Reading: ‘Free’

In his latest book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” (Hyperion; $26.99), Chris Anderson explores “free” as a business strategy and posits that no-cost services will be essential to every company’s survival.

Although I was a fan of THE LONG TAIL, I’ve decided to test his theory by first reading FREE online, for free, before I order it for $$ on Amazon. I’ve read enough arguments against FREE online, such as this interesting take by The New Yorker’s Malcom Gladwell, to warrant needing my own “free” taste before forking over my hard earned cash 🙂

I’ve read a few chapters and so far, I tentatively agree with his observations. Sometimes, a little bit of free pays off:

My mother’s company, Legislative Research, Inc., relies heavily on her relationships with judicial committees and the nice (or not nice) men and ladies behind the desks of those offices. Often, mutual goodwill makes the difference between LRI receiving a needed file within the hour or weeks later. What’s a free service that my mother swears by to grease the political wheels of justice?

Cookies. That’s right — a dozen or so freshly baked morsels delivered by one of her cheerful employees every few months to each of the offices. It costs her very little but those sweet little treats are definitely appreciated by their recipients. It certainly helps that LRI operates with a high degree of professionalism, but my mom will be the first to say that her free cookie gifts make a huge difference in promoting her business and saving her company time and hassle. The ROI on her cookies means that they more pay for themselves.

FREE will be released in the US this week (July 7th in hardcover; July 9th in ebooks). According to Anderson’s blog, some physical copies of FREE will be free as well.

My First Reading: Unicorns

Last night, after changing my work schedule around (Thank you, Mr. J and Mr. W), I attended Leah Meyerhoff’s reading at NYU for her feature, Unicorns.

– Leah, her cast and Brian Gonzalez

photo via thefilmpanelnotetaker.com

Leah is a Slamdance Grand Jury Prize winner and Student Academy Award finalist currently pursuing an MFA at NYU. Her short film TWITCH has screened in over 200 festivals, won a dozen international awards and was picked up for distribution by IFC and Skandinavia TV. Her music videos TEAM QUEEN and ETERNAL FLAME have screened in over 50 festivals and are airing on LOGO and MTV Europe. She was also profiled in the docudrama series “Film School” which continues to air on IFC. Leah has been a featured panelist at film festivals across the country and recently served on the Slamdance narrative jury.

Unicorns tells the story of an awkward teenage girl who escapes to a fanatsy world when her first romantic relationship turns increasingly abusive. This will be Leah’s first feature film. I discovered Twitch and Leah by simply googling local filmmakers who had made award winning short films. I contacted her a few months ago on her website and since then I have been incorporating some of my classwork for The New School into assisting Leah on Unicorns.

I attended last night’s reading both to observe and to participate. Besides assisting Clarissa Delos Reyes with setting up the room and prepping the reception snacks, I also brought along my Panasonic DVX100b to help Brian Gonzalez shoot the reading.

I had never attended a reading before so it was a great learning experience.

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