Web Theologian

Over a week ago, I was discussing the Game of Thrones Hodor failure just before I attended the Fast Company LA Innovation conference with a co-worker and client. The very next day I had learning how one media company was taking steps at source creation to prevent such failures. At this conference we were driven around LA, California visiting companies in a neighborhood that were doing innovated things.

My neighborhood was Culver City, and the first stop was Skybound. This is the company formed by the creators of The Walking Dead. After learning about the companies philosophy and vision, they shared with us an upcoming project they have call Five Year. It is an apocalyptic show that focuses on an family dealing with the news that the world will be destroyed in five years, and sustaining themselves in the midst of ever growing chaos. Instead of merely releasing in English or subtitling the series in another language. They have partnered with Viki, a platform used to share K-Dramas and crowdsource the translation of their subtitles, to use the IP in the English version of Five Years and fully localize (rewrite in a Korean context). This approach to content solves so many challenges companies face and completely eliminates what happen with the Game of Thrones Translation.

Skybound is creating one way to put out the best possible quality global content, perhaps the down side would be it is costly and requires trusting others with your ideas. In my opinion this benefits the entire world and creates a collaborate relationship that is stronger then merely translating, it is a level deeper in the creative process that captures something magical related to being global. Korean is only a first step for Skybound look for other languages to follow. In this experimentation it is the fans that truly benefit.

In addition the global writing team also benefits. At some point I came across the conversation of economists comparing the pie model vs. the candle model. In the pie model there are only so many slices and you must make sure to secure you piece of the pie. Where as Thomas Jefferson was give credit for the Enlightenment perspective of ideas that drive an economy as a candle, and when I share my light with you it makes the entire room brighter. In looking for references on this I came across the article:

Traditional Economics Failed. Here’s a New Blueprint.Why true self-interest is mutual interest. By Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer

It is worth a read an hopefully will inspire you to share a good idea with someone else today. Let’s think about how our work together, especially creatively, leads to better content for everyone.

It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects.

-Nikola Tesla