Innovation Tips: Ockham's Razor

When someone says to you: I am working with a cube, you know exactly what he is talking about. It's just like someone saying: I am thinking of God - that's as close as you will ever get - but you have the essence of the idea.

Perhaps I can clarify it by using an analogy.

1. Lawyers will sometimes re enact an event and take photographs using models to demonstrate their case. They hope this will help the jury decide on the case in their favor.

2. They also use written statements from eye witnesses.

3. The lawyer on occasion takes the jury to the place of the accident and will have them watch a rerun using similar cars and people.

4. The lawyer tries to magically turn back time, so they can see the whole thing happen again and be in the picture themselves.

The thing about each one of these tactics is that each one is complementary to the others. But the last one, number four, is the most essential.

Just like the lawyer working to win his case with his different tactics - Internet Marketing has tactics that are used to win the wanted response.

No matter what field you are in, you need to innovate new ideas and present your product or your service ... to others. You need to do some Marketing. You need to understand the different possibilities you have in Marketing.

You Gotta Have Innovative Products And Promote 'Em Hard. - Marlon Sanders

Marlon's, Ockham's Razor Income System isn't like any other product, Marlon takes you into his own business... He shows you what he does and tells you why. He gives you the formula. He gives you the plan.

Marlon wants you to avoid the difficulty of Internet Marketing which he feared has perplexed many of the readers. He wants you to escape the subtle and mysterious difficulties which beset all attempts at learning this Internet marketing game.

This is, I believe, the very first attempt that has been made to simplify this fascinating subject. It is altogether fitting that Marlon's pioneering efforts in Internet Marketing returns to the Evergreen with the application of Ockham's Razor.

Mental recreation is a thing we all need for our mental health. You may get much healthy enjoyment, no doubt, from games, such as backgammon and chess. But, when you have made yourself a first rate player at one of these games, you have nothing real to show for it. You enjoyed the game and the victory, no doubt, at the time. But you have no result that you can treasure up and get real good out of.

All the while, you have been leaving unexplored a perfect mine of wealth. Once you master the machinery of Internet Marketing you have a mental occupation always at hand, of absorbing interest. And one that will be of real use to you in any venture you may take up.

Ockham's Razor Income System will give you clearness of thought... The ability to see your way through the puzzle of Internet Marketing. You'll learn the habit of arranging your ideas in an orderly fashion and have systems that make everything work together.

More valuable than all... The power to detect fallacies and to tear to pieces the flimsy illogical arguments, which you will so continually encounter in books, in newspapers, in speeches and even in Internet Marketing. And which so easily delude those who have never taken the trouble to master this fascinating Art. Try it. That is all I ask of you.

The person, who wants to learn this game of Internet Marketing and try the question fairly... Does Ockham's Razor Income System work? Or does it not... Supply the information for success in Internet Marketing? Is advised to follow these steps:

1. No Dipping

Begin at the beginning and do not allow yourself to gratify a mere idle curiosity by dipping into the book here and there. This would very likely lead to your throwing it aside, with the remark "This is much too simple for me!" and thus losing the chance of adding a very large item of information to your stock of mental delights.

This rule of not dipping is very desirable with other kinds of books also... Such as novels, for instance, where you may easily spoil much of the enjoyment you would otherwise get from the story, by dipping into it further on, so that what the author meant to be a pleasant surprise comes to you as a matter of course.

Some people, make a practice of looking into the back of the book, just to see how the story ends. I know a woman that always reads the last chapter of a book before she starts reading the book. Perhaps it is just as well to know that all ends happily that... The the much persecuted lovers do marry after all. That the hero is proved to be quite innocent of the murder. That the wicked cousin is completely foiled in his plot and gets the punishment he deserves. And that the rich uncle in India dies at exactly the right moment.

This could be permissible with a novel, where the last chapter has a meaning, even for those who have not read the earlier part of the story. I don't really believe it is, because you spoil the thrill and the anticipation... That reading into the middle of the night, because you can't put the book down. But, with a scientific book, it is sheer insanity. You will find the latter part hopelessly unintelligible, if you read it before reaching it in regular course.

2. No Unturned Stone

Don't begin any new section or chapter, until you are certain that you thoroughly understand the whole book up to that point. Take the time to work, correctly, most if not all of the examples that are given.

So long as you are conscious that all the land you have passed through is absolutely conquered... That you are leaving no unsolved difficulties behind you, which will be sure to turn up again later on. Your triumphal progress will be easy and delightful. Other wise, you will find that your state of puzzlement gets worse and worse as you proceed, till you give up the whole thing in utter disgust.

3. Read Again

When you come to any passage you don't understand, read it again. If you still don't understand it, read it again. Look up any words you are not clear on the meaning. If you fail, even after three readings, very likely your brain is getting a little tired. In that case, put the book away and do something else. Come back the next day, when you are fresh, you will very likely find that it is quite easy.

