2012: Finding Our Edges

December 16th, 2011

Here’s the latest in my ongoing essay series, “Local Media in a Postmodern World.”

2012: Finding Our Edges

This is my annual look at trends and a key piece of advice for the coming year. This is a business strategy, not a content strategy, because I don’t think content is going to fix what’s really wrong with mass media.

2012 is a dangerous year for all mass media, because decay in our core competency will again be hidden by record revenues (in some cases) due to what promises to be a huge political year. Despite advances in communications’ methods, politicians fall back on the tried and true during elections, and that means big money for an industry that’s struggling. The money will distract us from the real issues, and before you know it, 2013 will be here. It’s time to do something completely different.

May each and every one of you have a joyous holiday season.

Posted in Essays, Reinventing Local Media | No Comments » |

When Closure is Contrived

September 28th, 2011

Here is the latest in my ongoing series of essays, Local Media in a Postmodern World:

When Closure is Contrived

This continues the theme of the shift of news from “stories” to real-time flows and streams. Writers all know that stories have a beginning, middle and end. Woven throughout is a narrative that the writer chooses to frame the story. Real-time news, however, is showing us that these narratives are sometimes inaccurate and reflect the inherent beliefs of the writer. Story “endings” are contrived, because we don’t know the real end of most news “stories” until many years have passed. Contrived closure,  therefore, is a cultural landmine, especially when the motives of the writer/reporter are questioned as either self-promotional, biased, or both.

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The Future is Now (Really!)

September 15th, 2011

Here is the latest in my ongoing essay series, Local Media in a Postmodern World.

The Future is Now (Really!)

For those with eyes to see, the dawning of the Postmodern era is growing brighter as technological advances begin to reveal the vast cultural changes that lie ahead. Those of us in media must understand that the nature of the new era is horizontal, not hierarchical, which is essentially all we know. Mass media is the microphone addressing the masses from the top of the heap, and this is slowly, but surely, fading away. We simply cannot prepare for a prosperous tomorrow without accepting this truth today.

So from time to time, I write about the culture itself and the culture ahead, because the light from these glimpses can reveal much, if our minds are open and we are teachable.

I haven’t been publishing much lately, because I’m deeply immersed in an exciting new project. I can’t talk about it just yet, but I can promise that it will excite everybody who visits this little corner of the Web. Think future. Think local TV. Think the most creative thinkers today.

Posted in Culture, Disruptions, Essays, Postmodernism | 1 Comment » |

The Web Is Our Friend

February 20th, 2011

Here’s the latest in my ongoing essay series, Local Media in a Postmodern World.

The Web Is Our Friend

We’re watching the world change before our eyes in the Middle East as everyday people are picking up the tools of new media to spread revolution against tyranny. Most of us “over here” see this as a good thing, although we fear the vacuum that might result. Good or not is an important question, because this idea that everyday people can connect so easily is at the core of everything that’s disrupting the media world today. If everybody is a media company then the media is everybody.

I’ve dedicated my life to the belief that the Web is a good thing for culture, and I teach that we’ve just begun to feel the ramifications of a genuinely hyperconnected world of human beings. I think it’s going to change everything we know, and if I had the money, I’d invest in that wager.

And so I think it’s appropriate for me, today, to take a trip back and explain why I think the Web is our friend. Insofar as Life moves us upward and onward, it’s important to know where our belief is, for only then will we be free to explore tomorrow.

Posted in Citizens News, Culture, Disruptions, Essays, Networked World, Postmodernism, Social Media, Twitter | 1 Comment » |

2011: Winter Begins

December 28th, 2010

Here is the latest in the ongoing essay series Local Media in a Postmodern World:

2011: Winter Begins

Most people think that, absent the Olympics and an election, 2011 won’t be a great year for media. However, I’ve also heard a lot that it’s not going to be such a bad year either, especially for television. This is incredibly dangerous thinking for any traditional media company for two big reasons: one, the economy isn’t nearly as good as we’re being told, and, two, the disruption of traditional media continues unabated. I think 2010 was one big illusion, like Indian Summer is to Winter, and there are far too many media companies rolling the dice with their future rather than exploring the new business requirements of the 21^st Century. It’s not about content; it’s about business.

The advice in this essay comes from studying the new business minds that are influencing corporate America today, including those of Umair Haque, author of The New Capitalist Manifesto, a brilliant new book that should be on everyone’s “must read” list this year and John Hagel, one of the authors of The Power of Pull. This book, likewise, is something not only to be read but also to be studied – today!

