Global Culture » Global Culture

coyoacán preview

juan — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:58:59 +0000

For those of you who follow @globalculture on Twitter, you’ve already seen this, but there is one thing you probably haven’t noticed. We started publishing the results from our first photo-shoot in our Flickr pool “I could live here“. Kudos to our photographer in Mexico as he worked really hard to translate a loose vision of what this could be into our first tangible results:

Click to view the photos of Coyoacan in Flickr

While you will see these photos appear in this blog in a few days as part of our new local content section, there are two important aspects of this project that may not be obvious at first:
1. Every single photo we decide to publish has been given a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. This means that any one can freely use these photos for their own causes, commercial or not. All we ask for is the attribution.
2. The Flickr pool is a way for us to recruit photographers willing to do the same for their own neighbourhoods. We’ve set it up as “invitation-only” because we want to make sure that everyone who joins understands how their work should be licensed to further the goals of Global Culture. But we believe there are many photographers out there who will participate.

There is another aspect of this project that I haven’t discussed yet. We’re in the final stages of preparing the content for its official launch in the next few weeks and I’ll continue to elaborate as we get closer to the date.

the greatest destination

juan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:23:48 +0000

A while ago I started to collect city rankings, but more than anything else I was creating the foundation for what would eventually be the greatest destination. If I’ve learned anything throughout this process is that no city can claim such honour. Depending on who you ask, each city will have a unique array of features and advantages that are hard to qualify, let alone compare. But more importantly, the city itself is such a large entity in our mostly urbanized world that trying to generalize any qualities may result in a gross generalization of certain attributes that would be better appreciated if we could localize them.

But since we’re hopelessly lost in this quest for our ideal place, I thought a great place to restart the quest is the latest attempt from Monocle magazine to design the perfect city block. As it seems now a tradition, along with their Quality of Life index, they also look closer and generalize what they’ve learned through the process of ranking cities to put together a theory of “smart urban living”. Without trying to discredit the effort (I really think they are onto something), the article falls to easily into common clichés such as wind turbines, urban farming, community greenhouses, rooftop entertainment and falls short of getting into a serious exploration of the most powerful element to transform our cities: a lively, dense, diverse neighbourhood with progressive minds ready to adapt as new technologies and ideas becoming affordable. In my opinion, more than building we need to explore our cities to find those neighbourhoods that are almost at the brink of a creative explosion, just waiting for the right people to converge and turn them into the ideal urban quarters.

What are the attributes that would make a neighbourhood such a candidate? I expect this will turn into a debate, but here a summary of arguments I’ve put forward over the last three years (in no particular order):

Hyper-connected: both in the virtual and living realms, it must provide the infrastructure to keep its dwellers engaged with other people across the city and around the globe.
Sustainable: as with any self-organizing entity, it must optimize resources for its survival, learning to reduce dependency on external sources. This could very well apply to energy efficiency, local food supplies or even its ability to foster the innovation necessary to sustain a thriving culture.
Evolving: opposing any attempts to characterize the area with a limited number of attributes or features, a great neighbourhood is a living entity with an ongoing narrative that can only be understood by its actors and can only be fully appreciated by being part of such narrative.
Diverse: not only in the variety of its people, but in its ability to bring these people together into a single meeting point. You should feel like every day is an opportunity to meet a different person from whom you will learn something new.
Acoustic: as in acoustic medium, where the space becomes a medium that excels at enabling cultural transfer by virtue of the evolved traditions of its participants, advanced mechanisms enabled by technology to propagate information and a rich mix of sources that can be used and reused for many different purposes.
Unique: even though we may one day discover the perfect recipe for a great neighbourhood, I bet we will continue to be amazed by their variety. A signature lifestyle should be a good hint that you’ve got a good thing going in this place.
Livable: a great destination should make you feel like you’ve arrived somewhere and not like you’re in transit as an spectator. Its ability for calling on people to settle should be of utmost importance.

How is that for eligibility criteria to become the greatest destination? Can you nominate any area in your city? I’ll continue to explore this theme as we pack our bags and start our Global Culture tour in a quest to find a collection of the best hoods around.

our creative brief

juan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:39:25 +0000

Thanks to all the conversations that have made this possible. A revamped Global Culture site gets closer to reality as we get a first draft of our new Creative Brief and start to move content around to give it a purpose.

Here is are some relevant fragments from the document:

Global Culture enables memorable experiences through the continuous exploration of regions that provide a culturally rich environment for the urbanite on a livability quest.

What started as a blog about Global Culture and its actors has evolved into a source of great travel experiences.

