Burning Man meets Dr. Seuss, and the results are surprisingly digestible

Yes, I know Burning Man can be a bit goofy. But do yourself a favor: Give this one a chance, and watch it all the way through. Trust me: I wouldn’t recommend it if it wasn’t worth seven minutes of your time.

[And a big huge thanks to the Brainpickings Twitter account for posting the link; this video just made my day.]

A Must-Read for Every Struggling Journalist: Robert Krulwich’s phenomenal Berkeley J-School commencement speech

Left to right: Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich

First, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Robert Krulwich: He’s one of the two hosts of Radiolab, a public radio show so brilliant, so smart, and so singularly unique that it literally must be heard to be believed. Thankfully, they’ve got a free podcast, so if you’ve never had the pleasure, do yourself a big favor a download a few shows, stat. [Radiolab podcasts]

And second, I’m not going to say too much about Krulwich’s recent commencement speech, which he gave on May 7 to the 2011 class at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, because there simply isn’t much I can add that will do it any justice. But trust me on this one, please: If you’re currently involved in the field of journalism, and if you’re anything other that 100 percent thrilled with the way your career is panning out, please take the time to read every word of this truly brilliant speech. 

Through May 20: Free Kindle edition of “Do the Work,” from Seth Godin’s Domino Project

Lot’s of incredibly useful and unusually inspirational Seth Godin-related news today.

First things first: Spend some time reading this Boing Boing interview with Seth Godin, which was conducted by the Philly-based tech writer Avi Solomon. It’s a wonderful interview–quite a bit different than most of the other Seth Godin Q&As I’ve read recently–but it’s unfortunately littered with typos and grammatical errors. (Confidential to Mark Frauenfelder: What’s up with hiring a copy editor?)

Anyway, Godin mentions his truly exciting new publishing venture, The Domino Project, during the interview. If you don’t happen to already be familiar with The Domino Project, click on over to its website and read the “About” and “FAQ” pages. It’s essentially an eBook publisher that releases its products through Amazon at especially reasonable rates, and from what I can tell, the books all lean strongly towards the same inspirational/creative entrepreneurial bent that Godin espouses in his books and on his super-popular blog. 

Penelope Trunk vs. Tim Ferriss

There’s an incredibly readable feature story in the Sunday Styles section of today’s New York Times–I highly recommend giving it a read–about self-improvement author Tim Ferriss, who was apparently a popular guest at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas. Ferriss was in Austin to promote his new book, The 4-Hour Body, which is a textbook-like manual that purports to teach its readers how to become “superhuman”–or as Ferriss himself might say, how to hack the human body.

Interestingly enough, even though I have the Sunday New York Times delivered to my front door each weekend, I found out about this particular story through a Gawker post, which essentially made the argument that Ferriss is a self-obsessed asshole because of the unusual way he handles his personal email. There’s no doubt that Ferriss has a huge number of very fervent fans, but he has also managed to inspire a good number of serious haters over the past few years, and apparently Penelope Trunk, a popular work-culture writer who I happen to be a fan of, has been one of them for quite some time.

Here’s a recent blog post written by Trunk entitled, “5 Time management tricks I learned from years of hating Tim Ferriss”. One of the many reasons Trunk gives for “hating” Ferriss has to do with a meeting that took place between the two at a South by Southwest conference in 2007, in fact. At the time, Ferriss was aggressively marketing his first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, to influential bloggers. Apparently, Trunk feels as if she was tricked into having a coffee date with Ferriss, who wanted a chance to pitch his book to the sort of blogger who might be able to introduce it a wider audience. Read Trunk’s post, here, for the full story.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Ferriss recently put together an incredibly useful blog post about the ins and outs of dealing with haters, and if you happen to be a public personality of any sort, or if you happen to be especially successful in your chosen field, I seriously recommend reading it. One of very best points Ferriss makes in the post, as far as I’m concerned, begins with a quote from the sports agent Scott Boras, who said that, “If you are really effective at what you do, 95% of the things said about you will be negative.” If that’s a quote you can personally relate to, take the time to check out both of the posts I’ve linked to below.

