MediaFuturist: ABOUT GERD LEONHARD

Greetings, and welcome to MediaFuturist.com.

I work as a Futurist in the Media, Telecom, Technology and Communication Industries. I am also an Author and Writer, Strategic Advisor, Keynote Speaker & Presenter, the CEO of TheFuturesAgency and a Visiting Professor at the Fundacao Dom Cabral in Sao Paulo / Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

I focus on these industries and sectors:

Recorded Music & Music Publishing
Books and Magazines
Content, Media & all sectors of Entertainment
Radio & Broadcasting
Telecom, Tele-Media & Mobile
Social Networking & Web 2.0
Social Media and User Generated Content
Online Gaming & Virtual Worlds
Online Retailing and eCommerce
Film / TV / Video
Software
Print / News / Journalism
Advertising & Branding
Public Relations & Communications
Education & Training
The Future of Business
Cultural Policy
Travel and Tourism

I live in Basel / Switzerland - and aboard a good many airplanes.

Download my biography (PDF)

Download the 12 MB Zip folder with 25 pictures (all cleared for PR use)

Download my latest Recommendations June 2010 (via LinkedIn)

Here is a collection of my best keynote speeches and other videos:

Here is a nice if somewhat lengthy (62 minutes) video from a July 2008 presentation at Google's Tech Talk Lecture Series (in London) on The Future of Media, Advertising, Branding and Communications. Download 64MB.mp4

You can also watch the video below or check out the entire Media Conversations Future Talks channel (to select another episode from that series, below, just click on the book icon / guide button, and go from there). Or just visit my Youtube channel, get my iTunes video-feed here, or subscribe to my video RSS feed. If you want to use bit-torrent to download my videos and talks, I have about 7 hours of material on Mininova, free of charge, here.

Here is a short bio:

Gerd Leonhard: Media Futurist, Author & Blogger, Keynote Speaker & Strategist

The Wall Street Journal calls Gerd 'one of the leading media futurists in the world'. He is the Co-Author of the influential book ‘The Future of Music’ (2005, Berklee Press), as well as the author of ‘Music2.0’ (published in January 2008) and ‘The End of Control’ essays (2008, available online here), and the blog & essay compilation 'Friction is Fiction' (2009)

Gerd's background is in music (he won the Quincy Jones Award in 1986 and is a graduate of Boston's Berklee College of Music) as well in technology and the Internet (LicenseMusic, Inc. and Sonific LLC).

Gerd’s work focuses on the Future of Media, Content, Technology, Business, Communications and Culture, and he is considered a leading expert on topics such as Web/Media 2.0, social networking and social media, cultural changes due to disruption by new technologies, copyright vs. technology issues, online content commerce models, media convergence, mobile entertainment, entrepreneurship, the future of advertising and branding, future planning, digital content strategies and next-generation business models.

Gerd's keynotes, speeches, and think-tanks are renowned for his hard-hitting and provocative yet inspiring and motivational style. With over 50 engagements in 15 countries during the past two years Gerd has addressed global audiences in the sectors of recorded music & music publishing, radio, TV, film/video and broadcasting, online gaming and virtual worlds, telecom & wireless, and advertising and branding. His clients include SonyBMG, RTL, ITV, the BBC, France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, LebWeb3, MIDEM, The Financial Times, TribalDDB, Omnicom, the European Commission, Nokia-Siemens, and many others. He is much in demand as a speaker at many leading events and conferences around the globe, and is considered a leading blogger and visionary.

Gerd is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (London), and resides in Basel, Switzerland.

Gerd is an expert on the drastic changes that are impacting content, media and communication companies as a consequence of the rapid deployment of new, disruptive technologies, and of convergence. His hard-hitting yet inspiring presentations address issues such as the advent of the user-creator (aka the Usator, a term coined by Gerd) and the 'people formerly known as consumers', the attention economy in media, the wisdom of the masses and the rise of user-generated content, content syndication and pull-vs-push media, new business models for digital content, the culture of participation in media, copyright versus usage right, and the consequences of mass media becoming personal media. Gerd is equally fluent in technology, legal issues, social and cultural contexts, business models and general trends that affect media and communications.

Gerd also works with select cutting-edge start-ups and new ventures in the entertainment and technology industries worldwide, as well as with investors and Venture Capitalists.

Gerd holds a Jazz Performance (Guitar) Diploma by Berklee College of Music (87), and is the recipient of Berklee's Quincy Jones Jazz Masters Award (1985). He is also a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA, London).

Here is a visualization of Gerd's keywords, generated by Wordle:

See (or add to ;) what Wikipedia says about Gerd, or peruse Google Blogsearch here. If you want to connect with Gerd please peruse the options here. Gerd's LinkedIn profile and endorsements are here, and his Facebook profile is here. Follow Gerd via Twitter or Friendfeed.

Clients and Speaker Agencies:

If you need pictures of Gerd you are welcome to download this zip file which includes several high-resolution pictures (June 2008): GL_pictures.zip .