How do you sell authenticity when there’s no such thing?

Have a look at this 15-minute talk to see how you can be (un)true to yourself and (not) say what you are. Or, how you can produce fake fake, real real, real fake, or fake real.

Interesting, especially for those working on sustainable entrepreneurship, because Pine’s two-by-two can help you re-evaluate who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish (a process The Necessary Revolution also talks about).

And for us Dutch, he’s as entertaining as he is painful. If we think we’re authentic in comparison to ‘you Americans’, have a look in the mirrow: every square meter of The Netherlands is manufactured – most of it made look as if it had always been like that.

To summarize, for successful entrepreneurship in the experience economy, you have to stick to 3 simple rules:
- Don’t say you’re authentic unless you really are;
- It’s easier to be authentic if you don’t say you are;
- And if you do say you’re authentic, you better walk the walk.

(photo Carol Channing Certificate of Authenticity by zoomar)

Five-minute audiovisual teaser for Open Content

We stole and re-arranged some inspiring thoughts as we saw fit; I put them into sound and images.

To watch, click play on the screen below; for plot and (management) summary, read on.

What to do when your content can be infinitely copied by anyone with access to the Internet? How can you add value to your content when it’s be found anywhere, for free? Where’s the business in open content? How can you make it work for you – instead of against. How can users make open content work for you?

Summary

Today’s world is one of super-abundance: digital and/or digitized content will be found, sooner or later, by anyone prepared to look for it on the web. So what does this mean for people working with content?

Many – across different industries – are starting to realize that sealing it up, fighting something that’s turning into common practice, is futile. But the clever ones are seeing opportunities.

Actively freeing up content, dropping it into the web for everyone to see and share, hugely increases your potential audience. Better still, a small part of that audience is very eager to become a partner – or co-creator. This part fills in the blanks, places context and conversation around your content, passes it on, and adds value for thousands or millions of others in your potential audience.

Free doesn’t mean it’s being given away -  only that someone else is picking up the tab. And it doesn’t stop there. There are ways to turn your end-users into clients again; the trick is to build something around your content, something better than free.

(photo opencontent by jlori)

This workshop empowered the people who were there as much as it did me – and it left me with a lot of useful feedback.

The Digital Pioneers Academy coaches social, small-scale online enterprises looking to professionalize. For them, writing a business plan can be a daunting task. I wanted to simplify the business model concept by visualizing it – and to turn the prospect of working with it into a positive design challenge.

Below is the Slideshare presentation (some rights reserved – ). I adapted it after the workshop to give the pioneers a reference guide to flick through. Because I used their feedback to clarify some things, it’s as much theirs as mine.

(photo standing there – in a puddle by Auntie P)