the conversationalist

This blog has moved—please update your feeds

2011-06-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

I've decided to close this blog, and open a new chapter. Going forward, I'll be blogging at my new site The Next Us.

Please join me there, and update your feeds accordingly.

Productivity tips for entrepreneurs and, well, everyone

2010-09-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

We all know time is precious. Thankfully, compared to the other core skills that successful entrepreneurs must master—i.e., their own self-care, skills development and knowledge—personal productivity is the easiest and quickest to learn. For me, the following tools and resources have been invaluable:

Million Dollar Consulting - My friend Udaya Patnaik recommended this book to me when I was first starting my own business, and I've recommended it myself dozens of times since. Essential reading not just for consultants, but for any small business owner.
Getting Things Done - I've always been well-organized by nature, but by following productivity guru David Allen's advice for the last five years, I have easily boosted my productivity 10-20%. Allen's productivity workout program is a tough, but rewarding one -- following his advice will not only decrease your time on task, but also make sure that you get to those gnarly, high-priority items that for whatever reason never seem to get done.
Evernote - Oh, how I love Evernote. A delightful, light-weight note-taking system, optimized beautifully for the web, iPhone, iPad, and desktop. I'm still looking for the ideal app for time-sensitive to-do list management -- I'm using MacMail for now and intend to check out Remember the Milk and Things -- but in the meantime, Evernote meets many, many of my needs.
Google Reader - Most of us need to keep up with the latest news related to our industry and our craft. But finding the super-best content, and then keeping track of it all can become a job unto itself. Google Reader makes scanning, reading, and sharing posts from blogs and traditional news sources a snap. As part of an iGoogle digital blotter including Mail, Docs, Bookmarks, etc., it's even more powerful.
Mint.com - I'm a new convert to Mint, and now I'm kicking myself for being late to the party. A terrific service.
SF Wash - I love my apartment, but one unfixable problem is a lack of laundry hookups. I used to dread the days of going to the local laundromat -- a 3-hour affair, start to finish -- but SF Wash is like reliving the glory days of the Web 1.0 economy when services like Kozmo would bring insanely great services right to your door. I put out my laundry for pick-up each week, SF Wash cleans my clothes using green detergents, and returns them the next day. Clothes I used to have dry cleaned, I now wash gentle and drip dry -- they last longer, and I save money. In a shifting economy, smart urban services like this are popping up all over -- keep an eye out for your biggest time sinks, and see if there are ways you can address or side-step them completely.

Enough about me. What tools and services have helped you use your time wisely?

Crude drawings

2010-03-19T09:40:00.000-07:00

"In the first half of our life, we build and inflate our ego, and in the second half we dismantle it and build a bridge between our healthy ego and our Self. The first half of life is about power, because that is what it takes to develop our ego. . . The second half of life is about meaning, because that is the focus it takes to go beyond ego. In the great synthesis, power and meaning are united in the interest of service to the world." - David Richo, Shadow Dance

This past December, I spent a wonderful day at the Rubin Museum in NYC taking in their exhibit of Carl Jung's Red Book. As the curators intended, I was struck by the similarities between Jung's brave explorations of his unconscious mind and the Himalayan mandalas on the floors above showing battles between positive and negative energies and the integration of cognitive, emotional, and embodied intelligence. Perusing the exhibit, I felt both elated and sad, as it was clear Jung did not pioneer a new view of human nature, but rather recreate wisdom that had been lost and rediscovered countless times. The quiet, cocoon-like space of the Rubin enhanced this sense of timelessness, of an endless now.

That night, I went to see the musical Next to Normal, and although my night at the theater was obviously colored by my afternoon at the museum, the play surprised me by telling a remarkably similar story. Next to Normal concerns a contemporary family of four whose matriarch is battling mental illness. Critics have conspired to not give away too much about the show, so I didn't expect the deep empathy the play's creators would show for all the characters. In Next to Normal, each member of the family takes on -- as in a mandala -- specific positive and negative energies, elements of chaos and order. Because all the artists behind the production grasped the concept so completely, the story is relatable and moving, even for those who don't have direct experience with its subject matter. Within this very specific story, there is a cosmic story; within every self, a family of voices negotiating for power; and also within a self, the world.

I created the above diagram last year, and have been using it in some of my business strategy engagements. Like many of my frameworks, it's a crude distillation—meant to provoke effective conversation, not express a blinding new insight. (In workshops, I ask clients to identify where they are on this map, and where they would like to pull energy from.) But it's only been recently that I've noticed that this story of the fight between power and meaning is one I've been seeing everywhere and that it looks similar at every level of scale. At a macro level, as in the diagram, we talk about existing vs. emerging systems; within an organization, sustaining vs. breakthrough innovation; within an individual, the directive "cursor" of the ego versus the endless, untapped resources of the Self.

All the zones across these two triangles are interesting, but lately I've been increasingly interested in building, in the synthesis of emergent possibilities and existing structures—and the platforms, new social entities, and inner skills required to connect the two.

Keats asked: "Call the world if you please 'the vale of Soul-making.' Then you will find out the use of the world." If we have the courage to build a new world, who will we in turn become?

First image reprinted from The Red Book by C. G. Jung (c) Foundation of the Works of C. G. Jung. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Second image created by Mark Gibson and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License.

On scalability II

2009-09-14T07:49:00.001-07:00

So help me, whenever I hear the word scalability, part of my brain flashes to the Facts of Life episode where Jo tries to open a pizza business. She is unable to maintain quality as the business heats up, and following some sage advice from Mrs. Garrett, downsizes to what she's familiar with.

What a lousy message to be sending. It doesn't occur to Jo or Mrs. Garrett to apply for a small business loan, take a semester off school to give the business room to grow, outsource distribution, write a cookbook, or disseminate the recipe for free online.

The lesson here I guess is never hire Mrs. Garrett as your innovation consultant. But how many real entrepreneurs miss their potential for incredible impact by accepting the status quo—"the facts of life"—as givens?

