Archive for the ‘Media zombies’ Category
Culture of participation
The ironic thing about the culture of participation brought about by our newly networked society and universal(ish) toolset, is the fact it could edge many of us into a life of non-participation – i.e. non-participation in traditional systems. Whether we like it or not, there are certain traditional systems ’successful’ people are somewhat forced to tolerate, in order to be ’successful’. How many rich people do you know who truly don’t care about the small things that frame the world of business, entrepreneurship, social media etc?
As Marc Lewis once said to me, you can whack the ball just outside the line and scream like hell that it’s in and you might get away with it. Or you can play it safe and play the ball within the line. But if you whack it way out of the court all together, people just laugh and you fail.
Isn’t that a real shame?
We have a very tame idea of what’s maverick in the media industry. In my post about the ‘Future of TV Advertising’ I talked a bit about the offense of being deemed maverick for pointing out some pretty basic home truths about broadcasting. Ego-wise, people learn to love this sort of self-positioning. Speakers, authors, bloggers who comment on the future of any industry in a way that’s non-traditional revel in their maverick status. But it is really maverick? What would the world be like if we reframed our judgment? I think we might just find out, given that social media tools and connectivity now allow us to survive without physical participation in the system we’re influencing (somewhat paradoxical). Real mavericks now have the exposure to influence wannabes, which makes for interesting viewing and enough inspiration to tip others over the edge.
The word ‘alternative’ could (and I hope it will) take up a whole new meaning.
Now here are a couple of true mavericks:
Now, it just so happens that they’re in the extreme sports arena, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that they’ve dedicated their lives to a particular feeling of resonance they only get when pursuing the thing they love; and the fact they risk everything, because nothing matters more.
How many industry ‘mavericks’ can we say that about?
Future of TV Advertising
Yesterday I spoke at Marketing Week’s TV Advertising conference in London. BBC, ITV, MTV, UKTV and Thinkbox were there, alongside Fallon, Qmedia, RSA, Royal Mail, Co-operative, Premier Foods, Nike & Boots.
You can take a look at my presentation but it’s loads of pictures without many words so dunno how much sense it’ll make:
What struck me with a sledge hammer over the head, was the fact my presentation was deemed ‘brave’, ‘ruffling a few feathers’ etc. To be honest, I’d toned it down. Quite a lot. I talked about the various revolutionary stages in communications (printing press, phone, TV and radio… then internet); and how the internet is a vehicle for all other media, so they’re all shifting over to the web (the cloud) and sitting alongside one-another in a way that’s enabling people to listen to stuff, watch stuff, make stuff, then gather around and talk about it.
Nothing particularly new or contentious about that.
But even on that point there seemed to be a level of denial, as apparently ‘broadcast will be around forever’ and there was mention of ‘internet-centricity’. Hilarious!
I showed some breathtaking figures… such as the 8.9 billion videos watched online in the US last month… and the fact it would take the big three US networks, working together, 4,500 years to create and air original content that matched the volume of YouTube (thanks Michael Rosenblum for great insights). Maybe I did get a little bit contentious with the mention of scribes – the fact they weren’t considered slow when they were the only means of producing books.
BUT… what perhaps did ruffle feathers was that I dared mentioned the astounding levels of ad avoidance; and the fact younger folk are sacrificing TV time in favour of social media (which was fiercely denied – as ‘WE HAVE PROOF PEOPLE ARE WATCHING MORE TV THAN EVER!!’). Okay. Whatever.
Anyway, stepping back from stats, pointless arguments about whether the internet is everything or not (duh) etc etc… isn’t it truly bizarre that you could hold a conference on ‘the future of TV advertising’, that solely consists of broadcasters and related companies bigging themselves up, talking about how fabulous everything is and congratulating one-another on their success ??? !!!! ?? !
It wasn’t brave of me to stand up and mention the obvious.
If that’s considered courageous, or maverick, or ‘out there’ in any way, what the bloody hell is industry coming to? Not only that, but where is it going to go?
I talked about bureaucracy and hierarchy Vs fluidity (or starfish / spider analogy you might be familiar with). My point was really that brands, agencies and broadcasters should open their doors to the people. That they should view the people of the world as their ultimate creative resource, production resource and distribution mechanism. That half of all the crap organisations do is solely as a result of lack of trust (imagine the expenditure); and we can solve the bulk of our problems through open collaboration.
