Studs writing, thinking and conversations are all People Firsty .. so delighted to share a personal story with you and tell you about his archive.

The Attention Economy

It’s funny how 'xx is the new oil' keeps cropping up … this one is kind of related - but focussed not specifically on data - but rather, The ‘Attention Economy’ ….

"For the better part of the past century, the most important commodity has been oil. Wars have been fought over it — Pearl Harbor was a preemptive strike to secure Japanese access to Indonesian oil — and it elevated desert tribes to the ranks of the wealthiest cohorts in history. But the sun has passed midday on oil’s supremacy. We’ve moved from an oil economy to an attention economy.

We used to refer to an information economy. But economies are defined by scarcity, not abundance (scarcity = value), and in an age of information abundance, what’s scarce? A: Attention. The scale of the world’s largest companies, the wealth of its richest people, and the power of governments are all rooted in the extraction, monetization, and custody of attention."

Some other phrasing that caught my eye and mind …

"If Facebook is Exxon and Netflix Shell, TikTok is fracking king Chesapeake Energy, the rule-breaking insurgent armed with novel extraction methods that threaten the established order.”

"everyone is trying to outTik the Tok”

"MrBeast … most popular video (is) a real-life reenactment of Squid Game, which cost $3.5 million to produce (the cost of an episode of Mad Men). It received 300 million views."

You can read the whole Scott Galloway piece here.

Thinking Allowed

This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.

The People First Podcast

Shout out to SimonWoods for bringing my attention to CastBox … yet another podcast player!

PS - it is an iframe - so you have to go here to see the full ‘beauty’.

Oscar Wilde : “Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” - which is why the poem is important.

newsletter.peoplefirst.business/p/little-…

Published two years and two days ago - written about a man from England that I met in Taupo, New Zealand - and we just got talking.

“It’s not what you know - It’s who you know.”

Exclusive or not, this is one Clubhouse I was happy to leave

I never rated Clubhouse. .. which I wrote even before I had got in - and nothing convinced me that I was wrong even when I did.

🎶 I am starting to prepare for Season 3 of The People First Podcast - and was reviewing some of the greatest hits from Seasons 1 and 2 … stumbling across this gem from a show I did with Scott Schorr. It’s one minute long.

It’s one of my older posts now - but a good reminder …

Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Content

In Sync

No - not the 🎶 pop group - they were 'NSYNC' ... just an acknowledgement of how nice it is to find like minded travelers on the journey.

The quote below found here

“We need to resist the narratives that are frequently served to us by corporations that sell these technologies, that these models of the future are dependent upon the particular technologies that they’re selling, that it’s always some future that is just around the corner that we have to buy into, when in fact the future is already here.”

Featured Photo Credit: Gabriel Gusmao on Unsplash

Unpacking the Potential of Web3 Publishing - Tokens, But How?

Know Your Value So You Can Charge What You're Worth

Artificial Intelligence For The Creative Professional

There are a group of companies springing up that are doing for the written word what Dall-E, MidJourney and Craiyon are doing for images, which is to say - enter some core text and let an AI generate the output.

My mind explodes when I see the 'image' results.

I think ‘meh’ - so far - when I see the 'written' results.

I am pretty sure that the engines are as sophisticated as each other, so I wonder if my reaction is more to do with my own abilities - as in I have NO artistic ability when it come to creating images, but I can - and do write - so my bar is higher?

For more background, you might enjoy this from The Verge;

🔗How independent writers are turning to AI

Note - all of the words you read on peoplefirst.business are not created - or even suggested - but any AI tool. (Can you tell?). 😂

The Billable Hour Is Not Fungible

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone If your time to you is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'

💬 Bob Dylan

With the financial problems ricocheting around the world - I see occasional headlines from 50 years ago.

Three day work week - bad.

Fifty Years Later : Four day work week - good.

I get the subtle shift in the back story, just an observation.

Thinking Allowed

This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.

Where Am I Working?

I am sitting in New Zealand writing this. It started as an idea in my head and was typed into a local file on my computer. I copied it to Wordpress (my blog hosting software of choice) and saved a draft to my People First server.

The words were then sitting on a server in Iowa, USA.

From this point on, as I edit the draft, I am in New Zealand, the words I am editing are in Iowa - where am I working?

By the time you read this post, I will have published and anybody in the world can read it.

Example, a visitor in Kenya pulls up this web site in their browser and these words are 'automagically' read in Kenya.

