Really nice talk at TEDx Youth in Manchester by Jonathan MacDonald - someone who is always interesting and has a talent for provoking thought…
Pretty inspirational in terms of the questions he’s asking, as well as the one he’s answering…
Remember – Technology is rarely the answer.
I’m obviously a huge fan of technology, but when I’ve been explaining what interests me most, the key aspect of it is how technology has an effect on the people and business that use it. And that effect is always about the interaction with other humans as much as with the technology itself.
Image by 'Andrea in Amsterdam' on Flickr (CC Licence)
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, as I’ve found myself running a freelance business, and three+ websites all on a six-year-old computer running the free open-source Ubuntu operating system (and an older version at that), and a smartphone which isn’t the latest or coolest on the market (although it’s one I really like).
And while I wouldn’t turn down the latest technology if anyone wants to send me some to test or keep, and I certainly wouldn’t mind more people hiring me so I can pay to upgrade – none of it is an excuse for not getting on with things, particularly now that my output is directly related to the amount of money I earn.
There’s plenty of other examples around me. The gamers I regularly meet on Xbox Live are planning to get together in-person, despite chatting online every night (and that’s something which happened with the last two groups of gamers which I’ve hung out with).
I still regularly use a handful of forums – they’re some of the best places for the interaction and information I need, regardless of the fact I’ve been using forums for the last decade.
And my experience of applications and mobiles/tablets suggest that if people weren’t happy paying a fixed amount every month for your content in print (for example), or online on the fixed internet, that the current rush to replicate the print experience pretty closely on a new device isn’t going to be sustainable for long.
The things that really matter are connecting, creating, sharing, and all the other things which technology allows us to do more easily, but which we were all able to do before it existed.
Need an example? In 1911, The Times sent a telegram around the world, with the message travelling 28,000 miles and being relayed by 16 operators. Total time: 16.5 minutes. So what’s the excuse as we’re about to start 2011?
There’s an interesting presentation, post and comment thread on Mashable at the moment regarding the idea of a new job role within companies – Chief Marketing Technologist.
Scott Brinker, president and CTO of ion interactive, presented the idea at the Pivot Conference, and although I often think there are far too many titles and buzzwords already in existence, there may well be a compelling enough case for this one…
The three missions Brinker outlines for the CMT are:
There are already people doing these jobs, and plenty of comments to that effect on the Mashable post. It’s similar in some ways to the roles I’ve had, except this example places much more emphasis on the technical and engineering skills of the CMT – I’ve tended to learn as much as I can, and do as much as I can manage without breaking things, but ultimately leave the heavy lifting to people far more talented on the technical side. Plus in my case, there’s probably the need for an additional letter, becoming CMCT – Chief Marketing and Content Technologist, to include my skills and experience in creating content in a way which hopefully engages people, but also works for SEO etc.
Plus I don’t think choreographing data and infusing technology should be limited to just the Marketing Dept unless you’re in one of the biggest global companies. You need to be able to work with all departments, and infuse the value of data, technology and integration throughout the company for it to work effectively. Otherwise you’ll have powerful marketing with no backbone…
But I do think there should be a recognition of the need for digital and technical skills in marketing which bridge the gap between traditional marketing, social media/co-creation, data and analytics, and internal collaboration. Certainly more than being seen as ‘the geeky one’ by the rest of the marketing team.
The other argument would be to do away with traditional titles altogether, and either just learn what everyone does (As practised by Gore), or just letting people call themselves whatever is simplest and most descriptive. In my case, the best I’ve come up with so far is Digital Content Creation and Distribution Specialist, which isn’t ideal, but at least encapsulates some of the fact I can go from sourcing and creating content to ensuring it’s published on the right type of platform, appears on the right screens, and is given the best chance of popularity via social media, search, advertising etc. CMT might be a better alternative than the world’s largest business card.
One of the very brightest and best people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing, working with, and becoming friends with, had some news to share yesterday. He and his great wife are now parents of a beautiful child…
And it summed up how things have changed – even in the short time since my own son was born. The last update before birth was via Skype, the news and images appeared first on Facebook, and rather than everyone heading to a pub to wet the babies head, we all shared congratulations via Xbox Live.
It’s a great time to be a parent. Despite how much of politics and the media can try and achieve their aims by propagating scare stories and propping up things they shouldn’t with cash that really should be used elsewhere, the rapidly changing nature of the world means I have no idea what job or life my son will have. I’m not going to be hoping he’ll become an indentured servant to a feudal Lord, or go into an apprenticeship to have a lifelong career in one role which will never change.
