Tag: Matt Thompson
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Play
Even before we learn to speak, we play. It’s how we begin to explore the world. Games exert a primal power over us; after we’re fed, clothed, and sheltered, we must entertain ourselves. Harness that power, and what might we create? Culture in the information age has taken a sharp turn towards play. Corporations seeking…
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Micropolitics
You can probably name your head of state, your chief minister of defense, and the main branches of your federal government. But do you know the name of your city manager? The head of your neighborhood association? The neighbor who hasn’t missed a city council meeting since the 1970s? So much of the texture of…
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Marketing
How are ideas sold? The answer to that question is the key to influencing the world. It’s how the popular kids in school sustain their status; how parents, teachers and peer groups affect the behavior of children; how Osama bin Laden draws new recruits into al Qaeda; how Apple launches new products. Ideas succeed not…
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Journalism
Traditionally, professional journalists have presented themselves as mediators, whether between ideas and readers, events and historians, celebrities and the public, or the state and its subjects. Now that anyone can communicate to millions with just a cell phone, that gatekeeper role has grown less and less relevant. However, emergent forms of journalism continue to give…