Filed under: content communities, creativity, Digital culture, Emergent media, geek, Research Methods, Social media, steal or borrow info, unbusiness | Tags: Content curation, curation, matt langer, Neil Perkin, noah brier, Only the dead fish, Percolate
I was trawling through my usual channels of content this morning and came across these posts on curation. Certainly a lot of conversation in the bloggersphere has been stimulated by the posting of the curator’s code. The code states that we should “keep the rabbit hole of the Internet open by honouring discovery”.
Not only should we be honouring original sources, but we should be honouring the people who find interesting stuff and re-tweet or re-post it. We should celebrate not only the creators and authors, but those that distribute, magnify and amplify their work. The connectors, so to speak.
This concept of curation is being bandied about a lot lately. We talk about websites and brands curating content; using third party content as a jump point for new conversation. We talk about brands and retailers curating product, filtering out the rubbish and selectively choosing niche or narrow channel products that are centred around a particular interest or cultural space.
In my other life at Eco Outdoor we talk about curation being one of our key focuses and we’re in the stone business. When we say that we’re talking about curation in the most traditional definition of the word – we select the most interesting and unique product (sometimes you don’t know why its interesting or unique unless you’re in the stone game), and we organise it in a way that inspires people to use it differently or create really unique design form or pairings. We tell the story of the product, how it fits into the world from whence it came and why we think its important or significant or special. The focus here is that we travel the
world looking for and selectively choosing what we present and how we put it together.
I guess you could say that Innovation Feeder curates content, although really it’s just sharing what takes my fancy. I started it when I was working in the social trends / innovation space as a way of collating data, organising other people’s thoughts that I would want to refer back to and even organising my own. It was like an online memory and imagination bank.
So when is a blog not curating? When it writes all its own content I guess. There are some that believe it better to write original content than re-post, and there are scales and a spectrum in re-posting itself that differentiate between gathering tidbits like a bountiful bowerbird and scattering them amongst the pages, versus your classic “Look what I found mamma” straight re-post of content. Is there a hierarchy of one over the other? I think in this age, conversation flows on many different levels and if the content is relevant and engaging, who cares on what level of the spectrum it falls? And as Matt Langer points out, is it curation or simply sharing our thoughts and discoveries online? Is curation merely the act of sharing and distributing (albeit selectively)? or must it have some ontology or semantic continuity?
Traditionally curation has been used in the realm of ‘art curation’ where art is selected by an art historian who selects significant pieces and places them in context to identify why they are significant and to what extent. Who ‘places’ the art in context and helps us understand the story and content surrounding it. The term curation has long (well long in online terms) been used outside of the realm of art, but the question remains > What do we define as curation in the online space? By identifying our act of sharing as selective, by filtering (with our own self supposed good taste) the good from the bad – is that curation?
Some other links to check out:
Curation is the New Search is the New Curation
Anyway, as usual online, I digress. Here’s a great collation of opinions on the topic by Neil Perkin. Regardless of whether you agree with the definition or not, I love Percolate‘s idea of stock and flow of content. The flow of ideas and conversation being the currency by which we remind people that we exist versus the stock we create from the realms of our own minds and imaginations. It gives credence to these different modes of conversation and the ways in which they operate uniquely for different purposes. Following here is Neil’s collection of opinions and ideas, re-posted.
Filed under: Borrow this, creativity, Geek stuff, Gen Research, Looking for insights, Research Methods, steal or borrow info, Thinking
Just saw this posted this morning & had to share it. It’s a periodic table of all the visualisation methods you’ll ever need as a strategic planner or innovation type person. (Well, maybe almost).
Check it out here
Filed under: Asia Research, Brain stuff, creativity, Gen Research, Innovation, Innovative marketing, Marketing, Mind candy, Oz research, steal or borrow info, Work Futures, Work out up top
What makes one person think more innovatively than another?
Most people spend their time doing stuff. Selling shoes, marketing hammers, securing distribution, balancing nutritional value with taste and so on and so on. So to sit down one afternoon & just decide that you’d like to think more innovatively is kind of like deciding that you’d like to paint a masterpiece without the paints or the canvas, or even the subject matter. In order to be more innovative you need to prepare your brain with the tools it needs & you need to garner the stimulus, the
subject matter if you will. Then how you interpret that subject matter will determine what kind of masterpiece you’ll create.
Some people seem to be naturally more creative just like some people are better musicians or artists. But there’s a big difference between people who are mediocre, bloody good and those who are brilliant. When it comes to innovation like everything else, there’s no reason why most of us can’t be bloody good if we set about learning the skills in the same way we would for music or art.
