Re-Educating for Zero Waste

While actually achieving zero waste in the physical sense is impossible, as an ideal it is a worthy goal to shoot for. The degree to which we use (and reuse) the items we buy is the degree to which they hold value for us. Whenever we buy an item, but do not explore all options for extracting value from it, we waste some of the money and time spent acquiring it. Multiply that by the millions of people worldwide who are doing the same, and you have a significant problem with global economics.

Resources aren't scarce, we just waste them left and right. In fact, we have been educated to do just that. Any ongoing business model requires ongoing saleable products. The faster the market saturates, the sooner the business is out of business. So businesses have two options: continuously generate new and exciting products that people want or need, or use marketing to convince people that they want or need to re-purchase old products. The second is easier to accomplish, especially for a business that has enough money to launch a mass media marketing campaign.

To be successful in marketing required an increase in the volume of products to be sold, which on turn, required an increasing demand. However, numerous products were becoming mass-produced that were really not consumable—and so consumers were becoming satisfied. How many TVs does one family need? So mainstream marketing slowly evolved into a tool for re-educating the masses.

Media was used to create a culture where the newest and best was emotionally important to people, so they learned to disregard the rational idea of conserving waste ("I don't need a new one, yet.") and replace it with the irrational idea of status ("My stuff is my worth.")

All of this was fine as long as the economy was in a state of growth, but as soon as the problem with waste reached a critical mass and wages began to suffer, there simply was not enough money to continue on that path. Unfortunately, the consumer credit industry stepped in, allowing us to differ fate for more time and make the problem bigger.

The solution, of course, begins with a strategy to approach zero waste in our households, businesses, and communities. And I don't mean just recycling, but actually using every ounce of value from a product before it goes anywhere—even if it has to go to the dump—or using the waste to create something else of value. This goal presents many opportunities to enterprising individuals.

One of my favorite small businesses sells a product called "Turnadaisy." These lazy-susan style tabletops are made from repurposed power line spools, and are designed to be used in a number of applications, from greenhouse hydroponics to convenient serving trays. They keep trash out of the landfills, provide a useful product, and an income to their creators. I'd bet they could even pay the salaries of a few marketers as well!

Now that's what we need to found companies on.

[Republished from Jan 14, 2011]

The Folly of the Performer

It is important to understand one's role in any organization and/or endeavor. Some people have a natural inclination to create. Others possess the ability to sell. Both concepts overlap and people sometimes get confused about their abilities and their proper role.

To create and develop a composition is an invisible enterprise. That is, it is often done by one person or a small group of like-minded individuals behind closed doors. It can be created in its entirety and unveiled all at once, or it can be exposed in stages. Either way, the finished product speaks for itself.

At least, this is the ideal. However, the nature of the discovery-creation-unveiling process gives it the weakness of permanence. Once it is written, it is written in stone. It can be updated, recalled, or added to, but the thing still exists in the minds of the audience—and great first impressions are critical.

This is where marketers come in. Once a thing exists, it is the job of these people to perform the task of finding a home for the thing. They can overcome bad first impressions with the strength of their character and proper promoting of the hidden gems within a misunderstood product.

Their proper role is to find a home for the thing, not to reinvent the thing.

This is often the folly of the performer. Because the fate of the product depends upon their ability to relate it to their audience, marketers often think that the product's real form is irrelevant. They fancy themselves creators, and use words and stories to make a product out to be more than it really is.

But a product—even a fictional story or a piece of fine art—is what it is, and not what a skilled performer can make you believe it is. Any marketing materials that are created must be dependent upon the original creation. If not, then they are devoid of value. Every time a performer "gets away with it" he's really only building himself a house of cards, and it doesn't take long before the edifice collapses under its own weight—often without a clear connection to this root cause.

If you want to tell stories, GREAT! Create stories, and hone your craft. If you're trying to sell a product, I'd recommend selling the product, not some trumped-up fiction about the product.

Lives Like Rubik's Cube

The thing that is both interesting and frustrating about life is that we all start out in a different place. Each one of us is a complicated jumble of different aspects—both good ones and bad ones. In fact, some of us even have aspects each which would otherwise be good, but are in conflict with one another.

For much of the beginning of our lives, we spend time just making the jumble worse. There are as many reasons this is true as there are people for it to be true about. Some lives become more jumbled than others, but they are all solveable—just like Rubik's Cube. Hey, no one ever said life was easy!

I'm a big believer in the singularity of truth. That is, no matter how jumbled and different we appear at first, there is a path that will lead us to the same place. Now, I don't mean we should seek to be clones—this is where the analogy breaks down. Unlike a Rubik's Cube, human lives have layers of depth. The deeper one goes, the more he should find in common with his fellow men, or else he is fundamentally flawed. We don't need to look the same on the surface, but our hearts should beat as one.

In the name of diversity, today's media has sold us on the idea that we don't need to change anything about ourselves. In effect, the masses want to believe that a jumbled Rubik's Cube is the way they were born and the way they must stay. Mainstream media and mass marketing, then, tend to generate their content accordingly. These two channels are awash with politicians and businessmen who want to make life easier for the little guy.

They mean well from their perspective, of course. Some measure of convenience in every area of life is the advantage that human civilization has over the animal kingdom. However, the other advantage we have over the animals is the ability to continuously improve. The more individuals take responsibility for solving their own small problems, the more prevalent innovation and ingenuity is.

These inventions of the human mind are valuable and can be traded for other inventions. In this way, civilization increases in total value and, subsequently, wealth. When media develops a culture where the widespread belief is that an elite few—those born without a jumbled Rubik's Cube—are responsible for all the inventions, initiative slows and civilization decreases in value.

But this is just a lie. It is true that some lives are less jumbled than others—and it has less to do with financial advantage than you may think—while others are extremely jumbled. However, there seems to be something in the human spirit that enables us to solve these puzzles the more difficult they are. Perhaps, it's that the extremely jumbled cases seem beyond hope to the aforementioned politicians and businessmen so they're on their own. Maybe it's because these jumbled individuals are more driven to work on themselves and so gain more momentum.

One thing repeats throughout history: more is created by those at a disadvantage than by a king in his throne. So how hard are you trying to solve your Cube?

