Inside a century old spiritualist temple off Newbury Street in Boston, Idealab! is a logical link to a New England tradition: Think a little, then think big, then get big.


























 
Archives
<< current













 
This article is a work in progress for The Newbury Street and Back Bay Guide (http://www.backbayguide.com). For more information about what the heck is going on here, go to http://mythville.blogspot.com/. And please, buy the damn book, "The Road to Mythville," at iuniverse.com and amazon.com.



























The Big Idealab
 
Monday, August 30, 2004  
Google Search: Mythville
1:52 PM

Tuesday, August 24, 2004  
Mythville
3:55 AM

Friday, January 25, 2002  


By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville MetaMedia

Five thousand years from today, as archaeologists are either digging up or deep-sea diving within the ancient legendary city of Boston, they will find and a boxy, quirky stone temple. Surely, the original First Spiritual Temple, 181 Newbury Street but really facing Exeter, will still be discovered intact. The structure looks solid as a granite butte. And as these future historians connect the dots to determine the history and fate of the place, they will note that somehow, between when it was built in 1885 by a sect of spiritualists and pioneers in parapsychology, and the year 2002, a sort of continuity was maintained. Even if a completely different kind of corporate mentality overcame the historical monument in the form of Idealab! during the late 20th century, the spirit of open-mindedness and positivism and creativity and enlightenment was still, at least somewhat, the drift, the mode, the general idea.

These historians might write that just as the one-time spiritualist temple, another-time theater and yet another-time once-beloved bookstore all had something to do with a higher intelligence for a long-gone society that was, well, not always inclined toward the high end, the tenants during the late 20th century and early 21st were, quite clearly, living the die-hard dream of the post-Internet age. Which was smart stuff. The best and the brightest. Right?

As one of the performers in the old Exeter Street Theater, Alec Guinness (in 1967, in a production called "The Prisoner"), would say, in a far different venue in a galaxy far, far away, "Go with the force, Luke."

Idealab! is still going with the force. There are still bean bag chairs and an UFO poster that says, “believe,” to prove dot-com chic is alive and well on Newbury Street. The concept for the Internet incubator (which means a creator of smaller ventures within its paternal auspices) is based on an open-ended, collaborative approach. Which requires a lot of tolerance for other people's ideas. Indeed, a control freak, while great on Wall Street and the sands of Iwo Jima; in an idea lab, well, a control freak is a barrier to success.

"In the lab, we think, we create, we experiment," says Hugh Shytle, the chief operating officer for the facility in Boston. "Everybody has their own passion and we can't inject our passion into someone else. You can't be control oriented. You have to let them (those working at building incubated companies) develop on their own."

But before we can go any further about what "incubator" means, or, what goes on inside Idealab!, or, how the company has managed to survive after the great dying out of the Internet age, we must return to the temple. After all, while some may believe everything begins with the Big Idea, the surrounding environment is what really pushes the idea guy forward. What would art be without its governing media? A painter without a canvas is a visionary, perhaps, but hardly a bankable commodity.

Everything begins with architecture, within the “sacred geometry” (what the Freemasons call it) needed to create structures, which can then be used to hatch bigger ideas. Without that roof over his head, the caveman is trying to invent a match in order to light a fire in the rain. Without the initial structure of the Internet, a programmer is nothing but a man holding an abacus. There is no law, no code, without an initial environment.

This particular environment was built in the 19th century by Marcellus Ayer, who might have imagined the Web of life, but the Internet, for him, could have only been perceived as this iffy business proposition called the telegraph.

Morse code, indeed! Ayer believed he could send e-mail through the cosmos. A successful wholesale grocer in Boston, Ayer was attracted to a then new philosophical movement known as Spiritualism. Then, out of a sense of despondence over the way his movement was, well, moving, Ayer claimed to have an extraordinary psychic experience, according to the First Spiritual Temple's Web site, which is based out of the organization’s current headquarters in Brookline.

"In the early 1880s, while sitting in a circle for Spirit communication and philosophy, at his home, in West Chester Park, Boston, the sign that he knew would, someday, be given was given," the Web site states. "And what a sign it was! Several of his family members and others in Spirit physically materialized to him and, via direct voice, instructed him that now was the time for him to give back to God, Christ, and Spirit what God had so generously given to him.

“He was instructed that now was the time for him to begin a religious society and church, from which the noble truths of a New Dispensation could emerge. Furthermore, he was told that such inspiration was being given to others, throughout the planet; primarily in Germany, Russia, and South America. The messages and inspiration from Spirit kept coming; the basic concepts of the church were established, as were the details for its church building.

"It was to be a place:
· From which the voice of God and Spirit could speak to all people, from all religious and spiritual backgrounds.
· From which both the religious and scientific implications of Spirit phenomena and communication could be examined, free from dogma and prejudice.
· From which mediumship would not be used to prove one's religious beliefs.
· In which the medium would never surpass the message."

