Category Archives: amateurs

activism, advocacy, amateurs, cluetrain, Cluetrain Manifesto, Communities, community-building, consumption, Creative Commons, creativity, cultural capital, democracy, digital lifestyle, Empowerment, food and society, friendship, geek crowd, globalization, groupthink, hegemony, humanism, innovation, intellectual property, knowledge, leapfrog effect, mindshare, moral enterpreneurs, movies, music scenes, Old Media, online privacy, online publishing, open-source, openness, optimism, participatory culture, popular culture, product and process, social dynamics, social networks, social publishing, specialists, stereotypes, tasting, technology, trusting people, YouTube

Music, Food, Industries, Piracy

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000ady6y (PNG Image, 200×125 pixels)

Noticed it in Steal This Film. A very appropriate message. Process over product. Music is not a commodity. Food does not grow on profits.

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Academia, aesthetics, alter-globalization, amateurs, art, Communities, consumerism, Creative Commons, creativity, cultural capital, development, development strategies, economics, Empowerment, experimentation, globalization, grassroots, humanism, hype, individualism, information management, innovation, intellectual property, interdisciplinarity, ivory tower, knowledge, knowledge management, knowledge people, leapfrog effect, Learning, market economy, Medici effect, memes, mindshare, naïve, politics, popular culture, prestige, product and process, productivity, professionals, ramblings, research, science, social capital, social change, social networks, specialists, success in life, technology, universalism, writing

Medici and Innovation

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First encountered the notion of the Medici effect through this interview with Frans Johansson in Ubiquity, a journal frequently mentioned on the Humanist Discussion Group.
A recent article about important changes coming from simple ideas made me post a short blog entry about changes from simple ideas. Interestingly enough, Johansson himself posted a comment to that entry.
This is in fact a frequent stream of thought, for me. In both business and academia, we tend to live through ideas. Specific ideas. Especially those which can generate money or research projects. An important dimension of the “Medici Effect” seems to be that simple ideas can lead to great accomplishments. Another important dimension is that ideas are both generated in and implemented by groups. Some social contexts seem especially conducive to new ideas. This perspective is well-known enough that even Denys Arcand’s Invasions Barbares had something to say about it.
There’s a lot of directions one could take to talk about innovation from that point. Among the possible threads: artistic creativity, personal innovation, sense of discovery, the economies of ideas, ideas come from the people, “intellectual property,” fluid/organic innovation, boundless ideas, innovation through links between ideas, Lavoisier on ideas (nothing is created or lost, everything is transformed, including ideas), and so on and so forth.
My personal feeling is that the very concept of innovation has become something of a “core value” for a number of people, especially in industrialized society. The type of “newer is better” view of “progress” in both society and technology.
In my mind, the best thing to do is simply to bring ideas together, a “shock of ideas” («le choc des idées»). Hence the long list of tags… 😉

amateurs, Beer, homebrewing, professionals

Homebrewers Going Pro

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This podcast episode had a few things about homebrewers going pro, including a comment, by Brewers Association director Paul Gatza, that 90% of professional craft brewers started as homebrewers. IIRC, the same statistic was mentioned by Ken Wells, of Travels with Barley fame on the July 16, 2005 episode of The Beer Show. This statistic must be listed somewhere on the Brewers Association website.

amateurs, Beer, Blogging, brewing, brewpubs, experience, homebrewing, Learning, professionals

"Don't Quit Your Day Job" (Brewing as Hobby)

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[Oh, my! I do hope I won't get too hooked to blogging! I'm scared!!! ;->]

Thinking about brewing, as I often do. Responding to a message about a post I sent to the HomeBrew Digest about beer and beliefs.
In relation to my previous post on work and debt. And compartmentalization.

"Don't quit your day job"
I have no intention of doing such a thing. I love my "day job" (insofar as I have one). I see no reason to quit it.

[Yup, blogging in my case encourages the use of first person singular pronouns, a habit I try to kill in many contexts. But if it's supposed to be self-indulgent, let's do it the self-serving way…]

Some homebrewers I've met hate their day job and see brewing as an escape. [It might be something of the same for me (doing a bit of
self-analysis here) as I may use it to procrastinate. Although, brewing needs planning. Procrastination I mostly do with thinking about brewing. Anyhoo…]
Those homebrewers who brew to "get away from it all" are oftentimes the same guys (yeah, mostly guys in homebrewing circles, nowadays) who want to "Go Pro" and open a brewpub. Now, that's not silly and it's kind of easy to expect, but it might be ill-advised.
Going Pro means a huge investment on money. Of course, we all dream of having enough money to invest in brewing. Hey, if I win the lottery, I might go nuts with brewing gear and if I win enough, I might even give the brewpub idea more of a thought. But…
Going Pro also means transforming a cool, relaxing hobby into an obligation to perform. Sure, many small brewpub and microbrewery owners do it their own way and the lottery win should imply that you don't need to turn a profit. But still, professional brewing is bound to be more of a pressure. And many aspects of brewing aren't necessarily so much fun. And these are the ones that become very important in the Pro world. Not to mention the whole business side. Some people enjoy it but
these are few and far between.

A well-known homebrew celebrity (!) who became a brewpub owner is quoted as saying that if he were to start again, he might not go pro. Nowadays, he doesn't brew anymore. And even though his pub is often packed, he still struggles to make ends meet. Not a pleasant feeling.

Then, the ideal solution should be collaboration. One "business-type" to handle the business and one crazy brewer. Well, the crazy brewer won't be so crazy when the business guy talks about minimizing risk.
A big important notion, risk. A hobby is fun because the stakes are low. You scrap a 5-gallon batch, so be it. You lost a bit of time, a bit of money. So be it. That's life. And you learned something. You scrap a batch as a commercial brewer, uh-oh!
So that's one reason even the most adventurous brewers end up making a lot of fairly uncompromising beer. Another reason is that what pleases the brewer might attract a few beer geeks but the beer geek market is incredibly small as compared to the swill drinkers. Lots of talk about that. But brewing capacity (volume) is correlated against risk.