Sustainable

There is a new generation of discerning travelers that have already seen the world and are aware of the myriad of frivolous options that plague the industry. They are looking for meaning in every opportunity they have to interact with the world and want to make sure they leave the best of themselves at each destination.

Memorable

An experience will have a lasting impact if it proves to be unique and authentic. But its discovery starts way ahead of the trip and requires the traveler to get acquainted with the story of a destination, using for that purpose any means of interaction available.

Livable

In opposition to mass-tourism and its obsession with packaging chosen moments, a Global Culture experience should not feel like a temporary adventure but a continuation of your quest to find a better way to live, immersing yourself into foreign cultures with the sole ideal of figuring out which aspects of life their people have mastered.

meaningful experiences

juan — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:30:20 +0000

Via Stephen Joyce and his T4 blog (Travel & Tourism Technology Trends) I found a brief but great summary of what constitutes a meaningful experience. It comes from the people at the Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry in Finland.

But before I repost an abstract of their model it is worth revisiting where this quest comes from: in give up your urban “devil” I suggest that some sort of experimentation is needed for the global citizen to learn of other life-styles… experimentation as in trying various ‘experiences’.

Here is a list of the elements of meaningful experiences and how I see them applied to the notion of exploring global cultures:

Individuality: how unique and extraordinary a product is. One of the key drivers to explore a Global Culture is the realization that unless we are careful to orchestrate our life-styles according to the highest standards, it is too easy to fall into the common place that groups the majority of people living in large urban centres. The quest to learn about how other people (usually small, unique groups) are finding better ways to conduct their lives without giving up important advances in society/culture/technology is what motivates many global citizens to keep moving.
Authenticity: reflects the existing lifestyle and culture of the region. In direct opposition to a staged experience, the discerning traveller is often frustrated by elements revealing the orchestration behind the scenes. A daring traveller will often prefer to struggle a little to figure things out and ‘get’ an authentic treatment from the locals than be given a show devoid of challenges, digested for the faint of heart.
Story: A credible and authentic story gives the product a social significance and content. I’ve recently started to discuss the fact that the best way to engage potential travellers into an experience is by immersing them into the ongoing story, narrated with all the artifacts of modern technologies (blogs, videos, photos, locals tweeting, etc). The more a person is exposed to the real thing before travel time, the more likely the experience will render the personal transformation expected instead of becoming a collection of awkward, unforeseen circumstances that kill spontaneity.
Multi-sensory perception: see my previous post on memorable experiences.
Contrast: means how different the experience is from the customer’s everyday life. In the context of immersing yourself into another culture, the degree of contrast may play against you. After all, you’re trying to decide if you could live this life. If everything was too different to what you’re used to, chances are you won’t want it. However, it is safe to assume that the ideal life-style you’re looking for must be different to the one you have today, otherwise why would you had started the quest in the first place.
Interaction: I’m convinced that an important element in creating these experiences is the possibility of maintaining your usual connections with your professional realm. This is important because we’re seeing how much we can change your context and maintain that thing that makes you valuable to society… then applying that to your new context.

The T4 blog is all about a technology that helps small, independent tour operators to embrace the same technologies that other larger entities have without incurring in the burden of implementing it. I believe many of the same concepts and much of the technology can be leveraged to create far more complex experiences that span several suppliers. Ultimately we are trying to give people access to many of the elements that would create an entire life-style for a specific period of time in order to give them a shot at
becoming global citizens.

home, the film

juan — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:17:54 +0000

HOME is a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, produced by Luc Beson

HOME is an ode to the planet’s beauty and its delicate harmony. Through the landscapes of 54 countries captured from above, Yann Arthus-Bertrand takes us on an unique journey all around the planet, to contemplate it and to understand it. But HOME is more than a documentary with a message, it is a magnificent movie in its own right. Every breathtaking shot shows the Earth – our Earth – as we have never seen it before. Every image shows the Earth’s treasures we are destroying and all the wonders we can still preserve. “From the sky, there’s less need for explanations”. Our vision becomes more immediate, intuitive and emotional. HOME has an impact on anyone who sees it. It awakens in us the awareness that is needed to change the way we see the world. (HOME embraces the major ecological issues that confront us and shows how everything on our planet is interconnected.)

A stunning film showing us our planet and its people from an angle that doesn’t need explanations, it is released today to commemorate World Environment Day and distributed through every possible channel (theatres, dvd’s, tv, internet) free of charge.

give up your urban “devil”

juan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:58:20 +0000

When I wrote startup and the simple life a couple of months ago I set in motion a plan that would take me to a rural setting with the idea to create productive business relationships with locals hoping to capitalize on some of the ideas of this blog. Mostly on the idea that we urbanites treasure the calmness that can only be acquired through detachment from our ever accelerating way of live.

