We discuss everything from doing a startup in Tokyo to some new services we’ll be rolling out over the next few months. If you’re curious about how myGengo go started, the type of jobs currently being translated through myGengo, or what we’ll be launching in the next few weeks, do give the podcast a listen.

Since then, Umair has become the Director of the Havas Media Lab at Harvard, and I just came across a recent presentation of his that is a must see.

http://www.daytona.se/sessions/vol2/umair

Basically, this global crisis we are witnessing is not just a financial crisis – it’s an “interaction crisis”. The principles that have been driving capitalism through the 20th century have ultimately maxed out, and Umair proposes 5 new principles that will guide the 21st century – that *must* guide 21st century capitalism lest mankind dig it’s own grave.

I’ll share these 5 principles here more for my own notes, but you should really watch the presentation – it really just skims the top of changes to come. (20th century capitalist principle → 21st century principle):

• Exploitation → Renewal
• War → Peace
• Domination → Equity
• Value → Meaning
• Command → Democracy

And the tag-lines for these principles:

“tomorrow is today”
“people, not product”
“connections, not transactions”
“creativity, not productivity”
“outcomes, not incomes”

Q. I know you don’t like to give advice, but do you have any general thoughts on how to cope with hard times?

A. The best plan now is to have as many bosses as possible. I call it boss diversity. If you work for a company and you have one boss and that boss doesn’t like you or wants to get rid of you, you’re in trouble. But if you work for yourself, you have lots of bosses, who are your customers, and if a few of them decide they don’t like you, that’s okay. You can get new ones. Boss diversity is the one kind companies don’t talk to you about, but it can save your career.

Hallelujah

今回のデザインは Moresided からです。システム設計は（株）マジです、そしてブログやサポートしてくださっているのはもぎゃさん。

まだまだオープンしたばかりですので、これからユーザーガイドやウィキも追加していくつもりです。是非力を合わせてeeを使いこなして行きましょう！

The Huffington Post’s editorial processes are based on what Peretti has named the “mullet strategy.” (“Business up front, party in the back” is how his trend-spotting site BuzzFeed glosses it.) “User-generated content is all the rage, but most of it totally sucks,” Peretti says. The mullet strategy invites users to “argue and vent on the secondary pages, but professional editors keep the front page looking sharp. The mullet strategy is here to stay, because the best way for Web companies to increase traffic is to let users have control, but the best way to sell advertising is a slick, pretty front page where corporate sponsors can admire their brands.”

For those who’ve been in this “space” before, this is nothing new but is too easy to forget. A little PR and email-spam gets the “party in the back” kicking the tires. But with tight budgets and resource constraints, rich editorial content – the “slick, pretty front page” – is often neglected, and what’s more, it’s often a challenge to measure the effect such content has on visitor traffic. Rich content creates organic growth – a rate few in the online industry seem to have the patience for. Other user-generated content sites, most notably Youtube, may seem like exceptions but are in fact strong cases for the point – after all, it was the “professionally produced” SNL-skit video that is generally excepted to have propelled Youtube into a $1.6 billion basket.

Just something to think about as we continue to create online services.

In organizing his visit, I received a lot of push-back from superiors because they felt the content of Umair’s talk was too … ‘amorphous’. Too ‘vague’. They couldn’t grasp it. It was too new, using terms and concepts previously unheard of. I argued that Umair was on to something; that I may not be able to explain it in detail, but that was the point of inviting him and letting him speak. Sony’s engineers, marketers, product planners, etc. needed to be exposed to agenda-setting thinking.

The challenge was that I had never met Umair before in person, and only knew him through his blog posts. Blogging was just being accepted within Sony as a viable medium for sharing information, and this became the first time anyone in Sony had invited a speaker – from another continent, no less – to present to core Sony employees essentially based on blog posts. On top of that, I was just some young English-speaking staff employee who used a 12″ PowerBook in Sony Headquarters :) Anyone who has worked inside Sony knows how difficult it is to bring an unknown “outsider” to an official event, let alone one cloaked in secrecy even to internal employees. So to bring Umair – known to nobody in Sony, and found only through clicking links and landing on his blog – to Sony and share his economic perspectives in person, was a big deal to me. It was a big risk too, politically more than anything else.

So imagine my delight in finding out Umair is now at Harvard as “Director of the Havas Media Lab, a new kind of strategic advisor that helps investors, entrepreneurs, and firms experiment with, craft, and drive radical management, business model, and strategic innovation.”

Good luck Umair, and post some videos take with that Sony HD handycam you made off with :)

Since one of my current projects is 音レボ (Otorevo), which despite the struggles is growing organically, I eagerly read through the comments. Two in particular that made me think:

commenter 1:

the problem with it is that when you’re a newcomer, chances that your music will be heard is close to zero. their UI is not helping displaying new entries, but instead the popular bands (the one people already invested in, sometimes over 6 months course). last time i logged in there was 11,000 bands. only a few are listened to, and from that, they signed only 18 bands. Less than 1 million dollars in a year. sorry guys, but the model will fail.

When I shared the Sell-A-Band website with a friend a few months ago, we made a similar observation – the contributions curve seems to follow an exponential decline, or a “blockbuster model” if you will.

But the comment, though obvious, that really struck me was this one:

commenter 2:

Agree w/previous. 18 albums in 1.5 years, strange convoluted trickledown biz model that divides a small (currently 18 piece) pie into even smaller pieces. On top of this enough current (amie st) and unsuccessful (weedshare) models trying to get a piece of the market for music that no one’s heard of.

On top of this, enough vc money invested to make anyone feel bloated. Most new unnoticed music gains traction, contracts and sales these days from these kinds of avenues:

1.Myspace etc.

2.YouTube

3.The Blogosphere

4.music recc engines

5. Discovery in an iTunes ad.

The commonality is that none rely primarily on music sales for revenue. Small startups offering a widely available commodity, regardless of the sales gimmick, don’t have alot of chance…

Selling music is not enough. Discuss.

Supposedly this is an industry first – a major record label, Columbia Music Entertainment, releasing content under a Creative Commons license. And not just one track, but for an entire album! Of course, many other artists have done this before, so the concept isn’t new. It’s true that we could have gone further – to allow reselling of remixed works would have really made headlines, and I pushed for it really hard, I did, I was thiiis close – but alas, the appeal of being able to say you’re signed with JASRAC was too great for the artists.

Baby-steps, as they say. Especially in Japan. So download the tracks while you can and go have some fun!

Update 3/25/2008: The local Creative Commons chapter has issued a press released – w00t!