The Gap

Can you imagine if FITmedia as a company were to buy the license to show certain TV shows and movies at exclusive watching parties? The shows and movies would of course be advertising free. The advertising to pay for the event would then come from the distribution of promotional, trial, coupon type deals that each affiliate would bring in their own right—either because they own a business which they are promoting, or because they have found one they can get paid to promote.

When advertising is mass marketed through static media, there is a gap created between seller and buyer; between the creators of value and the appreciators of that value. Because of this gap, even products which a person might want are perceived as being forced upon them by someone who cares little for him as an individual. We would create an environment where friends give friends a good deal on stuff they actually want or need.

If we can organize events around networking and relationships, and distribute media content that promotes conversation and teaches about relationships, the companies that approach us to give us promotional material, commercial trials, etc., will necessarily be the kind of companies we actually want to work with. These companies will be interested in relationships as well and would promote further refinement of our media content's principle-based message.

The gap created by mass advertising between businesses and people tends to promote a blurring of the hard lines of natural law in the name of diversity. Instead of seeking to base stories and build product campaigns upon the bedrock of human nature (which all people and peoples have in common), they skimp on the difficult work of identifying and standing by these principles. They prefer to spin tenuous connections between superficial facets of everyday life, then promote the false dogma with stories which make it appear true.

Technology companies always think it's a great idea to use technology to make marketing less cumbersome (for them) by grabbing little snippets of information about people, connecting it with some sort of ad, and shooting it over to them without involving any actual human emotion. Unfortunately, that just seems creepy.

I just heard that Microsoft apparently thinks it's a good idea to use the new Kinect to take a snapshot of a person playing a game, look for anything around them that suggests some sort of product that they might want to buy, and then uses that information to tailor ads to them. Now I'm all for using technology to tailor ads to people to better deliver them information about products and services that they actually want to buy. How else are you going to know about products unless someone delivers you the information about where to get them?

However, technology companies seem to think that just because the piece of information can be delivered over a long distance to a lot of people that that is the best way to deliver the information. Like robots, they seem not to have any comprehension of how important relationships and the emotions of relationships are. Basically, they don't realize that every business is a people business.

Basically, customers are cynical that any companies actually care about them. In the age of information, what we need is not more information, but information delivered with a personal touch—and a lasting relationship. Who do you watch TV with?

Selling Out

Fans, especially überfans, are very concerned about this concept of "selling out." However, corner them about a definition of the phrase, and they usually cannot produce anything coherent. Answers range from "Oh, I don't know," to "Well, it's like, um."

All joking aside, have you ever tried to define a sell-out? Two things come to mind when I try to answer this question, and I hope my analysis will better equip you to communicate your concerns to your favorite artists and their respective agents, managers, and business executives.

The first is a financial sell-out. This is most readily identified by a connection to a third-party commercial product. Depending on the artist's intentions and goals, this may or may not be selling out at all. In the Information Age, art is cheap to create and distribute, provided you find your creative spark, and it follows that the end product is expected to be inexpensive or even free.

This doesn't mean that the artist is bound for poverty, it just means that he or she must also creatively leverage the art to develop revenue. This concept of leverage is foreign to most people in the "work-a-day" world, but entails connecting a third party (who has something to sell) with your fanbase. There are many ways to execute this, but basically the artist earns a commission of some sort off the sales made because of his art.

For this not to be a sell-out, the third-party has to share the same intentions and goals as the artist, and be offering a product that the fans actually want. While generic sponsorship (i.e.: fast food corporations) might lead to short-term revenue, the reputation of the sponsor becomes an issue. When the fans dislike the sponsor, they feel abused by the artist. This has a long-term degenerative effect.

Which leads me to the second, and more critical form of selling out: the compromise of one's principles. To gain any sort of fanbase, a creator must be equipped to create art which resonates with a number of people. Basically, to "resonate" is to be harmonious with certain universal truths. The wiser the artist, the more universal the art, and the greater the fanbase. (This is different than formulaic elements, which only superficially represent real life.)

When an artist gets comfortable and chooses to stop pushing the envelope of his art, he relies more and more on what worked before. This, in my opinion, means he has actually stopped being an artist entirely. To stop uncovering universal truths or expressing them in new ways is to compromise the very thing that makes your creation a work of art. That being said, the main issue comes in making that choice. Every artist hits a wall from time to time and must backpedal to find his way again.

One must remember the natural cycles of any business, and art is ultimately a business if it's not a hobby. As the überfans naturally share what they love with those who don't yet know or understand, the balance will naturally shift away from a heavy concentration of überfans to a general and mainstream appreciation. This is not selling out, but moving on. Some überfans may move on as well, because the less they feel they're part of an exclusive thing, the less they care to be a part of it.

Ultimately, I think selling out means betraying your fans, especially your überfans. If you can't sell the vast majority of your überfans on the change, then you've bitten the hand that feeds you. On the other hand (pun intended), if the change brings your art closer to its FIT state, then your fans will either come around or they weren't true fans—either way, you'll increase your überfanbase.

FEATURED MEDIA: Adaptation - Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is given an assignment to write an adaptation of a book. This not being what he usually does, Charlie can't help but write a crazy story about a secret love affair and drug trafficking mystery, which himself and his fictional twin brother are forced to solve.

That 2:30 Feeling

The media loves to paint pictures of the status quo. They love to tell you what's normal, including the pain, the drudgery, and the fatigue. These are facts of life, they say. No one likes working for someone else, but "ya gotta do what ya gotta do." Sure you'd love to eat healthy, but fast food is cheap and, well, fast.

Their partners in crime, consumer marketing, are then on hand to deliver solutions to the "problems." Have pain? Take pills. Don't like lots of pills? Take fewer pills, but always take them every day! In a rut? Lease a car! Tired? Got that 2:30 feeling? Drink caffeine. Hate the crash? Drink something worse.

The fact that so many of us can sympathize with the idea of a "2:30 feeling," ought to be a sign that something is very wrong. It is not normal to be tired at 2:30 in the afternoon.

As a culture, we have some seriously messed up habits. Some are for things we do, and others are for things we avoid. Mostly, however, an open minded and thorough investigation would reveal the following: We don't get enough well-rounded exercise. We eat, well, we eat toxins. We consume so many preservatives alone that our bodies hold up better than the casket (that might be an exaggeration, but you get the picture).

When we do stress our bodies, it is rarely in well-rounded and productive ways. We overexert at a moment's notice, never giving forethought to preparation. And I'd hazard a guess that many people would consider that exercise—I know I'm guilty.