Lazy thinking about the apocalypse

2009-09-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

Warning: This blog post spoils in detail the Battlestar Galactica series finale and the unaired "Epitaph One" episode of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. Both are excellent, and their craftsmanship is undone by advance knowledge of the plot. If you haven't seen them yet, skip this post.

It's a warm summer day in San Francisco -- the first of only a handful this year. We know that good weather in NYC influences the stock market; has anyone ever studied how San Francisco's history of atypical weather nurtures atypical thinking?

Surrounded by fog, I spent much of the calendar summer thinking moodily about collapse: social, ecological, economic. And we're finally living in an era where apocalyptic thinking -- part of the human and American character -- seems more justified than ever. The latest scientific evidence on climate change suggests that human civilization as we know it is on collision path with a brick wall.

The cure for apocalyptic thinking, though, as with any unproductive mindset, is to change our beliefs to match reality. The more we internalize the real data, say, of climate change, the more we can think "the unthinkable," the less we are compelled to fight for old and familiar systems that are clearly insufficient. We shift from focusing on what there is to lose to what there is to gain. I've taken to characterizing this difference as "at the end of day" vs. "at the end of the century" mindsets. If we are continually living at the end of the day, we are haunted by the risks and dangers of the futures we know we're avoiding.

Art has always been a good litmus test for what haunts a culture—what it chooses to avoid, its unfinished business. Popular art -- in the sense of mass art, and successful art -- makes our concerns, our collective dreamwork both visual and concrete. So I hold art to a high standard. And earlier this year, it irritated me that two otherwise compelling works of art came so close to making our unconscious fears and half-glimpsed truths concrete and discussable, only to shy away by blaming, of all things, technology.

The denouement of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica series found the surviving characters touching down on our planet 150,000 years before the present day. After four years of running from a nuclear holocaust, this resolution, and with it shots of unspoiled, lush African plains, came as bittersweet wish fulfillment—its joy tempered by the death and breakdowns of major characters, and by the fact that this ache to go back, to do over, to inherit an undamaged world, is what we the viewers most want and cannot have.

A necessary and yet implausible plot point involves the BSG survivors deciding quickly en masse to give up technology. This was a momentary loss of grace and intelligence in an otherwise perfect episode. BSG from the beginning to the very end was fundamentally "about" religion, and like any great art, it refused to resolve its own central concerns. Deflecting attention and making technology the scapegoat was a moment of creative weakness. And moral weakness... Kevin Kelly and others have argued passionately and persuasively that technology is not the cause of human suffering; in the final analysis, it expands opportunity. It's ideas we should be worried about, and as an entertainment product, BSG is nothing if not a set of ideas, seductively packaged.

BSG drew a respectable viewing audience for four years, and it tapped the zeitgeist enough to say "it tapped the zeitgeist." Far less successful, artistically and commercially, is the Joss Whedon drama series Dollhouse. Like BSG, Dollhouse takes a provocative and uncomfortable topic—this time misogyny, not religion—and transplants it in a dystopian science fiction environment. Again, like BSG, Dollhouse attracts acclaim and ire in equal doses for its sophisticated take on a sensitive cultural issue. Yet presumably due to ongoing interference from Fox, the show is wildly uneven in tone and quality. Its unaired season 1 finale is its artistic high point, involving a leap forward ten years, to a barbaric post-apocalyptic world destroyed by widespread, hostile use of the Dollhouse's human programming technology. In the show's final moments, looking out on a wrecked LA cityscape, the main character blames "kids playing with matches—and they burned the house down."

Again, on a show about ideas, technology is the culprit.

Slate magazine ran a piece a few months ago called Choose Your Own Apocalypse—a bit of fun that exposes the dangerous laziness of our apocalyptic thinking. The truth is we see our facts through the filters of our ideas. When we individually and collectively can talk about our ideas, including our most treasured or dangerous ones, maybe we'll see that the apocalypse is avoidable if we have the willpower. Maybe the breakdown of old systems isn't such a bad thing.

Maybe we're standing in the midst or on the brink not of winter and decay, but warmth and abundance.

On scalability

2009-09-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

Scalability seems to be a number one concern for many businesses lately. As it should be—the lead executive of an impressive CSR program told me years ago, "Success is easy... we only care about scalable success."

However, before developing a scalability strategy, I advise clients to get very clear about what it is they are trying to scale. Is it:

Impact

A service

A technology platform

An organization / network / community / market / tribe

The relevant best practices and gotchas in each case are very different.

The Future of Learning keynote

2009-08-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, I gave the keynote address at the conference Unleashing Knowledge and Innovation for the Next Generation of Learning, convened by the Knowledge Alliance/Center for Knowledge Use, the Stupski Foundation, and West Wind Education Policy.

The talk was on The Future of Learning, and it covered the KnowledgeWorks Foundation's 2020 Forecast, prefaced by and mixed with some of my own thoughts about foresight, strategy, and innovation. It was an enjoyable experience for me, and I received many nice compliments afterwards.

The audio file minus the last 60 seconds has been posted online, and the slides from the talk are below. If the video gets posted in the coming days, I'll add that as well.

Knowledge Innovation Summit 080709

View more presentations from Mark Gibson.

One note: after delivering this talk, I became a tentative, but strongly-persuaded convert to the Aquatic Ape hypothesis, so I'd tweak my statements about the human body and brain being designed for the African savanna accordingly. Thx Chris!

The Urban Homestead

2009-08-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

I recently finished reading and can heartily recommend The Urban Homestead. The authors Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen have outdone themselves with tips on everything from raising rabbits to home canning to DIY solar.

It's a thorough, plainspoken and playful guide, enlivened by he said/she said debates about some of the more advanced projects. (The authors are also partners, and share a house in Los Angeles.) The suggestions here clearly save money and build character, but they also might be vital "when the zombies come." On that note, given the length of the book and its subject matter, you might want to buy this one in hard copy instead of Kindle, so it's handy when you need it.

I finished the The Urban Homestead full of hope, and with many new plans for home projects. And at least one mega-million-dollar idea: how about a movie version, with Chris Messina (the actor) and Amy Adams playing the two authors, quarreling and laughing over the challenges of mulching, fruit butter, compost toilets, and greywater wetlands.

