Some thoughts on the Knowledge Economy

In 1969 Peter Drucker popularized the phrase knowledge economy. The idea of a knowledge economy is that knowledge is viewed as a product versus knowledge as a tool. The knowledge economy is based on the economics of abundance. I touch on this in Open Source: The End of Scarcity Means More. Information and knowledge increase through the act of sharing. The more data/information shared, the more growth in knowledge results. Knowledge flows as water, it drips then becomes a steady stream or torrent where ever there is demand and few barriers. In the knowledge economy, wealth is based on ownership of knowledge and information.

Forty-two years later Drucker’s children are the knowledge workers – the Gen X and Yers, the Millennials and Digital Natives are established or entering the workplace. As suggested in my post, What If Work Were Fun?, the worker of the 21st century is becoming a knowledge worker. Schooled in new media, the brightest of them are capable of both convergent and divergent thinking, they can be collaborative, evaluate priorities, make connections, establish and nurture relationships, and be flexible enough to both create new paradigms as well as modify existing ones.

Social media has risen in importance and currently drives the knowledge economy because communication is a fundamental component to the stream of knowledge and information. Social media highlights the importance of relational capital – one based on interactions and relationships. The act of transforming information into knowledge is the creation of value.

Just a few years ago we did business differently. The rule was - I offered a product/commodity for sale, you bought it (or not), end of transaction. It was an even exchange, a closed system. But the knowledge economy has changed that. The open sourced, new way of doing business also values expertise and the concept of “know how”. Meshing social with business creates an emotional bond. It’s about more than just selling, these relationships foster an interactive and cooperative exchange.

The old way of doing business doesn’t work effectively anymore because more social effort needs to be invested to get people to listen. Business must engage and be present vis a vis their customers who now demand openness, flexibility and a willingness to embrace change.

I have an actor friend who used to believe that once he landed an agent, he could just sit back and the jobs would come rolling in. He believed that an agent would do the heavy lifting for him, bring him work so he wouldn’t have to hustle. This didn’t happen, so he fired the agent. But once my friend realized that he was his own best representative - his career started to take off because he was creating value for himself. He was giving to get. Now he’s got several agents chasing him.

“What you give is what you get.”

I used to talk about this concept a lot when I was a fundraising executive. We rallied our board members around the Give/Get principle because we expected them to create value for the institution.

It’s not really that different in business. By giving value for the people around you, you will get value in return. Value creates thought leadership, someone who people want to know and do business with. People want to give business to those who give them business. This is not a new idea, but it’s one worth being mindful of because emphasizes reciprocity, an exchange which creates a relationship.

I try to create value everyday because I appreciate the community I inhabit. For me, it makes for a full and fulfilled work life. Who doesn’t want that?

Photos from: Wikipedia, Teamsubmarine & Mr. Cheapstuff

NaNoWriMovember starts tomorrow -- will I be ready?

This has been a tough few days. We have worked all weekend. We are emotionally drained.

I can't really say much here but suffice it to say there's been a situation that I've been having to deal with at work and on top of our regular 12 hour day, there's suddenly a whole lot of other stuff to handle as well.

GAH!

I am committed to my goal, but what's happening here may well weave itself in a highly fictionalized form into my story.

I wish I had more time to be reflective, to ponder life's mysteries, to really think about things and acknowledge the holidays of Halloween and All Souls tomorrow.

I made some soup here in the office, hoping to nurture and comfort anyone who needs it. Cooking seems to set things right, if just for the small moment of chopping and heating and listening to the simmering broth.

Uh Oh! NaNoWriMo

Call me crazy, but I'm doing it.

There, I've said it so I **REALLY** have to do it now.

I'd planned to do this in September but then I went on holiday (Hello Europa) and then suddenly work fell into my lap (A BIG thank you CGW and the Universe...) and now I find myself yawning at 2:50 AM on a Friday after wrap and wondering WTF and am I nuts??

But yes, I guess I am. Nuts.

Because I am attempting to write a whole bunch of words and eventually create a hypertext web novella. In 30 days. With Scrivener.

Enough of my procrastination!

The story that I began writing 3 years ago and have kept going back to, the story inspired by a collaborative writing project a friend invited me to join, with characters inspired from a photograph by Jane Evelyn Atwood is what I am writing.

So even though I will still be shooting when NaNoWriMo starts on November 1st -- I'm gonna do it. The plan is to devote more time after we wrap and when I get back home on the 20th, so that in that last 10 days I write like a champion.

It'll be an exercise in self discipline. Like getting up for amrit vela, or the "ambrosial period". Early morning for me has traditionally been when my inspiration is at it's best because my mind is always at it's most open, empty and creative in the very early morning or upon first awakening.

Wish me luck!

What if work were fun?

This is something I think about often. In my previous jobs I had fun at work when I accomplished things that were difficult. I had fun when I rallied my crew together to make things happen, or when we were all just a little punchy on a Friday afternoon as we prepared for the week ahead. I had fun when I got to bring my dog in and she helped out by greeting everyone who came into my office with a tail wag. But this is not the norm. People just don't have fun at work.