The church was founded on June 28, 1883 as The Working Union of Progressive Spiritualists. Despite the controversy surrounding Ayer's claim of astral inspiration during an age of Victorian virtue, skepticism in an age of isms, and sectarian bickering among the traditional Christian, spiritualist and theosophist personalities of the day, the church's membership grew to 1,000 members in its early years. Renamed as The Spiritual Fraternity to placate some of the opposition, the temple was built at the corner of Exeter and Newbury in 1885.

Ayer’s remaining experience in Boston, and the fate of the building, is summed up at the FST.org web site with the following:
"Marcellus Ayer was humanitarian in nature. He believed deeply in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood and sisterhood of Humanity. He committed himself to human rights. He was an avid proponent of the Suffrage Movement and women's rights in general. He also devoted his energies to expounding health and hygiene. In fact, he was the first to develop a decaffeinated coffee substitute in Boston. In addition, he was very much involved in pioneer psychical research and worked very closely with the renowned Andrew Jackson Davis in fostering such work.

"The church's work continued to grow, up until around 1910. But, prejudice and resentment ultimately took their toll on the church. In 1914, the main sanctuary of the Temple was reconstructed and converted into Boston's legendary Exeter Street Theatre. Our records indicate that Marcellus Ayer initially opposed this move, but finally agreed, hoping that, someday, the theatre would be removed and the church would return to her former glory. Worship services were, then, conducted in the lower church auditorium."

So, the medium took his message downstairs. Meanwhile, the new medium, the theatah, became the message.

Signs of the famed theater, once considered to be one of the great venues of Boston, are still quite visible in the current appearance of the facade of Idealab! The broad entryway still remains, and the reception area at Idealab! still has enough room for an old-style theater lobby (albeit, more antiseptic these days). One of the more pronounced features of the facade is a large stained-glass window in the shape of an arc. Small panels inside the window includes stain-glass images of literary heroes: Mark Twain, James Joyce, Edgar Allen Poe, jack Kerouac, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and, at the very top of a rather pyramidical scale, William Shakespeare.

According to the FST Web site, "The Exeter Street Theatre ... became famous, worldwide, and was referred to as the Grand Dame of Boston Theaters. It closed its doors quietly in 1974, with no fanfare, under the direction of Viola and Florence Berlin. It was believed that this grand institution should fade away with dignity. That it did, and we have been quiet for many years."

When the Waterstone bookstore closed its doors in 1999 (?), Idealab! remodlered the place with a less-is-more theme and moved in. Although some might claim the move was as predatory an act of capitalism against the beloved bookstore as anything Amazon.com could manage, the retail space’s true undermining was actually the smoke damage from a fire in the adjacent kitchen of TGI Friday's, according to Leslie Price, facilities manager at the Idealab! in Boston.

The historic touches that remain, the stained glass, the exposed red brick, the churchy high ceiling, are what employees at Idealab! look as they wait for the muse of inspiration to conjure up the catchy name for a new Web site, programming code, or, better yet, how to find some way to make real money this time. Inside this century old spiritualist temple Idealab! is a illogical link to a rationalist’s idea of Yankee tradition: Think a little, then think big, then get big. And if it doesn’t get big, well, maybe something is gained or learned in defeat, even in the doing.

“We try a lot of things, and a lot of things fail,” Shytle says. “A lot of people don’t know how to deal with that.” That’s life in a nutshell, for Spiritualists, booksellers, Broadway plays and dot-com busts.

According to Shyler, the theory of incubation for the company, that was originally founded in Pasadena, Calif., in 1996 by Bill Gross, is less like that of a chicken hatchery, more like raising teenagers.

"It's more akin to child rearing," Shyler says. "We will form a company around the officers that share the idea----programming, legal, finance and so on----and we build these companies to be free-standing entities. Sometimes they go in directions you wish they hadn't, and you want them to prove their independence. And once our adult children become public companies, in many cases we maintain an equity stake."

The company's main creative activities are centered in either its headquarters in Old Town Pasadena or Boston, but there's also a management presence in New York and London. These days in Boston, several new companies are experiencing growth pains, including Newbury Networks, Compete.com and Paythrough.com. The latter is based on an idea that's still very much in its infancy, that is, the whole concept of news organizations collecting fees for content views at, say, pennies per click. "They are somewhere between a toddler and a teenager," Shyler says of Paythrough. "They are dependent upon us. We spend from $80,000 to $120,000 a month on it."

Idealab itself employs a supporting team of approximately 20 management people to, according to its Web site, "develop ideas for companies and provide guidance to start up companies. Employees of Idealab are compensated by Idealab, hold Idealab stock options, and receive Idealab benefits. Idealab operating companies are companies that are developed from ideas created by Idealab. They are legally separate entities managed by independent teams of executives who report to their respective boards of directors. Employees of Idealab operating companies are compensated by the operating company itself (not by Idealab), and typically hold stock options in the particular company, and receive that company's benefits."