If that isn't enough, the rest of our problems are directly self-inflicted through our lifestyles—and I'm not talking about alternative lifestyles. I mean even the most "straight" people (in whatever way), will stay up way too late. They skip breakfast, race through traffic, then stress out about whether or not the boss is going to say anything.

No wonder you're dead tired by 2:30!

Discipline and time-management skills are as important to fitness as good exercise and a balanced diet. Consuming excito-toxins, such as those found in conventional energy drinks is no more a solution to the real problem than is having a friend punch you in on time and hoping you don't get caught.

FEATURED PRODUCT: MonaVie Emv - The world's first all-natural energy drink. It gives up to 5 hours of energy with no jitters and no crash—the way food is supposed to work. It's a health drink that gives you energy.

FEATURED MEDIA: Fight Club - While quite dark and overdone, this movie is nonetheless a poignant portrayal of corporate frustration and a rage against consumerism. It serves as a platform for discussion by expressing violence usually boiling just below the surface of a passive-aggressive demeanor.

The Mechanics of the Status Quo

We are fighting not for the liberation of bodies, but for the liberation and subsequent independence of hearts and minds against a machine commanded by those who wish to create a rigid class-system which will benefit the interested parties' respective political and commercial interests, and which seeks to fortify those benefits against all development of merit in the lower classes.

This is a statement, which I believe sums up the whole of the battle of the mind being waged under our very noses. It is precisely the battle to which FITmedia seeks to introduce people, that we as a democratic society may learn to hold our own against such an attempt. There are many more worthy organizations already engaged in the creation of truthful media—especially in books and blogs. However, support is lacking for the cause of changing large-scale media (such as television series) from a firmly entrenched propagator of the status quo into the intellectually challenging liberal art, which it can and should be.

Too many of us see the world through the "either/or" filter given to us by political pundits. Every societal issue is increasingly judged as either Liberal or Conservative. This and that, us and them. No matter what we are encouraged to think of ourselves and our parties (political or otherwise) as being in the right, while those in opposition to us are totally in the wrong.

Neither are we aware, nor do we question, the source of our convictions. Often we find that at some point in our lives we bought into an ideology, given to us in total by the media we individually selected on preference. Hunting or shooting enthusiasts have an interest in the NRA, and are therefore sold into the hands of the Republican Party. Animal activists have an interest in PETA, and are therefore sold into the hands of the Democrats.

Of course, these are stereotypes or broad, sweeping generalizations, and that is precisely my point. In this case A ≠ B ≠ C, or for the symbolically disinclined, the path of association is a contrived one—largely invented by mainstream media in an effort to market to the greatest number of interested persons. It is the opinion of the people running the machine that if you have a particular interest, then you must agree completely with the most general and largest organization that supports that interest. It follows along the same faulty line of reasoning that you would then fit into the political party which promotes that organization's interests.

The devastating thing to our society is that, largely, those in control are correct—at least, based upon the results of their actions. Our total experience in life (from education to religion to the media) rarely if ever encourages us to understand those with opposing opinions to our own. Not to criticize any one site, but we are bombarded by "smart" marketing, which tries to tell us what we would like, based upon what we already bought. However, the consequences of this is a tendency for people to live in a world of their own design—unknowingly shielded from the challenge of differing opinions. They become close-minded, almost through no fault of their own, but in their ignorance of the big picture they play the hand that is dealt them.

The two party system is irrelevant. Both sides have their strengths and weaknesses. Both are right and both are wrong. The true split lies not in the smoke and mirrors of bipartisan issues, but in the difference between those who seek to create change, and those who seek to avoid change. The former group sees the future as bright. They want to develop themselves, create abundance, and help others to do the same. The latter group sees only past failures and future risks. They seek only to develop their personal comfort, while using what power they can obtain to show mercy to the "helpless" individuals whom they favor (mostly for selfish reasons).

If you and I are to rise in life (whatever our current stations), we must develop ourselves, become truly open minded, and gain a peaceful heart. We must seek out the challenge of opposing information, taking upon ourselves the responsibility of discerning the truth. We must understand that to be truly successful as an originator or distributor of media, that media must be of the highest level of truth—its very gravity creating stability, viral spread, and genuine change.

What If You Got Paid?

There was a time when people were self-sufficient. They worked only when there was work to be done. The rest of the time they spent with their families and friends. Now we have debt and other financial obligations. We have to work to meet these obligations. We do it begrudgingly because somewhere inside we know that most of these obligations could have been avoided with better information and planning.

The trouble is stuff—consumer stuff. None of this stuff amounts to anything really, but the people who created the stuff told us a good story and we bought it. Good for them—they have to eat too—though this raises difficult ethical questions, which I will not discuss here. Suffice it to say, some people create stuff and other people buy the stuff, but it's a house of cards built out of hype, status, and comfort.

TV media creators (for one example) want you to watch their shows so that you'll view the commercials. The commercials drive sales for the businesses being marketed. Increased sales means increased value, which results in more revenue being paid to the media creators. But what does the audience get?

Sadly, the answer is usually a punch in the gut or a knife to the kidney. Media and marketing deliver empty entertainment, funded by useless stuff, financed by shady credit companies who pretend to be your friend. What's in your wallet? Media promotes the lifestyle, while marketing sells the tools to pretend.

Here's the point: there's a lot of money being transferred here, but the viewers don't see a dime that isn't coming out of their pockets. So if they want us to watch their stories, chase a lifestyle, and buy the accessories of that lifestyle, then why not cut us in on the money, too?

What if you got paid to do what they wanted you to do? You watch a show or a movie, you get three friends to watch it with you. How much is that worth to the creators?

A lot.

FEATURED MEDIA: Wall-E - Another great movie from Pixar! 700 years in the future, Earth is overrun by the trash created from its consumer culture. The people have flown to outer space aboard space cruise ships. A lone robot performs his duty of cleaning up the planet until he finds himself on a journey to return the people to the newly sustainable Earth.

Four Lobes of a Media Channel

When you have a media channel such as Facebook, YouTube, or Hulu, several groups of people want in on the action. We are first most consciously aware of the people—whoever they are. Next we see what it is the people are crowding around to experience. Then we suffer the obligatory ad impressions, which drives the whole thing as a business. Lastly, most of us go unaware of the people behind the scenes—the creative genius who founded the enterprise.

