Meet me in London May 17: Digital Entertainment Summit 2011
This is an invitation-only event - ping me if you are interested. PDF: Download DES2011
This is an invitation-only event - ping me if you are interested. PDF: Download DES2011
This was a cool panel and a nice group of people (thanks to GSMA for the picture, btw). Dan Hodges, Head of Global Sales, Digital & Emerging Products, Associated Press, Matt Hull, VP Product Marketing & Operations, AT&T, Michael Roth, Chairman & CEO, IPG, Scott Seaborn, Head of Mobile Technologies, Ogilvy Jay Altschuler, Global Media Communications Planning Director, Unilever
Mike Byrnes from Byrnes Consulting and FA-Mag.com has a nice and very astute review of my presentation for the FPA in Boston, last week (see the slides and comments, here). Check it out (some links were added by me). By Mike Byrnes .
Gerd Leonhard, media futurist and CEO at The Futures Agency, opened up the general session at the FPA Business Solutions 2011 conference in Boston yesterday to a packed room of advisors. His message: Dive in to social media.
‘Faster Horses’
Leonhard started his presentation by explaining if Henry Ford had asked people what they wanted, they would have said, “faster horses,” because they didn’t know there was something completely different and better. It was a thought-provoking comment, setting the stage for his views on the future of businesses, technology and how advisor business will be impacted.
Why Networks Are Important
Leonhard showed how companies like Texas Instruments used to be known for calculators, but not anymore. Today it has adapted and individuals can just download the app. Another change is that customers now have more power than they did before. For example, individuals can use Kayak and other services travel agents would only have had. What has changed is that there used to be broadcasters sending out information. Now it is about being a network. Successful companies like Amazon and Google connect people. “They are ecosystems.”
Leonhard proved his point by asking, “Why would you connect your Facebook account to Amazon?” He then explained how Amazon was able to cross reference individuals in one’s network to see what others are reading. “It resulted in a 13% increase in one sweep,” Leonhard shared. Although the United States has leading companies, “America has fallen a bit behind on mobile [usage], but the country is catching up,” stated Leonhard. When it comes to falling behind the times, the music industry is a perfect example. From $14.6 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion in 2009, it has seen a 71% decline. Conversely, Leonhard gave the movie industry as an example of adapting, with a company like Netflix doing it right.
More Fragmentation
Social media is shifting from social conversation to social commerce. Leonhard said, “It’s not a better mouse trap, it’s a whole new logic.” I Love Lucy used to pull in a huge percentage of the country’s TV viewership, now American Idol, the biggest show, only captures 4% of Americans, because today people have so many more options. Leonhard advised, “Expect more fragmentation.” Leonhard is certain that disruption is something businesses will have to face. The only question is whether they do the disrupting themselves. Case in point, look what Craigslist did, taking all the business from traditional classifieds.
Opportunity For Advisors
A crazy amount of information is being put on the Internet. For example, 26 million photos are uploaded to Flickr every day. People are publishing more and more information, which can result in just noise. “A connected world can be noisy. The noisier the world gets, the more everyone will need better filters,” Leonhard said. The overload of information actually presents an opportunity for advisors to play the role of disseminating what is the most important and relevant in a timely manner. “Your job is to filter the ocean of information. Your clients don’t have time to go through it all.” “Add transparency. Declare what you are doing. Trust is crucial,” he recommended.
Leonhard encouraged advisors to become active with social media if they are not already. “Anticipate what is on the horizon,” he said. “What is coming up next?” For example, some see newspapers dying, but what about e-mail? He shared that 75% of kids in Brazil have not seen a book, they use their mobile device. To push the envelope, he showed a video of an Audi that drives itself.
Ask These Questions
Leonhard said the key questions are, “Why are you in business, what do you do, and how do you do it? We are living in a knowledge economy. We are no longer living in an economy of stuff. So how do people use the knowledge? Are [advisors] people of the paper? [If so, are they] working with people of the screen?”
Real-time Engagements
People don’t want to wait anymore. “Think about now-ness. They are not interested in last year’s info. What is happening today?” He gave this example to illustrate his point: If you want to know the best place to get sushi in New York City, do you look online at reviews that could be two years old, or do you search Twitter and find reviews from people that are probably still at the restaurant?
Ideas For Advisors
When it comes to deciding how to use social media, Leonhard said, “It depends where your clients are.” It is easy to see the huge amount of stuff on YouTube, Leonard said, and he told advisors to “sit down with a flip camera and get started. There are two billion videos watched per day on YouTube. If you don’t have videos, start doing them!” When it comes to the importance of being on social networks, Leonhard shared, “Facebook is the biggest broadcaster in the world. Every fifth minute on the Internet is spent on Facebook ... You can run ads on Facebook and they are very efficient.”....