It is perhaps a sign that Monocle’s #24 romanticizes the idea of agro as a fundamental human activity that would restore the soul or our society by getting closer to the people that make a living from farming. While the same formula is often cited by advocates of organic produce, Monocle’s article seems to be more focused on the art of living a simple life and be productive at the same time. I say it must be a sign because just a few days ago I was using the concept of agro-tourism (as developed in Italy) as a prime example of how people seek to immerse themselves into a lifestyle that seems to be disappearing as urban centres advance.

I too, while trying to refine this idea, assumed that if we could send a few people over to the rural landscape, the environment would work its magic, their soul would be cleansed and they would have the experience of their life. But something seems to be missing from this assumption.

If you’ve spent a week at a villa/farm in Europe, sipping a cup of coffee while watching the men and women of the town work the fields and bring fresh produce to the table, only to spend three hours on a slow-food feast, proud of how in touch with humanity you are, you’ve got to realize you’re still an spectator and the whole experience is a bit foreign. Yes, maybe they invited you pick your own fruit from the tree, but would you consider trading your current lifestyle for this? Would you work the fields from dawn to dusk to have a quiet evening and a light dinner?

This tension between our urban self and our “gaia” consciousness is a complex one and has developed already many traumas on simple people trying to do the right thing. It may be tempting to give up our urban “devil” and enlist in some new form of commune. But for most of us that experience will not last.

As with many other problems, the key may be in experimentation: what if you could try alternate lifestyles for a short while? Maybe farming is not going to cut it, but helping a community in need develop advanced social programs tapping into your urban skills may be your call. If you could try not one but a few life-changing experiences, chances are not only you’ll change your life, but you’ll end up enhancing the life of many people around you.

You can only become a global citizen by living like other citizens around the globe.

startup and the simple life

juan — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:38:04 +0000

Over the course of the years I’ve spent countless vacation days hanging out at some very charming towns where the rhythm of life seems to run at a different pace. I keep going back to those places every now and then with a good book and a mindset to let go and enjoy the moment. Days are long as nothing seems to really happen in these places, but somehow I always find myself recharged when I come back.

Well, I’m going back again, but this time I’m on a mission. I’m taking a few business plans, ideas, contacts, technology tools, even a moderate budget and I’m going with the intent to bring some of the big-city mentality of innovating to places that may not be used to it. I expect to come across people that will find this sudden change of pace motivating and will take the lead. If I can create one meaningful connection between this place and the city where I live, I will consider the mission a success. Then there will be other towns. Then there will be a global tour, a global culture tour.

In the ongoing discussion about the tension between ever-accelerating innovation on big cities and the craving for a slow urban way of life, I’m convinced that the best of both worlds can only be discovered when we mix them up good, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.

A recent article on BusinessWeek stated that some small towns are finally realizing the value of entrepreneurs and are creating local incentives to attract startups, creating a very interesting landscape for anyone thinking about launching a new venture.

cities are beginning to recognize entrepreneurs as a “third leg” of economic development, as important as retaining existing jobs and attracting large corporations. While startup meccas like the Bay Area offer concentrations of talent and investors, new companies there face plenty of competition for those resources, and the cost of doing business is high. In smaller cities, new businesses enjoy lower costs and a higher profile to attract workers, and may be able to get government incentives to create jobs.

A complete analysis of small cities across the United States was commissioned by BusinessWeek and their entire list can be found in their Best Small Cities for Startups, but here are the top performers based on number of startups per capita with an average of 5.5 startups per 1,000 inhabitants:

Boulder, Colorado
Doral, Florida
Sandy Springs
Boise City, Idaho
Bozeman, Montana
Bend, Oregon
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
Franklin, Tennessee
Fairfax, Virginia

Intrigued by the idea? Have any suggestions about places that could use this kind of exchange? Leave a comment.

digital breadcrumb

juan — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:41:49 +0000

Almost four years ago I wrote a small article entitled the “Birth of Cool” that was intended to speculate on possible uses for the then largely unsophisticated mobile space.

Every day you cross paths with hundreds of people as you go to work, run your errands, find entertainment and go about your life. Without noticing, all your electronic devices are listening for any cue on their digital surroundings. Armed with low-intensity transmission protocols they are capable of establishing instant communication with those in close proximity. Spread across the city, a vast array of hidden transmitters are continuously feeding the information-hungry mobile community. As you visit a gallery and admire a piece of art, a simple click will record your opinion about the moment.