The people are the audience—everyone from the casual browser to the dedicated fanatic. The people are the main reason for the channel in the first place. Without them, there is no point in building a website at all. Unfortunately, the larger the crowd, the easier it is to forget how important they are. It is especially easy to ignore the power of the überfans who make up the "tribe" that will preach the message of this channel's value.

However convenient it is to have a mode of communication, it is important that there is something to talk about and engage in. This is where developers come onto the scene. Depending on the channel's specific personality, they might show up sporadically and bring a variety of different media. Facebook's platform for communcation took precedence over the now-prevalent apps and games that have been developed for it. YouTube was open to user-submitted video before anyone had heard of it. And by contrast, Hulu contains only commercially created media.

Ultimately, all the people gathered around cost-free media become targets of commercial interests. There really is no way to talk about this practice without it sounding bad, but without advertising the people have to pay for the media directly. Creators know it's not really cost-free, even when it's a labor of love. For that reason, it is easy to give into the temptation to over-power your audience with ads—afterall, the more space you sell, the more money you make.

Money is a wonderful thing, especially when it enables you to do more of what is important to you—what is important to the world. However, offending your audience is hardly productive. There need to be referees between the forces of development and sponsorship, else the two will merge into an ugly beast. These orchestrators must communicate with the people (especially the überfans) to keep a running score of how they're doing, then actually respond in kind.

I'm not criticizing any channel, I'm merely offering a warning. Whenever a company forgets the people, it starts to die. Nobody benefits from that. However, the death of a once-great giant means open opportunity for a newcomer to set things right—by listening.

FEATURED MEDIA
Tribes - The phenomenal book by Seth Godin. What he calles "tribes" are groups of people who are loyal to an idea and a leader, and who have a channel through which to communicate. Are you part of a mass, or a tribe?

Failed Marketing

High Fidelity is a good movie. There are a lot of layers to it. It isn't the deepest story I've ever seen, but it goes beyond the average—especially within its category. It is fair to call it a comedy. It is also fair to say it has a love story in it—perhaps it's even "romantic." However, it is not a "romantic comedy!" Why then, does the trailer make it look like one?

Fight Club is a good movie. Like High Fidelity, it connects with something deeper—and in this case, darker—in a man's soul. Fight Club is very violent, but it also possesses a humorous edge. The main character's struggle to find himself, is something that resonates with men trying to do the same. It is a cathartic home, if not a pathway to healing. It is especially valuable for a person seeking a solution use as a platform for discussion with a mentor. It is not, therefore, a simple action-flick. So why does the trailer make it look like one?

The answer is that there is no way to promote the sophistication of a given story in a short trailer. Never mind the fact that film marketers have little interest in or understanding of story depth, the medium of a trailer is more suited to the delivery of emotion than of rationale. Compounding the problem is the current MPAA rating system, which is a great system for gauging explicit content. It just is not equipped to gauge sophistication.

What I mean is this: a movie's rating is rarely left to chance. If they know what they're doing at all, then the producers have a target audience in mind for the production. If they want a broad audience, they will often plan to make a "PG-13" film. This eliminates the younger crowd, but still maintains a rather tame film (content-wise). However, because the rating allows those who are 13 to attend, the story must be crafted in such a way that 13 year-old can understand. This puts a limit on sophistication.

If a producer wishes to talk about deeper, more adult themes (story-wise), then he must work in several "F-bombs" or perhaps a contrived nude scene in order to achieve an "R" rating. This higher rating would eliminate "kids" from the theatre (supposedly, but that's another subject). However, the "R" rating does not ensure higher sophistication, it merely enables it. Therefore, when a trailer focuses on one-liners and violent images, there is no way to tell whether or not it is a "smart" film.

If the story is good enough, then it will eventually gain fans, win awards, and go mainstream. There is a big difference between violence, language, and nudity that serves the story and those that simply serve "entertainment." However, these smarter films suffer from a sleepy start because no one knows what to expect, and few stop to understand the value long enough to pass it on. I think many gems go needlessly unrewarded as a result.

What I propose is an additional "sophistication" rating. For example, if a person dislikes "R" rated content, but is dissatisfied with the lack of intellectual challenge in "PG-13" movies, that person should be able to select "PG-13" content with an "25+" story. By contrast, if a person has a high tolerance for "R" content, but isn't looking for a challenge, he should be able to select a movie with a "13-17" story.

This system would effectively liberate media creators to cater to either intellect or emotion. The natural flow of the market would prove which is more profitable or sustainable.

FEATURED MEDIA
High Fidelity - Based on the book by Nick Hornby, this movie tells the story of Rob Gordon, audiophile and record-store owner, whose understanding of women is phenomenally dull. His intense emotions over a recent breakup lead him to examine his life, arriving at a simple yet profound understanding of relationships.
Fight Club - Based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk, this movie follows the meltdown of a frustrated corporate professional, who meets a soap salesman named Tyler. Together, the two found "Fight Club," an underground organization for men of similar ilk to vent their frustrations on one another, and eventually on the corporate world as a whole.

The Creative Cat

There are two kinds of people in the world: producers and consumers. A consumer is the end of the productive chain, a producer is any other link in that chain—one which passes on more value to the next link, rather than less or none. It is not the purpose of this post to define these any further, for more on this subject refer to "The Producer's Mind."

There are also two kinds of producers: creators and performers.  Creators originate and innovate goods, services, and even business models. Performers make this happen, and get it into the hands of the end consumers. Creators develop and manufacture, while performers market and distribute.In the past, I've also referred to these as "developers" and "promoters," respectively. I think that the use of the words "creator" and "performer" are more general and all-inclusive.

That being said, I acknowledge that there are exceptions to any general rule. In a previous post on the subject, I discussed performers in a more technical role, and I fear, a less dignified role. I do very much respect those who perform, we need them. Without them we would have nothing, but as I also said, their art is dependent upon the creators' art.

The general form of a performer is anyone who actively does...anything. To the extent that they qualify as producers, people who work for a company are performers of that company's business system. An actor is a performer who does a performance which was prewritten by a creator. Those who work as independent marketers or distributors, perform the duty of spreading the ideas and products of the creators. The one thing they lack is a significant, original idea.

