Faris wrote a post recently that reminded me of something I meant to share, but neglected to back in early January. The Future Department has a new magazine out called The Next Issue. As described by The Future Department, the purpose of the magazine and what differentiates it from other magazines are:
Our aim is not to report on past events – or just talk about the future
– but to play a proactive role in developing new solutions and
approaches, through an ongoing conversation with the creative and
business communities we serve, making intellectual and personal
connections across all creative disciplines.
In every other magazine, the published article represents the end of a
journey: the subject has been treated, and the author and reader move
on. Here every article we publish is the starting point – developed and
shared by an exclusive group of the most creative minds in the world:
our readers are also our contributors.
The request that launched the first issue was something like this:
Summarise the challenges involved in
bringing ideas to fruition in a rapidly changing and unpredictable
environment. Please submit your thoughts on this subject in as many
words as you choose.
The folks at The Future Department were kind enough to publish my response, which was:
Ideas, media and content are all becoming more and more disposable. What was popular and relevant one minute can be dead the next. If you don't do your homework on who you are trying to communicate
with, you could end up looking very out of touch, and thus, irrelevant.
Another challenge is the growing amount of content on the web. What you think is an original idea, could very well be out there already or in production at the same time. Then when you release your new shiny idea,
someone links the two and accuses one of ripping off the other. In reality, the creator of each may have never known about the other.
Last thought is that thanks to all of the quick communications tools we have at our disposal, clients can more easily send out for feedback on ideas to various audiences and then use this feedback to kill ideas. Odds are this "research" was not done correctly but now they're not going to move forward with the idea because of what someone said to them in an email that was out of context.
I'm extremely flattered that they included my quick thoughts (thank you, Steve & Alex) and encourage you to download a copy of it via PDF here. But not to read my simple note. There is much smarter stuff in there by the likes of Russell Davies, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, John Grant and many, many more.
In addition to the PDF / printed magazine, there are also some bits of exclusive online content including Faris' article. Here are the links for those:
Burnt Fingers - Simon Andrews | In The Future - You Are The Entertainment - Faris Yakob | Ready. Fire. Aim. - Carl Johnson | The Nearest Thing to Pregnant - John Grant | Unknown Green Consumer Insights - Tamara Giltsoff | The Ultimate Pub Conversation - Adam Sefton | Publishing - Daljit Singh | Planet - Carsten Beck | Crystal Balling - Frank Palmer | Passion - Cindy Gallop | Reverse Engineering - Valerio Franco | Doing Down Under - Richard Hollingum | The Next Issue - Lewis Blackwell
I hope you find it as worthwhile of a read as I did and if anything grabs you, or you have some thoughts of your own, please share...
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