In Case You Missed It: My Live Q&A About The State of The Creative Media Industries
Listen to the podcast above!
For those who missed it, I recently hosted a live interview session with the readers and followers of my blog and podcast to ask them and take questions from them about the big picture questions affecting our media landscape and creativity. Below is the recording of that Q&A, with a brand new introduction by me. Here we go!
I’m ready for my close-up!
Communication in our hyperkinetic multimedia landscape is a two-way street. Ignoring your audience is like ignoring your own vital signs. In this era of the empowered customer and the empowered audience (which are of particular interest to me for this blog, which reflects on my experiences and adventures in that very landscape) your followers make or break you, and no one can afford to ignore them.
Part of the reason for my opening of the floodgates to you is the larger radical shift in the industry from “push” to “pull” tactics. For many years, the dominant thinking in the media world was that you had to ‘push’ out a sales message, buy this coffee, vote for that candidate, etc. But since the dawn social media, the mostly unheard customer suddenly became the dominant voice, By clicking to ‘like’ a video or photo (or use the other reactions now available to us) using a downward or upward thumb like in a gladiator’s colosseum, the audience now decides who survives. The run down bagel shop on the street corner or the Greek taverna run by someone’s plucky eighty seven-year-old grandmother now can lead national rankings on review sites on its reputation alone, and the once impenetrable corporations that dominated public taste and opinion are suddenly beholden to the thumb.
Now that the customer is at the center of the universe, the ball is in the media creators’ court. What we once called the captive audience is no longer captive. The customer’s ability to lose interest in you and find what he or she needs elsewhere means that we must make a bold move: make things that people actually want to see, a topic I explore in our talk.
I also have personal reasons for going live. You may know from an earlier post that the captivating power of live broadcasting is a theme of this blog. My blog and its extensions have found an audience, so I felt it was time for a direct conversation from me to you. Without the loyal, passionate and intelligent people I am proud to call my followers, I would be living in an echo chamber, in an era where it has never been more important to break outside our own silos and tune into opposing points of view. It is seductively easy to shut out the opinions we disagree with and hear only echoes of ourselves. By enabling a discussion about the media, I hope to invite you to challenge me, and each other, so we can all expand each other’s horizons.
I structure this talk by asking the big picture questions I deem crucial to understanding the complex creative digital environment we inhabit and how it affects our lives. Does quick access to things and services come at the cost of our privacy? Are we truly in control of our digital footprint? Occasionally, I zoom into a quirky topic of interest, (for example, what Snapchat has in common with sitting around a campfire.) Finally, I address advertising in particular, and open up the floor to your excellent questions that I hope to integrate into my work moving forward. The wheels in my head are always turning.
Watch what happened in the video link below. For your convenience, I have supplied links to the individual topics I discuss, in case you don’t feel like watching from beginning to end.
Enjoy!
TOPICS
Enduring power of live experiences— 2:25
Access vs. Ownership— 5:39
Will machines take our (creative) jobs?— 8:38
Expediency vs. privacy—12:38
What the internet has in common with sitting around a campfire—16:45
How content consumption is different today than ever before—18:08
Importance of community and authenticity in our media—19:28
Importance of immediacy in our media landscape—20:43
The On-demand World—22:06
How will artificial intelligence and machine learning factor into the speed of content-creation?—23:42
Piracy—24:02
Customization—24:48
Truth & News—26:37
Is it better to make a relevant boring ad or a creative stunt ad? 31:07
Should an ad just sell a product or can it make the world better? 33:23
Is authenticity a worthwhile goal in advertising? 35:05
Should we regain control of our media or are we too preoccupied by modern technology to take back our privacy and ability to think for ourselves? 12:38