I'd see that movie.

p.s. Check out Kelly and Erik's blog Homegrown Evolution.

TED Local

2009-01-28T09:06:00.001-08:00

I'm getting excited about next week's TED conference, which I'll be watching with friends and colleagues from the low-carbon comfort of my living room. I hope for some great conversation -- the program list, if you haven't seen it, is extraordinary.

Plenty folds

2009-01-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

Plenty magazine (both the print and web editions) joins the list of magazines that have gone under due to rapid shifts in the economy and media landscape. I applaud Plenty's good intentions, and it's sad that those involved in the venture are losing their jobs. But I also take Plenty's bow as a sign -- even a positive one -- of where we are in our national and species-level focus on the environment.

While the short-term hype around green consumerism is fading, perhaps the long-term trend towards "bright green," long-term, systemic thinking and collective behavior is just getting going.

Seventeen hearts in seventeen mouths

2009-01-14T07:37:00.000-08:00

Mark Hurst's Good Experience blog once again lives up to its name:

"A Kindle trick that changes the reading experience"

Note to self

2009-01-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

Take responsibility.
Honor intuitions.
Respect everyone as an equal.
Give yourself a break.
Love.
Have patience.
Take risks.
Drop your guard.
Focus on the goal.
End what doesn't work.
Preserve what does work.
Create new things.

Mastery

2009-01-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

If I had to choose a single slide to talk about the future of education, this might be it.

Four great books

2009-01-05T20:14:00.000-08:00

I read some good books last year, but these four were marvelous. All have expanded and clarified how I see the world and approach my work on a daily basis. Shared in the hopes that you might enjoy them as well:

Nudge, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin

Why I haven't blogged in months

2008-10-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

I've received a few "ahems" for not blogging in awhile. My explanation:

I've been busy with some fun and rewarding projects.

Along with so many others, I've found myself channeling much of my online energy into micro-blogging, which is simply more efficient for sharing quick thoughts and recommendations. In particular, I use my Google Reader stream to share the top 5% of what I'm reading and thinking about.

I'm interested in putting some more energy back into my blog, as a way to share not just what I'm thinking about, but what I'm thinking. So going forward, expect posts that are relatively infrequent, but potentially longer and more thoughtful. I am heading to Maine next week for Pop!Tech, which should be great brainfood, so expect at least one or two updates related to that.

The future is not here yet

2008-03-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

On September 11, 2001, my mom called and woke me up to tell me what was happening. For some reason, likely shock, my first thought was to go to the web. It took over ten minutes of searching before I found a buried Yahoo! story referring to NYC's "once majestic skyline." At that point, I turned on the TV and like everyone else was there for the next several hours.

Since then, networked media has become personal, local, and ubiquitous. I've come to expect, as have many others, that citizen journalists will be the front line defense in flu outbreaks or terrorist attacks.

So I'm sad to report that at least today in San Francisco, one of the most networked cities in the world, old-school news sources still get there first, and slowly at that.

I looked out the window about 30 minutes ago and saw a giant plume of yellowish grey smoke rising from the Mission.
I went on Google News and did several searches for "San Francisco and fire" -- no updates
I checked my local Facebook network, Outside.in, and SFist - no news
After 20 minutes of occasional searching online, I heard news helicopters overhead -- I turned on the TV and saw the "breaking news" report from an SF local news station.

As expected, the cause was a big house fire, not a terrorist attack or "airborne toxic event." But it saddened me to realize how slow our media sources really are, or might be, the next time something more serious happens.

Nokia "Remade"

2008-03-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

I'm surprised that Treehugger takes such a dim view of the new Nokia "Remade" phone.

Even though it's a prototype, as far as concept cars go, it's a pretty good one. Nokia or some other company could start using the ideas implicit in "Remade" to design the next generation of cradle-to-cradle personal electronics devices.

Admittedly, no one has made the business models here work yet, but given the importance of the task, and the number of people working on the problem, someone will eventually get this right.

Marketa Irglova acceptance speech

2008-02-25T10:52:00.000-08:00

An inspiring moment from last night's Oscars ceremony.... Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova win best song for "Falling Slowly."

How to Be an Adult

2008-02-14T15:44:00.000-08:00

A gem of a book -- insightful and immensely practical. I think it would be a better world if they taught more of this kind of information in college.

How Google innovates

2008-02-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

A great summary of how Google pursues innovation, and why your company might want to think twice before following their lead. (From Nicholas Carr.)

A More Perfect Constitution

2008-02-11T10:04:00.000-08:00

One of my college professors, Larry Sabato, has written a timely and engaging book, A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country.

For me, the biggest surprise of the book was learning that Article V includes not one, but two processes for amending the Constitution. The process that has never been taken, and that Sabato discusses at length, is a Constitutional Convention, to be called once two-thirds of the states petition for it.

Sabato's specific proposals and the years of public debate that would go into a successful constitutional convention would not only increase our government's efficiency, but also bring many more people into the conversation about the kind of society and world we want to build. It's a thorough, moderate, and inspiring book.

Edward Tufte on the iPhone: video

2008-01-25T16:48:00.000-08:00

Some geeky fun for a Friday afternoon.

Tufte: "Clutter and overload are not an attribute of information, they are a failure of design."

(Thanks Kristine for the link!)

Winning and losing

2008-01-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

One of last year's stickiest, fastest-growing, most thought-provoking, and purely enjoyable online gaming properties was Bogglific -- the homegrown, free, networked version of Boggle on Facebook.

There are many creative ways that Hasbro could have handled its intellectual property concerns without alienating the thousands of passionate users who used Bogglific every day.

Sadly, as of today, they went with a plain ol' cease and desist.

From the Bogglific home page:

Bogglific to Close Down :-(
Hasbro, Inc. has sent a DMCA notification notice to Facebook regarding Bogglific. They claim it violates their trademark, and violates copyright over the Boggle rules.

