Zeitgeist: The Film
July 9th, 2007 by Alexander
Available in full at Google Videos:
For more info go to http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com
Archive Page 2
The Trap: What Happened to our Dream of Freedom
June 28th, 2007 by Alexander
This is the latest documentary by Adam Curtis. It traces our idea of freedom through contemporary times and shows how a limited and narrow definition of human nature which originated in the Cold War and had the purpose of anticipating Soviet moves in the nuclear chess game, was later adapted and used to direct policy in disparate fields. From a diagnostic tool of mental illness to a way of organizing society and the economy. This had unintended and sometimes catastrophic effects and altered the ideal of freedom throughout the world.
Episode three is found in three parts, pasted below respectively:
The Power of Nightmares
June 28th, 2007 by Alexander
The Power of Nightmares is another fascinating documentary by the same writer and director (Adam Curtis) that produced the Century of the Self. The issues it raises are multiple and I will refrain from a brief summary that will do injustice to the whole of the film. Instead I will simply post the videos and let them speak for themselves. The second part might be a little dysfunctional, but you can watch the whole video if you keep moving the tracker of the video to “wake up” the buffering process every now and then.
The Century of the Self
June 28th, 2007 by Alexander
One of the best documentaries I’ve seen the past years. It is the story of how one of Freud’s relatives, the founder of “Public Relations”, took psychoanalysis and applied it to business and politics. It then takes you on a journey of how businesses and politicians realized the power of psychology to control and direct the populations to their own aims. A truly fascinating, eye-opening-get-out-of-the-matrix documentary, created by non other than the BBC, now available in its entirety on Google Videos, in four parts, posted below in order:
Bucketman on Myspace!
June 28th, 2007 by Alexander
Fellow Bucketeers,
I decided, with the helpful reminder of Jacinta 
, to create a myspace music site for the Bucketman, Larry Hunt, (http://www.myspace.com/thebucketman) which means that now you can hear a sample of his music online! So till we have the web designers design a better site than a myspace profile, I have redirected bucketmanmusic.com to the bucketman’s myspace music account.
So go ahead and become bucketman’s friend in myspace! 
For the end of automated call answering - Press 1.
June 6th, 2007 by Alexander
“The commercial world, then, treats us like celebrities - “Because you’re worth it,” it says. It flatters and kowtows to us and keeps on doing so right up until the moment when we hand over our credit-card details. Then we are cast aside and condemned to a purgatory of being held in queue on a customer service line for all eternity. What fools we are.” - How To Be Free, Tom Hodgkinson.
I was reading this and couldn’t help thinking how true it was when it comes to the vast majority of businesses today. Perhaps the most notorious device that exemplifies the implicit belief that the customer’s time is worth less than the company’s time are the automated answering systems. We all know them: “For Sales, press 1…for Billing press 2…” and so on ad nauseum. Now, whoever claims that this system is primarily for the customer’s benefit is a scoundrel - it is nothing but an infernal contraption by which your patience is tested by the narration of numbers in exchange for some benefit to the companies that institute it. Having a viewing of Network fresh in my mind, I believe it is time we shout with one voice: “I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
So, everyone who is SICK AND TIRED of automated call answering systems, leave a comment that says: “Press 1″ followed by the company that you’d like to REMOVE their automated call answering systems.
We’ll then send those comments to the companies listed and demand they remove that infernal contraption and give its job to a human instead. That way we’ll create jobs for people as well as give an end to our telephonic woes.
I also propose we make a badge for all companies that satisfy two criteria:
1. They have Humans answering the phone.
2. They do not put you on hold for *more than 30 seconds*.
So to all designers out there send me your proposed badge in a small jpg, and I will post a blog with all the proposed designs and have people vote on which one would best represent our mission.
And a small piece of advice to companies with a big volume of calls:
1. Find out what the majority of callers want. Let’s say most people call for billing questions.
2. Direct ALL calls to the billing department. This way most callers will automatically find themselves where they want to be with zero hassle.
3. The callers that did not call for billing questions can easily be re-directed to the relevant departments by the touch of a button.
4. Perform the statistics as to what most callers want every month so that you change the direction of all calls accordingly. If your company launches a campaign for a new product and everybody is calling to find out about it, it would be stupid to have them directed to the billing department just because the stats showed that 6 months ago the volume of calls went to billing questions. In short, adapt to caller demand regularly.
Ask a Question, get an answer. Give an answer, get a reward.
June 5th, 2007 by Alexander
Hey people,
Just wanted to announce the second Idea Contest 2.0 event (you can check videos of the previous one here), is coming up on Thursday, 7.00 p.m., October 18th at the Swedish American Hall, located at 2174 Market Street, in San Francisco.
In this event we will provide a platform for entrepreneurs to exchange ideas in a format designed to provide a win/win situation:
Any entrepreneur can ask a question, set a reward for the answer, and let the audience try to win the reward by answering the question. The rewards are up to the entrepreneur, but they don’t have to be material. They could be expertise or even networking resources. So someone could ask a question about getting VC funding and reward the person who answers it with his expertise on marketing or his connections with developers. It’s a simple and efficient way to barter skill sets, benefiting both parties in the equation.
