#scottwayne

There was a time when we thought of frontiers as geographical limits – crossing mountain ranges, deserts, or oceans. Today our earthbound frontiers are more abstract – boundaries of science and politics and intellect.

This week, we’ll be in Nairobi at ICT4D working in collaboration with our NGO, tech, and African government friends and partners to address how we cross a huge canyon. Not a physical one, but the digital canyon that separates rich from poor. A gap that appears to be growing as the more connected countries pull away from the less connected countries.

Before you ask—yes, we actually do have a good reason to post this video of Trump. 

This week, Scott heads to NYC to moderate a session with Professor Gabriella Coleman, one of the leading experts on Anonymous and their hacktivist strategies, and Suroosh Alvi, a critically acclaimed journalist and the co-founder of VICE.

We love these quick pics and note Scott sent over the weekend after catching Jason’s talk at South by Southwest:

“The very fickle SxSW audience kept moving further to the front during Jason’s talk so they could photograph his material—and him of course. No shortage of groupies at the end. It's been a long time since I've seen Jason speak. He was terrific. He even had the audience greeting each other in Swahili at one point.”

Demand-driven products. Short print runs. Distribution through owned channels. And personal style.

For the last year I've been building a publishing unit for The Frontier Project, working within brands and organizations to build publishing capacity. The idea is a simple but attractive one: if you've got an audience, it takes only an infusion of narrative intelligence and publishing workflow to get quality products to whatever market you've defined. Sometimes that audience is employees: interactive on-boarding manuals, narrative-rich company histories and vision-mapping, story-driven sales training manuals. Other times it's B2B relationships: multimedia catalogs for, say, OEM partners, or franchisees or affiliates. Sometimes it's a client base: thought leadership content that elevates the authority of, say, a law firm or architecture group or consultancy. This month, we're leveraging that process in support of Frontier itself, by publishing the first volume in the Cartography Series, a library of short-form print and digital books published on topics our clients have expressed interest in, and on subjects our audiences respond well to. The Cartography of Negotiation by Scott Wayne is an instance of audience-first publishing:

Topic is driven by what means a lot to our clients (Negotiation support).

Format is chosen by what works best for their lifestyle (15,000 words, 90-minute read, print and digital).

Visual style is determined by what equips them best (interactive tools throughout book; lots of white space and room for reflection).

Distribution channels are selected by what most easily reaches them (keynotes, conferences, workshops, engagements, organizational buys).

Design and voice matched to what our audiences respond to (candid, wry, unorthodox).

And print run matches early demand (5000 out of the gate).

SW will be delivering a keynote for the next Education Event for the Greater New York Chapter of Meeting Professionals International (MPIGNY) on February 4th. He’ll be speaking on his soon-to-be released book, The Cartography of Negotiation.

The event will be hosted at the brand new Civic Hall, a new home for the civic technology community in the heart of New York City. The space, located in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, features 18,500 square feet of state-of-the-art co-working and events space. The space is designed and operated by the brilliant folks of Personal Democracy Media and launched with support from our own Frontier Live team. You can register for the MPI event here.

If you’re not able to make the event but still want to see the events space at Civic Hall, contact us for details on the open house coffee at the end of February!

One can negotiate with terrorist organisations.  And sometimes with individual terrorists themselves.  But the only way to negotiate with terrorism as a phenomenon is to negotiate with ourselves.

Terror is not created by the deaths of 12 individuals.  But by the narratives of black hoods, Kalashnikovs, uncertain next steps.

The strongest individuals in France today are those who are not 'Charlie', but themselves.  Who are choosing not to be crippled with narrative-driven fear.  To sit in cafes in Paris, Lille, Strasbourg, Marseilles...  To talk.  To laugh. To read satire. To just be.  

Individual loss is tragic enough for those families.  Mass fear would be a dishonour to the beliefs and values of those satirists lost.

The end goal of these people is not the killing of small groups of people, but to terrorise continents of hundreds of millions of people.  We can deny that goal by negotiating away our own hysterics and returning to our rational selves.