Stilgherrian » bruce schneier

All you need is 1000 True Fans

Stilgherrian — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:10:27 +0000

“A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author — in other words, anyone producing works of art — needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.”

So says Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine, in his latest essay 1000 True Fans.

It’s worth reading the full essay to completely grok what he’s on about. But in brief, a “true fan” is someone who’ll purchase anything and everything you produce.

They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans…

Kelly’s point is that the Internet allows you to find and stay in touch with True Fans cheaply and easily — globally. He gives some useful numbers to help think it through, and opoints to some examples which are already working.

The trick is making direct contact with the fans out there in the long tail, converting a thousand Lesser Fans into a thousand True Fans.

Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day’s wages per year in support of what you do. That “one-day-wage” is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let’s peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks.

One thousand is a feasible number. You could count to 1,000. If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years. True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating…

Of course that magic number might not be 1000 for you. It might be 500 or 5000. But the principle is the same.

Kelly has researched the history of this, too. He’s discovered a First Monday essay from 1999 where John Kelsey and Bruce Schneier call it the Street Performer Protocol. And in 2004 author Lawrence Watt-Evans used this model to publish a novel — adding a chapter a month through fan subscriptions. There’s plenty more examples.

He also points to Fundable, a web-based organisation which…

…allows anyone to raise a fixed amount of money for a project, while reassuring the backers the project will happen. Fundable withholds the money until the full amount is collected. They return the money if the minimum is not reached.

Kelly reckons that an artist shouldn’t find it too hard to nurture 1000 True Fans globally. It certainly beats poverty. And it’s certainly made an impact upon my thinking! [full essay]

[Update: By an odd coincidence, this is my 1000th blog post -- and it has "1000" in the title. Is that significant, do ya think?]

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Saturday Reading, 1 March 2008

Stilgherrian — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 02:46:49 +0000

Summer’s over, so time to burrow indoors and catch up on reading, yeah? Here’s a few things to kick off your weekend.

Learning to Lie, a fascinating article covering not only how lying is a sign of an intelligent child, but how we learn that no-one likes a tattle-tale and teen rebellion. Hat-tip to Bruce Schneier.
A selection of 27 images from Life’s coffee-table book 100 Photographs that Changed the World.
6 Influential Datasets That Changed the Way We Think. Hat-tip to O’Reilly Radar.
Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, an amazing series of photographic images by Chris Jordan which illustrate the excesses of human consumption.

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The Psychology of Security

Stilgherrian — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:15:33 +0000

I should also post a link to Bruce Schneier’s magnificent essay The Psychology of Security. A fantastic read. For similar material, check out his keynote speech at LinuxConf Australia last week.

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Strength through Fear

Stilgherrian — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:07:05 +0000

That august political journal The Onion has brilliantly outlined the new US political strategy.

We must all do whatever we can to preserve America by refocusing our priorities back on the contemplation of lethal threats — invisible nightmarish forces plotting to destroy us in a number of horrific ways. It is only through the vigilance and determination of every patriot that we can maintain the sense of total dread vital to the prolonged existence of a thriving, quivering America.

Our country deserves no less than every citizen living in apprehension.

Fear has always made America strong. Were we ever more determined than during the Yellow Scare? When every Christian gentleman lived in mortal terror of his daughter being doped up on opium and raped by pagan, moustachioed Chinamen? What about the Red Scare, when citizens from all walks of life showed their pride by turning in their friends and associates to rabid anticommunists? Has America ever been more resolute?

Hat-tip to Bruce Schneier.

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Freakonomics interviews Bruce Schneier

Stilgherrian — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:20:33 +0000

There’s plenty to ponder when the Freakonomics lads (with help from their readers) interview security guru Bruce Schneier — including the news that he doesn’t bother securing his wireless network at home!

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Bruce Schneier on The Chaser’s APEC breach

Stilgherrian — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 01:01:18 +0000

Security expert Bruce Schneier has blogged about The Chaser’s APEC security breach — which means it’s just been read by most of the switched-on security professionals on the planet. “Social engineering” attacks like this are easy, he says. You just have to look like you fit in. One commenter points out that this goes beyond “security theatre” into “security opera”.

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Terrorist Special Olympics in the UK

Stilgherrian — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:26:54 +0000

I’ve unsubtly hinted at this before, but the mainstream media doesn’t seem to run this angle: The “terrorist” “bombings” in the UK just now were completely half-arsed and simply don’t deserve the attention they’re getting — unless it’s about having a really good belly-laugh.

Bruce Schneier, ever the clear-thinker about these issues, says it in his headline:

Terrorist Special Olympics in the UK

First London and then Glasgow. Who are these idiots? Is there a Special Olympics for terrorists going on in the UK this week?

Two points about Glasgow:

One, airport security worked. And two, putting a propane tank into a car and driving into a building at high speed is the sort of thing that only works in old episodes of The A Team. On television, you get a massive, extensive explosion. In real life, you only get a small localized fire.

I am particularly pleased with the reaction from the Scots, which is measured and reasonable. No one was hurt; no need to panic. Life goes on.

But don’t let this reality disturb the paranoid Fox News uberreality in which we live. Lo! There is grainy vision of a burning car. Lo! There are foreign men with funny names and dark skin. Lo! We raid their homes and find “religious literature”…

Hang on! Did I miss the day “religious literature” became suspicious?

Bruce Schneier’s essay on that laughable plan to blow up JFK (the airport, not the dead president) makes an important point about that:

Terrorism is a real threat, and one that needs to be addressed by appropriate means. But allowing ourselves to be terrorized by wannabe terrorists and unrealistic plots — and worse, allowing our essential freedoms to be lost by using them as an excuse — is wrong.

Indeed.

And let’s repeat the point. You’re far more likely to be killed by lightning or by drowning in your own bathtub than being killed by a terrorist.

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Is Big Brother a Big Deal?

Stilgherrian — Sun, 13 May 2007 00:48:53 +0000

“Big Brother isn’t what he used to be,” says security expert Bruce Schneier — and he’s not taking about the TV show. “Today’s information society looks nothing like Orwell’s world.”

A fascinating essay with follow-up comments — and something I’m bound to write more about soon. Thanks for the pointer, Zhasper.

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The Future of Privacy

Stilgherrian — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:46:07 +0000

Information security expert “Bruce Schneier”:http://www.schneier.com looks at “the Future of Privacy”:http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0603.html#1 in this article from his “_Crypto-Gram Newsletter_”:http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html. Two snippets:

bq. The pervasiveness of computers has resulted in the almost constant surveillance of everyone, with profound implications for our society and our freedoms. Corporations and the police are both using this new trove of surveillance data. We as a society need to understand the technological trends and discuss their implications. If we ignore the problem and leave it to the “market,” we’ll all find that we have almost no privacy left…

bq. Most of us are happy to give out personal information in exchange for specific services. What we object to is the surreptitious collection of personal information, and the secondary use of information once it’s collected: the buying and selling of our information behind our back.

Bruce writes coherently — and presumably knows more than we know he knows. “His books”:http://www.schneier.com/books.html are well worth a read too.