Do you have any especially useful techniques–psychological or otherwise–when it comes to dealing with unnecessarily harsh critics? If so, please post them in the comments section.

• Tim Ferriss Scam! Practical Tactics for Dealing with Haters [The Blog of Tim Ferriss]
• How Tim Ferriss Learned to Love the Haters [TNW]

A Farang In Paradise

Here’s an old one from way back in mid-2003, when I was first attempting to get my freelance foreign correspondence career off the ground. This story was reported during my first-ever trip to Bangkok, and at the time I didn’t even realize how obsessed I was by creative entrepreneurial types. But when I discovered Farang magazine and Cameron Cooper, the expat publisher responsible for it, I knew I had to write about both. Jesse Oxfeld edited this one, by the way. He left Mediabistro.com about a year later for Editor & Publisher before moving over to New York magazine. He’s now executive editor of Tablet, an online Jewish culture publication. (Not to be confused with the now-defunct alt-biweekly newspaper from Seattle.)

 

A FARANG IN PARADISE

Bangkok’s Farang magazine–a snarky and useful montly aimed at backpacking kids–and Cameron Cooper, the swashbuckling expat publisher who created it.

By Dan Eldridge – September 8, 2003 | Mediabistro.com

It may be the desk-jockey journalist’s most popular fantasy: pack a suitcase in the dead of night, call a cab to the airport at the break of dawn, and upon arrival in a previously fantasized about exotic locale, commence romantic reinvention from bored newspaper hack to swashbuckling foreign correspondent.

Admittedly, Cameron Cooper’s own transformation from daily scribe to editor-in-chief of Bangkok’s Farang magazine–a monthly travel title aimed at the thousands of world-wizened backpackers who pass through Southeast Asia on gap years or round-the-world treks–didn’t happen quite like that. The story of his introduction to the world of expatriate publishing, in fact, is even more colorful, and filled with over-the-top anecdotes and a string of traveler’s tall tales that he was all too happy to share with me over cups of instant coffee and an endless stream of cigarettes when I recently visited Farang headquarters, a tidy, three-story office overlooking a sweatshop on an almost hidden side street in Bangkok’s sensory-overloaded Banglampoo district.

Click here to continue reading …

 

Incidentally, I have no idea what Cameron Cooper is up to now, although I suspect he’s still living and working in Bangkok. The last time I saw him was maybe three summers ago, when I was in Thailand to research a guidebook for Lonely Planet. Cameron had since changed the name of his magazine from Farang to Untamed Travel, and he mentioned that the publication was up for sale, and that he had another creative entrepreneurial venture in the works.

Unfortunately, he didn’t share any details of his new business plan with me, and I don’t know if it was a publishing effort or something entirely different. If you’re out there, Cameron, I’d love to hear from you. And if anyone reading this happens to know if Cameron is running a new business in Bangkok, please get in touch–or even better, tell us about it in the comments section below.

How They Saved Their Companies

I’ve always been a big fan of the New York Times‘ “You’re The Boss” blog, which is regularly filled with smart and (sometimes) instantly applicable tips for struggling small business owners. Here’s a recent post, for instance, about a Chicago-based entrepreneur who found himself in the decidedly unusual position of passing along quick nuggets of business-success wisdom to a college student at a red light. (Check out the post’s comments for an even longer list of smart tips.)

Even better, though, is this recent post (with accompanying video) about a small community newspaper publisher who managed to save his quickly-failing business by bringing on an economic consultant, of all things. To check out even more inspirational videos from the Times‘ “How I Saved My Company” series, click here: [link]

BREAKING! Johnny Cupcakes Announces 2010 Suitcase Tour

Johnny and his billboard

> > > The Boston-based T-shirt mogul known as Johnny Cupcakes has always been one of our favorite Young Pioneers here at The Labor Party. And although I realize we probably report on Johnny’s various entrepreneurial exploits with a bit more regularity than might be considered necessary — or even normal–we nevertheless wanted to let you know about a promotional, cross-country Johnny Cupcakes tour that was recently announced on the company’s website.