Add to that list my latest book, volume II of Reinventing Local Media, and you’ll have a running start on your competitors

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The Two Stages of Journalism

August 30th, 2010

Here is the latest in the ongoing series of essays, “Local Media in a Postmodern World.”

The Two Stages of Journalism

Much is being written about the future of journalism in the wake of disruptive innovations to both the business model and the practice of journalism itself. It’s confusing, to say the least, until we start to view the processes of the trade in two different stages: the act of gathering the news and the presentation of what we find. Both are in disruption, but in different ways, and the wise future planner will consider them separately. Making public the gathering of the news – what we call “Continuous News” – can be separated from the publishing of finished accounts, and this opens opportunities in all areas.

Posted in Essays, Journalism | 2 Comments » |

The Internet Weakens Authority

July 12th, 2010

Here is the latest in the ongoing essay series Local Media in a Postmodern World.

The Internet Weakens Authority

The world in which we all grew up is changing dramatically and quickly. Uncertainty is the odd bedfellow of hope, and while many of us wait for some sort of “return” to normalcy, we’re instead running into a new definition of the term. “Normal,” it seems, depends on your point-of-view, and this is true far beyond media and journalism. One thing is certain: our culture is in the midst of a shift of eonic proportions, one that brings with it excitement or chills or, perhaps, both.

The Internet is what’s causing this, and we’re just beginning to understand how it will impact the future. I think it will change everything, and this essay is my attempt to discuss how. It’s my view of what’s behind the veil that hides tomorrow, and I hope it makes you think, if nothing else.

Posted in Culture, Disruptions, Essays | No Comments » |

Pureplays and the 50% Treshold

July 8th, 2010

Here is the latest in my ongoing essay series, Local Media in a Postmodern World.

Pureplays and the 50% Threshold

The business of the online world locally is found in a host of new advertising solutions for businesses of all sizes. The business community is discovering that they can recruit customers directly rather than using the brand marketing tools of traditional media, and this is fostering a huge shift of dollars in the marketplace. Unfortunately for local media companies, these new applications have little to do with us and instead belong to a growing number of venture capital funded Web pureplays who are sucking money from the local marketplace at an alarming rate. That rate crossed the 50% threshold last year, and unless we do something beyond just partnering with them, there will be little money left for us.

This gives me the opportunity to state, once again, that the problem with media today isn’t content; it’s value creation in the revolution that is advertising.

Posted in Advertising, Essays, Reinventing Local Media | 1 Comment » |

The Trouble With Twitter

April 26th, 2010

Here’s the latest in my ongoing essay series, Local Media in a Postmodern World.

The Trouble With Twitter

In this piece, I’m taking a step back from observing local media to examine an issue about Twitter that I think my friends and colleagues who use it faithfully need to stop and think about. There’s no doubt in my mind that Twitter is a two-headed beast, a low-tech and highly efficient notification system, and a unique method of conversation. It’s when the two seem to combine that I have difficulty. I tweet, but not like some of the people I follow, because my work occupies most of my attention. I follow a select group (and for different reasons), and some of them are really prolific. The problem occurs when I try to understand the nature of those tweets and the conversation about which they are a part. I suspect technology will ultimately help me, but until then, it’s my trouble with Twitter.

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The Four Opportunities of 2010

December 21st, 2009

Each year for the past seven, I’ve gazed into the old crystal ball for what lies ahead in the coming New Year, and I like to think I’ve been more right that wrong in such prognostications. But prophecy is a dicey game, and I make no promises that my vision is any clearer than anybody else’s. That will be up to you.

I see four themes that will dominate local media next year – for those who are smart and in the know. We’re going to see more newsrooms becoming Web-centric. Media companies will increasingly get into the data business. Smart companies will elevate the brands of their employees – in some cases over their own – in the quest to find relevance in the world of personal media. And Mobile efforts will include those that enable commerce apart from our brands.

The Four Opportunities of 2010

And while I’m at it, let me repeat my pet peeve about our new millennium, because we have the chance to do something about it next year. It’s twenty-ten, not two-thousand-ten. It wasn’t one-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-nine, and it never should’ve been “two thousand.” Sigh.

All the best from the team at AR&D. See you in the new year.

Posted in Essays, Reinventing Local Media | 1 Comment » |