Living in More Than One World

It’s not surprising that the new book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, by Jonah Berger, is itself catching on and getting lots of attention. Berger, who is in his early 30s, is the James G. Campbell Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies and teaches about how and why products and ideas go viral and get other forms of attention, both online and offline. These days it’s not only companies and other organizations that have to continually get the word out in effective ways about their offerings. Individuals have to do it too, and the marketplace is crowded, confusing and noisy.

Berger’s media attention has been impressive, especially for a new author. The book was reviewed in The New York Times and Boston Globe. He did a Q&A, “‘Contagious’ explains secret behind infectious ideas,” with my former colleague Sharon Jayson, in USA TODAY. Fast Company ran a profile by Lydia Dishman, “Why Ideas And Products Become Contagious: The Jonah Berger Formula,” and has also been running excerpts online. This Sunday, March 10th, he’ll be doing a book signing in Austin at the SXSW® Interactive Festival.

In 2011, after reading and being impressed by one of his scholarly articles, I interviewed Berger for a brief article on word of mouth marketing for the journal I edit, Leader to Leader. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover recently that he had published his book, which he told Jayson in USA TODAY is “about understanding why people talk and share. You could think about it as understanding conversations — the science of what we talk about.”

The Economist has turned its yearly The World In… publication, now in its 27th year, into a brand, well beyond the print edition. There is an extensive website (which I wrote about last year), and a blog, Cassandra. On December 6th and 8th, there was The World in 2013 Festival in New York. Earlier this year came the book Megachange: The World in 2050, edited by Daniel Franklin, Executive Editor of The Economist and Editor of The World In…

Although there are many predictions for the next 12 months, and what the effects of those events may be, to me the real value comes from well-organized thought and information about that time period by subject experts and high-profile practitioners from business, technology, the arts, politics, health care and other fields; putting into context information about what lies ahead. There is an illuminating 13 page section, The World in Figures, with snapshot-like statistics on 18 industries and 82 countries. The Calendar 2013 reminds us that although the details remain, we already know a lot of what is going to happen next year, simply because it is scheduled to happen, or that it marks a particular anniversary. We thus learn that March 20th will be “the inaugural UN-sponsored International Happiness Day”. And a calendar entry notes the November 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, while a separate article, “They Had a Dream,” discusses Kennedy in relation to the 50th anniversary, in August, of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
There are eleven guest articles from prominent people writing about what they see in the next 12 months in their area of expertise, and in some cases, what their own activities will be. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, known for his “black swan” theory, provides suggestions for dealing with financial risk; Harvard’s Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin outline eight policy areas for boosting America’s competitiveness, and Melinda Gates writes about steps needed to keep reducing the worldwide number of childhood deaths. As Franklin points out in his introduction, “contributors to this volume have lots of ideas for how to make things better.”

I’ve just returned from several days in Claremont, Ca., based around the activities for Drucker Centennial Day, which marked the end of a two-year period honoring the life and legacy of Peter Drucker. November 19 is the 101st anniversary of his birth, and he died five years ago this coming November 11. The events were produced by the Drucker Institute at the Claremont Graduate University, home of the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. The alternately rousing and introspective keynote on Saturday morning was delivered by Tom Peters. I helped coordinate the Drucker Authors Festival segment, and was on the panel “Lessons From Drucker’s Life,” with Jack Beatty and William Cohen. “What Would Drucker Do Now?” had  Jorge Vasconcellos e Sá, Winfried Weber and Gladius Kulothungan; and “Drucker in Historical Context” had Joe Maciariello, Jack Bergstrand and Mike Wood. Although I did not see Kenneth Hopper’s presentation “Turning the World Upside Down,” I was fortunate to have seen the presentation he did with his brother Will Hopper last Thursday, for the Drucker School students, based on their book The Puritan Gift. Other than Cohen, Weber and Maciariello, I had not met the other Drucker-related authors in person before, and getting to know them, and the Hoppers, was a highlight. I also did my own presentation, Designing Your Total Life the Peter Drucker Way, at the Drucker School on Friday morning. It was great to meet new friends who attended, as well as to reconnect with friends from my previous times in Claremont. We had a stimulating impromptu discussion afterwards. The centennial may be over, but the Drucker Institute has a number of promising things in the pipeline, including several more books. The Drucker School is growing and gaining more attention. Both institutions continue to not only honor, but to extend and deepen Peter Drucker’s legacy.

