The latest updates from my Tumblr blogs
Greetings! In addition to the blog posts on this site I also post on 2 other sites, see below.
The latest updates from my Future of Business Tumblr Blog
The latest updates from my Green Futurist Tumblr Blog
46 posts categorized "Must Reads"
January 12, 2012
January 11, 2012
Get the free PDF of my Music 2.0 book - just pay with a tweet or Facebook post!
Attention is the new currency is one of my favorite memes. So: simply tweet about my 2009 book Music 2.0 (even if you already have it, in print or as PDF) and receive the link to the free download. Use this link to PAY WITH A TWEET and spread the word. If you really must get a dead-tree edition, the print version can be ordered via my bookstore at Lulu.com
About Music 2.0 (from the free mobile site): "This book was self-published in 2009 and is an edited collection of my best essays on the future of the music industry, and continues the work I presented in my first book, The Future of Music, co-written with Dave Kusek. It further describes what I think the next generation of music companies will actually look like – hence the term Music 2.0, a description derived from the now increasingly popular “Web 2.0.” I have been writing and blogging about digital music and the next generation of the music industry for almost four years now – in airplanes, taxis, trains, busses, hotel lobbies, conference halls, and at home. In Internet time (and it certainly feels that way to me), this is almost forever! In many ways my message and my opinions may have evolved a bit but the bottom lines and visions have not changed a whole lot.
Looking back at some 1,000 blog posts and over 20 essays it is evident that by far the most often covered subject is indeed what I (and many other people – I make no claim to having invented this moniker!) have come to call Music 2.0, the new principles that define the next iteration of the music business. All of this is also closely connected with a few other terms that I have co-coined and have come to be associated with: Music Like Water (MLW), the Flat Rate for Music, Feels Like Free (FLF), the Usator, Friction is Fiction, and the People Formerly Known As Consumers. In this book, I aim to just fine-tune the best of my writings from the past four years, while not altering the content too much, in order to preserve the timeliness and context of when it was actually written..."
You can also read the book on pretty much any mobile device just by going to MusicFutures.com.
Also, be sure to follow my music-business specific tweets via @music2dot0. To see all my blog posts on the Music 2.0 book (and the topics covered in the book) please go here. For the music-business specific videos, visit my Youtube channel. Slideshows are here.
October 24, 2011
Announcing my new Kindle book "The Future of Content"
Today is a very big day for me. My new Kindle book "The Future of Content" just went online at Amazon, and is already gaining a lot of traction. You can view a very short video greeting about the book on my GerdTube channel (Youtube:)
Of course I would be very happy if you would consider buying the book for yourself (only $3.90, Kindle-only) but beyond that it would be really great if you could help me spread the word via rating and / or 'liking' the book on the Amazon.com page, tweeting about it or just forwarding this mail to some friends that may be interested.
As you probably know, I have published my last 3 books as free pdfs (which are quite popular) but really wanted to try something new with this book; after all reading on the Kindle is a much better experience than reading a PDF, and thus is, to quote Kevin Kelly, one of those "New Generatives" :)
"The future of content" will also be available in dead-tree-versions aka print, via my Lulu store, soon - please stay tuned. Happy reading!
Gerd Leonhard
(Media Futurist and CEO of The Futures Agency),
Basel / Switzerland
http://twitter.com/#!/gleonhard
My public Amazon / Kindle profile
(sharing all my book highlights there)
Update October 25 2011: this nice review may be helpful:
Increases brain power for content creators, October 25, 2011This review is from: The Future of Content (Kindle Edition)
"I challenge you to expand your brain and read this book. What Gerd Leonhard is always doing is informing the global brain (or the collective brain) in ways that help us all get where we're trying to go. He builds the buildings in front of us.
This collection points toward several compelling answers for content creators. As a writer who is already swimming in the changing currents of "content," I found it intensely informative. Leonhard shores up my courage to continue embracing a digital world without DRM, and ebook prices "for the masses." He makes the all-important concept of curation crystal clear. If you are providing any kind of content in print or on the web, it's relevant. If you want to stay on the front edge of content creation and publishing, it's basic. I'm making this book mandatory reading for my epublishing circles"
Amazon Kindle German Store
Amazon Kindle French Store
Amazon Kindle UK Store
ABOUT "THE FUTURE OF CONTENT"
Futurist Gerd Leonhard has been writing about the future of content i.e. music, film, TV, books, newspapers, games etc, since 1998. He has published 4 books on this topic, 2 of them on music (The Future of Music, with David Kusek, and Music 2.0). For the past 10 years Leonhard has been deeply involved with many clients in various sectors of the content industry, in something like 17 countries, and it’s been a great experience, he says. “I have learned a lot, I have listened a lot, I have talked even more (most likely:) and I think I have grown to really understand the issues that face the content industries - and the creators, themselves - in the switch from physical to digital media.”