Instead I’m hoping to pass on the ideas which not only seem to be increasingly important in terms of working but also living – embracing change, constantly learning, being willing to take some risks but with the knowledge of how to minimise the danger where it makes sense, connecting to trusted global networks of people with brilliance in a huge variety of ways, and helping others to achieve their aims and ambitions. To be able to effectively share knowledge and wisdom for the good of others and of yourself. To strive to make some kind of positive change for those around us, whether it’s one individual or a whole network. To always work towards doing cool stuff. To experiment. And to take advantage of the fact more information, conversation, connections and progress are enabled by new technology even as it raises new challenges to privacy, security and existing business.
And lastly – to encourage him to tinker with technology and particularly code. If only I’d made the link between my small natural ability in maths and the creativity that can be achieved with it, I might have continued with it far more, and had more of a balance with the more traditional creative outlet of writing (Which I still adore, and don’t regret pursuing – and it’s never to late to start playing around more!)
I’m immensely happy for my my friends and their new child, immensely proud of my family (for which I can take little credit), and I’m looking forward to a new era of evenings of Call of Duty accompanied by more discussion of nappies, toys, learning to crawl, walk, talk and all that comes after…
Quite intrigued by the new video of Nokia Mixed Reality:
I’ve been following Augmented Reality pretty closely, and how it links with wearable computing, and particularly smartphone usage – hence inventing the term ‘Moborg‘. The idea being that ‘wearable computing’ in the past always required wearing half a laptop strapped to your arm, and that we’re now at the point where a device in my pocket gives me the same benefits.
Nokia’s video could show AR starting to move into a more useful and integrated future – but there’s a long way to go yet, and as excited as I am by the possibilities, I’m also aware that unless there are real practical advantages of an Augmented Reality interface over something more simple and 2-dimensional, then the current hype will soon fade.
I’ve probably spent as much time thinking about the future of print magazines in the couple of weeks since I left the magazine industry as I did when I was in it!
The reason is that newspaper consultant/critic Jeff Jarvis recently asked ‘Are magazines doomed?‘ in an article inspired by the closure of Portfolio magazine just as publisher Conde Nast launched a UK version of Wired.
The comments on his article had an interesting split between those for and against print as a medium generally, as well as a few questions around the revenue streams employed in magazine publishing.
My hypothesis is that print magazines will prove more resilient than their newspaper counterparts, but eventually they’ll share the same fate due to a twin pincer movement.
Their resilience is in part due to the difference in content, and the difference in format. The majority of magazines are providing something in addition/as an alternative to the breaking news that the internet disrupts so effectively. Their strength is not only in providing analysis, insight and features, but also in conveying this information with fantastic photography and design. And by doing so, they can provide a far more engaged audience interested in a specific topic.
Here come the pincers…
The first claw closing on the magazine industry is that the online world is evolving far more rapidly, both in terms of community, as Jeff points to, but also in terms of more content-driven websites and blogs. As the market for blogs fighting to break news in niche topics has become increasingly saturated, and coincidentally many more journalists and freelancers are looking outside of print following recession-instigated redundancies, so the levels of insight and expertise available online will increase.
It’s easy to forget in the tech/online bubble that the ‘mainstream’ mass readerships are still located mainly in print, even as they start to move away in many cases. And as much as the online world can criticise traditional display advertising for irrelevancy, digital monetisation still needs to evolve in effectiveness around content.
But the people best placed to effectively make a decent wage online are those experienced journalists and writers who are able to produce specialist books and in-depth articles – those who are also most valuable to print editorial teams. As they increasingly look at digital opportunities, that’s where the biggest content threat will come.
The other pincer?
The other defence of magazines is due to the format – the incredible photography and design which can inspire as it’s displayed on your coffee table.
The problem is that the quality of a format is not a guarantee of it’s survival. While those magazines favoured for their design qualities will doubtless be the most resilient for the future, the fact is that the utlity of digital formats for accessing and sharing information will overcome the quality of the pile of magazines left gathering dust in a box under the bed.
And that’s assuming that technology stays roughly equivalent to what is available right now.
Even as I was about to write this post, a post by Om Malik appeared in my RSS feed – Vogue on Your eReader? New E-paper Tech Will Make It Happen. It happens that a group of researchers at the University of Cincinnatti in Ohio have created a new technology which allows them to recreate the colour and brightness of print. The link has a full explanation, but not only is it much closer to the beauty of print, it also is far more energy efficient than the current Kindle-type displays.
So what’s the answer then?