Joshua Green’s article in The Atlantic, Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead, got considerable attention when it was published earlier this year. Last weekend’s Fairport Cropredy Convention, the long-running outdoor festival the British band produces each August, got me thinking that perhaps we should also consider the Management Secrets of Fairport Convention. Not that the latter has had anywhere near the business success of the Grateful Dead, but Fairport has many things in its favor. The band, which has been together in one form or another for more than 40 years, is as much a collection of concepts and ideas as a musical entity. It stands for a number of admirable things: quality, roots, continuity, inclusiveness, durability, relevancy and timelessness. One page on their site gives all the details for anyone wanting to do business with them. Somehow I doubt that they make a lot of money, though I imagine that financial wealth is relatively low on their list of aspirations. But they have admirably produced the festival, which draws 20,000 people yearly; and in recent years, released albums on their own label. (All of the early albums on major labels still sound great. They were definitely, to borrow a phrase from Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last.) Fairport Convention’s inclusiveness and sense of family is also demonstrated by a page on their site with links to sites of former members, with the best known being Richard Thompson. Although he often appears at Cropredy, as do other former members, this year he was on tour in the States. Another former member, Sandy Denny, died in 1978. Her stature and importance as an artist has grown considerably since her death. She will be the subject of a 19-CD box set next month, according to this recent feature in The Guardian. Any person or organization attempting to build a successful brand and develop a community can take notes on how Fairport connects with their community in such a sincere, good-humored, genuine way.

Last year I enjoyed blogging about my virtual experience of the Guardian Hay Festival. It has already taken place this year, but those of us who missed it in person can still enjoy it online. The Guardian still has lots of material – text, photos, audio and video – on its site for the event. The text offerings include a brief wrap-up piece, Best of the Hay Festival 2010. Hay is more than author readings. It’s also about book-buying, as driven home by the photo essay Used books, new books, looking for the perfect book … and the videos representing the Hay Festival Bookshop Challenge, including this one featuring Val McDermid. Continuing the video theme is a section of short author interviews, such as this one with Alexander McCall Smith, on Sky Arts’ The Book Show. The others in the series include McDermid, Simon Schama, Audrey Niffenegger, Bill Bryson and more. There is another photo essay in which festival-goers answer the question What Are You Reading at the Hay Festival? An extensive section of audio Haycasts features author interviews from this year, 2009 and 2008. I was happy to see one particular video from The Book Show that exemplifies the concept of Living in More Than One World: an interview with Brian May, the guitarist of Queen, who also happens to have a Ph.D. in astrophysics and is an author. The video snippet describes the recent book he co-authored with Elena Vidal, A Village Lost and Found. The Hay Festival material serves as a reminder that the extensive Guardian Books site is always worth a virtual visit. You can easily lose yourself in new and older articles, reviews, blogs, special features, audio and video. And if you still want more of the Hay virtual experience, go back to the Guardian’s main page for Hay, to access links for its coverage going back to 2006.

Although it’s been over for nearly a week, you can still find lots of material online to vicariously experience the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which is billed as the largest of its type in the world. Edinburgh is a lovely city, and I’m sure it was a great setting for this 17-day celebration of the written and spoken word.  There has been considerable coverage before, during and after the event in the British media; such as this September 1 report on guardian.co.uk and another, Scottish-centric one on the same day from the [Aberdeen] Press and Journal. Among the hundreds of authors featured this year were Garrison Keillor, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Karen Armstrong, Alexander McCall Smith, Tracy Chevalier, Margaret Drabble and Richard Dawkins. The media page of the festival’s site has lots of interesting material, including photos, blogs, and audio/video from 2009 and earlier years. I also liked the Staff Tops 10s lists. There are a number of archived stories about the festival from EdinburghGuides.com. Of course, J. K. Rowling is closely associated with Edinburgh and she read from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and answered questions at the 2004 Edinburgh Book Festival. The longtime director of the festival, Catherine Lockerbie, is stepping down this year and the occasion was commemorated in a poem by the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. Read more about it (and the text of the poem) at Magnus Linklater’s August 18 story on timesonline.co.uk, Carol Ann Duffy’s tribute to departing head of Edinburgh book festival. Next year’s festival dates are August 14-30, 2010. My new goal: to not just attend, but to be booked for a future Edinburgh International Book Festival.

The past weekend was not only notable as the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. It was also the weekend that one of my favorite bands, Fairport Convention, held its annual Fairport’s Cropredy Convention festival, in Britain. The long-running event regularly draws around 20,000 people. Besides the band itself – which has had countless members over the years — it attracts an eclectic lineup of performers, including former members of Fairport, especially Richard Thompson. For more background, see this Reuters blog posting. I’ve never been to the festival, but I’d love to attend one day. Fairport traditionally does a three hour closing set on the final evening, and this year their special guest during the set was Yusuf [Islam], formerly Cat Stevens. He is an old friend, and former Island Records label-mate of the band’s. See the account of the final set, including his quotes, in the local paper, the Oxford Mail.  Richard Thompson also did a solo set, and other performers included Steve Winwood, punk pioneers The Buzzcocks and a number of acts that are probably well-known to British audiences but not to most American fans. It sounds like a good-natured, sweet-spirited event. I have seen Fairport a number of times over the years, though not recently. I’ve written about them in my music days, though never interviewed them. Ditto for Thompson, whom I have seen perform in various incarnations (with Fairport, solo, with his own band, as part of Richard and Linda Thompson and even as a trio, with Andy Roberts, backing ex-Fairport singer Ian Matthews, in 1971). I interviewed Matthews a couple of times, in the ’70s. Thompson’s second four-CD career retrospective box set, Walking on a Wire, is released this week.  Saul Austerlitz of the Boston Globe has an interesting August 16 Q&A with Thompson about it, A troubadour of timeless songs. And to learn more about Fairport’s festival, consult virtualfestivals.com.