It is the defining purpose of a creator to create...something. Most of the time, a novice creator must serve as his own performer. An amateur filmmaker, would likely perform the duties of director and cameraman as well. Musicians are most revered when they create what they perform. "Pop" stars who perform songs that were written for them are scorned by more "serious" musicians and music appreciators, while those who created the songs go largely unknown—to the general populace, anyway. Though, strangely, "cover" songs, jazz performances, and orchestras performing classical music are not scorned in this way.

Let me sum this up with an analogy borrowed from a world-class performer in the field of network marketing. He said chasing one's dreams is like a dog chasing a squirrel—minus the squirrel. He's crazily zigging and zagging, to and fro. He doesn't really have a plan, just a goal and the will to make it up as he goes along.

I submit that being a creator is like a cat, who is watching the dog chase the squirrel—minus the squirrel. He's smart enough to know that the dog is chasing something, but reserved enough to know that he doesn't want to do what the dog is doing. So he watches, and waits, and plans. Then, when the timing is right, he pounces. He may more may not have success. The risk is that the cat cannot course correct as much as the dog can, it's not a bad system, just a different approach.

FEATURED MEDIA: Adaptation - A brilliant work by Charlie Kaufman, this is the story of Charlie Kaufman who is assigned the task of adapting a book, The Orchid Thief, into a screenplay. Not entirely interested in the subject matter, Charlie performs the job his boss gave him, but his creative spirit takes over as he writes himself into the story.

Think Different

Do you remember Apple Computer? Likely, the answer is, of course! My first Mac was a beige box with a rainbow apple logo, a clunky CRT monitor, and a 1.2 GB hard drive. It was a great machine for page design, web design, and word processing; but not much else. Apple was suffering greatly at that time, and the question was whether or not it would even be around in a few short years. Looking back, I don't understand what I saw in that computer. But I DID see something, because I've been loyal ever since.

The company had a campaign with a simple message: "Think Different." The print ads featured great people, free-thinkers, and world changers of history. Eventually, the apparently excommunicated founder, Steve Jobs, returned to his seat as CEO of the company which was the catalyst for the realization of this long-running motto. Grammatical correctness aside, it was a profoundly simple statement that may well have shaped my thinking life, but certainly motivated me to work harder to do so.

More than a catchy marketing slogan, the company obviously took the philosophy to heart. It has been an almost non-stop, ahead-of-the-curve innovation machine since the release of the original iMac. They feature a whole line of now-trite but catchy "i" products. I'm told it stands for "internet," but it could easily stand for "innovation." One simple letter defined an entire technophile culture—reinventing digital communication from music and movies to business and social networking. From the iPod to the iPhone, and now the iPad, Apple has even changed the way we use technology. Not only have they innovated products, but they innovated culture.

The point of all this is to ask: what did I see in the future of a struggling company, whose product was almost as beige as their competitors'? Simply, I saw something different. Inside that beige box was a heart of gold (which, incidentally, is still ticking 15+ years later). It was just easy to use, without trying to smother me with user-friendliness, and yet it was extremely reliable—with never any viruses or fatal system errors that required technical support. In short, it isn't pretty now, but it still works.

The seeds of that simple greatness have compounded for Apple to form the authority on innovation that they now are: both technology and culture leaders. How not, with a statement like this:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

How's that for Thinking Different?

FEATURED MEDIA: The Magic of Thinking Big - A tried and true manual to help you expand your thinking. Whatever you can envision is possible, it merely depends on the size of your thinking.

Creative Control

Media, money, and marketing: the three M's of any artistic/creative endeavor, which have a naturally close relationship and therefore require the close attention of the key creator(s) or artists. Media is the thing itself; the "souvenir" or the channel through which the content is transfered to the consumer. For most artists, the chosen medium is important to the specific content (i.e.: a cookie is the ideal medium for a fortune). Whatever medium is chosen, some amount of money will be needed to give it life, and once alive, marketing is needed to recoup funds at a profit—if for no other reason than to personally fund another project.

Money is the lifeblood of a project, and is necessary to even begin the process. It can be in the form of cash, as from an investment by financial backers or from the profits of a previous success. It can also be physical assets (like props or equipment), which might be given or loaned to the artist by friends or interested third-parties, or might be given or loaned to the specific project by the artist from his private resources.

Marketing is a subset of information, ideally related in character (if not in form) to the artistic content of the media. The act of including information about a product or service that is already saleable, and which is valuable to the media consumer can provide faster revenue for the artist, which ought to be of interest to financial backers. The earlier such marketing can be effectively implemented by the artist or close associate, the less the artist's media will be dependent upon third-party financial concerns and the biases they might bring to the form of the art.

The more directly an artist controls these three parts, the more freedom the artist has. The more removed the artist is from the money and the marketing, the more he is controlled by those who provide them. If it is true to say that money (cash or assets) is the lifeblood of a creative media project, then it is true to say that a media artist cannot complete his project without it. If marketing is the act of transferring information to those who find it valuable, then it presents an opportunity for a media artist to build revenue. Therefore, the degree to which the artist controls and operates the marketing which is paired with his media, is the degree to which he both maintains the integrity of his art and promotes third-party products and services which possess the same integrity.

To maintain creative control, the artist must have a hand in supplying his own funding and marketing his own product. There is a relational buffer area (as I see it) between these three parts of a total media business. Any one of these three can be in the leadership role. The determining factor is not the control of the other two, but the control of the rites of passage, as it were. The artist is creating something of value, that is a priority. He is offering a sound investment opportunity to prospective backers, and a high-class market block to prospective sponsors.

If the artist is to lead and maintain creative control, he has to lead and maintain creative control. That wasn't a misprint, but a call to action. The artist must know and trust those he is in business with, and the closer they are in friendship, the more cohesive their individual roles will be. Essentially, artist must decide—and commit to the decision—to accept only that help from others which is in tune with his personal ethics, and to hold the line on those ethics—independent of the loss of partners due to ethical differences.

You're only selling out, if you're losing creative control.

Control or Communicate?

I recently read a short article in the February issue of Wired Magazine, entitled "Brain Candy." The article is about a fledgling company called MindSign Neuromarketing, who wants to use fMRI technology to map movie viewers' brains in order to fine-tune the editing to achieve a certain [emotional] response. Writing with a general spirit of disgust, the author sarcastically promotes the idea. While the potentials for abuse are enormous, the information produced could be of great value if (and only if) it is used moderately.

