OUT OF THE ORDINARY

Strategy Talks: The future of digital marketing

During a recent trip to Canada I was invited to take part in a PwC Strategy Talks podcast on the future of digital marketing. Andrew Light of PwC Canada's Telecommunications and Media Consulting practice was alongside me in the pod and it was a lively and interesting debate.

Andrew and I have known each other and worked together on digital transformation initiatives of various kinds for almost fifteen years so it was great to cross swords with him again. The podcast itself is here and I will post the presentation I used to set the scene for a follow-up live Q&A with a round table of Canadian publishing executives as soon as I can. 

Digital Publishing Innovation

Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel about digital publishing innovation at the Digital Matters 2011 conference in Singapore. It was a lively and interesting discussion that was captured on video. So here it is:

 

IBC 2010: Chasing advertising revenue after the financial crisis

Earlier this year I was very fortunate to be asked to take part in a conference panel at IBC 2010 alongside Colin Light and Phil Stokes from PwC and Jeff Hyams, Chief Strategy Officer at Mediaedge:cia. Before the panel debate kicked off in earnest Phil gave a very interesting summary of PwC's lastest Global Entertainment & Media Outlook.

Unlike many expert forecasts PwC’s outlook is based as much on consumer focus groups as it is on interviews with industry executives. As a result it contains some really interesting anecdotal consumer insights on the future of the media industry, as well as the more standard predictions on the growth or contraction of various parts of the media landscape. Phil included a cross section of comments from these focus groups in his summary presentation and these can be heard in the conference audio recording. It is well worth a listen.

The audio recording also includes the wider panel debate which covered a range of topics including the growing importance of mobile, the future of digital agencies and the challenge of monetising the growing digital audience from a media owner perspective. Given the different contexts of the participants this was not surprisingly a lively debate.

A surplus of good ideas

Cognitive Surplus is a fascinating book, which following on from the success of Shirky's first book Here Comes Everybody, is sure to introduce another big idea into the digital vernacular. The eponymous idea of the title is that the rise of an increasingly affluent society has created a surplus of time and talent which can be (and is being) harnessed on the Internet for productive and socially useful purposes.

This is radical concept but just as importantly Shirky's book also brilliantly assesses the role that digital technology really plays in changing human behaviour. Shirky’s main premise in this regard is that as human behavior is actually motivation filtered through opportunity, technology is not fundamentally changing human behaviour, it is just providing new opportunities for us to express our underlying human motivations. This is an extremely important insight as it helps to explain some of the ‘new’ social behaviours such as music sharing on Napster that have either been wrongly labelled as signs of our moral decline or as indicators of our progress towards a social utopia.

Indeed in Clay’s own words:

“The rise of music sharing isn’t a social calamity involving general lawlessness; nor is it the dawn of a new age of human kindness. It’s just new opportunities linked to old motives via the right incentives. When you get that right, you can change the way people interact with one another in fairly fundamental ways, and you can shape people’s behavior around things as simple as sharing music and as complex as civic engagement.”

This may not have grabbed the headlines, or the title, in the same way the idea of a cognitive surplus has but it is just as profound. 

A book that will change the way you think about books that change the way you think

Too many books claim that they will change the way you think about the world so it’s invigorating to read one that really has the potential to do it rather than just talk about it as a means of generating sales. In Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives academics Christakis and Fowler explore the way in which social networks influence the spread of everything from  suicide rates, sexual practices, politics, back pain, happiness and most interestingly to me obesity.

While six degrees of separation, the idea that we are linked to every other person on the planet, including Kevin Bacon, by only six steps is increasingly familiar this fascinating book demonstrates the way that our individual behaviour is affected by three levels of influence; our friends, their friends and their friends. In this context if a friend’s friend’s friend, whose existence you may not even be aware of, gains weight you are more likely to gain weight. While, if they lose weight, then conversely you are more likely to lose weight.

While the idea that obesity could be in some way contagious may seem controversial. When you think about the way social norms are established through peer pressure and the way that social acceptance of certain types of behaviours spreads it suddenly becomes much more plausible, if not like so many transformational insights, almost obvious.

As the New Scientist points out in it’s review of the book this insight raises some profound questions for public policy:

“Given how triggers for illness (smoking and eating habits, for example) and for well-being (positive moods) radiate through social networks, should health authorities consider the effect of treatments on whole networks rather than on individuals alone? More particularly, given that well-connected people are likely to pass on health benefits to a greater number of people, should medical interventions be directed preferentially at social "hubs"?"

Although, understandably Christakis and Fowler avoid over emphasizing the importance of online social networks, after all social networks have existed for as long as human beings have, they do recognise that the role of technology within the public policy area is potentially huge:

“Our interactions, fostered and supported by new technologies, but existing even without them, create new social phenomena that transcend individual experience by enriching and enlarging it, and this has significant implications for the collective good. Networks help make the whole of humanity much greater than the sum of its parts and the invention of new ways to communicate promises to increase our power to achieve what nature has foreordained.”

Inspiring stuff indeed which not surprisingly given the subject area is well supported by an interesting website.