There are two very likely scenarios for print magazines in the next decade or less. One is that very small run, niche print magazines might survive with subscriptions, display advertising and additional revenue streams due to cult levels of devotion.
The second is that magazines will increasingly follow the ‘digital only’ route which newspapers are being forced into, and we’ll see some find ways to monetise more effectively than display advertising. The others will become marginalised or disappear due to the increased expertise of the new competitors they’ll suddenly discover that have been on the web for years already…
'Letter to Santa Clos' by The Jamoker on Flickr (CC Licence)
Normally the list of what I’d like for Christmas would be a 50-50 split between technology and entertainment, but the responsibility of being a new homeowner and a new parent in the current financial climate means the end of the gadget list.
Instead, I want to list some of the things I’d like to see happen – some of which I could actually play a part in catalyzing. (Although, if you do want to gift me a gadget, I’ll accept: smartphones,laptops,netbooks, a flip mino, digital slrs, or digital video cameras!).
There’s probably more, but that will do for now! I’m quite intrigued to see what some other people would wish for, so I’m asking Dave Cushman, Chris Brogan, Jonathan MacDonald, and Neil Perkin.
Now here’s a nice boost on a Tuesday morning. I’d just spotted a post on Wikio’s top 20 influential UK tech blogs by Neville Hobson and thought I’d check out the full list.
The December rankings will be released tomorrow, December 3rd, on the Wikio site. Neville has a sneak preview of the Top 20, but I thought I’d take a quick look at the current rankings, as they actually list the top 100 on the site.
Scanning through the list for November, I spotted NevilleHobson.com at 33, and kept looking to see if there were any names I didn’t recognise and wanted to check out.
And then I spotted The Way of the Web at 70 (apparently down 3 places from October, but still!). I’m still getting used to the idea that I could legimately claim to be the 70th most influential technology blog in the UK, at least by one source!
There are details on how the rankings are calculated if you’re still finding it hard to believe!
With some time to kill before a meeting, I took the chance to browse round the Oxford Street branch of HMV, looking for inspiration for what to buy with a gift voucher I’ve had kicking around, and also to get ideas for Christmas presents.
Aside from reminding me how difficult it can be to find unusual items in even the largest stores (in fact it’s usually easier in the small secondhand record shops I spent much of my music budget in), I also felt something a bit different about the experience. I’m not sure whether it’s the credit crunch, the success of online retailers or the rise of the MP3 but the shop felt slightly emptier than I’d have expected – and the average age seemed slightly older than usual.
The only major exception was the ever-expanding videogames section. Could this be the fact full console games are still viable as a physical product? (Not many options to download a full game, and the filesize would be bigger than the monthly data allowance for a lot of people!) Certainly I got the anecdotal impression that without the videogame section, the average age of the shoppers would be 10 years higher than I’ve ever seen – or maybe I’m just noticing more…
Coincidentally, via PaidContent and Media Guardian comes the news that 32.1 million MP3 players were sold in the UK last year. Jemima Kiss points out, quite rightly, that the title is a bit misleading – 75% of the sales included were MP3 capable mobile phones – but the important point is that 90% of mobiles sold last year were MP3 capable. Whether or not they’re actually being used for MP3 consumption is almost secondary – the point is that a huge mass of people now have the opportunity to be converted at any moment.
I’m not sure that CD player sales dropping to 8 million last year is necessarily related – after all, CD players have been around long enough to have reached saturation point – but if the money drops out of manufacturing CD players, and sales are growing in those little devices that make phonecalls, take pictures and video, surf the web and play MP3s, it’s another challenge to providers and retailers of physical content.
Why would I pust through a packed Oxford Street to experience agoraphobia in a massive store populated by those 10+ years older than me, and then fail to find my ideal purchase without ordering it – particularly when its so closely linked to lifestyle?
Funnily enough, I have seen a packed record shop recently – in Malmo in Sweden. And I wish I’d grabbed a picture, because it wasn’t just records – it was the 50′s style in store cafe.
I realise this has been a bit of a meandering post, but perhaps the takeaway conclusion is this:
Mobile phones are a triumph of convergence to provide value. Convergence is also increasingly happening with living room technology and online applications. Perhaps in a time-starved culture, more retailers need to look at how they could use convergence to build engagement and loyalty in the real world, as much as online? After all, it’s a reason why supermarkets and department stores have continued to have cafes instore. So why can’t record stores look at food and drink, live events, introducing art, photography, specific genre nights, or other ways to hook into the tribes who don’t have a reason to support them anymore?
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