I'm no lawyer, and can't see how it violates copyright. But I have neither the time nor the money to fight this, and Facebook has given me a grace period of 48 hours to shut the application down voluntarily.

You might be interested to know Scrabulous is in the same boat, but they have the resources to fight their battle. Hopefully they will be successful.

Sorry, guys. It was great fun while it lasted. You're a fantastic bunch, and it's a pity that Hasbro doesn't realise that Bogglific helped its Boggle sales by introducing all your Facebook friends to the game, not hindered it. That is sadly how the litigious US works.

Note that the Bogglific forum will be deleted by Facebook, so you may wish to post further discussions to the Bogglific Addicts group (which is not run by me.)

Where do Bearitos come from?

2008-01-13T13:52:00.002-08:00

A great map showing the corporate parents of many of today's popular organic food brands. From Phil Howard at Michigan State University. (Thanks to Roxie for the link!)

The culting of brands

2008-01-13T12:15:00.000-08:00

I blogged recently about wanting to write a book comparing cults, built-to-last corporate cultures, and wildly successful consumer brands. As I secretly hoped, someone has already written such a book, and it's phenomenal.

If Jim Collins described the optimum corporate culture for the late 20th century, then Douglas Atkin in "The Culting of Brands" has intuited the human relationship model behind the most powerful business innovations, and grassroots social, technological, and religious movements of the new century.

Imagining the future: Feasible globalizations

2007-12-27T15:55:00.000-08:00

A provocative article from Dani Rodrik. (Thanks to Umair Haque at Bubblegeneration for the link.)

Why conversation matters

2007-12-24T17:01:00.000-08:00

An intriguing model from Paul Pangaro. For anyone trying to design the next generation of human-computer interfaces, or win a political argument at the family dinner table.

The Story of Stuff

2007-12-05T08:51:00.000-08:00

An amazing video from Annie Leonard and Free Range Films.

Running dry

2007-11-27T09:26:00.000-08:00

The NYT has been running an important series of articles about disappearing water supplies in the U.S. due to climate change. The bad news: According to Steven Chu of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster... and that’s in the best scenario.” The good news: Cities and regions across the country are taking their futures in their own hands, and looking systemically at potential solutions.

The American West: Disappearing snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas and elsewhere forces some drastic choices.

Orange County: Turning sewage into drinking water.

Fort Collins: Going nuclear in this "deeply green" city could jeopardize local water supplies.

The Axe and the Dove

2007-11-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

The Dove "Onslaught" video has stirred up controversy for parent company Unilever, which also markets Axe deodorant. From today's AdAge:

'"Onslaught" also accomplished what four years of racy Axe ads hadn't -- getting the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood to demand Unilever stop running Axe ads. While the group already was aware of Axe and of Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, the specifics of the "Onslaught" push set it off.'

A complex story about the marketing biz, corporate integrity, and social media.

Quotes from Pop!Tech: Paul Polak

2007-11-16T15:45:00.000-08:00

"90% of the world's designers work on the problems of the richest 10%."

Holiday gift ideas 2007

2007-11-16T15:09:00.000-08:00

Some holiday gift ideas for your ecologically, socially, and digitally minded loved ones:

1. Apple TV - It's a slick product all-around, but by far my favorite thing about Apple TV is that it makes it easy to watch hours of TED video podcasts from the comfort of your living room.

2. GlobalGiving gift certificates - GlobalGiving makes it easy and fun to give to grassroots projects in the developing world, and see that your donations have real impact. (Admission: GlobalGiving is a former client of mine.)

3. Muji anything - Today is the grand opening of the first Muji store in the U.S. Hopefully, we'll soon see an e-commerce site, but in the meantime, head to Soho in NYC for hundreds of simple, thoughtful and (somewhat) green products. I have my eye on the rice cooker and the bike.

4. Eatwell Farms - In Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan makes a fairly stark distinction between "industrial organic" and truly organic foods. With Michael's book in mind, I tried Eatwell Farm's pastured eggs, and found them to be three times as tasty, and considerably more healthful, than the very best eggs at Whole Foods. For those in the Bay Area, Eatwell's produce boxes are a perfect gift.

5. MCG Jazz recordings- Bill Strickland is a hero of mine for his work with youth, education, and the arts. The Grammy-winning live jazz performances from Manchester Craftsmen's Guild are a special treat for music lovers, and the proceeds help support a terrific cause.

BP and EA bring climate change to SimCity

2007-11-01T16:45:00.001-07:00

I love the concept. Eager to see whether the game's climate change models are realistic, but at least it's a start. Thanks to Dan for the link.

Quotes from Pop!Tech: Victoria Hale

2007-10-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

"How you do your work is more important than what you do, and in the end determines the magnitude of your impact." - Dr. Victoria Hale, Founder, OneWorld Health

The Guru of Getting Things Done

2007-10-30T10:40:00.000-07:00

The October issue of Wired has a fascinating profile of David Allen, the author of the immensely practical, and best-selling Getting Things Done. I've been following Allen's fussy-practical productivity tips for a few years now, so I was surprised to learn that many of his techniques grow out of his direct experience, and ongoing involvement, with the human potential movement.

The article has a few other surprises: Allen is a former karate instructor and heroin user, and a current Minister in the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, a church that believes in "a benevolent consciousness guiding mankind, who in the past has appeared as Jesus, St. Francis of Assisi, and Abraham Lincoln."

The human potential movement fascinates me. In my spare time, I dream of writing a book that spells out the historical and philosophical connections between EST, Tony Robbins, Byron Katie, Jim Collins, Lifespring, cognitive behavioral therapy, The Secret, and Al-Qaeda. But in the meantime, we have this provocative article from Gary Wolf.

p.s. Speaking of personal productivity, I'm on my third day of getting used to OSX Leopard. One of the features that I'm spending a lot of time with, but that hasn't received much hype, is the revised To-Do/Notes system. To-Dos are now fully shared between Mail and iCal, and the functionality has been beefed up in many small ways that make it easier to follow some of Allen's top list management tips. The UI is imperfect, but it's still a big leap forward.