This Kindle book is a highly curated collection of the most important essays and blog posts Leonhard has written on this topic, and even though some of it was written as far back as 2007 - “I believe it still holds water years later. I have tried to only include the pieces that have real teeth. Please note that the original date of each piece is shown here in order to allow for contextual orientation.” Leonhard’s intent to publish this via the amazing Amazon Kindle platform, exclusively, and at a very low price, is to make these ideas and concepts as widely available as possible while still trying to be an example of what digital, paperless distribution can look like, going forward.
October 19, 2011
Social Media and HR (presentation by Ross Dawson)
Nice presentation by Futures Agency colleague Ross Dawson
July 28, 2011
Check out my Future of Business blog on Tumblr
I started using Tumblr a year ago, and because of its easy use of viral tools and instant-post options via Instapaper etc I have build a pretty good following there, already. I usually post interesting snippets I find via Twitter, Flipboard or my 1000+ RSS feeds (no, I don't actually read all of them), and only the most crucial ones are presented. In other words, this is not a river but a drip-feed:) Check it out at Futureof.biz , on any mobile devices try the new Conduit-powered mobile app.
May 03, 2011
Mobile Trends Africa 2020 slideshow
Seriously good stuff in here, via Futures Agency partner Rudy De Waele
Mobile Trends 2020 Africa
View more presentations from Rudy De Waele
April 08, 2011
Some of my best interviews and related media coverage of my work (PDFs)
Epoca Brazil, on Facebook (Portuguese) April 2011: Download Epoca Brazil Gerd
HSM Magazine, Brazil (Portuguese) June 2010: Download HSM gerd
eComm conference / blog interview on Telemedia (Sept 2009): EComm-Interview
DDB strategy blog guest post: Data is the new Oil (Nov 2010): The Future
Enjoy and feel free to spread or repost anywhere.
February 09, 2011
Must-watch video by Steven Johnson: where good ideas come from
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!
January 03, 2011
A gift for you: free PDFs of my last 3 books: Music 2.0, The End of Control, Friction is Fiction
Update: my new book "The Future of Content" was just released on the Kindle
I want to start 2011 in a renewed spirit of generosity and sharing, so here are the complete PDFs of my last 3 books, for free; provided under a Creative Commons,non-commercial, share-alike, attribution license (see below). If you still want to buy the dead-tree versions of these books (or donate something for the free PDFs - yes, that's an option, too;), you can visit my Lulu Store, or go to Amazon.com, or check out my 'Paying for Gerd' page. You can also return the favor by blogging or tweeting of Facebook-liking my stuff. Thanks, and enjoy, and have a great 2011. Update: my free videos (50+ keynotes and presentations) are here, the iTunes podcast feed is here (just subscribe to download all videos to your iPod / iPad / iPhone, or computers), and my free slideshows (90+) are here, on Slideshare :)
Download Friction is Fiction 6.8MB PDF
Download The End of Control Gerd 8MB PDF
And be sure to check out my free iPhone and Android apps
These free books by Gerd Leonhard are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on various works offered by Gerd Leonhard
Nice future-gazing presentation by JWT Intelligence: 100 things to watch in 2011
I just ran across this pretty interesting presentation by JWT Intelligence on Slideshare - take a look. There's loads of interesting stuff in here, and it's presented very nicely. On my end, I will probably not offer any particular predictions for 2011 - it seems like there are so many good ones out there, already (browse my twitter feed for some of them), so, no need to add to the flood of great input, for now. Enjoy.
JWT: 100 Things to Watch in 2011
View more presentations from JWTIntelligence.
December 27, 2010
Alvin Toffler: 40 key trends, the next 40 years
One of the world's leading futurists (and a great influence on me), Alvin Toffler, just published a pretty cool PDF depicting his 40 key trends for the next 40 years - a lot of food for thought here.
Download: Toffler: 40 for the Next 40 PDF
Here are some of the key findings that I find most valuable. Read here what FastCompany thinks
December 01, 2010
New: Portuguese translation of my essay on Content 2.0: protection is in the business model
I am delighted to be able to share this brand-new translation with all my friends, tweeps and colleagues that speak Portuguese. The essay was kindly translated by Paula Neves, Analista de Marketing Digital at Approach (Brazil); be sure to visit her blog or Linkedin profile.
Gerd Leonhard: Conteúdo 2.0: ‘proteção’ está no modelo de negócio e não na tecnologia (pensamentos sobre o futuro da venda de conteúdo).
Download the PDF (1.8MB): Portuguese translation The original, english version is here.