Why not? How cool would it be to work in a place that lets you bring your well-behaved pooch to the office? Or feeds you lunch in a great cafeteria for free? Where you can have a treadmill desk or a take a spin class in the afternoons? A place to plug in your electric vehicle? On site daycare and preschool? A "quiet room" where you can just unplug for a few minutes? Yes, there is a small percentage of businesses that have cultivated a sense of fun in the work environment, usually in the name of team building and creative thinking due to some kind of expensive corporate consultancy coming in to boost productivity. It's rare that the fun concept is an everyday part of business culture. I'm not talking the recreational eating, once a month birthday cakewrecks in the break room that are served up to us as "fun". I'm talking about your job being one of the joys in a fulfilled life where your office is a place in which you and your colleagues do your best work ever. Every day.

I am betting that this is coming. I believe that more workplaces will add fun to their corporate culture. It's a way to draw in and retain good employees. People will be happier at work, therefore healthier and more productive, more creative and dedicated to the company's mission. Not just picking up a paycheck.

Employees are coming into the business world now who are digital natives. They are media literate, content savvy and are fully conversational in the new media technologies. Multi-modal discourse is the norm for them as is a sense of playfulness in the workplace. They are the people I want to work with.

Why is it important? Because as Douglas Rushkoff said at SXSW this year, it's program or be programmed. We need to be digitally literate if we are going to be relevant. We have to be able to know how to read and view the texts that are presented to us. Foundations and corporations are putting up hundreds of millions of dollars into creating curricula for education to teach this new media literacy which is needed now for our participatory culture in the workplace of fun.

This clip gives a really good explanation of what media literacy is all about:



Wishing you fun in your workplace, Happy Friday!

When life gives you garbage, make some compost

About a year ago we began an herb and vegetable garden in the backyard. It started out as a bit of fun but over the course of the year this Victory garden (though not intended as such) has proven to be a terrific resource for fresh and (dare I say "organic"?) herbs, vegetables and salad greens.

I figured with all the fresh kitchen scraps we should begin composting, so an old plastic garbage bin was quickly recruited. I drilled holes in the sides and bottom then we loaded it up. Now the original bin is getting quite full and we're pondering starting a second. I open it up to add more scraps and marvel at how what was essentially garbage, is becoming something useful again.

Kind of like our job situation here in Hollywood. There's not much work and what does seem to be around are the scraped together kinds of jobs. I have colleagues who are working as production assistants, cleaning houses, and babysitting. They are basically odd-jobbing to get by. One of my friends furtively admitted to me she was using the local food pantry and applying for food stamps. It's not pretty out there - it's all egg shells, banana peels, coffee grounds and yard clippings. There's flies and slugs and spiders nesting in the bin lid. But at the bottom of this scheißehaufen is good dirt. Stuff will grow in it, good stuff.

Maybe this prolonged defacto SAG strike/work stoppage combined with SAG's own internal meltdown and the schism between AFTRA and SAG will create a single actors union. Maybe this is all just a way for the AMPTP to union bust? When I talk with friends and colleagues about this lack of work one of the things I hear most often is that the only reason they stay in their union and continue to pay their dues is for the healthcare benefits.

What if we had a European style healthcare plan in this country? Would unions loose their structural cohesion and disappear? It seems they have already lost significant power in the past 20 years. What would blossom in their place? Would the collective become a participatory panopticon using social networking tools to publicly report on the misconduct of employers by taking them into account for their transgressions?

When a union cannot guarantee you a basic wage rate, when you are asked to work more hours to qualify for your health care benefits yet the opportunities for union work are shrinking -- can the restructuring or dissolution of unions be far behind?

This situation has forced us to reassess our jobs and careers. I know several people who have left or are planning to leave the business and even LA. I know others who are using this time to focus on a better work/life balance. We hike more, we cook and eat at home more, we spend more time with our loved ones. As a result we're healthier and possibly even happier, arts workers.

I don't know where the next check is coming from, and I admit I sometimes lie awake at night wondering what will happen if I run out of unemployment benefits before I get a job. Can I afford to pay for COBRA coverage should my motion picture health care benefits expire because I've not worked 300 hours to maintain it for another 6 months? Should I look into taking some classes to learn more software to make myself more "employable"? I'm considering it, but how do I pay for that? I don't know and I don't have an answer. I see some folks sitting around waiting breathlessly for an Obama Wirtschaftswunder to "save" us all. I'd rather be part of the solution than wait for it, life's too short to wait. I can remain positive because I know people still need us. They want to be entertained. So I wake up in the morning and focus on what I do have, my ability to make compost out of garbage. When summertime comes, there will be some fantastic fruit on the vine.