Awww

2007-10-16T07:19:00.000-07:00

Raymond Crowe makes some magic with shadow puppets.

The carbon footprint of the multiplex

2007-10-09T16:48:00.000-07:00

A UCLA study has concluded that the entertainment industry is Southern California's second biggest polluter, after the oil industry. Clearly, this is an industry that is ripe for reinvention:

"No amount of public service announcements or celebrities driving hybrid cars can mask the fact that movie and TV production is a gritty industrial operation, consuming enormous amounts of energy to power bright lights, run sophisticated cameras, and feed a cast of thousands."

Still, there are some bright spots of innovation. In addition to switching to renewables and offsetting emissions, I especially liked the following:

"Pieces built for the 2001 film Ocean's 11 now sit in the Santa Monica offices of the National Resources Defense Council. Sets from this year's sequel Ocean's 13 were donated to decorate the halls of local community colleges." (Associated Press)

"Good things happen in the dark"

2007-10-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night October 20th, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Transamerica Building, and dozens of local homes and businesses will turn off their lights for one hour. It's all part of Lights Out San Francisco, a local grassroots organization I'm excited to be involved with.

Events like these have more than just symbolic value... They bind neighborhoods together, and remind people of their individual and collective power to take on climate change. LOSF will publish the energy-saving results on its website, and the organization is also distributing thousands of free CFL light bulbs, which will help cut down on San Franciscans' carbon emissions and energy bills long after the event itself.

So treat yourself to a candelit dinner, and encourage your local businesses participate. San Francisco is just the start: the event is going national with Lights Out America on March 29, 2008.

DVRs and vampire power

2007-08-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

I've been curious for awhile about the vampire power used by DVRs like TiVo. It's worse than I thought: according to the NRDC, set-top boxes in the U.S. alone consume $2 billion worth of electricity annually, or the equivalent of 15 million pounds of carbon dioxide.

Broadcasting & Cable does a good job covering how different DVR makers are increasing the energy efficiency of their products. More eco-friendly consumer electronics are a win for everyone: manufacturers whose products will last longer; consumers who will enjoy lower power bills; and the environment.

A big week for green TV

2007-08-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

Discovery Communications acquires Treehugger

Broadcasting & Cable releases a Green TV issue

Jack Bauer and 24 fight climate change

Imogen Heap: "Just For Now"

2007-08-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

A fantastic YouTube clip to start your Monday. Imogen Heap sings a round with herself, mixing it in real-time.

Blackle.com is the new green

2007-08-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

Heap Media has responded to Mark Ontkush's observation that a black background version of Google would save 3000 Megawatt-hours a year by going ahead and building one.

From a usability perspective, white type on black is clearly harder to read, so I don't think this is a final design answer. But I like how Blackle sparks conversation about new and better ways to green the web. Kudos.

(Thanks to Todd for showing me this.)

Second Chance Trees

2007-07-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

Oh, I love this. Another great example of how Second Life can help spark conversation, and foster real-world progress... in this case on the issue of reforestation. (from 3pointD)

Greening the urban fabric

2007-07-08T11:19:00.001-07:00

Check out this post in BLDG on the New York Bike-Share Project. A fantastic idea—both convenient and human-scale. I'd love to see someone do this here in San Francisco.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas @ TED

2007-07-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

Holy cow.

Memory lane

2007-07-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

Also in Underwire this week, Edwin Tofslie's super cool poster showing the evolution of Apple product design from 1976 to the present.

SL Challenges Real World Bureaucracy

2007-07-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

A great story from Underwire, suggesting how virtual worlds and, for that matter, contests, can enable positive social change:

"Frustrated with the lack of movement and community involvement with a plan to build a new garden in the central Halles area of Paris, local residents started a competition within Second Life to come up with possible designs for the real world location. While the association knows that the winning design (whose creator won 275,000 Linden dollars) won't be implemented because it doesn't consider real world conditions, they're hoping the competition will put pressure on the mayor to move this project along. It's been in talks since 2004."

Imagine if SL had existed a few years ago, while closed-door groups were debating what to do with Ground Zero...

Outside.in widget

2007-07-02T11:40:00.001-07:00

I often tell clients that the two most exciting areas for innovation, across industries, are extreme local and global interconnectedness.

I've been working on an extreme local digital media report for awhile now, covering the latest platforms for networking and community building, only to discover repeatedly that Outside.in is already investing in many of the principles and features I've been looking for.

And this morning, thanks to my neighbor Sexy Widget, I see that Outside.in is opening up its site, with a widget that displays and accepts local news tied to the user's zip code:

"This widget has important implications for Outside.in for a number of reasons. On the distribution side, by freeing up its content so that it can show up anywhere, Outside.in has just sweetened the pot for local content publishers in terms of potential distribution reach. This is a big deal, as unlike Google News, Outside.in is not a crawler driven business. It relies on content that is manually and explicitly submitted via its site, and only after a registration.

There are also benefits on the marketing side. While the widget serves as a distribution platform for Outside.in content, it also serves as a marketing tool to attract more consumers and producers of local content." (Sexy Widget)

I'll be installing the widget myself and giving it a whirl later this week. I'll let you know what I think.

Cycles of culture

2007-06-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

In his recent SALT talk, Steven Johnson plugged the book Graphs, Maps, Trees by Franco Moretti. I just finished it, and it's hands-down one of the best analyses of literary history I've ever read.

Moretti practices what he calls "distant reading," looking at the full literary output of a society over time. His models—the graphs, maps, and trees of the title—bring some hidden cycles of human culture into sharp relief. He also offers some tentative, but compelling hypotheses regarding how and why new artistic forms arise, evolve, and decay.

P.S. Anyone interested in an engaging debate about cycles of artistic form should also check out the discussion of music—and specifically, David Levitin's book "This Is Your Brain on Music"—taking place in the North American Future Salon Yahoo! group. Look for the subject header "Accelerating Change."

Marketing vs. advertising vs. branding

2007-06-13T10:15:00.001-07:00

Funny and accurate. (As seen on kottke.org.)