The event will last a couple of hours (till about 10 p.m.) so given the finite time at our disposal if you want to make sure you’ll ask your question at the event you may send it beforehand at: ask@theideacontest.com and be put on the list. That does not guarantee you’ll get a spot at the live event, given the amount of questions submitted, but in case you don’t get a chance to voice your question at the live event, I will post your question at the event’s blog and meetup site, and that way you might get it answered by the community online. If you send a video, I will gladly embed it appropriately given the right code.
Who is this event is for:
For Businesses & Entrepreneurs:
Your tech business has a problem or needs an idea. You want an innovative solution, a fresh perspective from people outside your company. You are tired of consultantese. You want something new.
Enter Idea Contest 2.0. Pitch your problem at our new event to the brainstormers participating and enjoy access to the creative minds of the Bay Area even if they work in companies other than your own! Give an incentive for the potential winner (cash prize, a job or stock) sit back and get ready for some surprisingly interesting feedback or the solution you were looking for. Interested in participating? Sign up!
A good environment for all sorts of uses in addition to the one mentioned above: You’re looking for a creative employee? Pitch a problem that only an employee that deserves to work in your company would solve, and see who can step up to the challenge. You’re a recruiter? Select people by seeing them in action. Your startup is missing a developer? Ask a question only the developer you’d like on your team would be able to solve and see if he’s in the audience.
For Creative Thinkers:
Ideas are running amok in your head. You want an outlet, a problem, a challenge, and perhaps a job. Enter Idea Contest 2.0. In our next event you’ll hear companies pitching problems or needing ideas and this is your opportunity to seize the moment and show them what you got. Perhaps at the end of it you’ll find yourself with a new job, some stock or cash plus something to brag about to your enemies and rejoice with your friends. Are you up to the task? Sign up!
Bucketman Update!
May 19th, 2007 by Alexander
Greetings fellow Bucketeers!
The developments of the Bucketman Campaign have been many. We had 5,000+ unique visitors to this article just for May. Volunteers offered to design a site for us, bought us a domain and gave us hosting.
I went to work and started creating some multimedia for the site. I took a lot of photos and filmed quite a bit (I can’t upload the videos yet because I don’t have a DV cable but I will get one soon). I also gave a VHS tape Larry gave me which contains footage of an old concert to a fellow Bucketeer (Ed Summerfield) to convert it to DVD format so we can start editing it. I also have a CD which I converted to mp3’s so we can include it in the site we are building. All this material will be made available to the web designers so they can start working.
We convinced Larry it’s time he opens a bank account because the money from the online sales and any donations must be able to go somewhere. If I’m not mistaken this goal was accomplished a couple of days ago with Ed’s assistance.
I also made Larry some cool “Moo” business cards (http://www.moo.com) using the photos I had taken of him in Flickr. I’m expecting them next week.
I don’t know if you guys read the comments but Brian bought us a domain that is going to be hosted on his dedicated server with a lot of bandwith so hurray for that!
Where do we go from here? Well, I’m going to give to the multimedia to Sully and Kyle who seem to have some professional experience in designing sites and put them to work.
I have already scouted the net for some services that would allow Larry to sell his music online. Songcast for example allows him to sell his music on iTunes. If you have any other suggestions shoot an email or leave a comment.
I think the site should allow people to: 1) Hear and Buy Bucketman’s music 2) See where he’s performing next 3) Give them the option of hiring him or his band for private/public events 4) Give visitors the option to donate 5) Give visitors a rich gallery filled with photos, video and music. 6) Give visitors the story behind the man and his music, a bio of Larry. 7) And obviously give them contact information in case they want to get in touch with him.
I also think it’s better for Larry to tell us some of his concrete needs and have people donate towards concrete things rather than abstract charities. For instance, if Larry needs a new drum set, have a button that says: “Buy Larry a new drum set” and has the model and the price of the drum set he wants to buy and say that whoever contributes towards this purchase is going to have his name written on the big drum. Or stuff like that.
I also told Larry that he could start advertising on his buckets with big stickers. Why not? He could always choose which advertisements to display, and reject ones he doesn’t like.
UPDATE: Bucketads now a reality! We just launched this idea so here are the details for advertising on the Bucketman’s buckets:
Before I mention the current prices think of the following benefits of advertising on the Bucketman’s buckets:1) Bucketman is a hot tourist attraction: A lot of people take photos or video the Bucketman and his buckets, so your ads are going to be traveling around the world in digital media.
2) By advertising on his buckets you show how creative your company is in its marketing policy
3) You show your company’s humanitarian aspect by helping out a San Francisco landmark in his pursuit of happiness.
4) Only the other day Bucketman was interviewed (plus filmed) by the NBC, so that’s extra big time exposure for your ads. In fact, in the future we might be making a special price slot for ads that we know are going to be on TV.
5) Finally, putting ads on the buckets it’s not as if you’re putting it on some passive dead billboard. The billboard doesn’t “do” anything, so it might catch your attention for a couple of seconds max. But the Bucketman plays music so you’re inclined to stay there and watch him - and his ads - longer than if they were just placed on a billboard.
