Too much choice can paralyze. Send a tired person into Borders for a half hour and he will scan a bunch of stuff, feel fatigued and overwhelmed, and walk out with nothing except a newspaper and the vague urge to return later.

Dr. Barry Schwartz, in his exceptional TED presentation, explains the paradox of choice (also, the title of his book on this subject). His warns that too much choice:

1. Creates paralysis, which is the decision not to buy any CD out of the thousands for sale, and

2. Destroys satisfaction, because a choice however perfect, suffers if compared against too many alternatives.

Dr. Schwartz’s ideas further illustrate how too much choice destroys satisfaction:

1. Regret and anticipated regret: this CD is good, but I know there was a better one that I didn’t buy.

2. Opportunity cost: maybe what I really wanted was a book.

3. Escalating expectations: with so many choices, I’m sure one must be awesome.

4. Self blame: since I picked a CD that was only good, I made a mistake and could have picked a better one.

In Almost Famous, Lester Bangs actually addresses the issue of choice. To quote:

Here’s a theory for you to disregard completely. Music, you know true music, not just Rock & Roll, chooses you. It lives in your car, or alone listening to your head phones, with the vast scenic bridges and angelic choirs in your brain. It’s a place apart from the vast, benign laugh of America.

In aggregate, the contents of a near-by Borders is Lester Bang’s vast, benign laugh of America. A person is lost there. A fan, someone for whom the music has been chosen, is apart from that consequence of too much choice, that laughing vastness.

How can an author or musician change his relationship with that person walking into Borders?

Dennis Hope, the new band manager for Stillwater, recognizes the answer when he agrees (“truly, respectfully”) with Russell Hammond’s statement, “it’s not about the money, it’s about music and turning people on.”

Turning people on. Creating relationships. Or to again quote Seth Godin, “turning strangers into friends and friends into customers.”

How? Drip on people. How? Web sites are extraordinary tools for this interplay of permission and dripping. Readers choose to go to a web site. They volunteer, and should be rewarded. Seth coaxes out minor permission and then nurtures that slim focus to a broader relationship.

On Seth’s web site, he creates timely commentary and fresh thinking. He’ll point out other interesting work. It’s a place where he and his readers recognize a mutual interest. He turns web surfers into audience members.

And when he has a new book, he can explain its value calmly and succinctly without distraction, without the presence of alternatives. He has eliminated the paradox of choice. Instead he can say, “there are four reasons my book is great, would you like to buy it?”

That question is a yes/no question. It is simple choice without the explicit challenges that Dr. Schwartz details above. That is a powerful change. It’s good for the audience. It’s good for the author.

———
Comments on Almost Famous:

When Lester Bangs and William Miller first talk, they are walking up a hill. Because, well, William has a hill to climb, yet.

Lester Bangs describes the record labels constant efforts to glorify rock stars as the “Industry of Cool.” Doesn’t walking into Borders or browsing Amazon feel kind of like going to Coolapalooza?

———
This concludes Part 6 of:

All I Needed To Know About The Value Of The Web I Learned From Russell Hammond

Or

Why Merlin Mann Should Write, Fear & Loathing At The Algonquin Round Table.

Earlier Parts:
The Halo Effect
Merlin mann Is Emily Rugburn
All Halo Merlin Mann
Feather Boas, Yeah!
Enter A New Manager: Seth Godin

What’s reckless about condescension?

But no matter. Ben Dunlap’s TED lecture is remarkable. He tosses a clutch of disparate ideas out in the first five minutes of his lecture, and then stitches them back together, building to a breathtaking conclusion. Ben Dunlap is a master story teller, and his tale inspires.

There is beautiful subtlety with along the way. For example, Ben Dunlap’s mentor, Mr. Teszler, invented double knit fabric, and also devoted himself to the integration of the notoriously segregated textile industry of South Carolina. Maybe those two story elements - double knit and integration - were pure coincidence, but a great story teller has an amazing ability to find coincidences.

He works in music - Bartok. Music is a force of story telling, well used in this lecture.

He uses great words with great success - ‘perforce,’ ‘skein,’ and even ‘risible.’ He alludes to Mothra and Godzilla.

His inspiration: learn as if you will live forever.
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I have posted three TED Videos on pwnership.com.

Mystery Box, A TED Video, today’s post on the Mystery Box, and the opportunity to just create.

Prohibit: Against The Law, a presentation by Larry Lessig on copyright and the internet.

The Secret To Happiness Is A Bad 1st Marriage, a presentation by Barry Schwartz on the cost of choice.

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Finished a big project, and gave myself an afternoon of guilt free web surfing. Found this awesomely inspirational video presentation by J.J. Abrams, the producer, director and screenwriter behind Alias, Lost, and Mission Impossible III.

Two quotes:

Mystery is the catalyst for knowledge.
Don’t hurt Tom’s nose.

Mark Frauenfelder, of Boing Boing, posted on this TED video. A quote from him:

As a speaker, Abrams’ enthusiasm — for the construction of Kleenex boxes, for the quiet moments between shark attacks in Jaws, for today’s filmmaking technologies, and above all for the potent mystery of an unopened box — is incredibly infectious, and sure to appeal to everyone from budding filmmakers to die-hard Kill Your Televisionistas.

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Larry Lessig, founder of Centre for Internet and Society and chair of the Creative Commons project, makes a passionate presentation at TED that discusses more free and less free. In other words, the heart of the issue of copyright and the internet. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, I strongly recommend watching the video.

I cribbed some notes from the presentation. I feel confident that in this case, cribbing is OK.

First, to the business of copyright, Larry argues that we need two types of change: 1) a collection of artists who make their work more freely available and 2) a collection of businesses that thrive in this ecology of freer (freeer?) content. These two changes allow “more free” to compete with “less free.” Competition, to his thinking and mine, is undeniably good.

Less free is the current system of copyright. One example of more free is Creative Commons. The system that maximizes artist income and consumer benefit is the best one.

He calls for business to enable the more-free ecology. For artists who wonder how they get paid, this concept is frighteningly vague. For others, this notion of ‘business enabling more-free’ is either without meaning or holds ill-formed aspirations. He is an idealist. So hard gaps in a plan can be simply filled with wishing.

Second, and to quote him, “much more important,” he discusses the morality of “less free.” Quoting:

We made mixed tapes, [our kids] remix music. We watched TV, they make TV. It is technology that has made them different. And as we see what this technology can do, we need to recognize that you can’t kill the instinct the technology produces, we can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using it, we can only drive it underground. We can’t make our kids passive again, we can only make them “pirates.” And is that good?

We live in this weird time. This kind of age of prohibitions where in many areas of our life, we live life constantly against the law. Ordinary people live life against the law, and that’s what we are doing to our kids. They live life knowing that they live it against the law.

That realization is extraordinarily corrosive. Extraordinarily corrupting.

The presentation of this impassioned argument starts at 17:30.

“The secret to happiness is a bad first marriage.” Dr. Barry Schwartz said that some where, I’m sure.

Thanks to Daring Fireball for posting a link to this TED video.