Plunge in CD Sales Shakes Up Big Labels

2007-05-28T10:29:00.001-07:00

From today's NYT:

"Aram Sinnreich, a media industry consultant at Radar Research in Los Angeles, said the CD format, introduced in the United States 24 years ago, is in its death throes. 'Everyone in the industry thinks of this Christmas as the last big holiday season for CD sales,' Mr. Sinnreich said, 'and then everything goes kaput.'”

Open-source museums, open-source art

2007-05-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

In April I attended the super fun opening of OSMOSA -- the Open-Source Museum of Open-Source Art -- in Second Life. I'm glad I went back a month later to see how far SL residents had pushed the concept of free, fully editable art in a free, fully editable museum. Check it out.

(Thanks to Kenny Hubble for the party invite.)

Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!

2007-05-12T18:58:00.000-07:00

Clive Thompson at collision detection finds this amazing interview with Peter Howell, the arranger of the 1980s Doctor Who theme. Howell explains how all of the sound effects were generated, with Dalek and TARDIS effects thrown in to boot.

Disabilities in Second Life

2007-05-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

A great article on how people with real-world disabilities are walking, flying, and becoming leading innovators in Second Life. The article also covers some of the attempts to re-create the experience of cerebral palsy, blindness, schizophrenia, and other disabilities in SL, as a way of building empathy for those conditions.

The wounds of commitment

2007-05-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

Trust is on my mind a lot these days, as a driver for new business innovation, and as a more fruitful starting place for thinking about customer relationships than "brand love."

Vernor Vinge has espoused the idea recently that "in the modern world, success [will come] from having the largest possible educated population and providing those hundreds of millions of creative people with credible freedom." As Vinge notes, in an increasingly transparent society, that verisimilitude of freedom could approach the real thing closer than ever before.

With these ideas on my mind, I was happy to stumble across Elizabeth Doty's insightful article in this week's strategy+business, showing exactly how breaches of trust within an organization extinguish innovation and individual commitment. Good reading for any leaders looking to build trust internally, or struggling with the ethical grey areas that inevitably come with success and increasing complexity.

San Paolo kicks out billboards

2007-05-02T22:22:00.000-07:00

An inspiring, if temporary, step forward for more human urban environments, as reported in BoingBoing and elsewhere.

This news item reminds me of the scene in Before Sunset where Julie Delpy talks about visiting Warsaw as a teenager:

"After a couple of weeks, something changed in me. The city was quite gloomy and gray... but, after a while, my brain seemed clearer... It took me a while to figure out why... My brain felt like it was at rest, free from the consuming frenzy. And I have to say, it was almost like a natural high. I felt so peaceful inside, no... strange urge to be somewhere else, to shop... Maybe it could have seemed like boredom at first, but it quickly became very, very soulful."

A greener Apple

2007-05-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs responds to environmental groups who have criticized the sustainability of Apple's products.

The Eye of the Beholder

2007-04-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

Nina Simon at Museum 2.0 continues to serve up great insights about art, business, commerce, and marketing. This week, she asks: "What kinds of environments support focus, appreciation, and epiphany?"

Bravo without pity

2007-04-11T11:52:00.001-07:00

Bravo finds TV fans where they already are by acquiring the venerable and ultra snarky blog site Television Without Pity.

(I'm a bit late in blogging this, but thought I'd share just the same. Bravo has been doing some really interesting things lately to make its on-line/on-air experiences as sticky as possible.)

Digg's favorite HDR photographer

2007-04-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

I met Trey Ratcliff at the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference in NYC last month, and have been drooling over his stunning photographs from around the world.

Also check out the interview on his site Stuck in Customs where he talks about his technique:

"HDR brings the phi ratio [the 'golden ratio'] to colors and luminosity rather than to geometry and angles. Humans use their neocortex to patch together a visual scene. People do not take a 'photograph' in their head and store it at a single shutter speed, aperture, etc. On the scene, the human eye is constantly darting around and the iris lets in more light in some areas and less light in others. This “patchwork quilt” is made up of very different light levels and colors. These most beautiful scenes have colors that lay on top of the geometric patterns that traipse up and down the spectrum in a phi pattern. I’m slowing evolving my HDR process to nail those phi patterns within color and luminosity to bring a visceral reaction of beauty from the viewer."

An etymology of company names

2007-04-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

Check out Wired for the short version, Wikipedia for the long version.

Examples:

Apple — For the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard, and to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by other computer companies at the time — which had names such as IBM, DEC, Cincom and Tesseract

Wipro — from Western India Vegetable Products Limited. The company started as a modest Vanaspati and laundry soap producer and is now also an IT services giant.

New feature

2007-04-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have noticed that a few weeks ago I launched a new feature. In the right-hand margin, there is now a list of "Shared Articles" courtesy of Google Reader. This is basically a list of recent articles about which I have little to say, other than: these are neat, you should check them out.

The design is a little clunky for now, but I assume that Google will improve that over time.

Beauty and truth

2007-04-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

I also just finished Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace, a handy little manual from Joseph M. Williams.

Williams swiftly covers some useful strategies for cleaning up bad writing, then ends unexpectedly with a chapter on "The Ethics of Prose." The highlight of the chapter, and the book overall, is Williams' analysis of Lincoln's second inaugural address. The passage is too long to excerpt here, but like David Levitin taking on "Ode to Joy", Williams is expert in figuring out what makes things tick, and finding the hidden blueprints for beauty.

The science of a human obsession

2007-04-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Daniel Levitin's book This is Your Brain on Music, an exploration of the neuroscience of music-making and music-listening. The book is filled with interesting case studies, and compelling explanations of what makes certain musical experiences tickling, addictive, or irritating:

"Music theorists have identified a principle called gap fill; in a sequence of tones, if a melody makes a large leap, either up or down, the next note should change direction... In 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow,' the melody begins with one of the largest leaps we've ever experienced in a lifetime of music listening: an octave. This is a strong scehmatic violation, and so the composer rewards and soothes us by bringing the melody back toward home again, but not by too much—he does come down, but only by one scale degree—because he wants to continue to build tension..."