My first question is how universal are fMRI results? Can a general mapping of stimulus response be a sufficient example of every human's response? As with any mass approach to information, there is the question of the bell curve. People, as we all know, are different. For every generalization, there is a portion of the population that falls as outliers. These outliers—both above and below the standard—represent those that are unreachable by a mass message tailored to the generalization. The degree to which the fMRI tests vary by the individual, is the degree to which any generalization would produce a murky result. If, on the other hand, the results of the fMRI tests are a spot-on standard for all humans, then there would be no outliers.

The less outliers there are, the less resistance there would be against sales campaigns that border on mind-control. That being said, those who are susceptible to the emotional message of a Hollywood movie, a TV commercial, etc. still have the free choice to run contrary to their emotions in the favor of logical conclusions. The need for rational mentors and role models would become more important than ever. Like any drug to which the body can become acclimatized, the mind can develop similar modes of defense with help. This would have the effect of promoting logic—the opposite of what MindSign seeks to exploit.

Mind control aside, this technology represents the possibility of building a mountain of data for use by media creators to more effectively communicate the truth of their message. Part of the problem with any medium is its inherently static nature. It is what it is, and generally cannot be custom-fit to the individual. Even if the content is founded on universal truths, the expression of those truths might get lost in translation for some people. A universal language of expression would work wonders to tear down these barriers.

All in all, new technology comes with both strengths and weaknesses, and therefore only constitutes progress to the degree that the sum-total of its effects is positive. If "neuromarketing" has a chance to replace all other forms of marketing, we must make certain that it is because it is more effective in communicating truth, and not just because it is easier to make people comply with commercial ideology. The value of a skilled marketer is in his ability to tailor the message to the individual or small group. What do you think would happen if technology replaced this?

FEATURED MEDIA: The Matrix - (I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek with this one.) A computer programmer who believes it is 1999, finds out he is actually plugged into a computer matrix and only dreaming his life. Every aspect of his "life" is controlled by a computer program, designed by robots so they can use people for their bio-energy.

The FITmedia Difference

Gone are the days of the large institution. Yet, it still continues to go through its once productive motions, buying up people's lives where it can, producing nothing but real-life zombies (no pun intended). These "cards" can be traded or terminated at the will of the mother institution, having no real freedom but the choice of reaction to the institution's cannibalistic actions. This choice of reaction is subject to the individual's attitude, which is in large part influenced by his intellectual diet, or lack thereof. Therefore, a diet of liberating and enlightening media would produce positive responses even to negative stimuli. And the total exclusion of limiting and disheartening media would change the zombie-esque "reactive" mentality into a spiritually vibrant "proactive" mentality.

Media is the source of many, if not all, of our cultural "instincts." The Media is, in itself, a large institution. As such, it is a friend and promoter of other large institutions by proxy. While it may glad-handle small business concerns in an effort to appear gregarious with the little guy, its high-aim is always to consolidate power and grow as a whole, rather than to enable its constituent cells to grow individually and then be dependent upon their donation of power to the central agency. Big institutional propaganda flows out to the masses, its effect is one which subsidizes the thought that big institutions are inherently good, despite the growing feeling that they have become largely dishonest.

In his book, The Coming Aristocracy, Oliver DeMille (Liberal Arts educator and founder of George Wythe College) discusses the concept of "mini factories." He defines it this way: "A mini-factory is anything someone does—alone or with partners or a team—that accomplishes what has historically (meaning the last 150 years of modernism) been done en masse or by big institutions." It is a process of individuals operating independently and with initiative because they care more and perform better for themselves and their families/communities than for a large, impersonal institution. These individuals and small groups can then share best practices through free-association.

At FITmedia, we want to enable mini-factories by hosting this free-association. As an institution, we will grow only as large as is necessary to effectively improve the whole, but never through controlling the whole. Because we believe in free-association and the sharing of best practices, we are a learning organization, seeking as much to understand the needs of the media creators and marketers we represent as to help them understand why certain practices work better than others to improve their respective productivity.

The idea is that the very best products and services are always created by those who are truly independents. Free people always follow their passions, because that is what they are made to do. It is not so much the path of least resistance, as it is the path of greatest motivation. The heights to which a person takes his passion is limited only by the weakness in his structure of action. This weakness is only as great as his ignorance of the truth. To facilitate this trend, FITmedia has made its front line the development of Truth in Fiction, which intends to institute a viral spread of entertainment media which also challenges people to improve themselves—their interest being invested in the speed of this spread.

Individual mini-factory media projects would seek their own funding and sponsorship from financiers and marketers who must of necessity agree with the mini-factory trend. There would be no interest for large organizations to fund these media projects unless they agreed with the truth contained therein. If this is so, then the organization is likely not dishonest.

The consortium of independents created through this process would have an interest in the continued trade of their resources as a part of this community. Loyalty would only be sustained to the degree that the whole consortium (or at least units of a certain size) continue to operate with a spirit of freedom, integrity, and truth.

That is the FITmedia difference.

FEATURED MEDIA: The Coming Aristocracy by Oliver DeMille. An easy to read, but still informatively dense, book about the rising powers of the elites in the upper class. DeMille succinctly lays out how the conflict is not "liberal" vs. "conservative," but independent vs. aristocratic. A must read for any free-thinker and a great place to start if you don't think you are.

Monetize the Starving Artist

I've found, through personal experience, that it is considerably difficult to balance the need to express one's art with the need to sustain oneself financially. Because one's art is entangled with one's sense of purpose, the artist can fall into the trap of self-satisfaction and the sacrifice of all else. In other words, it is easier to relegate one's art to the realm of the hobby and spend only a minimal amount of time bringing in a salary. This is, of course, the old concept of the "starving artist."

Since this type of person is typically not uneducated, they are not trapped in low-income jobs due to lack of ability, but lack of applicable desire. They are independent in spirit, and would rather not exhaust their mental and physical faculties on anything but their art. For the same reason, they do not want to subject their independent expression to the arbitrary restrictions of a boss, who generally has other motives than the perfection of his constituent's art.

And so, there is an army of "unproductive" geniuses, who are not so much doing the wrong thing, as doing it the wrong way. The fundamental problem is the assumption that one has to do what he does for someone in order to receive compensation, or if he wants to avoid the consent of a third-party, he must do something else for someone. That "something else" will naturally never get the artist's best efforts, which are saved for the art—or, as in the former event, his best efforts are not appreciated.