Read more here
I was invited to do the opening keynote at Ericsson's 'Shaping the Networked Society' event at this year's mobile world congress (MWC) in Barcelona, on February 14, 2011, see my blog at http://gerd.fm/i9Dh9I. Some of the topics I covered include the challenges and opportunities of convergence (TV-Web, Mobile-Fixed, real money - virtual money), new currencies and paying with facebook credits, companies becoming platforms not empires, what is beyond the current social media enthusiasm, the new paradigm of 'interaction before transaction', the tough but inevitabe switch from ownership to access (both in content / media as well as in general), the rise of the 'following paradigm', how the media and content industries are changing, and much more.
Take a look and please spread the word if you like it. Thanks.
My video RSS feed via www.Gerdtube.net
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I am delighted to announce that I will be giving a rare talk & presentation in Nashville (TN, USA) on March 1, 2011. This event is open for all Berklee College of Music alumni (Berklee is my alma mater, too) but I do have some spaces available for guests, as well, so... ping me if you are interested or email the Berklee people, below. Facebook page. Berklee Alumni page. Twitter buzz. Plancast listing.
Some more details: Berklee alumnus Gerd Leonhard '87 will be conducting a workshop for Berklee Alumni called "Monetizing Music in a Connected Society." To officially RSVP, please email alumniaffairs@berklee.edu.
"We are moving quickly in a globally networked society: information...(and content) travels ever more quickly around the globe, more and more voices are and artists are asking to be heard, and more music is being published every single day. In a world where people access music like the flow of music like water from the faucet, where music is ubiquitous and available in the cloud, anytime, how do you build your audience, how do you cut through the noise, how to you make money with attention, and how will you make a living in 5 years? Will human creativity be rewarded or will computers start writing songs that other computers 'like' and retweet? Gerd will present some key learnings and foresight, and will share some ideas about where things are going, and how can make a living with music, in the immediate future...."
This is truly a must-watch video for anyone interested in innovation and entrepreneurship, via TedX Oxford. Steven Berlin Johnson's book (same title as the video) also rocks; it's next in my Kindle cue. I will have the great pleasure of doing an Ericsson-presented panel discussion at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, next week, with him and some more great people. Stay tuned for updates - this should be good!
This is a good one - loads of information in here, and pretty well recorded. More details and PDF with all slides, here. Enjoy and spread the word. Subscribe to my video RSS feed, here, if you want (download all videos directly to iTunes, watch on your iPod etc).
Blogging this aboard a train from Wales to London; on my way back from one of the most amazing events I have attended in a long time: DoLectures in Cardigan, Wales (UK); see more details at their blog, here. I was invited to speak on one of my key topics: the switch from EGOsystems to ECOsystems - here is the PDF, below. Video to follow shortly.
ITF 2010 | Gerd Leonhard | The Future Of Cinema & Film from NIFFF on Vimeo.
The Future Of Cinema & Film.
Gerd Leonhard talk at the Imaging The Future Symposium 2010
Prior to my talk at the Future of Digital Marketing conference in London, June 16, 2010 here is a quick audio preview of what I will talk about (if I can stay on-topic;). Stay tuned as I will publish the PDF after the event, here and of course on Slideshare.
Future of Marketing Gerd Leonhard Podcast
Check out this short Jeff Jarvis video, below, and then peruse my slide-show on "The Future of News" Update: here is my interview, as well
I am delighted to be back in Dublin for this June 11 event organized by the Contemporary Music Centre. I will be speaking about "The Future of Music: Mobile, Video, Social, and...Paid?"
"With access to music now just a click away for most of us, very few of the tried and tested ways of accessing music remain unchanged. Can we, or should we, attempt to predict the future? Have we even begun to deal with the present yet? This major conference brings together high-level international speakers to explore and debate issues around the meaning of digital culture; how it impacts on the creator and the performer; and the implications for copyright in a world which has come to expect music to be free"
Who should attend: creative artists and organizations engaged in any area of
composition, performance, publishing or distribution across all forms of
music in Ireland.
Other Speakers
• Ms Mary Hanafin, TD, Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport
Official opening
• Prof Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, University of Limerick, Ireland, and CMC Board
Keynote address
• Andrew Dubber, Reader in Music Industries Innovation, Birmingham City University, Great Britain
• Bill Whelan, Composer, Ireland
Ireland and the Global Culture Market: A Creator's View