The Eno Evolution

The latest WIRED mag has an interview with Brian Eno, ambient music pioneer and producer of Bowie, U2, Talking Heads and most recently Coldplay’s latest album. During the interview, Eno is asked about the effect that the Internet technology and culture had on art and artists? He drops some knowledge:

That’s an interesting question. The effect of highly accelerated careers could be this: Ideas are put out into the public sphere much earlier, and less completely formed, than they would have been in the past. This is an invitation for other people to cherry-pick those ideas and finish them in various different ways. I think this makes culture a more widespread conversation, the result of a host of untraceable contributions webbing together to produce new things. It erodes the image of the artist as a lonely genius and puts us into a more “folk music” situation, where anyone can have a go and ideas spread out in all directions.

Heady stuff but I like where he took this response. The democratisation of ideas and information includes a redefinition of artistic achievements by lonely artists into co-creation by a series of collaborators.

This certainly applies to how brands are/can/and will be built and reflects some of the ‘principles’ we speak about at Hall & Partners: “Dialogue has replaced monologue” and “Consumers are active participants in the creation of brands”.

The upshot is that brands which give up some control to consumers within fertile environments often have interesting conversations with consumers and benefit from the resulting co-creation. Some examples – Subservient Chicken, Current TV, Digg, Radiohead, etc…

Another of Eno’s insights has to do with the acceptance of half-baked and unfinished ideas. There’s tolerance for non-perfection as long as there’s a mechanism to collectively improve upon it. This values speed and directed chaos. The current wild west of brand creation.