"[In Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ('Ode to Joy')], the main melodic theme is simply the notes of the scale... But Beethoven makes it interesting by violating our expectations. He starts on a strange note and ends on a strange note. He starts on the third degree of the scale (as he did on the 'Pathetique' Sonata), rather than the root, and then goes up in a stepwise fashion, then turns around and comes down again. When he gets to the root—the most stable tone—rather than staying there he comes up again, up to the note we started on, then back down so that we think and we expect he will hit the root again, but he doesn't; he stays right there on re, the second scale degree. The piece needs to resolve to the root, but Beethoven keeps us hanging there, where we least expect to be. He then runs the entire motif again, and only on the second time through does he meet our expectations. But now, that expectation is more interesting because of the ambiguity: We wonder if, like Lucy waiting for Charlie Brown, he will pull the football of resolution away from us at the last minute."

Go green by getting lazy

2007-03-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

From Worldchanging blogger Karl Shroeder:

"There is a secret to changing your behavior. The trick is not to trust your own willpower. Instead, arrange conditions outside yourself such that the desired new behaviour is always your laziest option."

The kids these days

2007-03-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

Creative Commons founder Larry Lessig:

"We have to recognize that kids are different from us. We watch TV, they make TV. It is technology that has made them different." (As reported by Bruno Giussani on TED Blog.)

And the wisdom to know the difference

2007-03-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

Joel Makower summaries this month's HBR and Atlantic cover stories on how companies can manage the risks and opportunities of climate change.

Virtual worlds meet Web 2.0

2007-03-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

More on the increasing integration of immersive virtual worlds and Web 2.0 (3pointd).

Crescent moon from Earth's orbit

2007-03-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

Check out this recent astronomy picture of the day, as blogged by Jamais Cascio at Open the Future.

Heading for Virtual Worlds

2007-03-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

I'm busy packing for the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference in NYC. It should be an exciting two days.

I'm a bit behind in my blog scanning, but here are some nifty articles on virtual worlds and VR that caught my eye this week:

Information Week on the future of the web browser
Linden Labs expands to Seattle and Brighton
BusinessWeek reviews VR/mixed reality innovations for business
The Economist on VR & gaming
David Car on the plumbing and scalability of SL

Harry Potter and the FSC-certified paper

2007-03-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Scholastic and the Rainforest Action Network announce that the 7th and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be printed on 65% FSC-certified paper.

Android dream

2007-03-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

A beautiful networked screensaver from ElectricSheep.org.

Millenials and viral marketing

2007-03-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

Check out AdAge for this review of a UK teen road safety campaign that gets the message, the medium and the distribution all exactly right.

Markets vs. networks vs. communities

2007-03-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

Umair Haque has been posting recently at Bubblegeneration about the differences between markets, networks, and communities as drivers of media/web 2.0 innovation. A nice distinction.

Clean Energy Trends 2007

2007-03-10T07:14:00.000-08:00

Joel Makower and Clean Edge have released their free report on the most important clean energy trends for 2007, including the following top five:

the traction of carbon markets

the growth of closed-loop biorefineries

the promising growth of advanced batteries

Wal-Mart's unexpected clout as a clean-energy market maker

energy utilities' growing enlightenment around renewable energy

New Raku-Raku phone targets seniors

2007-03-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

NTT DoCoMo's new handset includes "Slow Voice" and "Clear Voice" features, as well as automatic volume adjustment.

Art & Fear

2007-03-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

A great little book from David Bayles & Ted Orland, with immediately practical advice for art, business, and life.

Muji comes to NYC

2007-03-05T18:16:00.001-08:00

The first Muji flagship store in the U.S. will open in the Times Tower in time for holiday 2007.

New coat of paint

2007-03-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

As some of you might have noticed, I've started to tinker with the site design for The Conversationalist. I've retired the light-on-dark color palette, and have started to move about some of the page elements. Expect to see more changes in the coming weeks.

Feel free to send me suggestions for anything you think would make the site more useful and readable. In the meantime, a big thank you to Marimekko Chase for her help on the changes that went live last night!

Buy less

2007-02-27T12:21:00.000-08:00

Although I admire its good intentions, I have to say that in terms of efficacy and overall business model, I'm not a big fan of (RED). Worldchanging and SSI made some particularly strong critiques in fall 2006... I would love to see some more recent and more complete data.

Today, one of my clients showed me this serious parody site, which makes some of the same points a bit more provocatively.

As advertised: Rainbows End

2007-02-23T15:46:00.000-08:00

While fighting the latest cold this week, I finally got around to reading Vernor Vinge's sci-fi novel Rainbows End. It in every way lived up to its hype. A seamless and sophisticated look at the world of 2025, and where current technology and social media trends might be heading. Thankfully, it's also a well-written and engaging story.

Viral, sticky, good

2007-02-18T17:49:00.000-08:00

I'm loving this short post from Nina Simon at Museum 2.0, on the differences between viral, sticky, and good. (As blogged by Satchmo Prototype at The Daily Graze.)

GreenDimes

2007-02-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

Here's an easy and cheap way to stop junk mail, save some trees, plant some more, and protect yourself against identity theft. (As blogged by Adam at TerraBlog.)

Conversations with Other Women

2007-02-16T10:38:00.001-08:00

I saw a terrific movie last night. "Conversations with Other Women" is a poignant modern love story in the style of "Before Sunset" and "Lost in Translation," and very much in the same league.

The director Hans Canosa uses split-screens to follow each character's separate point of view. The gimmick works perfectly... adding immediacy and depth, and in the Canosa's words, creating the "holy grail" of a truly unique love scene.

Watch the movie, then check out the director's profile on Apple.com.

HP redesigns ink & toner package to reduce greenhouse emissions

2007-02-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

A good example of a press release quantifying how lighter, recycled packaging can reduce a company's carbon footprint.

Cukoo for BumpTop

2007-02-13T08:12:00.000-08:00

Mark Wallace at 3pointD just posted this YouTube clip of BumpTop, a new GUI desktop prototype that preserves the human logic of messy-desk organizing systems.