Question

Where is ‘the work’ done?

  • New Zealand, because that is where I tapped the original words into the computer?
  • New Zealand, because that is where I cut and paste those words into Wordpress?
  • Iowa, because that is where the People First servers are?
  • Where you are reading this because until those words delivered value (you reading them), no work was done.

I ask because once you know where the work was done, you should have an idea on where you should be taxed and arguably where you should be licensed to work.

This conversation doesn’t seem to be a major part of public discourse, because the scenario is an edge case. But for how much longer?

New York has a law that says anybody working IN NEW YORK pays New York Taxes and from that emerges things like the NY, NJ and CT tri-state tax agreement.

“Like all states with broad-based income taxes, New York has asserted the right to tax nonresident income earned within its borders. But unlike most other jurisdictions with significant cross-border commuter flows—such as Illinois and Indiana or Virginia and Maryland—New York has never given nonresidents a tax pass in the form of ‘reciprocity’ with their home states.”

Read More

But if my servers are in Iowa, my customers are in Europe, my bank account is in California and I only live in New York, should I pay New York taxes?

I write more about where we work in this week's newsletter.

Why Non Of My Books Are Available On Audible

Why none of my books are available on Audible is a 'spoken essay' from Cory which will eventually be the only entry he has in the Audible library.

Take a listen to find out why.

The link takes you to a page on his Craphound site, or go directly to 🎙️the podcast

Thinking Allowed

This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.

#teamhuman #peoplefirst we’re joined at the hip.

I had cause to check out Jerry’s Brain today and stumbled on this quote at the top of his site;

“Reopening is an opportunity. Trust is the lever.”

💬 Jerry Michalski

Why did I have cause?

Because I was writing this

Data Is The New Soil

In 2013, Mark Cameron wrote

‘Data is not the new oil, it is the new soil.’

He concludes;

"Generating business value from consumer data isn’t about technology at all. It’s about how you use data to create a fantastic experience for your customers. If you can help your customer get value from their own information they will reward you for that effort. If you continue to use data to spam your customers or provide value to your company, you may find yourself wondering where everybody went."

💬 Mark Cameron

IMHO it's a soft article with most of the cleverness centering on the (S)oil pun.

Data is the new .... was the theme of an article I wrote for BizCatalyst a few years ago; Time To Terminate Analogies

"Sure, we wrap the idea up in customer care and nurturing, just as one does when growing plants in a garden, but at the end of the day Cameron’s argument – which seems to emerge from the work of David McCandless who writes at Information is Beautiful is simply a clever play on ‘(s)oil’ and sits squarely in old thinking. "

💬 John Philpin

“The soil analogy is certainly better than big oil but to me, it’s still about personal data being something that’s owned and used by marketers, rather than recognizing that data is used by all of us – both individually and collectively.”

💬 StJohn Deakins

But It Just Got Better

The other day an interview with Jerry Michalski appeared in one of my feeds, where he talked about Data Is TheNew Soil - nice piece - though no mention of Mark Cameron (rightly probably).

I still think the analogy needs to die - but there was a lot more insight and thinking around the idea (definitely not surprised - Jerry is a thinker). I can highly recommend the whole article which isn't just about the (s)oil pun, but includes many other topics, including these that tickled my particular fancy.

  • Idea Superconductivity
  • The Betterverse - not the Metaverse
  • Linky Prose
  • The importance of breaking Zettlekastens out of their private spaces
  • Liquid Democracy

and a whole lot more.

Do take some time out and have a proper read.

Post Script

In case you were wondering .. yes this is the same Jerry that runs Jerry’s Brain. I am even in there - though it is clear that a few updates are needed!

What Is Web5

Good question.

Putting aside Molly White’s tweet from a few weeks ago, though she does raise a very good point ...

I did want to share a podcast I just listened to It's Mike Brock of Block (seriously, filed in the 'can't make this up' bucket) - and no I don’t think he is Dave Brock's son talking with Tech Dirt's Michael Masnick.

"Web5 is a new evolution of the Web that enables decentralized apps and protocols.”

Count me in the camp (though I am still with Molly) that this makes far more sense that anything I have heard describing the Web3 world - except isn't that how they described Web3?

Well yes - but that isn't what is going on. Of course whether Mike et al can make it happen remains to be seen - but at least when he talks he makes sense - and also clearly separates himswlf from the 'get rich quick / stay rich libertarian world that we keep reading about.