It’s just common sense.
It isn’t that controversial.
If it is, how dull, backward and old hat is this game? How much cash are they prepared to chuck down a black hole, reinforcing the legacy and exhibiting what are very clearly the Kubler-Ross stages of Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Acceptance. I thought we were nearing the bargaining stage at the very least, but yesterday I saw anger from 2 or 3 key people. Obvious where their pay cheques come from – and that they might just manage to retire and die before having to change their psychological outlook.
Most of the crowd loved a shake-up. Or at least more people found me to say well done, rather than to berate my crazy ways. They welcomed some home truths. They wanted debate and new learning and fresh thinking.
What are people so afraid to loose, that it’s virtually impossible to stick your neck out and say what’s blatantly obvious to anyone who has bothered to understand what’s going on, without seeming like some sort of zealot?
I’m finding this all very weird.
Scrmblr
I haven’t blogged in any great depth about Scrmblr (’scrambler’), so thought it was about time.
Scrmblr is a global network of content producers (Scrmblrs) who create anti-ads (Scrmbls).
Marketing used to be about advertising, but advertising is often expensive, fake and dumb. What remains important is the act of telling stories about the things we trade – stories that sell and stories that spread.
Scrmblr gives power to the people – the talented people of the world, enabling creators of great content to reap fair rewards, while enabling organisations who couldn’t dream of affording video ads the opportunity to air Scrmbls (much better!). Cheaper, better, faster.
Scrmblr removes the unfair, prohibitive supply-chain mess that sits between talented people who make stuff and people who buy great stuff.
Fair trade.
The Scrmblr website has just been launched here. 20% of profits will be donated to microcredit projects, in a drive to do something good. The first scrmbl created was for UK charity ShelterBox, by Tel Aviv scrmblr Danny Aronson.
Scrmblr already has a presence in UK, ISA, Israel and Canada… and is on the lookout for more talent (filmmakers, producers, animators, designers, creatives etc).
Companies Vs. Tribes
Let’s compare for a moment. You can compare in terms of pretty much anything: efficiency, effectiveness, happiness…
Some brief examples:
Communications
C: Spread from the top down
T: Spread from anywhere to everywhere, via the centre
Growth
C: Recruit from the top, hiring below
T: Recruit from anywhere, hiring everywhere
Innovation
C: Creation from the bottom, managed from the top
T: Creation from everywhere, no management needed
Bliss
C: Everyone spends their time inside the company’s expensive box, developing ideas with others from the same company
T: Everyone works from anywhere, developing ideas with a diverse range of people they like to spend time with
I know which one I’d rather join, or start.
Management is so last century
As David Weinberger said in The Cluetrain Manifesto, ‘Management is a powerful force, part of a larger life-scheme that promises us health, prosperity, calm and no surprises in every aspect of our lives, from health to wealth to good weather and moderately heated coffee from McDonald’s. We are all victims of this assault on voice, the attempt to get us to shut up and listen to the narrowest range of ideas imaginable.’
Here here.
It’s bizarre, when you think about it, that we seek health, prosperity and calm in a framework that’s configured to avoid surprises (not to mention the fact such management frameworks do quite the opposite, restricting prosperity and wrecking your health… duh!).
Essentially a framework that avoids surprises is setting us up for a fall, given that life is totally unpredictable (just look at the accuracy of trending, forecasting and predicting in retrospect – we’re pretty much always wrong, usually wildly, except for the one in a zillion folk who are hailed as heros / experts because they won the prediction lottery).
We’re actively encouraged (forced?) to surrender our individuality in return for a financial bribe and a supposedly non-disturbing, secure, predictable, managed environment. How damaging is that?
If we focused on understanding basic psychology – and in particular neuropsychology – rather than technology, management, or most things to do with ‘professionalism’, we’d learn to cope with surprises. There’s no anti-depressant and productivity tool quite like understanding what your brain is up to (which is normally the opposite of all the crap we reel off in our inner narrative). We’d learn to adopt calm by flicking switches that send neurons on productive paths, as opposed to destructive panic / depression / fear trains of thought. Most importantly, we’d learn that we have myriad choices… without all the BS constrains we confabulate, largely as a result of managed structures and irrational fears.