Throughout the city you’ll exchange your opinion about all those places you’ve been to and things you’ve seen with every stranger that happens to be “listening”. At the same time you will have received a few dozen tokens representing what the invisible crowd you never met thought was their coolest experience.

At the time I was particularly interested in the massive adoption of mobile devices that had the capability of broadcasting location information, and while GPS were far from mainstream, there were other ways to convey location information. In an alternate present important locations around a city would be broadcasting low-intensity messages (bluetooth?) that would only be picked up by people in the proximity. Today there are many ways in which this vision has been realized: standard smart-phones are equipped either with GPS or the means to triangulate position based on radio or cell tower signals. The map interface is now a must on many mobile applications.

All technology aside the most interesting aspect about this milestone is that as a collective, we humans are leaving a digital breadcrumb that describes many aspects of our lives. Maps are no longer updated every few years, but in some cases a few times per month, revealing the incredibly sophisticated processes at play in the growth of a city. The same goes for an always increasing scope of human activity. Our culture is revealing itself onto the scars that we leave on the face of our planet, the virtual paths that we traverse while exploring the real world, the info-maps that layer useful statistics, the highly evolved versions of journals that nowadays include geocoded photographs, maps, and many other artifacts. Our culture is streaming itself in high definition and nobody is watching.

While culture is vast and any exercise to try to map it would be in vain, I hope that the methodic exploration of individual snippets of data that reveal single aspects of our culture will become a common task that won’t require a degree in Cultural Anthropology. Discovering patterns of culture that would otherwise be ignored may lead to further understanding of the people around us.

It’s hard to say where this journey will take me, but I have a few ideas on where to start. From some very basic interpretations of geodata that may be useful to global citizens and travellers to an attempt to map the culture of a micro-region to bring it to pair with other areas of the world that are over-represented. From understanding the cultural aspects that thrive in urban centres to identifying unique traditions that are mutually exclusive with large cities. These are all aspects of the same endeavour: using the digital breadcrumb to understand our global culture.

a unique opportunity

juan — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:18:10 +0000

In the editorial of the second-anniversary issue of Monocle Magazine, Tyler Brûlé ventures what may be a new pattern of global culture:

In a world where everything is starting to look more alike rather than unique, each person or company is an outpost that challenges convention and points to a new way of marketing, selling and building community.

This assertion based on the experience of their many correspondents dispatched around the world may be a sign of the times: as we grow aware of the world around us and educate ourselves in the ways of other peoples and cultures, we can’t help but notice that things abroad are not too different from things around the corner.

In the midst of a global recession it’s easy to panic if we are all doing things in the same ways, buying the same products, asserting the same way of live. After all when the entire boat is going down, you don’t want to be where the majority of the crowd is (pardon the extreme analogy). Instead each one of us will look at doing things a little bit different, trying to use all those lessons on global culture to create a unique mix that will allow us to become unique actors in a complex stage where the rules are about to be rewritten.

From the variety of our lifestyles and chances we take on unique ventures and projects will be born the post-crisis generation. And if the global aristocracy (those who have the privilege of roaming the globe for one or another reason) has any saying there will be a renewed attention on good, long-term value over cheap, short-minded pragmatism.

So look around, figure out what is that unique opportunity that you can devote the next few months to and embrace it. Indeed, as Tyler suggests, this is going to be one Happy New World.

a global culture tour

juan — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:30:50 +0000

What if you could spend the next two years of your life travelling around the world, taking the time to really get to know each place you visit and nurture long lasting relationships with locals at each point? Which destinations would you choose, knowing that you want to cover as much world as possible but don’t want to feel in a race?

Mostly inspired by slow-travellers like soultravelers3, who have found the way to engage on an open ended trip around the world, taking time to settle in each community they visit and making it a way of life, I realized it was possible to engage on a similar experience by splitting the journey into one to two month long segments, each one of which would be done every year. So this year you devote your summer to a little village in Spain and the next year you immerse yourself into the calm serenity of the northern Italian alpine villages. Each year you complete another leg of this tour around the world…

The nature of such journey allows you to engage in meaningful discovery of the culture that makes each destination unique, and not just the landmarks that have made it famous. Every year you grow wiser as a global citizen, a contemporary Phileas Fogg. With each year you become more engaged with your community because you’ve learned of all the things that you took for granted and find new ways to give back throughout your journey, because you know what value you can add to each destination.

You grow more cosmopolitan as each destination thrives on your cosmopolitanism.