Purpose and the 99 cent song. In the 1890’s, sheet music sales of single songs reached into the millions. Sales were promoted by illustrated songs. These illustrated songs are now thought of as the first music videos. About a dozen images would be hand painted in color on glass slides. The slides were projected onto a screen in a sequence that illustrated a song’s lyrics during its live or recorded performance in theaters. Audiences sang along. The first illustrated song was "The Little Lost Child" in 1894. It’s about a policeman finding a little child, who turns out to be his daughter. It was a nationwide hit. It sold more than two million copies of its sheet music. About ten thousand theaters nationwide featured illustrated songs.

Many composers cannot read or write sheet music. Paul McCartney and Irving Berlin are two. These composers use an amanuensis.

For thirty years movies were silent until a practical method to marry a moving image with synchronous sound was devised.

Digital music changed the music industry. Until the 1990’s the U.S. music industry was thriving and dominated by six companies – Warner Music Group, MCA, Capitol-EMI, Sony Music, Polygram, and BMG. In the four years between 1999 and 2003, overall sales of recorded music declined by a staggering one third. In 2005, Warner Music Group fired over 1,000 employees and dropped 30% of the artists on their roster. WMG reacted to the growth of the digital music market by moving out of record production and by closing or selling off disc-pressing plants, particularly in the USA, where production costs were high.

Consolidation of digital music with other media is problematic. For example, WMG tried to buy YouTube. In December 2008, negotiations between WMG and YouTube broke down. Since then, WMG has blocked or muted videos on YouTube that feature music recordings belonging to its labels or to its publishing arm citing copyright infringement. As to video games, WMG CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr. complains: "The amount being paid to the music industry, even though [video] games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small," and he concluded that "we will not license to those games." Bronfman has hinted that licensing would not be a problem if WMG found new and better ways to promote music and new ways to make profit. In February 2010, Bronfman said that WMG would stop licensing its songs to free music streaming services and instead focus on services that require payment.

The world is better that Paul McCartney and Irving Berlin did not come of age in an era of sheet music. It won’t take thirty years to consolidate digital music with other media. In the meantime, in the digital age we can be our own amanuensis.

Community Organizers. In late September 2001, the movie Zoolander had a decent opening weekend of $15M. It was an escape for a nation witnessing collapse, rescue and recovery in the aftermath of al-Qaeda commandeered airliners crashing into pillars of our might. Ben Stiller’s romp about rival male fashion models did not channel our grief. Our responsive chords were struck by television, cell phones, desktops and each other. Our nation changed. How have we responded? The conceit of Zoolander is that scores are settled on the runway. We like this idea. It’s a cold war relic.

Now we square off with foes we cannot find. Our resilient military has set out to win hearts and minds. Success in counterinsurgency operations stems on our military’s ability to adapt its organizational structure and strategy to win the support of the local population and directly defeat insurgents. That local population needs to have capable local security forces, especially police. It needs local governance. It needs sanctuary and support for the counter insurgents. Street patrols, block captains, community development corporations. These are lessons learned in southside Chicago or Dodge City in Indianapolis. Generals McChrystal and Petraeus as community organizers.

This may be our best response, until we entice bin Laden onto the runway in a dance off.

Purposeful shopping

Purposeful shopping. On Thanksgiving in 1947, a bronze Cherub took rest on the outdoor clock at the L.S. Ayres store in downtown Indianapolis. Indianapolis holiday shoppers long celebrated the seasonal appearance of this Cherub. It disappeared in 1992. The Cherub was found at the May Department Store Co. headquarters in St. Louis. Public outcry compelled its return. People found purpose in the Cherub.

Purpose is found in shopping. We need food, shelter and clothing. Retailers strive to understand why we need which merchandise. What we identify with is at the core of marketing and advertising. In the fall, Anna Wintour of Vogue can choose the shade of green worn the following spring. Or, local trends can emerge. We identify with what we buy. Merchants keep count of what sells. Successful stores are good at keeping track. Purpose becomes a commodity.