The Johnny Cupcakes Suitcase Tour, as it’s being called, will officially kick off in Manhattan on Friday, April 2nd, 2010, where Johnny (and probably a few other members of his team) will literally be selling T-shirts of a suitcase. The general idea, as it’s explained on the tour’s mini-site, is for the company to simply get back in touch with its decidedly lo-fi entrepreneurial roots.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with JC’s humble beginnings, it all started back when Johnny was performing and touring with the post-hardcore band On Broken Wings. Before tours, Johnny would stuff a number of suitcases with JC T-shirts and other merchandise, which he would then hawk to fans on the road. Johnny was so dedicated to his brand’s success, in fact, that in order to save space in his suitcases for merchandise, he often wouldn’t pack any clothing whatsoever for himself. Here’s how he explains it:

As you may know, one of the foundations of my brand was when I used to sling wrinkled up, gas scented t-shirts out of my crusty suitcase while on tour with the band I was in. There were even tours where I’d barely pack any regular clothes for myself to wear–just all Johnny Cupcakes stuff. When I sold out of t-shirts, I’d call home and, when they weren’t at work or at school, I’d have my mom and little sister ship out more of them to whatever state we were playing next …

As far as we’re concerned, one of the coolest aspects of Johnny’s upcoming tour involves the venues at which he’ll be appearing. Here’s another quote from the website: “Each stop on the tour will be hosted by various neat businesses that I respect–art galleries, boutiques, bakeries, toy shops, and many others. There will even be some delicious free treats and surprises at most of these stops!”

Also traveling with Johnny will be some sort of documentary video crew; a different video webisode will be uploaded to JohnnyCupcakes.com during each day of the tour, and the remaining footage will be used to create an actual documentary film that we unfortunately don’t know much about. (We’ll be sure to post more details about the film when and if information becomes available.)

And if you live on the West Coast of the United States, by the way, you may be able to catch one of Johnny’s upcoming university lectures. [Click here for event details.] These lectures have proven to be incredibly popular over the past few years, and those of you able to attend will very likely walk away with some valuable insights in terms of how today’s young and creative entrepreneurial community operates.

Check out Johnny’s bad-ass collection of professionally-produced webisodes here.

Merlin Mann on the creative process

“Not to go all philosophical, but I really believe that there’s a part of you that really

wants to go in this one direction to make cool stuff, and there’s another part of you that’s

terrified at how bad you’re going to be at it, and that people are going to see you

suck. And nobody likes being seen sucking. And it’s natural to observe that other people

seem to be great from the second they start typing. [But in actuality,] they’ve just gotten

really good at starting, and they’ve gotten really good at not minding that they suck. And

if you don’t believe that, ask anybody who writes professionally, or who does anything over

and over and over again. The only difference is that they’ve gotten really OK with the fact

that they suck sometimes.

–Merlin”Not to go all philosophical, but I really believe that there’s a part of you that really wants to go in this one direction to make cool stuff, and there’s another part of you that’s terrified at how bad you’re going to be at it, and that people are going to see you suck. And nobody likes being seen sucking. And it’s natural to observe that other people seem to be great from the second they start typing. [But in actuality,] they’ve just gotten really good at starting, and they’ve gotten really good at not minding that they suck. And if you don’t believe that, ask anybody who writes professionally, or who does anything over and over and over again. The only difference is that they’ve gotten really OK with the fact that they suck sometimes.” Mann, speaking about the creative process, at Maximum Fun’s 2009 MaxFunCon

“Not to go all philosophical, but I really believe that there’s a part of you that really wants to go in this one direction to make cool stuff, and there’s another part of you that’s terrified at how bad you’re going to be at it, and that people are going to see you suck. And nobody likes being seen sucking. And it’s natural to observe that other people seem to be great from the second they start typing. [But really,] they’ve just gotten really good at starting, and they’ve gotten really good at not minding that they suck.

