John Winsor

#Give5 Things Away

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my stuff. It’s hard not to coming off of Black Friday.

Like most of us, I have a lot of stuff. And, a lot of it I bought quite unconsciously.

That was really highlighted when my good friend and business partner, Evan Fry, lost everything in the Fourmile Fire here in Boulder.

What would you do if you lost all of your things and had to start over?

I’ve been inspired how Evan has approached the process of replacing his stuff. Everything he buys now is consciously consumed. It’s curated. It has purpose.

And, I thought to myself, how do I do that?

I’ve always found that when I focus on giving away my stuff, I think more consciously about it. Why did I buy this? What does it mean to me?

The Lakota Indians practiced a Give Away Ceremony on special occasions.

“Indian people do not judge each other by how much money they make or by the amount of things they own, but rather by how much a person gives away. Kindness, thoughtfulness, and sincerity by a person towards his fellow man is shown when prized possessions are given away freely. Unlike the potlatch, receivers of gifts are not expected to give something of greater value in return.”

Maybe that’s it. Maybe instead of thinking about consuming we should all think a bit more about giving things away. It doesn’t matter what it is. A t-shirt. A coffee cup. A magazine. A car. Old clothes. Books. For that matter maybe things don’t even need to be physical. They could also include advice, time, an answer to a question, or even a presentation. It’s the act of giving more than the thing itself.

With that spirit in mind, I propose that we start a new hashtag on Twitter. Like #followfriday let’s start using #give5. Each month let’s give away at least five things. And, document it with #give5.

Maybe, if we start giving our some of our stuff away we’ll start acting more like the Lakotas and have to space to foster more kindness, thoughtfulness and sincerity.

And, like Evan, maybe we’ll have the space to consume things more consciously.

Will you join me?

Flipped Excerpt: Too Many Choices, Not Enough Time

With too many tangible offerings, people create filters and use other tools, like social media, to make sense of the many messages they’re bombarded with every day. In every category of business there are more product choices than anyone could ever try, let alone purchase. No matter how much branding or advertising a company does, it’s increasingly difficult to wade through the clutter. Studies have demonstrated that providing too many options – particularly when the real distinctions between them are small (there are over three dozen different flavors of Crest Toothpaste, for example) can cause people to feel overwhelmed and overloaded, and as a result, less likely to pursue any of the options available.

People want variety, but they want companies to be reasonable at the same time. When the products available to them are relevant to their needs and their lifestyles, customers will feel that those companies have actually done their homework. Throwing out dozens of choices and assuming people will find something they like doesn’t foster intimacy between companies and their customers. People don’t necessarily need more choices; they need choices that are personally relevant. The reality is that in response to this product overload, people are suggesting that more isn’t always better; that perhaps quality – or at least relevance – is more important than quantity. The only possible exception to this way of thinking is in people’s ongoing quest to somehow find more time.

Articles in the 1960’s and 70’s used to talk about the rise of leisure time we would experience by the year 2000 because of the promise of productivity following the development of technologies like the computer. What happened? Remember how many futurists accepted the notion of a four-day workweek as the norm for most of us at the turn of the century? What happened? With our infinite choices, from 500 television channels to 125,000 new books every year, we’ve filled up our “extra” time pretty fast.

If there is one constant for all of us it is our lack of time, whether real or perceived. I look at it this way: I’m 49. The average American male lives to be 77.8 years old (according to the National Center For Health Statistics). That’s 28,397 days, so I’ve got about 10,512 days left. If you’re like me, you: sleep eight hours per day (if you’re lucky) – 3,565 days; eat for two and a half hours per day – 1,114 days; spend half an hour per day in the bathroom (hot showers rule!) – 223 days; work eight hours per day (16 years, maybe, maybe not) – 1,927 days; work out one hour per day (hopefully) – 446 days; commute one hour per day (at least) – 446 days; hang out with the family two hours per day – 892 days; do things you don’t really want to do one hour per day (pay bills, listen to telemarketers, do yard work) – 446 days. That leaves 1,453 days, or about one hour per day, left for following your bliss.

I don’t know about you, but anyone hoping to get my attention these days better make it really mean something to me, especially if it infringes on that one sacred hour.

(Check out more of  Flipped here)

Flipped: Thanks for the Help

  As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I decided to use elements of crowdsourcing and collaboration and put the manuscript of Flipped: How Bottom-Up Co-Creation Is Replacing Top Down Innovation on a wiki and invited the world to help edit and update the book. It was a great exercise in tapping into the power of the crowd. Thanks for these folks for volunteering to help:

Brad Noble, Alain Thys, Alex Ames, Ally Polly, Anita Lobo, Asher Adelman, Barry Polley, Ben Kaufman, Ben Malbon, Gerard Blokdijk, Bob Weil, Brandon Berger, Brett Macfarlane, Christopher Caen, Conrad Lisco, Dave Hampton, David Cary, David Friedman, David Wiggs, Dennis Bernhard, Diego Otero, Dragos Lupascu, Edward Boches, Ed Markey, Ellie Banwell, Eugene Chung, Ewan Adams, Gareth Kay, Ginger Conrad, Graham Furlong, Helen Walters, Jacob McNulty, Jeff Howe, John B. Winsor, Joseph Rueter, Jane Tabachnick, Justin McCammon, Karen LaBerdia, Kathy Huynh, Mark Earls, Matti Copeland, Nick Gundry, Nikki Kauffman, Noah Robinson, Oliver Wright, Pam Markhall, Paul McConaughy, Peter Thomson, Philip Tribe, Lilly Evans, Regan Mead, Robb Shurr, Rohit Nand, Scott Gwozdz, Sean Net, Doug Seibold, Scott Karambis, Shaun Abrahamson, Abbey Smith, Scott Prindle, Steve Tennant, Tate Linden, Warren Ng, Wayne Addy, Wendy Dembo, Wesley Robison, Luke Wicker, Zack Grossbart, Walter Knapp, Peter Majarich, Koert Bakker, Heather Lefevre, K. Hayes, PB Ferrigan, J. McKeown, K. Quain, S. O’Brien