The Idealab! offices in Boston, consist of mainly of younger, and therefore more likely free-thinking creative, marketing and programming people, includes another 40 employees. It’s a collegiate mix, many of them coming from MIT or Harvard, most of them examples of what one executive called “thriftiness and ingenuity.”

So now the Internet medium is the message, and less is still more. The reception area at Idealab! has two big comfortable leather chairs, but the rest of the entryway seems to be somewhat sterile, and one doesn't get the impression that----with just two seats----all that many visitors come by (or, at least, they don’t have to wait very long before being greeted by a member of the team). The entire facility is big and open, with exposed air ducts, pipes, red brick and great long track-lighting fixtures across the top of each floor. On the second floor, where most of the Idealab! managers and execs and infrastructure mucky mucks work, one is immediately greeted with a great wash of burnt, autumnal yellows. In fact, the entire facility is uniformly that color.

"It's the same color as in (the) Pasadena (office)," says Gary Bushard (sp?), the vice president of finance. "The whole idea is come come in as feel as though you are there, that we are trying to duplicate the success here."

Since the entire office space is open, there are small telephone booth-like rooms for personal phone calls----one of the few occupational hazards being, in working in a space lacking real walls, a lack of personal privacy. Other notable features include a sense of circuitous flow, since much of the fixed furniture is curved in design, plexiglass conference rooms that might remind those inside of being in a fish bowl, and also this: fixed blue industrial, mining-camp style bulbs. They create a work-in-progress mood, says Bushard, who added that, due to their unique technology, they are "lights that last forever."

Idealab! has made a case for being the kind of company that lasts and lasts, although its overall value has declined from a approximate value of $1 billion to $500 million since the heyday of the Internet “Gold Rush,” roughly 1996 through the spring of 2001, when the stock market wised up and went sour.

"It's a strange world right now, and we are in the downsizing phase," Bushard says. "The good news is we have weathered a mighty storm and we are ready to go forward."

For as long as there is a ready availability of electricity, that is. But who knows, the walls of the temple have held up regardless of what’s gone on since Ayer stacked the first stone and dreamed his pretty dream.

11:05 AM

 

Nice day for a walk. Isn't global warming wonderful?



By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville MetaMedia

Five thousand years from today, as archaeologists are either digging up or deep-sea diving within the ancient legendary city of Boston, they will find and a quirky stone temple. Surely, the original First Spiritual Temple, 181 Newbury Street but really facing Exeter, will still be intact. The structure looks solid as a granite cliff. And as these future historians connect the dots to determine the history and fate of the place, they will note that somehow, between when it was built in 1885 by a sect of spiritualists and pioneers in parapsychology, and the year 2002, a sort of continuity was maintained. Even if a completely different kind of corporate mentality overcame the historical monument in the form of Idealab! in the late 20th century, the spirit of open-mindedness and positivism and creativity and enlightenment was still, at least somewhat, kept in force.



Yes, just as the one-time spiritualist temple, another time theater and yet another time once-beloved bookstore seemed to all have something to do with a higher intelligence for a society that was, well, not always inclined that way, the current tenants are still living the die-hard dream of the post-Internet age. As one of the performers in the old Exeter Street Theater, Alec Guinness (in 1967, in a production called "The Prisoner"), would say, in a far different venue in a galaxy far, far away, "Go with the force, Luke."



Idealab! is still going with the force. The concept for the Internet incubator (which means a creator of smaller ventures within its paternal auspices) is based on an open-ended, collaborative approach. Which requires a lot of tolerance for other people's ideas. Indeed, a control freak is a barrier to success.


"In the lab, we think, we create, we experiment," says Hugh Shytle, the chief operating officer for the facility in Boston. "Everybody has their own passion and we can't inject our passion into someone else. You can't be control oriented. You have to let them (those working at building incubated companies) develop on their own."


But before we can go any further about what "incubator" means, or, what goes on inside Idealab!, or, how the company has managed to survive after the great dying out of the Internet age, we must return to the temple. After all, while some may believe everything begins with the Big Idea, the surrounding environment is what really pushes the idea guy forward. What would art be without a gallery or museum? Or, for that matter, a painting without a canvas? Doesn't function follow form?


Everything begins with architecture, with the sacred geometry needed to create structures, which can then be used to hatch bigger ideas. Without that roof over his head, the caveman is trying to invent a match in order to light a fire in the rain. Without the initial structure of the Internet, a programmer is nothing but a man holding an abacus. There is no law, no code, without an initial environment.


This particular environment was built in the 19th century by Marcellus Ayer, a successful wholesale grocer in Boston who was attracted to a then new philosophical movement known as Spiritualism. Then, one day, out of a sense of despondence, Ayer claimed to have an extraordinary psychic experience, according to the First Spiritual Temple's Web site.