So considering the above benefits here is the current price list for placing ads on the Bucketman’s buckets:
Note: All the prices are per month and for a single bucket. There are four categories which are on a sliding scale starting with the two front buckets and going outwards. So we have 4 pairs as we can see in the following picture. You can also be creative and place an ad that continues from one bucket to the other.
To advertise on one bucket from the front pair: 250$
To advertise on one bucket from the second pair: 200$
To advertise on one bucket from the third pair: 150$
To advertise on one bucket from the fourth pair: 100$
So, if you’re interested in advertising on Bucketman’s buckets send me an email using the “Contact” link on the top bar of the page with the subject “Bucketads”.
By the way, I just put a Paypal Donate button at the end of my original posting so if you guys feel like donating you can. For now the money goes to my account but when Larry gets his bank account approved etc, I’ll redirect it to his.
By the way, Larry just got interviewed by the NBC! They told us it might air as early as Wednesday.
That’s about it for now. Suggestions, comments are always welcome.
Bucketman Campaign Co-ordinator, Alexander Pagidas.
Techies Unite! Give Bucketman a Site!
April 22nd, 2007 by Alexander
I’ve only been living in San Francisco for a couple of months but there’s one guy who seems to be one of the undisputed trademarks of downtown Market street: The Bucketman, Larry Hunt.
He sets the rhythm of the city
uniting our iPodlated lives in a common beat
and knows how to make people smile
A couple of days ago was his birthday
I asked him if he has a website where people can buy his music and learn more about him. He said he didn’t. I thought, in a city where techies and web designers abound, perhaps one of them can build him one for free. Perhaps another one has a laptop he can spare. Another might show him how to setup and operate email and administrate the sales of his music. And maybe that way, we’ll help him a bit in his pursuit of happiness
For it is one of the only pursuits where by helping others in it you do not stay behind but advance further.
If you want to join in helping Larry “Bucketman” Hunt, please contact me or leave a comment. Alternatively you can make a donation through Paypal by clicking on the button below:
Creative Thinking in Business and Idea Contest 2.0
April 16th, 2007 by Alexander
“One can resist the invasion of an army, but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas whose time has come.” - Victor Hugo, Histoire d’un Crime.
Knowledge about how to start, run and succeed in business has never been more plentiful. In other words, the basics are now available to everybody, with little or no cost. People in business are quickly realizing that what will soon be pivotal is not just doing the basics well. That will be the norm for any business that wants to merely survive. It is, and shall be necessary - but it is increasingly becoming apparent that it will not be sufficient for significant business success. The differences in the means and quality of production in top businesses are becoming indistinguishable, or at least, not significant enough to give any business a competitive advantage. An example is washing detergents that by now have become so similar in technological efficacy that the marketing people are obliged to present us advertisements with scientists that take us down to the atomic level of clothing so we can notice what their detergents do “different” because it is hardly distinguishable with the naked eye. With the aims of most products having been technologically accomplished (e.g. detergents clean very well) something more will be required to give companies their competitive edge. What will that be? I believe the answer has been staring us in the face for some time: a constant source of Creative Ideas.
One or two ideas from inspired employees might do the trick for a while, but in today’s rapidly changing business environment, modern businesses cannot afford to wait for sudden epiphanies from employees whose jobs mainly consisted in being able to produce consistently uniform results. Innovation requires change, and unchanging people cannot bring change. A new kind of employee is needed: a transformer, innovator, revolutionary. An employee who makes it his business to not just come up with single creative ideas. For creative ideas that are isolated resemble notes without a melody. In themselves, they don’t mean much. What is needed is someone who is able to put together creative ideas into a melody of creativity. I believe he would deserve to be called a creative thinker.
In the past a businessman had to do everything himself: finance, management, marketing, accounting etc. Modern businesses grew by dividing their labor and assigning specifically trained people to each post, thereby tremendously increasing the overall efficiency of the business. Perhaps it is time to create a new position for the people who make it their job to be creative - the creative thinkers. They might not know how to staff a business, do the marketing, or balance the books. But they would know how to think creatively, and just as a screenwriter does not know the science behind the cameras, does not know all the administrative skills that are required to produce a movie, nor does he have to be a great actor himself to produce a brilliant screenplay, so the creative thinker should not have to burden himself with skills and responsibilities other than the ones conducive to great creative thinking.
Nor should he limit his horizons and think of innovation only within a very narrow domain. He should let his mind think about diverse subjects, and engage in games that supply it flexibility. A stagnant lake has never been creative. A creative thinker should brainstorm in the sea of ideas. Challenge himself with difficult problems. If smooth seas never made skillful sailors, how could easy problems ever make creative thinkers?
With these thoughts in mind I created and organize Idea Contest 2.0. To encourage brainstorming about difficult problems and help people discover and improve their capacity for creative thinking. But also to have fun in playing with our intelligence and creativity which often results in surprisingly innovative ideas. Click on the link to be taken to the event’s site. I hope I’ll see some of you there brainstorming away in one of the teams.
