When The Nerds Take Over
Definitely something worth thinking about. I’ve been thinking about this off and on for a while. Tom Peters and Hugh MacLeod, among others, no doubt, have written about similar ideas (“Brand You” and “Global Microbrand,” respectively).
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I was just emailing my friend Rjyan, attempting to express my cloudy feelings about where the world is going, and the phrase “The Individual Revolution” popped into my head. Not surpringly, someone already came up with the idea: Richard Duvall, who died last year:
A champion of the “individual revolution”, Duvall coined the term “freeformer”, a label used to describe a consumer tired of working with institutions and more inclined to go it alone. Some ten per cent of society at the moment are freeformers, according to Duvall, and there is an accelerating trend towards the “consumer entrepreneur”.
Currently, I think there’s a big challenge for anyone who wants to make a living (or get rich!) without the aid of a big corporation. So many people get “sucked up” into a company instead of maintaining their autonomy. How much longer will that go on? Is there a way to stay “single”, so to speak, or does everyone evertually crack?
An interesting aspect of turning yourself into a famous brand (as opposed to creating a company) is that only a crazy person would sell his own identity to another company. Like in Wayne’s World when they sold their show for $5,000, but much, much worse.
— jakoblodwick