"In the early 1880's, while sitting in a circle for Spirit communication and philosophy, at his home, in West Chester Park, Boston, the sign that he knew would, someday, be given was given," the Web site states. "And what a sign it was! Several of his family members and others in Spirit physically materialized to him and, via direct voice, instructed him that now was the time for him to give back to God, Christ, and Spirit what God had so generously given to him. He was instructed that now was the time for him to begin a religious society and church, from which the noble truths of a New Dispensation could emerge. Furthermore, he was told that such inspiration was being given to others, throughout the planet; primarily in Germany, Russia, and South America. The messages and inspiration from Spirit kept coming; the basic concepts of the church were established, as were the details for its church building.


"It was to be a place:
· From which the voice of God and Spirit could speak to all people, from all religious and spiritual backgrounds.
· From which both the religious and scientific implications of Spirit phenomena and communication could be examined, free from dogma and prejudice.
· From which mediumship would not be used to prove one's religious beliefs.
· In which the medium would never surpass the message."


The church was founded on June 28, 1883 as The Working Union of Progressive Spiritualists. Despite the controversy surrounding Ayer's claim of astral inspiration during an age of Victorian virtue and sectarian bickering among the traditional Christian, spiritualist and theosophist personalities of the day, the church's membership grew to 1,000 members in its early years. Renamed as The Spiritual Fraternity to placate the opposition, the temple was built at the corner of Exeter and Newbury in 1885. But the course of the Ayer experience in Boston, and the fate of the building is summed up at the FST.org web site with the following:


"Marcellus Ayer was humanitarian in nature. He believed deeply in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood and sisterhood of Humanity. He committed himself to human rights. He was an avid proponent of the Suffrage Movement and women's rights in general. He also devoted his energies to expounding health and hygiene. In fact, he was the first to develop a decaffeinated coffee substitute in Boston. In addition, he was very much involved in pioneer psychical research and worked very closely with the renowned Andrew Jackson Davis in fostering such work.


"The church's work continued to grow, up until around 1910. But, prejudice and resentment ultimately took their toll on the church. In 1914, the main sanctuary of the Temple was reconstructed and converted into Boston's legendary Exeter Street Theatre. Our records indicate that Marcellus Ayer initially opposed this move, but finally agreed, hoping that, someday, the theatre would be removed and the church would return to her former glory. Worship services were, then, conducted in the lower church auditorium."


The signs of the theater, once considered to be one of the grand dames of Boston, are still quite visible in the current appearance of the facade of Idealab! The broad entryway still remains, and the reception area at Idealab! still has enough room for an old-style theater lobby (albeit, more antiseptic these days). One of the more pronounced features of the facade is a large stain-glass window in the shape of an arc. Small panels inside the window includes stain-glass images of literary heroes: Mark Twain, James Joyce, Edgar Allen Poe, jack Kerouac, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and, at the very top of a rather pyramidical scale, William Shakespeare. According to the FST web site, "The Exeter Street Theatre ... became famous, worldwide, and was referred to as the Grand Dame of Boston Theaters. It closed its doors quietly in 1974, with no fanfare, under the direction of Viola and Florence Berlin. It was believed that this grand institution should fade away with dignity. That it did, and we have been quiet for many years."


When the Waterstone(?) bookstore closed its doors in 1999 (?), Idealab! refurbished the place and moved in. Although some might claim the move was as predatory an act of capitalism against the bookstore as anything Amazon.com could manage, it was actually the damage from a fire in the adjacent kitchen of TGI Friday's, according to Leslie Price, facilties manager at the Idealab! in Boston.


The historic touches that remain, the stained glass, the exposed red brick, the churchy high ceiling, are what employees at Idealab! look at when their minds are wandering as they wait for the muse of inspiration to conjure up the catchy name for a new web site, programming code, or, better yet, how to find some way to make real money this time. Inside this century old spiritualist temple off Newbury Street in Boston, Idealab! is a logical link to a New England tradition: Think a little, then think big, then get big.


According to Hugh Shyler, the theory of incubation for the company, which was originally founded in Pasadena, Calif., in 1996 by Bill Gross, is less like a chicken hatchery, more like raising teenagers.


"It's more akin to child rearing," Shyler says. "We will form a company around the officers that share the idea----programming, legal, finance and so on----and we build these companies to be free-standing entities. Sometimes they go in directions you wish they hadn't, and you want them to prove their independence. And once our adult children become public companies, in many cases we maintain an equity stake."


The company's main creative activities are centered in either its headquarters in Old Town Pasadena, but there's also a management presence in New York and London. These days in Boston, several new companies are experiencing growth pains, including Newbury Networks, Compete.com and Paythrough.com, the latter an idea that's still very much in its infancy, that is, the whole concept of news organizations collecting fees for content views at, say, pennies per click. "They are somewhere between a toddler and a teenager," Shyler says of Paythrough. "They are dependent upon us. We spend from $80,000 to $120,000 a month on it."