Excerpt (download the PDF to read the whole thing, ie 6 pages):
Image by gleonhard via Flickr
Abastecido pelas agitações na indústria da música e, finalmente, com a transformação muito rápida dos livros para o formato digital, há bastante debate em torno do fato das pessoas compartilharem habitualmente isto é, redistribuírem conteúdo digital sem que os usuários paguem por isso. Como se pode monetizar o conteúdo se a cópia é gratuita? Essa pergunta é uma questão chave em todos os sentidos, seja com a música, com livros digitais, noticiários, editoração, TV ou filmes. Há o medo, claro, de que a partir do momento que um item digital foi comprado por uma pessoa, ele pode ser facilmente encaminhado para qualquer um se estiver num formato aberto, assim reduzindo significantemente a possibilidade de que outra pessoa pague dinheiro real por ele também (claro que o mesmo também é verídico para conteúdo digital supostamente trancado ou protegido – só demora um pouco mais). Não ter mais controle sobre a distribuição = não ter mais dinheiro. Certo?
Apesar do simples fato da GDD (Gestão de Direitos Digitais, ou Digital Rights Management em inglês) já ter se mostrado desastrosa no mundo da música digital (e agora já é praticamente o passado), medidas técnicas de proteção ainda vêm sendo investigadas como um método plausível de se garantir o pagamento, especialmente no efervescente setor dos eBooks. Isso me preocupa muito porque medidas técnicas de proteção são caras, atrapalham ou previnem a adoção em massa, encurtam ou matam o compartilhamento social, o que derrota o marketing usuário-usuário, normalmente limitam drasticamente o uso honesto, e são geralmente inúteis no combate aos piratas reais, isto é, os que têm intenções maldosas e criminosas de roubar conteúdo e vendê-lo para outros.
Não somente conteúdo – Contexto! A meu ver, o pensamento de que a distribuição de conteúdo tem de ser controlada para que haja qualquer forma razoável de pagamento é fundamentalmente equivocado por causa dessa percepção não-tão-futurista: numa economia aberta e enredada (nota: estou falando sobre hoje e não amanhã!) editores de conteúdo têm de oferecer seus bens de uma forma que não mais considere a distribuição como o fator central. Não deve-se vender (somente) o conteúdo (ou seja, meros 0s e 1s) e sim também o contexto, os valores agregados, os vários outros itens em torno do conteúdo. Venda o que não pode ser copiado.
A tendência irrefutável é que a janela de oportunidade de se ‘vender cópias’ (isto é, iTunes, música digital, Kindle, etc) está rapidamente fechando, pelo menos na maior parte dos países desenvolvidos. A próxima oportunidade, e já muito presente, está na venda do acesso e serviços de valor agregado, e no fornecimento de experiências ligadas ao conteúdo.
Image by gleonhard via Flickr
A partir do momento que abarcarmos que os usuários – as pessoas dantes conhecidas como consumidores – não podem ser reduzidas a meros ‘compradores de cópias’, poderemos investigar como eles gostariam de pagar por todo o resto também. Por exemplo, ao comprar um eBook os usuários não deveriam pagar meramente pela autorização da distribuição, ou seja, a cópia legítima das palavras, e sim também poderiam ganhar acesso a comentários altamente especializados, amigos e colegas que possam ler esse livro, avaliações, explicações, apresentações de slides, imagens, links, vídeos, referências cruzadas, conexões diretas com o autor ou o editor e assim por diante. Sim: conectar com fãs + motivos para comprar (como o Mike Masnich do Techdirt já resumiu sucintamente diversas vezes)....
October 20, 2010
Announcing my new company: The Futures Agency (TFA)
Today I am delighted to officially announce my new company, The Futures Agency (TFA). TFA is based in Basel, Switzerland and is currently comprised of 15 amazing people i.e. Associates that are working with me on an independent basis; additional team members will be announced shortly. Think of us as a 'band' of futurists and foresight-experts, visionaries, advsiors and idea-curators ...and you'll get the idea.
