The Innovation Show

There are two stories you hear about making a living as an artist in the digital age, and they are diametrically opposed.

One comes from Silicon Valley and its boosters in the media.

There’s never been a better time to be an artist, it goes.

If you’ve got a laptop, you’ve got a recording studio. If you’ve got an iPhone, you’ve got a movie camera. GarageBand, Final Cut Pro: all the tools are at your fingertips.

And if production is cheap, distribution is free. It’s called the Internet: YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Kindle Direct Publishing.

Everyone’s an artist; just tap your creativity and put your stuff out there.

Soon, you too can make a living doing what you love, just like all those viral stars you read about.

The other story comes from artists themselves, especially musicians but also writers, filmmakers, people who do comedy. Sure, it goes, you can put your stuff out there, but who is going to pay you for it? Digital content has been demonetized: music is free, writing is free, video is free, even images you put up on Facebook or Instagram are free, because people can (and do) just take them. Everyone is not an artist.

Making art takes years of dedication, and that requires a means of support.

If things don’t change, a lot of art will cease to be sustainable.

We welcome friend of the Innovation Show and author of “The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech” Bill Deresiewicz, welcome back to the show.

Previous episode: Excellent Sheep: https://bit.ly/2ZlQ6OI

Bill is here: https://billderesiewicz.com/

There are two stories you hear about making a living as an artist in the digital age, and they are diametrically opposed.

One comes from Silicon Valley and its boosters in the media. There's never been a better time to be an artist, it goes. If you've got a laptop, you've got a recording studio. If you've got an iPhone, you've got a movie camera. GarageBand, Final Cut Pro: all the tools are at your fingertips. And if production is cheap, distribution is free. It's called the Internet: YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Kindle Direct Publishing. Everyone's an artist; just tap your creativity and put your stuff out there. Soon, you too can make a living doing what you love, just like all those viral stars you read about.

The other story comes from artists themselves, especially musicians but also writers, filmmakers, people who do comedy. Sure, it goes, you can put your stuff out there, but who is going to pay you for it? Digital content has been demonetised: music is free, writing is free, video is free, even images you put up on Facebook or Instagram are free, because people can (and do) just take them. Everyone is not an artist. Making art takes years of dedication, and that requires a means of support. If things don't change, a lot of art will cease to be sustainable.

We welcome back Bill Deresiewicz, friend of the Innovation Show and author of "The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech" https://billderesiewicz.com/

Previous episode "Excellent Sheep":

https://bit.ly/2ZlQ6OI

Bill is here: https://billderesiewicz.com/

The context of business has changed so rapidly over the past few decades that it may be time for a new lexicon. At the very least, it's time to challenge some of the established thinking about strategy and competition that used to drive business advantage - but no longer does.

In this episode, strategy expert and Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath takes on one of most fundamental and recognised notions in strategy: that of sustainable competitive advantage. She argues this can no longer be the Holy Grail for companies because in a constantly changing environment, deeply ingrained structures and systems designed to extract value actually become a liability.

The new path to winning includes taking advantage of shorter term opportunities, as well as relying on new organisational talents like speed and decisiveness. Our guest defines the new transient life cycle of competitive advantage and shows how successful firms manage through it by using an updated philosophy. She offers a bold new set of principles for competing in what we now understand is a continuously volatile and uncertain environment. Consider this your fresh strategy playbook for competing in an accelerating world.

The context of business has changed so rapidly over the past few decades that it may be time for a new lexicon. At the very least, it's time to challenge some of the established thinking about strategy and competition that used to drive business advantage - but no longer does.

In this episode, strategy expert and Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath takes on one of most fundamental and recognised notions in strategy: that of sustainable competitive advantage. She argues this can no longer be the Holy Grail for companies because in a constantly changing environment, deeply ingrained structures and systems designed to extract value actually become a liability.

The new path to winning includes taking advantage of shorter term opportunities, as well as relying on new organisational talents like speed and decisiveness. Our guest defines the new transient life cycle of competitive advantage and shows how successful firms manage through it by using an updated philosophy.

She offers a bold new set of principles for competing in what we now understand is a continuously volatile and uncertain environment. Consider this your fresh strategy playbook for competing in an accelerating world.

Despite decades of research illustrating the benefits of enlightened leadership, the high-performance workplace is still not the norm. Our guest has spent 20 years investigating this paradox, and in this book she forms a penetrating critique of why such strong evidence has had limited impact, and provides an alternative practical approach that any employer can implement to overcome these challenges.

She shows that there is a clear correlation between those companies that are good companies and those that do well, with 'good meaning an organization that works with stakeholders, employees, society and customers. While a 'bad' company can do well, its success isn t sustainable - her book explores the steps needed to be taken to become a good organization with long-term, sustainable results.