Idealab itself employs a supporting team of approximately 20 management people to, according to its Web site, "develop ideas for companies and provide guidance to start up companies. Employees of Idealab are compensated by Idealab, hold Idealab stock options, and receive Idealab benefits. Idealab operating companies are companies that are developed from ideas created by Idealab. They are legally separate entities managed by independent teams of executives who report to their respective boards of directors. Employees of Idealab operating companies are compensated by the operating company itself (not by Idealab), and typically hold stock options in the particular company, and receive that company's benefits." The Idealab! office in Boston, consisting mainly of younger, and therefore more likely free-thinking creative, marketing and programming people, includes another 40 employees.

The reception area at Idealab! has two big comfortable leather chairs, but the rest of the entryway seems to be somewhat sterile, and one doesn't get the impression that----with just two seats----all that many visitors come by (or, at least, have to wait very long before being greeted by a member of the team). The entire facility is big and open, with exposed air ducts, pipes, red brick and greatlong track lighting fixtures across the top of each floor. On the second floor, where most of the Idealab! managers and execs work, one is immediately greeted with a great wash of burnt, autumnal yellows. In fact, the entire facility is pretty much that color.

"It's the same color as in (the) Pasadena (office)," says Gary Bushard (sp?), the vice president of finance. "The whole idea is come come in as feel as though you are there, that we are trying to duplicate the success here."

Since the entire office space is open, there are small telephone booth-like rooms for personal phone calls----one of the few occupational hazards being, in working in a space like this, a lack of privacy. Other notable features include a sense of circuitous flow, since much of the fixed furniture is curved, plexiglass conference rooms that might remind those inside of being in a fish bowl, and also this: Fixed blue industrial, mining-camp style bulbs. They create a work-in-progress mood, says Bushard, who added that, due to their unique technology, they are "lights that last forever."

Idealab! has made a case for being the kind of company that lasts and lasts, although its overall value has declined from a approximate value of $1 billion to $500 million since the heyday of the Internet Gold Rush. "It's a strange world right now, and we are in the downsizing phase," Bushard says. "The good news is we have weathered a mighty storm and we are ready to go forward."

For as long as there is a ready availability of electricity, that is. But who knows, the walls of the temple have held up pretty well, to this point.




7:05 AM

 

Hmm, time to go to the library.
Which is not necessary for research, so much.
All you need is Google.com. But, I have a library fine to pay, and I need some new tunes (rent). I'll blog the rest, as deadline poet, from there.


7:01 AM

 

Hey Kristin. I love you. I know there's always at least one person who will come to my show.



By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville MetaMedia


Five thousand years from today, as archaeologists are either digging up or deep-sea diving within the ancient legendary city of Boston, they will find and a quirky stone temple. Surely, the original First Spiritual Temple, 181 Newbury Street but really facing Exeter, will still be intact. The structure looks solid as a granite cliff. And as these future historians connect the dots to determine the history and fate of the place, they will note that somehow, between when it was built in 1885 by a sect of spiritualists and pioneers in parapsychology, and the year 2002, a sort of continuity was maintained. Even if a completely different kind of corporate mentality overcame the historical monument in the form of Idealab! in the late 20th century, the spirit of open-mindedness and positivism and creativity and enlightenment was still, at least somewhat, kept in force.


Yes, just as the one-time spiritualist temple, another time theater and yet another time once-beloved bookstore seemed to all have something to do with a higher intelligence for a society that was, well, not always inclined that way, the current tenants are still living the die-hard dream of the post-Internet age. As one of the performers in the old Exeter Street Theater, Alec Guinness (in 1967, in a production called "The Prisoner"), would say, in a far different venue in a galaxy far, far away, "Go with the force, Luke."


Idealab! is still going with the force. The concept for the Internet incubator (which means a creator of smaller ventures within its paternal auspices) is based on an open-ended, collaborative approach. Which requires a lot of tolerance for other people's ideas. Indeed, a control freak is a barrier to success.

"In the lab, we think, we create, we experiment," says Hugh Shytle, the chief operating officer for the facility in Boston. "Everybody has their own passion and we can't inject our passion into someone else. You can't be control oriented. You have to let them (those working at building incubated companies) develop on their own."

But before we can go any further about what "incubator" means, or, what goes on inside Idealab!, or, how the company has managed to survive after the great dying out of the Internet age, we must return to the temple. After all, while some may believe everything begins with the Big Idea, the surrounding environment is what really pushes the idea guy forward. What would art be without a gallery or museum? Or, for that matter, a painting without a canvas? Doesn't function follow form?

Everything begins with architecture, with the sacred geometry needed to create structures, which can then be used to hatch bigger ideas. Without that roof over his head, the caveman is trying to invent a match in order to light a fire in the rain. Without the initial structure of the Internet, a programmer is nothing but a man holding an abacus. There is no law, no code, without an initial environment.

This particular environment was built in the 19th century by Marcellus Ayer, a successful wholesale grocer in Boston who was attracted to a then new philosophical movement known as Spiritualism. Then, one day, out of a sense of despondence, Ayer claimed to have an extraordinary psychic experience, according to the First Spiritual Temple's Web site.