I started out thinking that the interface was just cute, but half-way through the video, I started to see its real value.

Steve Jobs: Thoughts on music

2007-02-10T10:26:00.000-08:00

A short essay from Steve Jobs on the future of DRM.

Powerful people can't draw a reversed "E" on their foreheads

2007-02-09T15:18:00.000-08:00

An intriguing psychological experiment about the (potentially inverse) relationship between power and empathy. As blogged by collision detection.

Earthify mashup

2007-02-09T14:30:00.000-08:00

A cool new tool that maps Craigslist postings on Google Earth.

Amoeba's Big Green Box

2007-02-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

Local music mega super community store Amoeba Records has introduced a Big Green Box at its Hollywood store where customers can turn in e-waste for recycling seven days a week. With other innovations like selling CFL lightbulbs along with CDs and DVDs, Amoeba is "turning out to be a huge independent music store with a big green heart" (via Worldchanging).

Tea with jam, jam and bread

2007-02-01T07:39:00.000-08:00

My singing teacher went to voice instruction bootcamp in LA last month, and the tips he came back with have been pure gold. The program he attended was with Lisa Popeil, who has a lecture series and DVDs that very, very quickly convey how to support the voice, add emotion and color, and sing appropriately for many different genres: classical, r&b, country, pop, etc.

Okay, so there are a million other books and programs out there, but my teacher and I agree that I've made as much progress in the past two weeks as the past six months. Definitely check out Lisa's program if you're interested in serenading your sweetheart or knocking 'em dead at karaoke.

Corporate World Meet Web 2.0

2007-01-30T22:21:00.000-08:00

As blogged in Beyond the Beyond, and originally uploaded by gtmcknight.

The High Purpose Company

2007-01-30T15:49:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Christine Arena's "The High Purpose Company" and recommend it to any companies who want to marry doing well with doing good. There are several inspiring books out there that make the case for marrying wealth creation and social responsibility, as well as a lot of data-driven analyses, but Arena's book is one of the first I've seen that connects all those dots: purpose, culture, business DNA, and metrics.

Arena's book is filled with great examples—and just yesterday, I came across a new one: this Techcrunch article where co-founder Sergey Brin at Google admits that going into China with a censored search engine was a "net negative" for their business.

The future of education

2007-01-30T14:02:00.000-08:00

A stellar map of future forces affecting education from the smart folks at the KnowledgeWorks Foundation and the Institute For The Future.

My picks from Sundance

2007-01-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

In my four days at Sundance, I saw some great films. These were my favorites:

Protagonist: My top fave. I connected immediately with this story of four men's lives twisted unrecognizably by good intentions, stubbornness, and bad luck. The director Jessive Yu used puppets, Euripides, and unflinching honesty to tell four distinct stories and find the echoes between them.

The Pool: A young room boy in Goa climbs a mango tree to catch a glimpse a rich man's swimming pool... and a subtle, unexpected story unfolds, with flawless child acting, terrific music, and an equal mix of humor and ache. Director Chris Smith's follow-up to American Movie.

No End In Sight: A powerful summary of the Bush administration's bungling of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. An unfortunate sequel to Fahrenheit 911, told with authority, and punctuated by images of smart, responsible soldiers and politicians silently facing the camera, their faces filled with loss and anger.

The Substitute and Bitch: Two accomplished and funny shorts, countering this year's "Sad-dance" trend. The Substitute can be streamed from Sundance.org—I'm keeping my eye out for Lilah Vanderburgh's Bitch.

And out of all the movies I didn't see, I'm especially looking forward to Manda Bala (the clips were fantastic) and Never Forever.

Can polyester save the world?

2007-01-29T08:54:00.000-08:00

What the world needs now: a wearable, recyclable technical nutrient. (NY Times)

Design is the new advertising

2007-01-29T08:47:00.000-08:00

From Marc Gobé, author of the forthcoming "Brandjam":

"Design is the new advertising...The only advertising that works is about product that you’re drawn to anyway." (as blogged in Design Observer)

Visualizing world trends

2007-01-29T08:21:00.000-08:00

Gapminder pushes the visual display of quantitative information.

Greetings from Park City

2007-01-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

I've been at the Sundance Festival this week, having a blast, and falling way behind in my blogging.

One treat for me the past few days has been hearing how directors are using social networking sites to complete and inspire their artistic vision.

Documentary filmmaker Annie Sundberg ("The Devil Came on Horseback") found hours of B roll footage on YouTube from the only videographer still filming in Darfur after Sudan kicked journalists out of the country
Nelson George ("Life Support") fleshed out his film's soundtrack with music found on MySpace
Jessica Yu ("Protagonist") said that one way she looked for interviewees who fit her concept—a modern exploration of Euripedes using real documentary subjects and puppets—was to Google phrases like "and I suddenly realized that"

More soon, once I'm back in San Francisco...

BW takes on global citizenship

2007-01-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

For my dayjob, I help companies find ways to use environmental and social good as levers for business growth. This is highly gratifying work, but it isn't always the easiest conversation to start... Until recently, many companies have framed their global citizenship programs as ways to "give back" or "do less bad." Meanwhile, William McDonough and others have noted that the real innovation and profit comes from finding ways to be "all good" and weaving eco and social responsibility into a company's primary business DNA.

Since it adds fuel to the fire, it's gratifying to see BusinessWeek take on this very topic in today's cover story "Beyond the Green Corporation." The article includes a lot of great examples of what traditional companies like Unilever, GE, Wal-Mart, and Philips are doing—as well as an honest account of why high-profile sustainability programs at Ford and BP have failed to deliver. I also liked the stats suggesting how social responsibility, not just environmental sustainabilty, can impact the bottom line:

"New York's Communications Consulting Worldwide (CCW), which studies issues such as reputation, puts it in stark dollars and cents. CCW calculates that if Wal-Mart had a reputation like that of rival Target Corp. (TGT ), its stock would be worth 8.4% more, adding $16 billion in market capitalization."