Categories: Articles

How Ideas Bounce From One Person's Head To Another.

How do ideas get shared? How does that change in a digital economy?

Evan Williams has done more than you. He’s done more than me. In fact, he’s currently doing more than most people will do in a lifetime. Here’s the TL;DR on Ev Williams: he created Blogger, Twitter and Medium. You could look at those three startups, and easily lull yourself into that prototypical Silicon Valley startup mindset of someone who’s hit unicorn-plus status on three occasions. It would be the wrong headspace. Instead think about the role of publishing in today’s economy. How do we get ideas from one person’s brain to another? In that context, Williams looks more like a modern day Johannes Gutenberg than anything else. It’s hard to imagine our world without those three platforms. It’s also interesting to note that Medium continues to improve and become an ever-more important place for those who wish to publish, share and create ideas.

Technology closes the gaps to make things more efficient and seamless.

In this fascinating 25 minute conversation, you will watch Evan Williams drop many pearls of wisdom, like the one above. This is another conversation courtesy of NewCo and John Battelle (you can see the other conversation with Tim O’Reilly over here: The Next Economy Company), focusing on the next economy, publishing, media, and much, much more.

Here it is: Understanding Medium: Evan Williams On His Past, Future, and Current Obsessions.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.