"In the early 1880's, while sitting in a circle for Spirit communication and philosophy, at his home, in West Chester Park, Boston, the sign that he knew would, someday, be given was given," the Web site states. "And what a sign it was! Several of his family members and others in Spirit physically materialized to him and, via direct voice, instructed him that now was the time for him to give back to God, Christ, and Spirit what God had so generously given to him. He was instructed that now was the time for him to begin a religious society and church, from which the noble truths of a New Dispensation could emerge. Furthermore, he was told that such inspiration was being given to others, throughout the planet; primarily in Germany, Russia, and South America. The messages and inspiration from Spirit kept coming; the basic concepts of the church were established, as were the details for its church building.

"It was to be a place:
· From which the voice of God and Spirit could speak to all people, from all religious and spiritual backgrounds.
· From which both the religious and scientific implications of Spirit phenomena and communication could be examined, free from dogma and prejudice.
· From which mediumship would not be used to prove one's religious beliefs.
· In which the medium would never surpass the message."

The church was founded on June 28, 1883 as The Working Union of Progressive Spiritualists. Despite the controversy surrounding Ayer's claim of astral inspiration during an age of Victorian virtue and sectarian bickering among the traditional Christian, spiritualist and theosophist personalities of the day, the church's membership grew to 1,000 members in its early years. Renamed as The Spiritual Fraternity to placate the opposition, the temple was built at the corner of Exeter and Newbury in 1885. But the course of the Ayer experience in Boston, and the fate of the building is summed up at the FST.org web site with the following:

"Marcellus Ayer was humanitarian in nature. He believed deeply in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood and sisterhood of Humanity. He committed himself to human rights. He was an avid proponent of the Suffrage Movement and women's rights in general. He also devoted his energies to expounding health and hygiene. In fact, he was the first to develop a decaffeinated coffee substitute in Boston. In addition, he was very much involved in pioneer psychical research and worked very closely with the renowned Andrew Jackson Davis in fostering such work.

"The church's work continued to grow, up until around 1910. But, prejudice and resentment ultimately took their toll on the church. In 1914, the main sanctuary of the Temple was reconstructed and converted into Boston's legendary Exeter Street Theatre. Our records indicate that Marcellus Ayer initially opposed this move, but finally agreed, hoping that, someday, the theatre would be removed and the church would return to her former glory. Worship services were, then, conducted in the lower church auditorium."

The signs of the theater, once considered to be one of the grand dames of Boston, are still quite visible in the current appearance of the facade of Idealab! The broad entryway still remains, and the reception area at Idealab! still has enough room for an old-style theater lobby (albeit, more antiseptic these days). One of the more pronounced features of the facade is a large stain-glass window in the shape of an arc. Small panels inside the window includes stain-glass images of literary heroes: Mark Twain, James Joyce, Edgar Allen Poe, jack Kerouac, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and, at the very top of a rather pyramidical scale, William Shakespeare. According to the FST web site, "The Exeter Street Theatre ... became famous, worldwide, and was referred to as the Grand Dame of Boston Theaters. It closed its doors quietly in 1974, with no fanfare, under the direction of Viola and Florence Berlin. It was believed that this grand institution should fade away with dignity. That it did, and we have been quiet for many years."

When the Waterstone(?) bookstore closed its doors in 1999 (?), Idealab! refurbished the place and moved in. Although some might claim the move was as predatory an act of capitalism against the bookstore as anything Amazon.com could manage, it was actually the damage from a fire in the adjacent kitchen of TGI Friday's, according to Leslie Price, facilties manager at the Idealab! in Boston.

The historic touches that remain, the stained glass, the exposed red brick, the churchy high ceiling, are what employees at Idealab! look at when their minds are wandering as they wait for the muse of inspiration to conjure up the catchy name for a new web site, programming code, or, better yet, how to find some way to make real money this time. Inside this century old spiritualist temple off Newbury Street in Boston, Idealab! is a logical link to a New England tradition: Think a little, then think big, then get big.

According to Hugh Shyler, the theory of incubation for the company, which was originally founded in Pasadena, Calif., in 1996 by Bill Gross, is less like a chicken hatchery, more like raising teenagers.

"It's more akin to child rearing," Shyler says. "We will form a company around the officers that share the idea----programming, legal, finance and so on----and we build these companies to be free-standing entities. Sometimes they go in directions you wish they hadn't, and you want them to prove their independence. And once our adult children become public companies, in many cases we maintain an equity stake."

The company's main creative activities are centered in either its headquarters in Old Town Pasadena, but there's also a management presence in New York and London. These days in Boston, several new companies are experiencing growth pains, including Newbury Networks, Compete.com and Paythrough.com, the latter an idea that's still very much in its infancy, that is, the whole concept of news organizations collecting fees for content views at, say, pennies per click. "They are somewhere between a toddler and a teenager," Shyler says of Paythrough. "They are dependent upon us. We spend from $80,000 to $120,000 a month on it."

