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Digital Transformation

IBM Connect Keynote Part 1: HitRecord and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Other Keynote Posts:

  1. Part 2 Smarter Commerce
  2. Part 3 Smarter Workforce and Watson

Joseph Gordon-Levitt spoke as the “famous speaker”.  He’s the actor from Looper, Third Rock from the Sun, etc.  He started his open collaborative production company called HitREcord.  Has now screened work at Sundance, South by Southwest, put out anthologies, put out DVD’s, etc.

Anyone can join the hitrecord.com site by uploading video, audio, etc.  Anyone can download and remix it.   To show the results, he let us see a mix video called, “The Man With a Turnip for a Head”   That was the result of 259 contributions then narrowed to 29 different contributors, none of which actually met physically to create it.

How could they do it?  Technology and people.  Technology starts as the great leveler because HitRecord spent no money on it.   It’s not just video tools but the internet and social tools like what HitRecord does.  Combine the technology with the community.  It started small and grew gradually.  The community opens to almost anyone and empowers individuals who have proven themselves in the community.  They become “resident curators”.

Remix forms the third leg of Hit Record.  Remix builds on top of the work of others and allows for more creativity. Intellectual Property on HitRecord works in an open way.  Anything uploaded gives HitRecord a non-exclusive right to use it.

The making of, The Man with a Turnip for a Head

  1. Start with the poem
  2. Add audio and video of the recitation
  3. Upload it to the site
  4. Push out the raw content and make people aware via tumblr, twitter, facebook, etc.
  5. Request Art for it.
    1. Vote and find the best
  6. Make the cartoon
  7. Write a score
    1. And vote for it
    2. Ask for help in creating a true score with instruments
    3. Combine it all together

How do you get paid for all this effort? Any profits get split in half. All the contributors share that.  HitRecord posts the suggested payments and asks for comments.  They then send out the checks.

Joe then highlighted  that this can only work with the mix of technology, community, and remix.  It’s the combination of the three that makes something unique and fulfilling possible.

Thoughts on “IBM Connect Keynote Part 1: HitRecord and Joseph Gordon-Levitt”

  1. His talk was by far the most interesting of the whole OGS. Once he left the stage the OGS developed into a rather disappointing performance.

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Michael Porter

Mike Porter leads the Strategic Advisors team for Perficient. He has more than 21 years of experience helping organizations with technology and digital transformation, specifically around solving business problems related to CRM and data.

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