Coupled with the lack of cynicism and suckerism for imbalance and hype, our denial, biases and love of fallacy are at best sub-optimum… at worst bloody dangerous.
Every last pirate-lynching dinosaur the management structure spews out has been conditioned to fear change – to be unwilling to accept that bettering society involves doing new stuff that isn’t business as usual. It’s not business as usual! IT IS NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL!! Some folk never seem to get it. “But I’ll be out of a job!” they shriek. “More fool you,” we think quietly, while we bend and flex and change at pace with the world… mostly ignoring them and opting to avoid a ‘proper job’ at all costs (although some of us work form the inside).
The thing is, the pirates, the Scrmblrs and every single one of us are changing and bettering society from the bottom up. We’re faster, more innovative and powerful. We organise without organisations. We run on leadership, not management; passion, not KPIs. We’re not afraid to let one-another loose… in fact we love loose cannons. They’re our favourite.
You know who you are!
(Email me!)
It’s happening (scrmblr style)…
Seth Godin’s recent post here hit the nail on the head. He says ‘TV advertisers are finally discovering that YouTube + viral imagination = free media… The biggest shift is going to be that organizations that could never have afforded a national campaign will suddenly have one. The same way that there’s very little correlation between popular websites and big companies, we’ll see that the most popular commercials get done by little shops that have nothing to lose.’
Funny he should say that. It’s exactly what we Scrmblrs (’scramblers’) are up to (Scrmblr is a global network of producers who create low cost, good quality video and audio content… what you might call anti-ads).
Are you a Fraggle or a Doozer?
Unlike Fraggles, Doozers love to work all day long; and they hate playing games. With the help of various Doozer machines and vehicles, they build elaborate constructions all over Fraggle Rock, like towers, buildings, roads and bridges.
Their building materials, Doozer Sticks, are made of radish dust. Doozer Sticks are the Fraggles’ favorite snack, and they love to eat the buildings that Doozers build. The Doozers don’t mind their buildings being eaten; if the Fraggles didn’t eat the constructions, the Doozers would run out of building space.
Doozers and Fraggles usually show very little respect towards each other. It’s very rare for Fraggles and Doozers to make friends.
The Doozers all work together in a society that values cooperation in order to further the common good (which is very much contrary to the Fraggles, who place a high value on individualism and independence).
The Doozers pride themselves on the good work that they do, but no Doozer is allowed to take personal credit for their work – that would mean that they thought their work was better than everyone else’s, and would be destructive to the communal spirit. Competition is seen as a vice that occasionally afflicts Doozers. Again, this is very unlike the Fraggles, who love to have races and competitions, and who take pride in their individual jobs and passions.
Are you a Fraggle or a Doozer?
Do you keep creating stuff that gets eaten by those big Fraggles?
Should you stop building stuff out of Radish Sticks, so it doesn’t get eaten? How will you avoid running out of space?
Do you keep eating stuff those little Doozers build?
Do you think of yourself as a cool media Fraggle… but keep having to take a deep breath and quash fleeting realisations that you’re actually a Doozer and what you do is fundamentally pointless unless you change something???
More media zombies on slippery slope
I just spotted this article from last year, in which Michael Grade, ITV’s Exec Chairman and ex BBC Chairman slates Joost and YouTube, labeling them ‘content parasites’.
He said, “The day that Google or Joost or any of these people start investing £1bn a year in UK content is the day I’ll start to be worried.”
Duh! I’ll bet those cash wad buffers in his big shiny office don’t feel so protective now. Sound proof, maybe, but not protective. Forgetting the cumulative talent of the people of the world perhaps? Err… completely forgetting the whole essence of scalability and the power to organise without organisations and their £1bn budgets??? (I hear Yahoo’s Chief Exec made a similar daft remark at a conference the other day – they’re all screwed).
Meanwhile, more recently, ITV reported a loss of £2.7 bn for 2008 and subsequent staff cull. And what do you know, Google’s revenues exceeded those of ITV.
Copyright ResonanceBlog 2009
Recent Comments