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Off-the-Wall Ideas
Talking about this problem with friends at dinner tonight, it dawned on me that the theme should have been, could have been (is it too late now?) -- "Fight Oil, Not Terrorism." That focuses on the long-term health of the economy as well as the environment. In 20 years, oil will be dead. We'll have to be dependent on alternatives. The sooner we get there the better. Concentrating resources on technological efforts to develop alternatives to oil and on marketing incentives to change the long-held habits of both corporations and individuals could jump-start and sustain the economy for years. And the network of products and services that should follow could put the US at an enormous competitive advantage in the global arena. At the same time, that would mean that energy and investment would not be directed toward finding new sources of oil. In the alternative scenario, toward which we are heading, as existing supplies are depleted and demand keeps increasing, finding new sources of oil becomes an economic imperative and drives us to explore and exploit new supplies in regions that should be preserved because of concerns about the global environment. By taking away the incentive to destroy the environment, you preserve the environment.
The slogan also takes into account that the chaos in the Middle East results from the world's over-dependence on oil. Fight the cause, not the symptom. Fight oil, not terrorism.
The clash of Western culture and Moslem/Arab culture comes from the influx of Western businesses and Western workers dealing with oil and all the subsidiary businesses that depend on the oil business. The oil-generated influx of Western money, concentrating in the hands of the few, broadens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. The ready availability of Western entertainment, targeted first at the Westerners and the haves of that region, spreads Hollywood-style images of Western wealth and life styles, spreading discontent, both economic (wanting a standard of living that is shown as common in the West, but feels unattainable by many in the region) and religious (showing images of lifestyles that run counter to traditional religious beliefs and cultural practices, and that are tempting; and such lifestyles are all the more hated because of the temptation and because they sense of their own vulnerability). And of course power politics and high-stakes business competition focus on a region that is important not just for the value of its natural resources, but because the entire world economy depends on a single commodity, and the global availability of that commodity could be at risk if the local situation gets out of hand. Local politics has global implications. Under normal circumstances, the US would not care who ruled Iraq or how. As indicated in the UN Charter, the internal politics of a sovereign state should depend on the will of its citizens, without outside interference.
But it is as if the world, by relying too heavily on oil, were vastly increasing the economic gravity of oil. And this increasing gravity is distorting the space-time continuum of global economics and politics. And if this were allowed to continue, the Middle East could become the political and economic equivalent of a black hole. Already the political-economic fabric of the US has been stretched and twisted so far by these forces that this country, for the first time in its history, waged a pre-emptive, aggressive war;. and not only did the decision to go to war generate comparatively little protest, but the person most visibly responsible for it now dares to run for re-election, despite revelations that the justification of the war was based on bogus "intelligence."
The slogan also works well because of Bush's close association with the oil industry. In a broad sense, it means fight the influence that industies like oil wield in Washington.
So if this makes sense to you, and if you happen to be in the audience when Kerry makes a campaign stop in your area, find occasion to stand up and shout "Fight Oil, Not Terrorism!"
And if you happen to know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody else in the Kerry campaign team, pass along the word "Fight Oil, Not Terrorism!"
Maybe it's not too late. Maybe we can still make a difference and stop Bush. And even if Kerry loses, maybe this could become a rallying cry that transcends parties and personalities, and helps focus the efforts of well-meaning people for years to come.
So it occurred to me that that's a natural product that someone could make a fortune on. We have removal products for just about everything else a woman puts on herself -- nail-polish remover, all kinds of makeup removers. So why not perfume?
Such a product could be a winner in and of itself, but it also could be a boon to the perfume industry. If you could quickly, easily, and effectively remove a fragrance, you could get into the habit of changing frangrances, as often as you change your clothes or your makeup. They could market morning, afternoon, evening, and bedtime fragrances. They could market fragrances for business, for at home, for shopping, for social occasions. With the right advertising, people could become convinced that such changes are not just an option, but rather a social necessity. You'd feel naked without the right fragance, or maybe you'd feel just as gauche using the wrong perfume as you would wearing the kind of clothes or the wrong level of makeup for the occasion.
It's amazing how the right product and the right advertising can help redefine for us what is natural, appropriate, and necessary.
So who is going to make this one?
Someone should set up to do that kind of thing on a regular basis, for all kinds of sporting events (and other events as well). Set up so season ticket holders and others who have tickets but won't be able to use them can donate those tickets. The general public can them bid on those tickets. The money goes to the charity. And the original donor should get the tax credit for the donation -- because that was in fact the market value of the goods donated. But a professional would have to evaluate if that's the way the tax credit would be awarded and also on whether and where this appoach would be legal.
One of our customers, Bruce Blanchard, suggested, "... appeal to a sense of culture which brings us together as people. Make us feel part of the process of our history and bring the "need to know." Politicians have been doing this for ages. Richard, bring the reader into to the sale Bring him/herself into the future. Politics holds few apologies. What i am saying is sell what you have with the needs we reach out for. Encourage us to grasp beyond. Your words will matter big time. You are not grasping money from our hand, you are providing the product to make us realize our dreams. You have opened up so nice and I love it. Prove to me you're worthy of distinction."