Stores themselves are commodities. Venture Stores were founded in 1968 when a Target co-founder went to work for May Department Stores. Under an antitrust settlement reached with the Department of Justice, May was unable to acquire any more retail chains at the time, and the department store company needed Venture Stores as a way to compete against the emerging discount store chains. May then acquired Associated Dry Goods, Loehmann's, Lord & Taylor, Caldor, Foley's, Filene's and Marshall Field's before being bought by Federated Department, consolidated and renamed as Macy's.

Purpose distributes itself across the market place in the shape of a bar bell. At one end, the Macy’s supply what they know we want to wear. At the other end, boutique shops experiment with trends. There is much innovation in the middle. But, the middle is thin since the Macy’s can out wit and out last the middles.

Abe and Mary. Joseph Gillespie and Abraham Lincoln were friends. In 1839, as Illinois State Representatives, together they jumped out of a window of a session of the Illinois House of Representatives in an unsuccessful attempt to deprive the Democrats of a quorum. Joseph Gillespie once said: "Mr. Lincoln was capable of immense physical and mental labor. His mind and body were in perfect harmony." Lincoln’s law partner, William H. Herndon, said: "Mr. Lincoln was a peculiar man; he was intensely thoughtful, persistent, fearless, and tireless in thinking. When he got after a thought, fact, principle, question, he ran it down to the fibers of the tap root, dug it out, and held it up before him for an analysis, and when he thus formed an opinion, no man could overthrow it; he was in this particular without an equal." Here is a timeline of the thirty years before he became President:

1831 - failed in a business venture.
1832 - defeated as a candidate for the state legislature.
1833 - failed in another business venture.
1835 - fiancee died.
1836 - suffered a nervous breakdown.
1843 - defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Congress.
1848 - again defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Congress.
1855 - defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
1856 - defeated as a candidate for U.S. Vice President.
1859 - again defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
1860 - elected 16th President of the United States of America.

Abraham Lincoln met Mary Todd at a dance at her sister's home in Springfield, Illinois. They had an "on-again, off-again courtship." Source: Beatrice Gormley. First Ladies: Women Who Called the White House Home. page 38. Having doubts about his love for Mary, on January 1, 1841, Abe called off their wedding. "During the summer of 1842, after the couple had gone nearly eighteen months without personal contact, mutual friends conspired to bring Mary and Abraham back together." Source: Doris Kearns Goodwin. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. page 101. After dating again secretly, with just a day's notice, Mary and Abe were married on the evening of November 4, 1842 in Springfield, Illinois in the parlor of the home of her sister

Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865 in Washington, D.C. He was 56 years old. He and Mary had been married for 22 years. Mary was so grief-stricken that she didn't leave home to attend Abraham's funeral. "Like a fairy godmother endowed with some life-giving potion, she tried to kiss her husband into consciousness, begging him to wake up and trying, as had often been necessary during their marriage, to catch his attention through some extravagant gesture." Source: Jean H. Baker. Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography. page 245. "Her grief became her chief preoccupation. She reminded herself of it constantly. She would not let herself forget it. She would not let her friends forget it. She couldn't believe what had happened to her. Because you must understand, that not only did she lose the man she truly loved, her great partner in life, but the man who had made her the First Lady of the Land, the man who gave her status, the man who gave her importance, an identity." Source: Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided. PBS.org.

Life finds a way.

Jeff Goldblum has talented hands. His gestures are memorable. In Jurassic Park he explains chaos theory through his hands to impress Laura Dern.



