Speaking of Niche products & Creativity

Adorable Tiny Printer Creates Receipt-Sized Newspapers

Bridging the gap between your smartphone and the morning paper, the Little Printer creates tiny digests culled from news sources, social networks, and other subscriptions giving you something physical to read on your commute to work.

I have to say that this kind of takes the cake in terms of lining up with our class. We have learned about newspapers having to go with the flow in order to survive, well, this product is really going with the flow but I have to wonder how mainstream it will ever become!

Today we had a good overview of the way things are changing. I was reminded many times through this class about how much media has changed in my lifetime. When I graduated from high school I was given an Adler Elite Portable Manual Typewriter by my father. It was the deluxe in terms of going off to college with something you could lug around if you needed to. I typed a load of papers on it (mostly for other people). It cost the grand amount of $150 dollars. Just the other day I bought a laptop for my daughter for $300 that did so much more than my Adler ever could have dreamed of doing. On the other hand, I still have my Adler and I don't think she'll have that $300 piece of plastic from nearly that long. On the other other hand, I can no longer buy ribbons for my beautiful blue typewriter.

We talked today about how only 5% of "fans" create serious content beyond the "likes" and short comments. I would guesstimate that is true across the board. Only about 5% of any population is creative enough to go beyond the basics of life. Creative people feed their creativity and get up off the couch and do things. (Just my observation after years of observing people). For example, years ago before the internet, any given person might have know someone writing a book or acting in community theatre. A certain number of people were active in music or painting or writing poetry. Every now and then, you'd know someone who went to a great deal of expense to have their book published by a vanity press. They'd try to market it or give it to all their friends. But you generally didn't know more than a few people who went that far. There'd be more people who wrote letters to the editor or took the trouble to submit suggestions in suggestion boxes. The overwhelming majority of people go to work, eat, sleep, view, consume. They pat each other on the back and say hello to the people they already know. They talk about the weather and trivialities. Americans unfortunately mostly sit and you can tell that by the overwhelming lassitude of many people and the amount of time they spend sitting.

If you want to get things done in life you have to move, you have to create, you have to expand the boundaries of your neighborhood. I say write the newspaper, don't print it out on tiny paper. Fill in the blanks and write outside the lines. Write hard, die free.