I will serve as CEO and plan to grow this company into one of the most amazing agencies on the planet, employing these 5 key principles:
- Knowledge grows when shared (therefore we share everything)
- Proudly find elsewhere (PFE)
- Do what you do best and link to the rest (Jeff Jarvis)
- Spend less time being important and more time being relevant
- The leaders of the future are connectors - not just directors
(If you need more of my favorite memes please go here)
I am extremely pleased to have been able to gather some of the sharpest minds and greatest people, anywhere, including:
- Glen Hiemstra (Futurist.com) Seattle, USA
- Neil Perkin (Digital Strategist and Social Technologist), London
- Jonathan MacDonald (Marketing / Social Media Strategist and Consultant), London
- Alan Moore (Community, Branding & Marketing Strategist), London
- Mike Masnick (Techdirt Founder and Content Strategist), San Francisco
- Jack Myers (Media Economist and Futurist), New York
- Rudy de Waele (Mobile Guru and Strategist), Barcelona
- Clive Rich (Digital Media Law Expert, Strategist), London
- Didier Marlier (Leadership and Change Expert, Coach, Professor at FDC Brazil), Geneva, Switzerland
- Lars Cosh-Ishii (Japan Expert, Mobile Guru), Tokyo, Japan
- Kei Shimada (Mobile Expert, Founder & CEO Infinita, Japan)
- Ross Dawson (Futurist), Sydney, Australia
- Brian Newman (Film Futurist), New York
- David Smith (Futurist at TheGFF, London)
- Mikael Jensen (Digital Media Strategist, formerly at TDC Play, Copenhagen, Denmark)
This amazing team of powerful individuals and collaborators is supported by Project Manager Gabi Ruttloff, in Zürich, and (Multimedia) Journalist, (Social) Scientist, Researcher & Creative Dr. Martin Strickman, in Cologne, Germany.
The purpose of TFA is to provide our clients with a lot more firepower and emotional intelligence when answering this key question: What does the future bring, and how do we prepare for it...?
Or, to put it more proactively (for those inclined to that sort of thing;): Which future do we really want to create?
TFA offers seminars, workshops, think-tanks and advisory sessions ranging from 3-5 hours to 3 days, with anywhere from 2 to 10 people, worldwide. Some of our thinktanks may use a format called the Disruption Experience which I have been finetuning together with my good friend and world-renowned leadership expert Didier Marlier, who lives in Switzerland as well. Other thinktanks may use our "FuturesExperience" format, and additional formats will be announced soon. As an example, a few weeks ago TFA undertook a really amazing mission for a one of the largest mobile operators and telcos in Africa; 3 days of serious future-thinking and plotting with the executive team. Hopefully I can share some of those stories with you in the future.
Some of us were already tweeting together at Futurefeed, but in addition we will now bundle all efforts as follows: Twitter (@futuresagency), the blog (RSS feed), Youtube and Slideshare.
September 04, 2010
Fragmentation explodes... some stats
Via this great Mashable post, and the embedded slideshow by Richard Edelman (a must-read, indeed).
August 16, 2010
MusicNetwork Interview on the Music Business "The Future of the Future"
The Future of the Future: Gerd Leonhard looks ahead (published today in TheMusicNetwork)
16 August 2010
16 August 2010
The main shift is going to be away from the downloading of content and owning of CDs and more towards music in the cloud. That is going to happen with most media, starting first with music and then going into films and books. This is not just a music business issue. We are moving away from the copy to access. This is a very good model for the artist. In the past, most of the money was spent on the physical product – so the reproduction, packaging, shipping and retail store.
The artist basically got nothing in most cases. Skipping that whole process now means that the brand of the musician becomes the most important thing. This is very good news for the artist, the producer and the creator but less so for the industry as it’s much easier to sell a copy than it is to sell access. The idea that the artist just gets, say, 10% of the sold product is now out the window. Now the artist will give his agent or service agency some kind of fee – say 25% just as Nettwerk Records and other companies are already doing.
The issue is to get attention and clicks from consumers. If that attention is converted into a revenue share based on advertising, a subscription fee or an upselling process, then as soon as you have attention, you participate. We are still in the old system of counting on revenue per use. That won’t work in the future. The bigger your brand, the bigger the attention you will get and the more clicks you get, the more money you’ll make. I believe that consumers will ask for the access models to be free initially but then after they use it for a while they’ll be quite happy to pay so they can remove the ads or increase the quality of the stream for example. Music online will feel like free. There is plenty of money to be made from ads, but it’s just not there yet. It’s coming, though. We have seen that advertising just doesn’t work on the Internet.
It’s so easy to click away the ads or avoid them altogether. Advertising was essentially useless until now as today we are starting to see social advertising, such as on Facebook. Plus we have mobile advertising. Finally advertising is becoming more useful. The brands are no longer looking to spend 1% of their budget on social or mobile; they’ll be spending 10% or more. There is a total disconnect between the way a new business can be grown and how a lot of rightsholders perceive how the business will be paid for by Google or ISPs, for example.
That’s a very bad approach because it makes it impossible to legally grow a new model. You will be much more successful – like YouTube and Last.fm – if you don’t have the right licence and you just do it. That’s a real irony. I don’t think we’ll be able to support new services without a compulsory licence.
We need a compulsory licence for music use on the Internet so that companies like Spotify, MOG and we7 can use a licence rather than just bang their heads against a wall like they have in Germany and the US. A cloud-based model has to win out in the end, as the costs are so much lower, the sharing is so much easier. You can put all sorts of ads into cloudbased systems because you always know what the user is doing. There are lots of great benefits there. But the industry hates the cloud-based model as they lose control over distribution.
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