She brings together management wisdom and shows how successful leaders have moved their organizations from controlled and orderly, to enthusiastic and collaborative. Supported by insights from 59 of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the field, the book will guide readers through the arguments for a radical reassessment of current business models, and the successful stories of employers from the private and public sectors who have made the transition.

We welcome Vlatka Hlupic , the author of Humane Capital: How to Create a Management Shift to Transform Performance and Profit

Building a business requires more than just a good product and talented people; it requires you to take a hard look at how you show up as a leader.

Open, Honest, and Direct helps you dive into the heart of your business and your people, identifying changes you can make to transform the way you and your managers lead.

Part business book, part personal-development guide, this is a how-to full of practical ways to not only build and lead a high-performance team but also bring out the best in your people. Being a successful manager is less about staying constantly on top of your team and more about providing clarity and context for people. Levy's method for creating open, honest, and direct leaders within an organization provides you with tactical tools you can put to use right away.

This is a toolkit for designing a culture that supports employee performance and future-proofs your business. Many managers are promoted because they are great at what they do, but that doesn't necessarily translate into their ability to manage a team and get the most out of their people.

In today's business environment where the competition for top talent is intense, it's integral to not only keep your top talent but also be able to coach all of your people and unlock their full potential. Open, Honest, and Direct is a field guide and powerful movement for leading that will give your organization the competitive edge it needs.

Great ideas don't just happen. Innovation springs from creative thinking—a method of the human mind that we can study and learn.

In The Art of Ideas, our guest brings together business concepts with stories of creativity in art, politics, and history to provide a visual and accessible guide to the art and science of new and useful ideas.

He details how to spark your own ideas and what to do while waiting for inspiration to strike. He shows that regardless of the field, innovations happen in the same way: examples from history, presence of mind, creative combination, and resolution to action.

The Art of Ideas features case studies and exercises that explain how to break down problems, search for precedents, and creatively combine past models to form new ideas. It showcases how Picasso developed his painting style, how Gandhi became the man we know today, and how Netflix came to disrupt the movie-rental business.

What separates your mind from the mind of an animal? Maybe you think it's your ability to design tools, your sense of self, or your grasp of past and future - all traits that have helped us define ourselves as the pre-eminent species on Earth. But in recent decades, claims of human superiority have been eroded by a revolution in the study of animal cognition.

Take the way octopuses use coconut shells as tools, or how elephants can classify humans by age, gender, and language. Take Ayumu, the young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University who demonstrates his species' exceptional photographic memory. Based on research on a range of animals, including crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, and, of course, chimpanzees and bonobos, our guest today explores the scope and depth of animal intelligence, revealing how we have grossly underestimated non-human brains.

He overturns the view of animals as stimulus-response beings and opens our eyes to their complex and intricate minds. With astonishing stories of animal cognition, his work challenges everything you thought you knew about animal - and human - intelligence. We welcome author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, Frans de Waal.

More about Frans:

https://www.facebook.com/franspublic/

What separates your mind from the mind of an animal? Maybe you think it's your ability to design tools, your sense of self, or your grasp of past and future - all traits that have helped us define ourselves as the pre-eminent species on Earth. But in recent decades, claims of human superiority have been eroded by a revolution in the study of animal cognition.

Take the way octopuses use coconut shells as tools, or how elephants can classify humans by age, gender, and language. Take Ayumu, the young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University who demonstrates his species' exceptional photographic memory.

Based on research on a range of animals, including crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, and, of course, chimpanzees and bonobos, our guest today explores the scope and depth of animal intelligence, revealing how we have grossly underestimated non-human brains. He overturns the view of animals as stimulus-response beings and opens our eyes to their complex and intricate minds.

With astonishing stories of animal cognition, his work challenges everything you thought you knew about animal - and human - intelligence. We welcome author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, Frans de Waal.

More about Frans: https://www.facebook.com/franspublic/

Our guest today argues that everything is changing fast, apart from how we behave. Our ways of thinking and making decisions have changed little, with the traditional wisdom being that improvements are best done incrementally, just as big, established corporations will increase profits incrementally and governments will change laws incrementally.

But the problems we now need to solve require a revolution in thinking and behavior in order to avoid disaster. He lays out the reality of the dangerous situation we find ourselves in and suggests solutions that empower everyone, including business people, politicians, diplomats, and teachers, to repair the damage we have already done, and prepare for the dramatic changes to come.

Over a 30-year period our guest founded and bought 20 companies in nine countries. He is an Emmy Award winner and author of the WSJ best-selling book: "Total Rethink: Why Entrepreneurs Should Act Like Revolutionaries" we welcome David McCourt to the show