Most people are stuck in an employee-mentality, which means they look to one or two sources for their income. Even a self-employed person or freelancer can fall into a rut for their income; settling into working with one or two big contractors. Especially if their job is not their passion, this is the easier route. Ultimately, this system prevents a person from doing what they love to do and being adequately compensated for their subsequent skill in that area.

The concept they are unaware of is the idea of "monetizing" their art, or more liberating, monetizing their lives. To put it simply, good art has a way of attracting and retaining a crowd simply by virtue of its quality. So too, does the artist creating the art. An artist who demonstrates mastery in art, is a person who has achieved some level of mastery over his life. Therefore, his opinion about the value of things matters. If he recommends a movie or a book, that means it's worth seeing or reading. If he uses a product, it is likely to be world class.

Traditional media and marketing know this, but have abused this with the impersonal hand of mass communication technology. The reality is, we all feel more comfortable buying something from someone we can know and trust. What I speak of is not sales, but endorsements. Most people only think this is open to the Olympic Gold Medalists and other athletic heroes, but that's not true. Look at any website that has something for sale, many have commission opportunities for independent individuals who can gather a loyal crowd. Take the Amazon Associates program, which I use.

Never fear, it may take time, but the degree to which your art grows in quality is the degree to which you gather followers, especially with today's social networking opportunities. The degree to which you gather followers of your high art is the degree to which your endorsements of other people's art is valuable to them.

FEATURED MEDIA: "(500) Days of Summer" - A young man who dreams of being an architect, is trapped in a dead-end job as an illustrator for a greeting card company. At his job, he meets a girl named Summer, who proves to be a sort of muse. As the movie says, this is not a love story.

Media Vegetable

The partnership between media and marketing has led the unscrupulous purveyors to take unfair advantage of the consumer. With today's hectic lifestyle, shrinking incomes, and downsizing employment, it's no wonder that people want to "veg out." I mean, who wants to think after 5 o'clock? Most people's brains are spent—not on important, life-shaping matters—but on menial, repetitive tasks. These tasks do not stimulate new ideas, but merely tie up bandwidth in the brain.

So after getting chewed out for showing up 3 minutes late to a job you hate on a Monday morning, you make your way to your work station. Here you will be worked by your superiors like some sort of mechanical device—as a part of the machine you might be standing or sitting in front of. Perfection is expected, but speed is a priority. Criticism and irrational demands replace the real human contact of teamwork. Indeed, you have likely been chewed out for spending too much time "socializing."

So you go home to chores of one kind or another. Work doesn't stop because you go home. You're too stressed out about today or tomorrow or the next presentation to think about thirty years from now when today's habits compound to cause your death by heart disease. So you order a pizza, easy right? Of course you get diet soda with it, because somewhere [on a commercial] you heard that aspartame is healthier than sugar.

Then you plop down in front of the TV, physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. You watch what's easy to watch. Plot-driven, formulaic, escapist programming. Shows interlaced with car commercials, prescription drug ads, credit cards, and insurance—anything to make your life easier. And because you are emotionally vulnerable, and in no shape to think about what you're watching, you get suckered into buying.

All that said, you are not the victim, but an accomplice to your own destruction. Henry Ford said, "Thinking is the hardest job there is, that is why so few people engage in it." It's true, but it's still your responsibility. Who will protect your most valuable asset—your mind—if not you? What will protect your body and your life if not your mind? Certainly not the large organizations, most of whom are on a track that makes your day job harder (so they can cut costs), and your nightlife dumber (so they can sell you the fix).

So how about it? Ready to begin thinking through your intellectual diet, or are you going to die of cronic consumerism?

The Producer's Mind

The idea of production is, in its most basic form, the refining of raw materials into a valuable end product. The materials can be anything from metals to crops, from labor to vision. Whether the process is the engineering and manufacturing of a product, or the splitting of large bulk orders into progressively smaller lots, that process's goal is to refine a profitable end product and get it into the hands of the end consumer.

Therefore, a successful producer must be able to manage input and output. He must know where he is in the chain of production, what his immediate customer wants, and what the end consumer wants. He must then understand the "raw" material which he is buying, its cost and value. He must be aware of the business politics of his vendors, and to what degree they can be trusted. Basically, to be a success, he must be a gatekeeper of value.

By contrast, a person who primarily fills the role of a consumer only has the need to identify value on one end of the equation. That is, he is "free" to buy what he needs at a price up to what he has or can get through credit. When he uses up his purchase, he must either buy more, or go without. It is a reactionary lifestyle, mostly dependent upon the fluctuations of the larger economy.

The written word is no different. A person who reads to simply pass the time, consumes the words with no potential for output. Mass fiction is little more than a time waster, as it leads to no exploration or personal discovery. It cannot spark conversation of any substance, and it does little to motivate the reader toward any action but turning the page.

A person who reads with a writer's mind (or intakes any media which he also creates), is inclined to seek value in the written word. He hopes to extract lessons, start discussions, and generally be inspired to break his writer's blocks. The greater he wishes his finished products to be, the greater the products he wishes to digest. If he is part of a collaborative effort, he is willing to let his own contribution be overruled by a better idea.

If we want for people to intake better information, it is a waste of our efforts to attempt to get everyone to digest the greatest works. There are those who already do read the Great Books, simply because they know the value in them, even if they have no specific outlet. Some understand the concept, and even read literature from time to time, but would be more inclined to dive into more challenging material if they saw a specific result. Others need a little more encouragement. They need media that is in between what appears to be the daunting challenge of Great Books, and what is the simple ease of genre-based "page turners" and mind-numbing TV.

Make no mistake, there is a need for the thinking-man's media. Even if it comes in the form of "easy" TV and entertaining trade paperbacks. We need people to produce this content, not seek to tear the system down.

"Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain...and most fools do." - Dale Carnegie

FEATURED MEDIA:
How to Read a Book. By Mortimer J. Adler, founder of the Great Books of the Western World

God is Green

Today, I saw a bumper sticker on a mid-sized SUV, which read "God is Green." Aside from the apparent hypocrisy in the context, I couldn't help but judge a few other things about the driver's thinking. First, I recognize that it is wrong to consider my judgements in any way correct. I could not have stopped the driver to ask if he or she was the one who applied the sticker (perhaps it was a son or daughter). I have no way of knowing why that person needed an SUV, perhaps they do have a lot of kids and frequent need to carry equipment for their work. Perhaps they own an organic food store, and judged the SUV as a necessity of business. I don't know.