Idealab itself employs a supporting team of approximately 20 management people to, according to its Web site, "develop ideas for companies and provide guidance to start up companies. Employees of Idealab are compensated by Idealab, hold Idealab stock options, and receive Idealab benefits. Idealab operating companies are companies that are developed from ideas created by Idealab. They are legally separate entities managed by independent teams of executives who report to their respective boards of directors. Employees of Idealab operating companies are compensated by the operating company itself (not by Idealab), and typically hold stock options in the particular company, and receive that company's benefits." The Idealab! office in Boston, consisting mainly of younger, and therefore more likely free-thinking creative, marketing and programming people, includes another 40 employees.







6:06 AM

 

"I've been in a cave for 40 days,
with only a spark to light my way ...

But I still believe, through the pain,
and through the grief ... Oh, I still believe"


6:02 AM

 

Out of cigarrettes. Damn!

Loud music required, obviously, for the next hour ...

Haven't listened to The Call for at least a year


5:50 AM

 
By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville MetaMedia

Five thousand years from today, as archaeologists are either digging up or deep-sea diving within the ancient legendary city of Boston, they will find and a quirky stone temple. Surely, the original First Spiritual Temple, 181 Newbury Street but really facing Exeter, will still be intact. The structure looks solid as a granite cliff. And as these future historians connect the dots to determine the history and fate of the place, they will note that somehow, between when it was built in 1885 (1883?) by a strange sect of spiritualists and pioneers in parapsychology, and the year 2002, a sort of continuity was maintained. Even if a completely different kind of corporate mentality overcame the historical monument in the form of Idealab! in the late 20th century, the spirit of open-mindedness and positivism and creativity and enlightenment was still, at least somewhat, kept in force.

Yes, just as the one-time spiritualist temple, another time theater and yet another time once-beloved bookstore seemed to all have something to do with a higher intelligence for a society that was, well, not always inclined that way, the current tenants are still living the die-hard dream of the post-Internet age. As one of the last performers in the old Exeter Street Theater, Alec Guiness (sp?), would say, in a far different venue in a galaxy far, far away, "Go with the force, Luke."

Idealab! is still going with the force. The concept for the Internet incubator (which means a creator of smaller ventures within its paternal auspices) is based on an open-ended, collaborative approach. Which requires a lot of tolerance for other people's ideas. Indeed, a control freak is a barrier to success.

"In the lab, we think, we create, we experiment," says Hugh Shytle, the chief operating officer for the facility in Boston. "Everybody has their own passion and we can't inject our passion into someone else. You can't be control oriented. You have to let them (those working at building incubated companies) develop on their own."

But before we can go any further about what "incubator" means, or, what goes on inside Idealab!, or, how the company has managed to survive after the great dying out of the Internet age, we must return to the temple. After all, while some may believe everything begins with the Big Idea, the surrounding environment is what really pushes the idea guy forward. What would art be without a gallery or museum? Or, for that matter, a painting without a canvas? Doesn't function follow form?

Everything begins with architecture, with the sacred geometry needed to create structures, which can then be used to hatch bigger ideas. Without that roof over his head, the caveman is trying to invent a match in order to light a fire in the rain. Without the initial structure of the Internet, a programmer is nothing but a man holding an abacus. There is no law, no code, without an initial environment.

This particular environment was built in the 19th century by Marcellus Ayer, a successful wholesale grocer in Boston who was attracted to a then new philosophical movement known as Spiritualism. Then, one day, out of a sense of despondence, Ayer claimed to have an extraordinary psychic experience, according to the First Spiritual Temple's Web site.

"In the early 1880's, while sitting in a circle for Spirit communication and philosophy, at his home, in West Chester Park, Boston, the sign that he knew would, someday, be given was given," the Web site states. "And what a sign it was! Several of his family members and others in Spirit physically materialized to him and, via direct voice, instructed him that now was the time for him to give back to God, Christ, and Spirit what God had so generously given to him. He was instructed that now was the time for him to begin a religious society and church, from which the noble truths of a New Dispensation could emerge. Furthermore, he was told that such inspiration was being given to others, throughout the planet; primarily in Germany, Russia, and South America. The messages and inspiration from Spirit kept coming; the basic concepts of the church were established, as were the details for its church building.

"It was to be a place:
· From which the voice of God and Spirit could speak to all people, from all religious and spiritual backgrounds.
· From which both the religious and scientific implications of Spirit phenomena and communication could be examined, free from dogma and prejudice.
· From which mediumship would not be used to prove one's religious beliefs.
· In which the medium would never surpass the message."