The APPle of my Eye -- Iphone 2.0

I finally upgraded my Iphone with the "new and improved" OS a few weeks ago. This is ALWAYS a little tricksy, upgrading anything on my Mac because it is so chock-full of pics, Itunes, all my show files, etc.

And well, I have to say, I'm very well pleased about the search function for my contacts. I still don't understand how I can search (or if I can) on a particular word. This is why I'm intrigued by Bento, Filemaker's newest database offering because I do NEED a database that is more functional than just a contact list and I can't seem to keep up with it in Excel anymore. And while I take umbrage at being labeled a "control freak" -- I prefer FlyLady's term "Born Organized" instead -- I am totally the demographic for Bento.

Once this show is over, I can get back to my purging of files and do a major electronics cleanse. At which point, I might actually have room on my machine for yet another program!

How has Iphone specifically helped me in production? Let me list a few of the ways:
Texting -- I was able to give my boss a secret heads up in a meeting about a shit storm he was going to walk into once he left said meeting.
Photos -- I proved that damage to a Japanese Tea House was preexisting and not caused by our stunt people (as Ninja) jumping on and off the railings with a photograph taken by the camera, saving my show $3600 in repairs.
Locations -- I've been helped out numerous times by the mapping and traffic reporting functions.

It's a great tool that more and more of us in the Hollywood trenches seem to have. Take note app developers...you have customers in Tinseltown!

Hoping my lucky streak continues. I've been working consistently since late January and I'm a finalist in the FIND Producer's Lab with a project I've been developing with M.

Fair Trade Media

With the talks between the WGA and the AMPTP evidently at a stand-still (and I wonder how much of this is just people not wanting to "deal" during the holidays??) United Hollywood has posted the WGA's response to the AMPTP in halting the negotiations.

My thoughts have turned to how I continue to pursue my career in a way that works for me not only as a producer but as a content creator as well. How do I blend these two sometimes competing segments of my business? How do I "play fair" and value the creative contributions of my colleagues while also generating a revenue stream for myself? What should we do? What should we charge for our services when our creative output is now able to live on in seemingly endless iterations, in perpetuity throughout all media known and unknown, in the universe? (And you may laugh at that statement but it's paraphrasing a clearance form that 20th Century Fox has used for years in it's film and television productions) What is fair to pay for the fruits of someone's creativity? How does the concept of collaborative media with many "authors" become monetized? How do we make enough money to live our lives off of an "open source" paradigm?

I'm inviting another blogger, the Urban Ichthyosapien to join me in this discussion and also open it up to anyone else who wants to put their 2 cents in. (In Euro or Canadian only please, they're worth more than US now, since even drug dealers have abandoned the greenback dollar.)

There's no immediately forseeable end to the strike. But let this be a unique opportunity to think about the future of the business of creativity. I'm eager to engage in that discussion.

4 cents

Today I heard from a colleague who was told by their employer (one of the CSI franchise) to start looking for another job. So it looks like the small pool of jobs available is only going to get smaller. And right before the holidays too when it's already a slow time. Yay.

If there are no pilots, no series and no features, what are the alternatives?
1. Reality TV (I'd consider it)
2. Working abroad (Yes, I am available, passport in hand)
3. Leaving the business (No, I'm velcro'd in)
4. Teaching (Yes, I've done it before)
5. Temping (It's saved me more than once)
6. Commercials (I wouldn't know where to begin, but I'm game)

Then I came across this on YouTube...
Why we Fight

It's created by the WGA and illustrates their points pretty well. Some may call it propaganda but one person's propaganda is another's truth.

Strike

Or is it?

I've been trying to figure it out. Talking with friends in the Writer's Guild, reading posts on mailing lists I belong to. We'll know in a few days how this will all shake down.

What I do know is that if one guild goes, so too will the others. And this might eventually put the IATSE membership in the position of joining in a work stoppage.

And selfishly speaking, that is not a good thing. We need the work. We all have our bills to pay.

If you want to study this further; here's a few links that you might find helpful (thanks to Stephen Marinaccio for posting this to the LAProducer Yahoo group).

Here's where you can go to read more about what the WGA is asking for:
http://www.wga.org/subpage_member.aspx?id=2485

Here's where you can go to learn more about the AMPTP:
http://www.amptp.org/aboutus.html

Here's the AMPTP package offered to the WGA (pdf link)
http://www.amptp.org/files/comprehensive102507.pdf

Here are some FAQ's from the AMPTP regarding the strike:
http://www.amptp.org/wgastrikefaq.html

Compare the AMPTP to a PGA member, with the following site:
http://www.producersguild.org/pg/about_a/faq.asp

Wiki Woman

I have been on a job now for 2 weeks and have begun using a wiki on the project in an effort to make the already collaborative process of film-making even more so. (And to save some trees along the way.)

This is an experiment which I am eager to see the results of. I debut the whole thing to our production team tomorrow morning.

For now, I have been learning the basics of the wiki world and so far, liking it. I only hope that it is well received by my colleagues.