However, the thoughts that scampered across my mind were as follows. First, "That's true." Second, "Who doesn't agree with that?" Third, "Why do they need to tell me?" Fourth, "Are they suggesting the typical action of government regulation?" I appreciate their sentiments, but the sticker did not send me to a website as is common with statements of an activist nature. If they were trying to do anything but label themselves as green-conscious (which is fine), then they left me with two options in response: pray about it (they invoked the name of God) or go the other "higher power" (the government).

But this article is more self-expository than it is revealing of that driver's intentions. What in my brain left we with those two choices as a knee-jerk response? See, upon further thought, I could look up a green nonprofit with which to get involved, or I could start one. I could also modify my own personal actions and business concerns to reflect my agreement with that statement. All these would collectively have a greater positive impact than that of government meddling, in my opinion.

My understanding is this: if most people believe that God is Green, or to put it another way, green practices are in sync with the nature of the physical world, then wouldn't such bumper stickers have the effect of reminding them to buy green? If so, doesn't that mean that the market favors those businesses that satisfy that demand? If you agree, then why does government need to regulate business into being green? We the people are through our spending habits, we need give no more taxes to the issue.

The answer, of course, is a lack of thinking. Or, more kindly put, a functional blind spot. Big media is the platform of the dominant political parties, both which now continue to "campaign" throughout their terms, rather than settling into non-partisan activities. The result of this is that we are held to believe, by any political discussion in all mainstream media, that our [legitimate] choices are liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. I put the word "legitimate" in brackets because they'd rather not suggest there's even a poor third choice, and indeed they rarely do.

Now, I'm not writing this to suggest that you vote for a green party, but at least that's thinking outside the box. It is another choice, but it is still a government solution to a private problem. I submit that mainstream media is often an enforcer of limiting beliefs, if not its primary provider. This is especially true with network television, which relies upon revenue generated through the advertising of mediocre products (not cheap, but not necessarily the best). Subsequently, network television has an interest in hosting ideas that are also middle-of-the-road (not wrong, but also not completely right). They like to stick to big labels and stereotypes that are easy to identify by viewers. They fear if TV is too smart, their audience will dwindle.

Independents are thinking people, and are growing in number to the degree that they become disenchanted with the two party system championed by mainstream media. If God is Green, but God has no place in government, then ought we look elsewhere for the care of our environment?

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
For more information on Independents in modern political times, check out the blog at The Center For Social Leadership.

Media and Marketing

In order to discuss the union of these two concepts, one must first define their differences. Because they are so intertwined in the post-modern world, many definitions simply consider them the same thing. At the very least, I believe they are different branches on the same tree, if not separate and distinct trees altogether. They both possess their own aspects of both science and art, while I think it is their art (and not their science) that creates the greatest divide.

Permit me to save a lengthy discussion of the etymology of the word "media," and just say, for our purposes that media is referring primarily to entertainment mass media such as television, movies, novels, and their digital kin. The content of such media is a creative (if not artistic) endeavor, which by its nature attracts a crowd. The easier such media content is for people to access, the bigger the following will be. Therefore, it is only natural that such media would ideally be free and widely accessible.

Marketing is about getting products and services into people's hands. Because it is, at its core, merely a transfer of information, it requires some form of media to have a mass effect. (As a side bar, it should be noted that the most effective form of marketing, word-of-mouth, does not inherently need any form of media at all—though visual aids help.) The art of marketing is not in convincing people they need the product, but in finding those people who do. Therefore, it is ideal that the products and services being offered are of the highest quality and directed at the individuals who understand that quality.

In the early days of radio, companies like Colgate-Pamolive realized that they could increase sales to their target audience by providing dramatic, serialized programming. These "soap operas" were designed to develop loyal listeners comprised mostly of the company's target audience (housewives, in this case). The company could then market new products or additional services to the audience in the form of mass advertising. Because companies advertised high quality products to individuals who understood that quality, those companies developed enough profits to expand the funding for the production of media.

As companies began to grow in size and new forms of media (like television) were invented, advertising became its own industry—and entertainment media exploded along with it. While the Motion Picture industry kept itself independently funded (until product placements) through ticket sales and the like, television (at least in the US) had always been a free service funded by advertising. The consequence of this was that the entertainment was primarily influenced by commercial interests.

Television, as it became mainstream, became the culture in America. Because of its accessibility, it became the most widespread source of information, and therefore one of the widest influences on people's thinking. As industrial innovation slowed, companies shifted from larger-scale manufacturing to smaller-scale consumer production. This drove them to enlist mass advertising, rather than learn how to market to customers directly. The rising demand for advertising space, in turn, threatened to over-saturate the market, driving demand for larger audiences. "Larger audiences" were not defined by the quality, but by the quantity of viewers.

Therefore, the advertising industry called for media programming which was directed at the lowest common-denominator. Psychologists, and other marketing "experts" were employed to make the process more efficient. The result of which was the realization that media could teach audiences to be emotionally susceptible. An individual with low emotional intelligence, was more likely to impulse-buy, buy on credit, and buy non-essential or luxury items.

If media, however, is set up as the driving force of the media-marketing continuum, then the results might be quite different. Markets fluctuate—that is just a fact of economics and people—but what people never need less of is good information. If media takes the lead, then the leading media would be that which possessed the best information or the most truth. The very best entertainment, valuable for the mind and spirit; the very best news and documentaries, definitely truthful; and the demand for the very best products as sponsors, once again.

How would media "take the lead"? Well, if the best media imparts the most truth, then simply by refusing to be dependent upon any entity whose purpose is not truth. This is a decision that requires emotional maturity. There is no reason that media cannot be provided for free, but the costs have to be covered by a source that has no control over what the media creators decide to do. Ideally, the media creators would own the marketing concerns (more on this later).

The interesting thing is that if media takes the lead, but maintains funding from marketing, its growth is restrained by the markets. There are many examples in the history of free enterprise to indicate that those who have a passion for their business will figure out how to adapt. Basically, this will give media creators the incentive to understand the marketing process and fix the problems, further informing their creation of compelling and wise media.