And if you don’t believe that, ask anybody who writes professionally, or who does anything over and over and over again. The only difference is that they’ve gotten really OK with the fact that they suck sometimes.”

–Merlin Mann, speaking about the creative process, at Maximum Fun’s 2009 MaxFunCon

Click here to listen to access Merlin’s MaxFunCon lecture, on BoingBoing.

Philly’s Newest Mag Is All About Beer

In Philly, even inanimate objects are pissed off.

Appropriately enough, Neil Harner and Scott Willey were enjoying a few pints of ale at Earth Bread + Brewery, an environmentally-minded brewpub that opened in Philly’s Mt. Airy neighborhood last year, when they came up with the idea to start their own magazine about the city’s craft beer community. To some, that may sound like a perfect plan for entrepreneurial suicide, especially considering the unfortunate fact that the publishing industry seems to be in a never-ending free fall these days. But as far as Harner and Willey are concerned, the timing of Philly Beer Scene, as their bi-monthly magazine is known, couldn’t have been better. After all, microbrews and the bars that serve them have certainly exploded in popularity throughout the Philadelphia region over the past few years, and the whole country seems to have taken notice. Our sudden appreciation for high-caliber beer, in fact, has been documented everywhere from the Sunday New York Times to USA Today to Imbibe, a small Portland-based magazine of “liquid culture.”

And yet according to Harner, who co-owns a design and marketing firm in Lower Bucks County called Inverse Paradox, none of the beer publications that can be picked up for free in bars across the country are successfully speaking to the newer and younger generation of craft beer enthusiasts. “Don’t misquote me on this one,” he insisted, during a recent telephone interview. “When it comes to the other beer publications — Ale Street News, Mid-Atlantic Brewing News, Beer Advocate — we personally love those [publications]. But if you look at our magazine in comparison to the others out there, it’s a little more fun.”

Ultimately, of course, it will be the readers and advertisers of Philly Beer Scene who decide how fun it actually is. You can decide for yourself by picking up a free copy of the premiere issue at most of the better bars and brewpubs throughout the city and surrounding suburbs. Check out the magazine online at beerscenemag.com, where you’ll find information about the June 28 launch party at World Café Live.

This article was originally published on PhillyNow, Philadelphia Weekly’s news and opinion blog.

Next American City launch party, Wed June 17

I generally don’t post about new work I’ve had published until the work in question is actually available on the newsstand, but because Next American City is hosting a rather unusual launch party for its upcoming issue 23, I figured it would be alright to break from tradition just this once. I’ll keep the solipsistic part brief: In issue 23, I have a relatively short front-of-the-book piece in the magazine’s Buzz department. It’s about a new rails-to-trails style bike path in Detroit, and it was developed, of course, as part of the long and ongoing effort to revitalize the city.

By the way, if you haven’t seen Next American City in awhile (it can sometimes be tough to find), issue 23 is the one you’ll want to come back for. According to what I heard at the last editorial meeting for freelancers and contributing writers, this will be the magazine’s very first perfect-bound issue. It’s also going to be a full eight pages thicker, and I believe those extra eight pages are being used to introduce some sort of creative or experimental new feature.

At any rate, here’s the information for the launch party. The admission price gets you your choice of a one-year subscription to the magazine, or a Next American City T-shirt. How can you not?

Next American City is throwing a party at The Royal Theater, one of Philadelphia’s historical and architectural landmarks, and you are invited! We’ll even provide the hard hats! Come join us as we celebrate the launch of Issue 23 with food, drinks and great conversation. Publisher and editor-in-chief Diana Lind will re-cap highlights from the issue, which is packed with features including a profile of Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker, an examination of air quality in American cities, and a debate about the value of convention centers. Interviews with a young environmental justice activist, a forward-thinking web entrepreneur, and an urban theorist round out the issue.

JUNE 17, 5:30-7:30 PM
ROYAL THEATER
1524 South Street, Philadelphia, PA

Admission is free for subscribers. Admission for non-subscribers is $15 in advance or $20 at the door and includes a one-year subscription to the magazine and free entry to all NAC events.