Tag Archives: kevinkelly

Scenius, or communal genius (with my own examples)

Posted on May 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

Scenius, that greater genius that comes from a particular community, is something I have thought about alot. If you haven’t heard of it before, I can recommend the following on it:

Here’s what I think are some great examples of it in the 20th century:

I am sure you can think of many more.

Each are great examples of very smart, very talented people coming together for an extended period of time. When they did, what they produced was special and associated with that community they were associated with. As the cliche goes, the sum was more than the parts.

This doesn’t mean you can only have genius appear communally. You can. If anything, that’s more of the norm. But when you have geniuses associating and working together, you have something really special.

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On the creator economy and the weakness of 1000 true fans

Posted on February 28, 2024 | 2 comments

I found this was a good piece on the state of the creator economy right now: the creator economy can’t rely on patreon. I have no doubt what the author is saying is true: it is very difficult to build up a sufficient number of followers to make it economically viable. If anything, I would say the conversion percentage for some people could be even lower than 5%. I remember in the 80s magazine would expect to get 1-2% conversion of offers sent out to subscriptions coming in. It’s difficult to convert people, regardless if your medium is magazines or social media.

One disagreement I do have with the piece is the critique of Kevin Kelly’s 1000 true fans theory. I would not say it’s true that “the 1,000 true fans theory that we’ve all been sold for the past 15 years – that all you need is a strong mailing list of people who give a shit, and a healthy living will follow….Unfortunately, a theory is all it is.” Kelly states clearly in his piece that “(a) true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce”. He goes on to state that they are “super fans”.  You might have 20,000 followers on social media, but they are not true fans. The 1000 followers who pay up are your true fans. If you can get those 1000 to pay you $10/month, you should be good in most places in North America.

The problem no longer is publishing your work. Publishing is easy. The problem now is finding super fans, keeping them, and growing them. But that’s always been a problem. You won’t find a single way of doing that.

If there is any weakness with the 1000 true fans theory, it’s that it can’t provide a way to achieve that.

 

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On the benefit of long lists of advice

Posted on February 22, 2021 | Comments Off on On the benefit of long lists of advice

list
The benefits of long lists of advice are twofold:

    1. You can pick and choose the advice you need.
    2. You can build your own list

I’ve done 1: I’ve yet to do 2, but I want to.

Meanwhile, if you want to do both, here’s a bunch of long lists of advice I’ve found.

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