The church was founded on June 28, 1883 as The Working Union of Progressive Spiritualists. Despite the controversy surrounding Ayer's claim of astral inspiration during an age of Victorian virtue and sectarian bickering among the traditional Christian, spiritualist and theosophist personalities of the day, the church's membership grew to 1,000 members in its early years. Renamed as The Spiritual Fraternity to placate the opposition, the temple was built at the corner of Exeter and Newbury in 1885. But the course of the Ayer experience in Boston, and the fate of the building is summed up at the FST.org web site with the following:

"Marcellus Ayer was humanitarian in nature. He believed deeply in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood and sisterhood of Humanity. He committed himself to human rights. He was an avid proponent of the Suffrage Movement and women's rights in general. He also devoted his energies to expounding health and hygiene. In fact, he was the first to develop a decaffeinated coffee substitute in Boston. In addition, he was very much involved in pioneer psychical research and worked very closely with the renowned Andrew Jackson Davis in fostering such work.

"The church's work continued to grow, up until around 1910. But, prejudice and resentment ultimately took their toll on the church. In 1914, the main sanctuary of the Temple was reconstructed and converted into Boston's legendary Exeter Street Theatre. Our records indicate that Marcellus Ayer initially opposed this move, but finally agreed, hoping that, someday, the theatre would be removed and the church would return to her former glory. Worship services were, then, conducted in the lower church auditorium."

The signs of the theater, once considered to be one of the grand dames of Boston, are still quite visible in the current appearance of the facade of Idealab! The broad entryway still remains, and the reception area at Idealab! still has enough room for an old-style theater lobby (albeit, more antiseptic these days). One of the more pronounced features of the facade is a large stain-glass window in the shape of an arc. Small panels inside the window includes stain-glass images of literary heroes: Mark Twain, James Joyce, Edgar Allen Poe, jack Kerouac, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and, at the very top of a rather pyramidical scale, William Shakespeare.

This is what employees at Idealab! look at when their minds are wandering as they wait for the muse of inspiration to conjure up the catchy name for a new web site, programming code, or, better yet, to find some way to make real money this time.















4:57 AM

 

Jeez, way too much information at my disposal!
It will take the Supreme Court at least 11 years
to grant disability for too much information disease.
They haven't caught up with carpal tunnel syndrome yet.



By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville MetaMedia

Five thousand years from today, as archaeologists are either digging up or deep-sea diving within the ancient legendary city of Boston, they will find and a quirky stone temple. Surely, the original First Spiritual Temple, 181 Newbury Street but really facing Exeter, will still be intact. The structure looks solid as a granite cliff. And as these future historians connect the dots to determine the history and fate of the place, they will note that somehow, between when it was built in 1885 (1883?) by a strange sect of spiritualists and pioneers in parapsychology, and the year 2002, a sort of continuity was maintained. Even if a completely different kind of corporate mentality overcame the historical monument in the form of Idealab! in the late 20th century, the spirit of open-mindedness and positivism and creativity and enlightenment was still, at least somewhat, kept in force.

Yes, just as the one-time spiritualist temple, another time theater and yet another time once-beloved bookstore seemed to all have something to do with a higher intelligence for a society that was, well, not always inclined that way, the current tenants are still living the die-hard dream of the post-Internet age. As one of the last performers in the old Exeter Street Theater, Alec Guiness (sp?), would say, in a far different venue in a galaxy far, far away, "Go with the force, Luke."

Idealab! is still going with the force.

The First Spiritual Temple
was laid at the corner of Exeter and Newbury Streets, in the Back Bay section of Boston, Massachusetts. It was a beautiful ceremony, with many people in attendance.
While the Temple was being constructed, worship services were being held at Berkeley Hall, just three blocks away.
And then, it all came about, with a wondrous three-day dedication and celebration. Marcellus Ayer's dream came true. The First Spiritual Temple was dedicated and consecrated on September 26th, 27th, and 28th, 1885.
Over 1,200 people filled the sanctuary and walked through the Temple's library, lecture hall, and multitude of classrooms.
Marcellus Ayer gave it all back to God and Spirit. The whole expense of constructing the Temple was assumed by him alone. It was a monumental financial task, but he believed in giving back to God, and he did so gladly.
Marcellus Ayer was humanitarian in nature. He believed deeply in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood and sisterhood of Humanity. He committed himself to human rights. He was an avid proponent of the Suffrage Movement and women's rights in general. He also devoted his energies to expounding health and hygiene. In fact, he was the first to develop a decaffeinated coffee substitute in Boston. In addition, he was very much involved in pioneer psychical research and worked very closely with the renowned Andrew Jackson Davis in fostering such work.
The church's work continued to grow, up until around 1910. But, prejudice and resentment ultimately took their toll on the church. In 1914, the main sanctuary of the Temple was reconstructed and converted into Boston's legendary Exeter Street Theatre. Our records indicate that Marcellus Ayer initially opposed this move, but finally agreed, hoping that, someday, the theatre would be removed and the church would return to her former glory. Worship services were, then, conducted in the lower church auditorium.




4:40 AM

 
I am that I am. Or, at least. I am here. Drinking coffee. Figuring out what to say.

Creativity isn't pretty. Sue me.


4:15 AM

 
This page is powered by Blogger.