“How important is local, really?”

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“I’m not saying local doesn’t matter. Local is important. It’s especially important for people who are newcomers to communities. It’s especially important for identifying accessible resources and services that people might need in their daily lives. But in many senses, “local” is just one set of ripples on the lake of information — especially when it comes to “news.” And for many people, it’s not even the biggest or most important set of ripples.”— [Amy Gahran/E-Media Tidbits

And it occurs to me that “local” is much more important to people with children than to those of us without.

Blue pill or red pill

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By accepting what we are told and experience life can be easier. There is the social pressure to ‘fit in’, which is immensely strong in most cultures. Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly persecution. This aspect has a strong link with politics. People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system. Morpheus says to Neo “You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.”

An excerpt from an essay by Dave Aarod

The photobooth is back

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PhotoboothLast week I pointed to a book called American Photobooth, a new illustrated history of photo booths. Seems like photobooths are making a small comeback as a novel way to take photos of weddings.

You’ve probably been to a wedding where they leave disposable cameras on each table for guests to use and leave.

Barb attended a wedding/reception last weekend that featured a photobooth (a new digital one, I assume). Guests jam inside for group shots. I’m unclear on whether you get the pix on the spot or they mail them to you later. The former, I think.

Not sure why the photobooth sounds like more fun than the cameras on the table but it does.

“Growing new crops”

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Chris Brogan observes “the bigger or older or more successful the company, it seems, the more difficult this experience” of finding the next new hit. An observation he feels applies particularly well to media companies.

Brogan would call his approach to this problem the “escape pod” model:

  • Pick a small core team, half insiders, half raw new outsiders.
  • Stake them a startup seed round.
  • Let them go a few months on that.
  • No corporate oversight, only report backs. It’s spend/try/live-or-die.
  • Assess. Good? Then raise an A round or give them more corporate assets.
  • Revise revenue targets.
  • Observe. Kill, or green light.

He ends is post with the Big Question: CAN media organizations put new crops into the ground without pulling up the roots to check how they are growing? [via David B.]