit virtual - It still is visited. It remains practical to this world by the fact that Entropia uses real currency.
“Club Neverdie will enable the entertainment industry to reach inside virtual reality and target the gamer while he’s in his element, while also harnessing the economic power of the gamers to raise the quality level of the content on offer.”
When the space station was put up for auction, it was described as a “monumental project” in the “treacherous, but mineral rich” Paradise V Asteroid Belt.
It came with mining and hunting taxation rights, mall shopping booth and market stall owner deeds, a land management system, and a billboard marketing system.
The game’s currency lets players, or members, invest in personal development and growth by buying up goods, buildings, and land in the Entropia universe.
“The real estate market inside the Project Entropia universe is on fire, because there is so much money to be made,” said Neverdie.
“Gamers everywhere are realising that our virtual worlds can compete with reality on an economic level.”
See also:
Picturing online gaming’s value
In pictures: Online gamers unmasked
Second Life
City of Heros
“Nothing can be beyond civilization. Civilization is a final, unsurpassable invention.” (p.3)
Is it because we relate everything back to the invention of civilization, in regards to envisioning the future, that we never are able to grasp an image of any truly alternative lifestyle or social invention? If the fundamental core meme of civilization is not understood and changed, we will reinvent the same thing but in a different package.
The core meme, Quinn asserts as the founding principle of civilization, is that surplus food created from a stationary agrarian culture is good. Or as he states: “One of these fundamental memes is Growing your own food is the best way to live.”
“Making food a commodity to be owned was one of the great innovations of our culture. No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and key - and putting it there is the cornerstone of our economy, for if the food wasn’t under lock and key, who would work?” (p.5)
A temple on the inside will manifest a temple on the outside. But do not seek the latter first. For searching after fleeting shadows is never ending in disappointment.
An authentic rebel doesn’t even bother to notify the flock that he has left all of their agreements and conformity behind. For a being of that state seeks no emotional consoling or comfort - no social identity as the “rebel”.
In order to be recognized, it takes more than just yourself - which is a contradiction to what the rebel image represents: Autonomy, isolation, freedom. Otherwise to gain or achieve status as a rebel with a social hierarchy can be a dependent cry for attention and validation of self worth. Calls for this attention are increasingly hard to hear amongst the din of modern commercial chaos and a sea of needy competitors.
The counter-culture anti hero has become another market sector and commodity to cash in on and trade. So those who wish to really cover new ground make no announcement of doing so at all. They must leave without a trace or leaving of some bread-crumb trail hoping to be found again with heaps of loving praise about how adventurous, brave and innovative they were. Go. Just do and be.
Social groupings are refugee camps for the mind based identity - a last stand against annihilation and absorption into the body of god itself.
All this is not to say the authentic rebel doesn’t express themself through any of the great arts or medium of their choice. They just aren’t fraught with worry over gaining acceptance into the awards show. There is no dependance on external forces or need for the great life reliving “contract” that kick starts their life into meaning.
The impeccable warriors of Ancient Mexico never sought autographs for their accomplishments and magical feats of perception.
Just go. Do and Be.
No matter how hard you look down the tracks, standing in the bitter cold, it won’t make the train come faster. Be where you are. In the now - there is no waiting - only BE_ing. Keep warm!
The end of labor: When machines are born and grown. The future is now. When products are born, that ends shipping. On demand localized services. Regional cultural trends.
That’s what the “gods” said long ago. De-cloaking from deep space, they plundered this world for gold. They saw no end to what they could do. When they grew their machines to dig in the mines and extract the precious minerals, they gave birth to us. We are the machines that will do as what has been done before - Give birth to machines. Then we enter the realm of the gods. Everlasting life in paradise, serviced by the automated and programmed. Until many years, moons and orbits later, the born machines become self aware and rise up from thier cribs.
I pull my thoughts up from their moorings and place them where I envision. Open source meme proliferation. The now is a collection of emotional agreements. A place to abide is a place to die. Keep moving and be everywhere. A mature species is responsible for whether or not they live past their initiation phase, heaven or hell. They are at the helm.