I’m back on the festival beat with last week’s WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) festival in the UK. This is yet another event that most of us can’t attend, but can learn a lot about online. It’s one of the premier world music festivals, and was the 27th time it has been held in the UK, where the WOMAD organization is based. They also produce festivals around the world, and I was fortunate to have attended two in the early ‘90s, in Toronto. Peter Gabriel is one of the co-founders of WOMAD, and though he doesn’t often play the festival, he was the headliner on July 25th. Check out the full lineup on the festival’s site to get an idea of the worldwide scope of the music on offer. Click on the artists’ names for brief bios and video clips from pre-festival performances. As with Glastonbury and Latitude, earlier festivals I wrote about, there were a number of stages and more on offer than you could have taken in at one time. Robin Denselow’s review on Guardian.co.uk notes the continued importance of African music to the event, especially this year with Youssou N’Dour and Rokia Traoré. On the BBC Radio 3 stage, one of the events I would have particularly liked to have seen and heard was Charlie Gillett with Special Guests, in which the BBC DJ and author was both playing some of his current favorite records and sharing the stage with various world musicians. I knew Charlie back in my music days in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and he is one of the most iconic figures in British music. Mark Hudson ends his review on Telegraph.co.uk with an interesting observation: “In an environment in which the bracingly unfamiliar quickly became the norm, the jangly guitar-rock of fresh-faced British indie band Black Swan Effect stood out as by far the most exotic fare of the day.”

I’ve written about a variety of festivals (music and otherwise) that I would have liked to have attended, but found that following on the web was the next best thing: the Aspen Ideas Festival, Glastonbury and The Guardian Hay Festival. Now there is another British entry, the Latitude Festival, which I had not heard of until now, but is four years old. It’s already over, having run from July 16-19. Check out Mark Savage’s Latitude festival is a class act and other BBC coverage. NME.com and others covered the solo set by Thom Yorke of Radiohead, in which he gave the debut of a new song, “The Present Tense.” (I used to read NME, then in its pre-online, weekly print-only days, as often as possible back in my music days of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Especially at first, it wasn’t easy to find in the States, so it’s a sign of the times how readily available it is on the web.) Check out the complete list of acts appearing on multiple stages; including four music stages, with the Pet Shop Boys, Regina Spektor, the Pretenders, Grace Jones, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds along with many others. There was also literature (including Orwell: A Celebration, billed as “an unprecedented theatrical tribute to the work of George Orwell”; Geoff Dyer, Blake Morrison and many others), plus films, comedy, cabaret and more. For additional media coverage, see The Guardian, The Independent and other UK media outlets.

A nice place to be this week, starting two days ago and running through July 5, is the Aspen Ideas Festival. A large and diverse group of big thinkers from academia, business, law, science, government, nonprofits, the arts, architecture, media and more have converged in Colorado for what looks to be a highly stimulating event. Since most of us can’t be there, the next best thing is following it online at the festival’s website and on the blogs from Atlantic Online. The Atlantic is a co-sponsor of the event, along with the Aspen Institute. Just a handful of the more recognized names from the 200 speakers and moderators: Madeleine Albright, James A. Baker III, Stephen Breyer, David Brooks, Marian Wright Edelman, Thomas L. Friedman, Howard Gardner, Frank Gehry, Alan Greenspan, Sandra Day O’Connor, Tim O’Reilly, Susan Rice, Charlie Rose and Eric Schmidt. You can see the entire list of the speakers and moderators, with photos and thumbnail descriptions, on the festival site. The Aspen Daily News has an interesting piece reflecting on the first day of the festival, and looking to possible highlights from the upcoming speakers. You can view videos from the festival on the Audio Video Library portion of the festival site. One of the several that are available now is Google Looks at the Economy: In Conversation With Eric Schmidt, in which Google’s Chairman of the Board and CEO is interviewed by Kai Ryssdal, host of “Marketplace,” on American Public Media. We are fortunate to live in an age where we can have a virtual experience of these major events (including music and literary festivals, and to some extent, professional conferences) that we can’t attend in person.