Picture the person in your head who you think is the cat’s pijamas. They’re more creative, more lateral, they see things and make connections that you don’t. They approach opportunities from different angles and they change things. Can you picture them? Are they better looking than you too? Some people have all the luck…
The truth is, those people that seem to be more creative or more innovative than you, it’s generally because they spend most of their time looking at things differently. If I’m asked to help companies innovate, I find it easier to come in & look at a category in a completely new way. That’s because I’m not bogged down with the details of how to sell in a product to stores, or pitch for company funding, or create a media strategy or control a budget. You know, the hard stuff.
I spend most of my waking hours trying to think differently & innovate – create new brand positioning, new revenue streams, to imagine a new space or think about what the future might be. The point being, that if you put aside some time each week to concentrate on being more innovative, you’ll find it easier too.
The best way to start being more innovative is to force yourself to start thinking differently. To start imagining ‘what if?’ rather than just being concerned with ‘what is’. That means taking some time to expose yourself to new ideas & thinking. It also helps to start gathering together a bunch of tools that will help you ask the right questions & force your brain to think differently.
It doesn’t have to feel like homework, it doesn’t have to take a huge amount of time out of your day. You could start by checking out of the site links on this site each day. Pick a blog or a site that sounds interesting, visit a new one each day and ask yourself : What is interesting about this site? What could I learn from this site? How is this site different or similar to my business or the issues we face? or the people we reach? or the sorts of ideas we’re looking for?
Being innovative is about making new connections, it’s about jumping from one space to another, it’s about putting a new lens on existing research or points of view. It doesn’t have to be a big shift, it might just be a little bit different. Sometimes that’s all you need.
This site has a whole bunch of brainfood but don’t stop there :: there’s a whole world wide web of non-work related mind candy goodness that will put some buzz in your uptop muscle. So go, hang your balls out in the wind and try something new.
Filed under: Futures, Innovation, Lifestyle trends, Macro trends, steal or borrow info, Trends stuff
UNESCO (United Nationals Educational Science & Cultural Organisation) fosters exchange of ideas & knowledge between top creative cities around the world. It recognises that cities are increasingly playing a vital role in harnessing creativity for economic and social development.
- Cities harbor the entire range of cultural actors throughout the creative industry chain, from the creative act to production and distribution.
- As breeding grounds for creative clusters, cities have great potential to harness creativity, and connecting cities can mobilize this potential for global impact.
- Cities are small enough to affect local cultural industries but also large enough to serve as gateways to international markets.
Creative cities have managed to nurture a remarkably dynamic relationship between cultural actors and creativity, generating conditions where a city’s ‘creative buzz’ attracts more cultural actors, which in turn adds to a city’s creative buzz. This virtuous cycle of clustering and creativity that is shaping the foundation of creative cities is also perpetuating the evolution of the ‘new economy’.
The new economy is making it possible for creative clusters that are equipped with local content to interact on a global level, evoking a competitive environment that further generates creativity. Harnessing this creative energy of cities in a way that allows local cultural actors to benefit from global interaction embodies great potential for the development of local cultural industries.
Berlin is one of the top 3 creative cities according to UNESCO. The program in Berlin is called CREATE BERLIN and is an initiative by and for the Berlin creative community.
CREATE BERLIN unites creative minds and design producing talent from agencies, companies and institutions in Fashion Design, Product / Interior Design and New Media / Graphic Design as a network spanning all design disciplines. As ambassador of Berlin Design, CREATE BERLIN presents the creative variety of the Berlin design scene. With national and international commitment it promotes the economic potential of Berlin’s design industry; it strengthens Berlin’s reputation as a unique and aspiring design metropolis and as the UNESCO “City of Design”.
CREATE BERLIN lives through the commitment of the people of Berlin’s creative industry – their energies invested in the city have a trend-setting effect on Berlin and accelerate the heartbeat of the city.
If you remember back to Richard Flordia’s Book ‘The Creative Class’ you’ll see how a ‘creative city’ can not only be selected and evaluated, but also what kinds of activity and ‘buzz’ are self generating and self propogating to shift a city’s energy forward.
Although I live in Sydney there’s no doubt that if down under ever got on top, it would be the Mexicans south of the border who would take the cake. Melbourne is the more creative city.
If you’re interested to read up any further on UNESCO’s creative cities check it out here or Richard Florida’s book
Filed under: Advertising, beta, Digital culture, Innovative advertising, steal or borrow info, Thinking
I stumbled across this site today called Imagini which basically creates dynamic user profiles using words & pictures to present the DNA of a person.
Could be an interesting way to think about & presentconsumers instead of the boggy beige pen portraits….
Check it out :: Imagini