MALCOLM: Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler -- you've heard of Chaos Theory?
ELLIE: No.
MALCOLM: No? Non-linear equations? Strange attractors?
Ellie shrugs
MALCOLM: Dr. Sattler, I refuse to believe that you aren’t familiar with the concept of attraction.
HAMMOND: I bring scientists -- you bring a rock star.
MALCOLM: You see? The tyrannosaur doesn't obey set patterns or park schedules. The essence of Chaos.
ELLIE: I'm still not clear on Chaos.
MALCOLM: It simply deals with unpredictability in complex systems. The shorthand is the Butterfly Effect. A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine.
Ellie gestures with her hand to show that this has gone right over her head.
MALCOLM: Are you saying I’m going too fast. I go too fast, I did a fly-by.
Looking out of the opposite window, Grant spots something. He sits upright, trying to get a better look.
MALCOLM: Give me that glass of water. We are going to conduct an experiment. It should be still, the car is bouncing up and down, but that’s ok, it’s just an example.
He dips his hand into the glass of water and takes Ellie's hand in his own. Now, put your hand flat like a hieroglyphic. Now, let’s say a drop of water falls on your hand. Which way is the drop going to roll off.
He flicks his fingers and a drop falls on the back of Ellie's hand. Off which finger or the thumb, what would you say?
ELLIE: Thumb, I’d say.
MALCOLM: Aha, ok. Now freeze your hand, freeze you hand, don’t move. I’m going to do the same thing, start with the same place again. Which way is it going to roll off?
ELLIE: Let’s say, back the same way.
MALCOLM: It changed. Why? Because tiny variations, the orientation of hairs on your hand- -
ELLIE: Alan, listen to this.
MALCOLM: - - the amount of blood distending your vessels, imperfections in the skin - -
ELLIE: Imperfections in the skin?
MALCOLM: Microscopic microscopic - - and never repeat, and vastly affect the outcome. That's what?
ELLIE: Unpredictability....
Grant throws the door open and bolts out of the moving car.
MALCOLM Look at this, see, see?! I'm right again! No one could predict that Dr. Grant would suddenly jump out of a moving vehicle.
ELLIE: Alan?
She jumps out too and follows him into the field.
MALCOLM: There's another example! See, here I am now, by myself, talking to myself. That's Chaos Theory!

Jurassic Park warns of the dangers of tinkering with nature. Chaos teaches the opposite lesson as well. Unpredictability has patterns. With enough drops most of Malcolm’s hand would be wet. Resilience is learned from the results of many drops not seen when the path of only one drop is charted.

Responding to Change. When historians look back on this period in central Indiana, they will be surprised that an area so steeped in self reliance adapted so well to so much change through bureaucracy. Two hundred years ago, central Indiana settlers crafted cabins near grist mills, stills and churches. Life was rugged. These pioneers hoped for bountiful harvest to carry through harsh winters. Our era is a Me Millennium. We pursue happiness. We strive to enjoy. And we feel our demands for security, health, nurishing foods, green products, and a safer and cleaner environment often are not adequately supplied through the market place. So, we welcome a growing system of administration with greater specialized functions, fixed rules and hierarchy of authority. In what shape will our self reliant natures persist? In what manner will our resilient selves probe and intervene in administration? How will our resilient selves identify and plan for life’s uncertainties? Resilience is an ability to tolerate disturbance without collapse. A resilient nature withstands shocks and rebuilds itself when necessary. A resilient self anticipates and plans for the future. This blog is about recovering purpose and hopes to present profiles in resilient change.

Live or dead in the game of life. In 1970, a British mathematician named Conway devised a game he call Life. The game is played on a grid of square cells that looks like graph paper. Each cell is either dead or alive. Live cells can become dead and dead cells live. The life and death of a cell depends on its relationship with its eight neighbour cells. The rules of Conway’s Game of Life are simple. A live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population. A live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding. A live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation. A dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction. When animated on a computer patterns evolve of life and death from interactions with neighbors. The evolution of patterns is determined by the initial placement of live cells. One interacts with the Game of Life by creating an initial configuration and observing how it evolves. The evolving patterns mimic resiliency. Each Game of Life tests the capacity of the initial arrangement of live cells to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a static state.

Real resilience has the capacity to anticipate and plan for the future. That capacity allows us to become unstuck even when life seems to have boxed us in.

Being There (1979)

President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President "Bobby": In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President "Bobby": Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President "Bobby": Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President "Bobby": Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time.
[Benjamin Rand applauds]
President "Bobby": I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.