So here's the big picture:
The transformation of books to electronic form is a revolutionary technological innovation. But while such books are now readily available from many sites on the Internet, they are not yet widely used, enjoyed, and appreciated. What's needed are creative applications of this technology that capture the imagination, that make these texts truly useful and valuable in everyday life.
The nature and size of a "book" is an accident of paper and print. Electronic publishing makes new forms possible, but for the most part we continue to mimic the printed book in a new medium.
So what is there to capture the imagination? Three elements, I believe.
1) books as building blocks for cultural contexts
With paper, every additional page means more cost as well as bulkiness and weight, making the work more difficult to handle and to store. In electronic form, size does not matter. A file is a file is a file, whether it is 10 kbytes (a page or two) or 300 kbytes (about the size of Huckleberry Finn) or hundreds of megabytes (as on our CDs) or even several gigabytes (as our Complete Book DVD in its current form).
With books in electronic form, the "book" need not be the finished product, rather it can be a building block. By putting books together in interesting combinations, you can stimulate readers to recognize important connections that could have passed unnoticed, at the same time as making it easy for a reader to follow-up references and also follow trains of thought inspired by the first work.
In the first stage, we are making our CDs not just random collections of text, but rather complete contexts -- by theme, genre, geography, time period, and author.
As demand builds, we hope to offer contemporary works in such contexts -- as we have done with the works of novelist Roberta Kalechofsky -- where recent books take on new meaning who juxtaposed with other works that influenced them and amplify their message. You don't just get a novel, or a dozen novels by the same author -- you get hundreds of related books, an entire cultural tradition, an environment that fosters the growth of new ideas.
2) books and contexts can change and grow rapidly
With paper, books tend to be static -- once a book is published, change is expensive and slow. It might be a year or ten years before another edition is released. More often, the book goes out of print without ever achieving a second edition.
Books in electronic form can be dynamic. It is very easy to make changes and to disseminate new versions. Over time, we expect that authors will take advantage of this capability, though for now the best known ones are still caught up in the world of paper printing, and don't know how to continuously improve and grow their works, while making them widely available.
For now, most readily available books in electronic form are older works, in the public domain. So creativity and change show up in the combinations of these works rather than in their creation and modification. We currently update the contents of our CDs and DVDs, adding dozens or even hundreds of new books to an existing CDs two, three, or even four times a year. And we plan to update our DVDs far more frequently than that. we are always open to suggestions for new ways to combine texts for distribution on CDs and DVDs, including personal anthologies.
3) books as an environment in which readers can actively participate
With printed books, the book is an object you hold in your hand. It is something separate from you. You may well appreciate and enjoy "great works", but at the same time they are intimidating -- they in a sense might emphasize your unworthiness. The great ones did this and thought this, and we, in awe, study their works. Print distances us from the realm of creativity. Only few will ever succeed in having their work recognized as deserving the honor of being print-published.
With electronic books, you can be immediately immersed in an environment of ideas and creativity. You can save books on your hard drive and add your own highlighting and comments and related thoughts and save those with the original book. Each book can become your personal commonplace book -- like a diary of your personal development, your tastes and inspirations, as well as your own related writings. And of course you can combine by juxtaposition or even with hyperlinks various works that you love and in which you sense an important, but not obvious connection.
At the same time, the barriers to "publication" go down as the costs of copying and disseminating works plummets. That means that more people venture to "publish" their own works -- on the Internet, on CD, on DVD -- sometimes doing it for free (for the pleasure and the stimulation of having an audience and interacting with that audience).
The best example I've seen of that phenomenon is "fanfics". These are story-length and book-length works based on popular TV, movie, videogame, and book characters and situations (many are based on Japanese anime creations). They are typically written by teenagers and posted on the Web, available for anyone to read them for free. There are tens of thousands of them available today, with the numbers growing fast. In some cases, the writing is exceptionally good. The imagination and creativity shown by these works is extraordinary. But you have to work your way through lots of dross to find the best. Other creative fans make their own selections of what they believe to be the best, acting as volunteer self-appointed editors. (My 14-year-old son, Tim, acts as both an author and an editor of fanfics. You can read his selections at http://www.samizdat.com/fanfics )
At some point, hopefully -- if we're lucky, sometime in the next century -- legislators will wake up and alter copyright laws to make more rather than fewer books freely available in the public domain, to encourage adaptability and growth of works of the imagination, and to encourage rather than discourage this variety of creativity. But even within the limits of current law much is possible that was never possible before. We can all begin to participate in, rather than just watch and study, the joint adventure of mankind -- trying to understand ourselves and the world we live in and the ways we interrelate; using the written word to talk together across the globe and across centuries, finding words that spark new thoughts in us and writing words that spark new thoughts in others.
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