I’m a big fan of Jonathan Harris. Ballons of Bhutan, Today and my favorite: We feel fine. His overarching theme is to capture and preserve memories and emotion from life’s most fleeting moments.

Recently, Jonathan Harris released Cowbird, a platform that hopes to unite storytellers in the process of deeply documenting not just their own lives, but the larger overarching sagas around them.

His goal is to offer a platform for the sort of longer, richer and multilayered stories you’re not going to find on your typical social platforms. The site states: “We’re trying to preserve and evolve the dying art of storytelling using technology as friend instead of foe.”

At the moment, the focus of the site is on The Occupy Movement, tapping individual experiences to depict a richer, more meaningful picture of our collective experience. A fascinating experiment.

And, why the name Cowbird? To represent the best attributes of its namesakes: “the slow, deeply rooted contemplative idea of a cow with the fast, efficient playful idea of a bird.”

In a Fast Company article he describes the idea behind the platform: “It wasn’t clear to me how there was going to be another level of compression after tweets, unless we reverted to monosyllabic grunts,” Harris says. “I thought we would hit some kind of wall, bounce back in the other direction, and people would start craving a little more depth.”

(…)

“We all have unique experiences and if we don’t pass them on, they evaporate when we die,” Harris says. “If there were a way to embody some of that wisdom so that other people could learn from it, that would allow us to grow on an individual level, but also a species level, from generation to generation.”

By encouraging people to document and catalog these experiences. Cowbird has the potential to become an organic anti-panopticon, capturing the stuff of life that can’t be sufficiently synopsized. Harris is confident that this is something people will want to do. “It’s asking something very different than firing off a tweet from your cell phone,” he says. “It ask a lot more of you as a storyteller, but I think it gives back a lot more too.”

A wonderful project.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats

Ultimately, we’re in the business of creating ideas. It can get very chaotic, unpredictable, extremely random. You can be the most disciplined person in the world, run rigorous processes; still: Idea development is never linear.

Our real challenge is not to have the idea but to recognize one little light amidst a sea of darkness. To take this little, precious thing and guard it from flaming out. To identify the potential, to see the implicit greatness, the possibilities to become something great and game-changing.

That makes our jobs as instigators, creators and innovators increasingly tough. We can’t just focus on the average, we need to fully aware of the edges because that’s where the best ideas come from. They come from thinking the unthinkable. From asking “Why don’t we?”, “How about?”, and proclaiming “Let’s do it.”

All of us are idea killers

It’s just so easy. Everybody can criticize ideas. Why? Because we can showcase our intelligence, our insights, our brilliant mind by pointing out the obvious inadequacies. It’s easy to crush fragile ideas and feel superior. While we congratulate ourselves for this act of forceful destruction, a small, weak idea that could have changed the world dies forgotten.

It’s easy and the least constructive. If you want to be regarded as a valuable addition to the universe (and your company) you should throw away your executioner uniform. And start carrying small little, velvet boxes. Coax, caress and nurture weak ideas. Help them to grow up and let them free when they are ready to become glorious visions. If that’s too much for you, at least don’t crush fragile ideas. We don’t always have to hear from you.

Sometimes it’s better to just listen and keep your opinion to yourself.

There’s a coffeeshop close to my house that I like to visit once a week. It feels like part of the neighborhood: very friendly and cozy. You see the same regulars, acknowledge and go on with your way.

Oh, and they cut their wireless service a while ago.

It felt like a nice break from the typical coffee shop. No strangers staring at screens, just people talking to each other. It was a nice break from our disrupted ADD-lifestyle.

Yesterday I drove by and they installed a massive HD screen, with Twitter updates and tweets from around the neighborhood. And the wireless is now running 24/7.

The innovation/improvement eliminated the one reason I visited this place regularly.

I love technology but it was nice to have a small break for a change. In order to catch-up with technology trends and emerging innovation, brands often forget about thing: their paying customers.

The marketing world is changing by the hour but sometimes we get carried away and focus on the latest and newest, forgetting the most important customers: the regulars.

Not everything new is worth your investment.

A short-term benefit might be a long-term detriment to your business. When you decide to alter the core experience of your brand, you need to make sure to answer these questions truthfully: Are you improving on the existing experience or introducing a completely new one?

- Are you doing it to keep up with the Joneses or is it something your customers asked for?

- Are you following a trend or adjusting to a lifestyle change of your customers?

- Will your customers thank you for it with additional revenue (spending more, spreading the word, etc.)

There’s a reason customers chose your brand

You’re doing something right or they would have left a long time ago. Innovate based on this core truth, not based on flashy toys.

I went to see a play in Hamburg yesterday. It’s called “The Last Hour”. You see a couple on stage, both are dressed as if to read the news or attend a press conference. The only other object on the table is a clock used in chess competitions. Behind the couple is a large video projection of the two faces of this same clock.

The chess clocks are set at 11.30. Each have half an hour to tell the other and the audience the things they never said, things they remember or would just like the other to know before the hour passes. At the end of each person’s half hour, the chess clocks’ red indicator falls. When this happens, that person can no longer speak and has to wait for the other to finish their half hour.

Raw truths are expressed, raw emotions and facts you never shared with anyone before. The relationship edges up to a better, more truthful level. And you wish they didn’t need the last hour to finally reveal things they were ashamed to share with their loved ones throughout their relationship.

Brands should be part of a “Last Hour” exercise

Imagine your brand has only one more hour of life left. Nothing you do will save it. It doesn’t matter why the brand is about to disappear: Competition, comets – whatever. It’s over.

Wouldn’t it be worth your while to get all stakeholders in the same room and to openly discuss things people remember about the brand, what they would have done differently, what was good, what should have changed in time? By having this fictional exercise, people will open up and discuss more freely what should be improved and often isn’t because of internal structures, egos or hierarchies.

The evolving business landscape requires us to work under the “Last Hour” premise

Some call it “Always in beta”, others think we have to innovate constantly, staying agile. Whatever you call it: Brands can be gone within months, killed by more efficient competition, sub-par products, PR mistakes or a changing customer landscape. Not expressing your ideas, sharing your thoughts with all stakeholders, not being able to admit mistakes and move on from them is a recipe for disaster.

There are more innovative ideas waiting to be released from within your team than from outside consultants. Tap into this amazing potential. You never to want to be in the position where the last hour becomes reality.

The “Last Hour” exercise might be just the right recipe to prevent this from happening.