4. Talk

If possible, find some good natured friend, who will read the book along with you. And will talk over the difficulties with you. Talking is a wonderful smoother over of difficulties.

When I come upon anything - in Logic or in any other hard subject - that entirely puzzles me... I find it a capital plan to talk it over, aloud, even when I am all alone. And then, you know, one is so patient with one's self. One never gets irritated at one's own stupidity!

If, dear Reader, you will faithfully observe these rules and give Marlon's book a fair trial... I promise you, most confidently, that you will find Ockham's Razor Income System to be one of the most, if not the most, fascinating of mental recreations!

Marlon makes us a promise - "There are lots of ways to muck it up and only a few ways to do it right. Once you learn the right way, I think you'll find it's simple and even fun".

"That doesn't mean it's HARD to do. It means you need systems in place to do it. So don't worry or fret. I'm going to lay things out for you, so you'll know what to do".

Marlon found from experience, products that are innovative, simple, easy to use and not difficult to understand will bring success.

"So I'm going to show you HOW you do it. I doubt anyone has ever explained to you the importance of innovation, how to avoid the pitfalls and how to do it right. Because if this is the only chapter you read, you'll do it WRONG". Ockham's Razor Income System page 17

When seen at close range, after the output of some great innovator, he seems to render null and void the work of all his predecessors. Afterward, he is recognized only as revealing truth from a new angle.

Boccioni's Technical Manifesto of Futurist Paining, published in April, 1910.

We declare:

1. That all forms of imitation must be despised, all forms of originality glorified.

2. That it is essential to rebel against the tyranny of the terms "harmony" and "good taste" as being too elastic expressions, by the help of which it is easy to demolish the works of Rembrandt, of Goya and of Rodin.

3. That the art critics are useless or harmful.

4. That all subjects previously used must be swept aside in order to express our whirling life of steel, of pride, of fever and of speed.

5. That the name of "madman" with which it is attempted to gag all Innovators should be looked upon as a title of honor.

Andy Warhol's, 1964 film Empire, sabotages all attempts at deception. When Warhol abolished time in his unmoving movies... they insisted on retaining actual time. He made boredom permissible... Conceptualism ran with it. When an artist's video records his activities (eating an apple) over a span of twenty minutes, it is endless.

Many of the artists in the 1960's were dealing with the immaterial image - pure light and empty space. A new generation of artists turned to the immaterial medium of video.

Video tape appeared in the late 1960's, while artist's were destroying the art object. Video seemed the perfect medium for ideas... for explorations of real time and duration. Art without baggage. Art created in the East was definitely non narrative.

Innovative Internet marketers can look to other people in different fields for ideas on how they create new products.

VIDEO ART

West coast art took another road. Television was a central part of their lives. People patterned themselves after television characters. Entering any local discount store you easily recognized the Rockfords and Barnaby Joneses. Mae West was their interior decorator along with quiz show decor.

The second generation artists usage of video related more directly to television than to past art.

Their mantra was "We're all children of the media".

In the East, television didn't have the same influence - because it was "Made in California." The palm trees, stucco houses and sunny boulevards with the latest car chase wasn't their realm.

In California, television was not only true to life, but life was true to television. It was inevitable that West coast video art would turn to narrative.

Television consists of regular programs that are interrupted for commercials and station identification. This offered a new kind of narrative structure within itself - interruptions that are non sequential and inconsequential.

A great deal of time is spend driving through California landscape with endless repetition of the same man made scenery. Taco Belles and Jack in the Boxes recur with predictable regularity, like TV commercials. The repeating suburban streets are indistinguishable from each other - looking like stage sets.

Life is interrupted by periods of being encapsulated in a car on the freeway - taking the place of the station break.

Television was the real subject of West coast video art.

Billy Adler and John Margolies, created a collage with actual news clips of Nixon. Nixon appears to be the host of a family variety show - playing the piano, doing a comic bit with a Yo-Yo, tossing insults and quips like a true trouper.

Chris Burden purchased commercial advertising time on L.A.'s Channel 9 and aired his TV Ad art work nightly for a month.

Susan Mogul's, 1975 video tapes overflow with vulgarity and are like TV commercials gone berserk. "Take Off", parodying Vito Acconci, she alternates repeated insane sales talk with demonstrations of a vibrator. "Dressing Up", Susan chats with us about sales, discounts, famous name brands all while munching on peanuts and getting dressed in her bargain clothes.

While L.A. videos ridiculed the follies of a materialistic culture. The artists, in San Diego, took the news and the documentary as their models - becoming investigative reporters, exposing the evils of society.

Many artist felt television was making the written word obsolete and used the format of a picture book for their videos.