Flipped is Out

I am pleased to announce that my new book, Flipped: How Bottom-Up Co-Creation is Replacing Top-Down Innovation is out. Well, it's not totally a new book. Doug Seibold, Eileen Johnson and the good folks at Agate Publishing suggested that we republish my 2004 book, Beyond the Brand. Both of us felt that the book needed to be updated and that the original title didn't really capture what the book was about. We decided to go back to the name I had initially proposed to my first publisher, Flipped. To update the book, I put the full manuscript up on a wiki and invited people to participate. 79 people kindly offered to contribute to the updating the book. (I'll do another blog post with a list of these wonderful folks tomorrow.)

So much has gone on in world of co-creation in the last six years. I've been surprised and humbled that the things I wrote about still ring true.

Power to the People

People today expect the ability to co-create and lead innovation, forcing companies to devise creative solutions to be competitive in this new bottom-up age. Such an environment generates opportunities for companies who are creative and intimately listen to the cultures they are involved with; joining forces with other creatives including artists, journalists, filmmakers and musicians to create new ways of expression and creation. The resulting products that demonstrate a real understanding of their customers in the context of their lives will be successful. Instead of thinking globally and acting locally, the successful philosophy will be to think locally and act globally.

In the vast middle of the market, people will continue to treat brands as resources. These people do not have the time or the energy to be proactive in developing their own, relevant products. Instead, they will allow their peers to do most of the heavy lifting in creating new cultural materials – and then adopt those products as their own. Brands that connect with people’s imaginations, that inspire, provoke and stimulate, helping them interpret the world that surrounds them, will be successful. Brands that are able to make the transition to provide honest, original, cultural materials, offering space for co-creation will win. Proactive people will carefully weed out and broadcast those products, and companies, that they do not trust. Many companies have already discovered that being good corporate citizens can be good for their brands. In this new era, it’s the creative citizens of a community – the people and the brands – that will help companies survive by co-creating from the bottom-up.

Enjoy the book and be sure to give me a shout if you have any comments or thoughts.

The Early Baked In Reviews and a Big Thanks

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post inviting readers to become the first to review Baked In. Forty people were kind enough to volunteer to help get the word out. The first round of reviews are in. Thanks to:

Frank Striefler on PSFK

Gareth Kay

Len Kendall

Paul Miser

James Sherritt

Dan Pankraz

Dennis Bernard

Anibal Casso

Baked In Update: The Wikiblog

The Baked In Wikiblog is now live. The wikiblog is a place to extend the conversation that Alex and I started in the book. Dennis Bernhard, one of the folks that offered to review the book, does a great job of explaining how it works, from a readers point of view:

Remember when your mother would use the famous “do as I say, not as I do” trick on you. Well, this book is following the motto of “do as I say, and as I do”. Not only does it preach baking in, it actually does it. Throughout the book, the authors have included Twitter hash tags to keep the conversation going beyond the book, into the Twiterverse and their blog. This is a great way to bake conversation and word of mouth directly into the book. Instead of having readers from all over the world having haphazard conversations all over the web, the predetermined hash tags and blog allow readers to interact with the book and with each other. This will eventually lead to interesting and thought provoking conversations that will only strengthen the ideas within this book.

The conversation is starting to get quite a lot of momentum on the wikiblog. Stop by and jump in.

Baked In Update #2: 20 Review Copies Available

The production of Baked In is rounding the final corner. We're getting excited about our big kickoff party in NYC on September 23rd.

A couple of months ago I asked people if they wanted to get involved and review the book. The response has been great. We're willing to hand out 20 more review copies. Send me a note, tweet me, or leave a comment with your email address and how you'd like to review the book. On Monday we'll select the winners and will send out digital copies of the book along with timing and use instructions.

Thanks again for all of the support and help.

Baked-In Update

Alex and I have been working on the final edits and tweaking the design of our new book, Baked In. It should hit book stores September 15th. We're really excited with how it's coming together.

We'll have a few review copies to share with folks who want to get a first glimpse of it and review it on their blog, web site or even twitter. Leave a comment if you're interested in helping out.

My New Book: 180@11:32

I just finished a new photograph book. If you're interested, you can check it out here.

And, here's a description:

180 @ 11:32 was a project to explore the act of being creative at a precise moment of time, 11:32 AM, for 180 consecutive days. After years of burying my fine arts photography roots with business, fatherhood and adventure, this project is my attempt to create a renewed artistic journey.

This project can best be described as one of Phenomenology, or the act of reawakening a sense of wonder about one’s environment. Many of us have become desensitized to the environment in which we exist.
Instead, we live in a parallel universe, talking on the phone or sitting in front of a computer screen all day.

We operate to the rhythms of a man-made schedule. Instead of rejecting this undeniable fact of life in the early 21st century, it is my goal to embrace it. And, in the instant of one minute, create an image that captures meaning in this harried existence.

One moment, one photo.

Off to Russia

I recieved a very nice call the other day from Maria Hohlova, General Manager of the World Brand Academy in Moscow. Maria shared with me that she had just read Beyond the Brand's Russian edition and wanted to invite me to speak at the Master Brand, Brand Leaders Summit at the end of November.

I can't tell you how excited I was to get the invitation. Both of my sons were born in Russia and it's been a couple of years since I've been to Moscow. Russia is definitely rising and I am looking forward to being involved.