andrewfons

[andrewfons]

This is a playlist I made with bunch of songs that have been along for the ride with me in the year 2023.

[andrewfons]

Marketing Myopia

My favorite case from business school was written by a professor named Theodore Levitt. Ted grew up in a house of academics in Nazi Germany and later fled to the states given his Jewish descent. In the US he became a preeminent thought leader in marketing and innovation while teaching at Harvard Business School.

In 1983, Theodore Levitt proposed a definition for corporate purpose: Rather than merely making money, it is to create and keep a customer. As we build products we need to consider the customer benefit, not just the business gain.

From Marketing Myopia (1960)

“Every major industry was once a growth industry. But some that are now riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Others that are thought of as seasoned growth industries have actually stopped growing. In every case, the reason growth is threatened, slowed, or stopped is not because the market is saturated. It is because there has been a failure of management….

The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones) but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. The reason they defined their industry incorrectly was that they were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented….”

[andrewfons]

First artwork commission

New painting, yet to be hung. This was a commission from one of my closest friends and RISD classmate Buck Hastings who I have posted about on this blog before here and here. It is 48″x48″ oil on canvas and is based on an image of a pool of water in a forest done in Buck’s distinctive style. As my first commissioned piece of art, I am thrilled with the result! Thanks, Buck!

^ inspiration image

^ process sketch 1

^ process sketch 2

[andrewfons]

on the motives behind content creeping or ‘why we are so compelled to share internet sh*t?’

I have been sending friends web content a lot lately. Recently, I have emailed/ texted/ mentioned music/ books/ memes to people I have varying levels of friendship with. I estimate it to be at an average of about five unique shares per day. 

I am conscious of what this means as an ‘ask’ to the receiver.. “hey, trust my good taste and judgement of what you like and spend some of your time and attention on this content I want you to enjoy..”. When I consider it that way, I become a harsh critic of my own behavior. I’ve gone so far as to coin a term for this: ‘content creeping’. 

I would like to explore and write about why we are compelled to share the things we enjoy with others and how to best handle this aspect of hyper-connected life. As part of this exploration, I started a music blog about 22+ months ago and as an experiment, will only be posting content there for the foreseeable future. To see how its going, click ‘listen’ in the top left corner of this website.

ps. - I just recommended two years worth of music discoveries to you in a single blog post, and it felt sooo damn good. 

[andrewfons]

baby reid

*part 1/2

[andrewfons]

My portfolio website two years/ 15,000+ views ago vs. now..

[andrewfons]

reunited with the Pacific/ Zuma Beach, CA October 2015.

[andrewfons]

"After the writer and theologian John Hull became completely blind in 1983, he kept an audio diary of his experience. This film is a dramatization using those recordings." ~ from nytimes video -  http://nytimes.com/video https://vimeo.com/newyorktimes

[andrewfons]

Letters to the First Lady from famous citizens following the assassination of JFK. Personally speaking, I found the last one from Duke Ellington to be the most compelling.

[andrewfons]

opening weekend - fall 2013

[andrewfons]

as seen on - informationisbeautiful.net

[andrewfons]

Where Do All Of Our Tweets Go?

At the time I type this in 2009 humanity is capable of sending data anywhere on earth in milliseconds by way of fiber optic cables. These data are sent as a series of light pulses traveling at the speed of light around the globe through submarine cables. A massive system of cables are gently draped along the seafloor oftentimes miles deep into the great abyss. Our text messages, cell phone calls and shared media can make their way from a cellphone in San Francisco to a laptop in Shanghai in less than five tenths of a second! One may draw the connection between a pattern of light pulses and the clicks of Morse Code to imagine how our communication technologies have evolved over generations.

In the case of the United States specifically, as much as 80% of our data travels to and from Asia making landfall on the west coast beneath the slow, rolling waves of San Luis Obispo, California. Following the events of September 11th, the Patriot Act made it legal for the US government to monitor all digital communication coming into or out of the country. It did so by cloning the massive cable bundle on the west coast and routing it directly into the government's mainframe of supercomputers. As fascinating as this all is, the most mind boggling aspect to me is that we are able to run cables along the entire ocean floor! How does that even work? What happens if a cable is damaged or eaten by a giant sea monster living down in the depths? Feeling like I had to know the a, I reached answers to thisl, I reached out to a professional in the Fiber Optics industry on a website called aardvark.com (now inactive). Here is what I was able to find out.

Me: Does anyone know if Fiber-optic cables are embedded into the floor of the Pacific Ocean, laid on top of the sea floor or somehow hovering above it?

Jeremy (fiber optic industry expert): The cables are laid on the bottom of the floor, not dug under the sea bed nor are they floating

Me: Thank you, this still seems slightly unfathomable though, how doesn't it get damaged often?

Jeremy: Actually they (Fiber Optic cables) get damaged quite often, and there is a fleet of vessels responsible for fixing cuts when they occur. Recently there were widespread outages in the middle east due to multiple simultaneously damaged cables. There are many redundant cables, so while it's common for any given cable to be damaged it's rare that enough of them will be damaged at any given time to cause an outage. Here's an article about how they repair them: http://www.slate.com/id/2156987

 2009 Submarine Fiber Optics World Map (click to enlarge).

[andrewfons]

A new website is on its way and it’s going to be the mothership for me it looks like. It will serve as a home base for me online with all links filtering out of one central location. (http://andrewfons.com).

..sample site maps made in OS app ‘mindnode’ pictured above. ps - MindNode is a very fun + intuitive product, check it out!

[andrewfons]

photographer Michael Wolf's "Density of Architecture" series, shot in Hong Kong, is haunting and incredible (but only when you consider the human experience inherent) ..otherwise you get something closer to interesting patterns.

[andrewfons]

pictured/ everything I owned in the world as of late-July 2013 (minus the couch).

[andrewfons]

"Ask the Art Professor" is an advice column for visual artists, now featured weekly in the Huffington Post.  This is your chance to ask a professional artist/educator your questions about being an ...

[andrewfons]

Here's a challenge.. in the topmost photo of this post, find the children's book entitled 'The Insomniacs' (hint: lowest right cubby but furthest to the left of it).

This is my #risd pal Sean Hilts and his brother Ben's most recent publication in the children's book genre. It was written by Karinna Wolf and boasts countless pages of illustrations, exquisitely done by the bros. Hilts.

My take: It is definitely worth the $12 purchase from amazon. Whether the intended audience is 5 or 50, if you happen to pick one up, it will be enjoyed by all. You are welcome in advance should you give er' a read and well done Hilts'es!

enjoy your (almost) October! Andrew

  -- http://andrewfons.com