Al Ruppersberg wrote a paperback novel that was mostly blank pages. He turned a book, "The Portrait of Dorian Grey", about a painting into a painting. Ruppersberg created a handwritten copy of "The Portrait of Dorian Grey" on twenty man size canvases.

Another Ruppersberg work consisted of three panels - a grid of books on shelves, photographed in color with written text across all three panels, speaking of suicide.

John Baldessari, American Conceptual Artist, born in 1931, didn't think video was the answer to art's dilemma - in spite of its rapid proliferation. But it does carry clues to a new narrative.

Television is mass media. Video art applies only to those interested in art, much in the same way as there might be specialized programs for those interested in boat building, stamp collecting, group therapy and so on. The video cassette made it possible to produce programs for audiences of less than ten thousand economically, implying a whole new area of specialization almost akin to specialized trade magazines.

Baldessari, in 1974, spoke of a growing disenchantment with video. "With enough disillusionment perhaps more artists will consider doing works using the real world. Consider real experience rather than hiding behind the screen. And this may be the real payoff and what we have all been heading toward. The real world may not be so bad."

Video art in the long run is not television. It's the medium of television being used by artists to express conceptual ideas. And also to express ideas about time and space. What is important about video tape is that it is a direct medium of dealing with your own mind, not making a physical object that puts your body between you and your mind. The tendency of video tape is to expose the artist in a direct relationship with the audience. The audience knows how the artist feels. Knows how the artist is thinking at firsthand, for the first time in the history of art.

I'm going to tell you a story that has been repeated many times in the art community.

The story takes place in a small cable television station owned by one man. At midnight instead of signing off for the night - he takes his camera into his office. He sits in front of the camera for a long time, thinking of what to do.

He remembers he has wanted to clean out his desk for years. Starting with the top drawer, he rummages though the accumulation of old pencils and parking tickets. He finds unopened letters stashed away under the old junk - a few of them contain checks. Instantly he knows he is onto a good thing.

There are notes from long lost friends and even letters from past lovers. The man forgets that he is on camera. He is engaged in a rediscovery of himself.

He opens every drawer, examines every piece of paper, every object. Some are put in his coat pockets and others are thrown away. A small portion go back in the drawers.

He finishes with his desk and moves to the old battered file cabinet next to him. It's bulging with magazines, newspapers, bills and a half full bottle of whiskey.

By the time he is finished, the morning sun is coming through the window. He looks at the camera. He has broadcast himself for eight hours.

A few people had dosed off with their TV on, woke up to turn it off. They saw a man cleaning out his desk. They couldn't believe it. They started to watch... it grew on them. It was boring but some how comforting. They called their friends. Word spread quickly around the little town served by this cable station.

The next day the phone is ringing off the hook. Later the letters started coming in. Everyone enjoyed his performance. The news spreads through the wire services.

He returns to running his cable station and is never heard from again.

EXPAND SIGHT AND SITE
-"Manifesto for a New Television." 1971

This is a real-time
video tape.
The performance you are
watching
has occurred
is occurring
in real time your time
no editing.

-Statement for "Ten Videotape Performances,"
Finch College Museum, New York 1971

Mr. Baldessari, in the catalogue I found an old quotation of yours. You once said that the artists you most admired were Giotto and then Henri Matisse. Why these two painters in particular?

John Baldessari: I think the reason would be that they are both paradoxes. They might look very simple, but they're complex. They offer something for the most average viewer and for the most sophisticated viewer at the same time. It seems like a paradox, but it also seems to work. Their work can be communicated on both levels. I think that's a very rare quality, and I suspect for any artist it would be inspiring to do that. So in a way they became role models for me.

You made a series of works with photographs printed on canvas.

The dominant movement when I gave up painting was Abstract Expressionism. And the normal complaint you hear is that a child could paint like that. I just got tired of that, and so I thought, why not give people what they want? To me, it seemed the most obvious thing would be photographic imagery and text, words that you see in the magazines or newspapers. That would be more in their immediate experience. That's why I started doing that. I put those photographic pieces on canvas because it made them into art. If it's canvas, you don't even have to have anything on it and people still think it's art.

"It has been demonstrated among the most advanced artists of our time that their achievements in art have come about almost as a reaction against their training. The willingness to change and innovate that is standard procedure at all art schools. Probably the most hopeful and positive indications of change lie in the area of interdisciplinary studies, which are slowly and reluctantly being accepted." - Gregory Battcock

Gregory Battcock, is well known in the art world for the excellent anthologies he has edited that sum up the goals and techniques of several important movements in contemporary American art.

Marlon Sanders, is well known in the Internet Marketing world for his simple to understand methods and how to produce products that sell. Now in his new book, Ockham's Razor Income System, he shows you how to innovate products.

It has cost Marlon years of hard work and should prove, to be of real service to all Internet marketers.

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