Sorry for the blogorrhea today, but we had an interesting call with the folks at Google Europe who are organizing the Zeigeist conference next month. We agreed to it a while ago (free trip to Europe! and I’ve never been). But today we got the scoop on the audience and how we’d be participating.
This conference is for very high level CEOs that may be aware of what’s going on in Web 2.0, but aren’t heavily involved in the day to day. They aren’t Facebook users, YouTube viewers, or Flickr uploaders (for the most part), but their employees and children are. They are smart, just busy running multi-billion dollar companies.
We’re going to make a Special Delivery and then we’re going to be interviewed for about 15 minutes.
So my question is this, what would you say (or do) to this audience that would hasten the future of small media? What big idea would you posit to get these very high level people to open up their checkbooks and start spending more in this space? How do you convince them it’s not a fad?
I have certainly have a number of ideas, but I’m geniunely interested in what you would do if you had this opportunity.
29 Comments
April 23, 2008 at 11:45 am
In my experience, in presenting to the New England Newspaper Association conference in Boston, people want you to show vs. tell.
So if there’s something that you think the audience would be interested in implementing as a take-away, show that.
I showed video broadcasting from a cell phone, and some papers have already implemented it.
April 23, 2008 at 11:45 am
While these people are not necessarily into Twitter and the other new social media stuff that’s out there right now, there are some pretty high-level people that are.
You could show them some of these people, and also note how these types of media are allowing people to communicate differently than they ever have in the past.
There is now instant feedback available, and someone with enough Twitter followers can do market research in an instant.
April 23, 2008 at 11:46 am
I’d tell them to think more like Google. Being a multy billion dollar company doesn’t mean you can’t have fun!
Make them think outside the box and always talk with the numbers backing you up. I’d mention the “will it blend?” commercials and how that viral marketing idea made blendtech millions.
Good luck and let me know how it went!
April 23, 2008 at 11:49 am
Perhaps talk to them about this… Just as the magazine companies started decades ago as generalized mass market media and then turned into specialized media with a magazine for every hobby, interest, etc., the internet is allowing each person to explore what they are interested in. They aren’t being limited in going to the library or turning on a radio or TV to look for programming they are interested in. Instead, they are downloading and viewing what they want to see, read, and spend money on when they want to at their own schedules and pace. The internet and the media being created online through podcasting specializes the viewers of both radio and TV in a way not before possible. It gives control to the viewer to get the information they want, and then participate in it in whatever way the want to.
April 23, 2008 at 11:52 am
Cell phones were once a fad/niche.
IM/text/ data was once a fad.
C-levels often have kids. Ask them if these kids are using text messages, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter more or less than a few years ago. Ask if they foresee them halting or slowing in these activities.
All they want to understand is the market/audience and its potential to spend and the associated risk. . This of course assumes the ability to monetize and make the right choice of app or site that is the next MS or FB.
Basically translate into their language… market, opportunity, risk, reward.
Just my thoughts.
Dawgfan
TC
April 23, 2008 at 11:53 am
Show them the facts. Go on Alexa, or if you have a traffic software package, use it, show them the huge constant amount of traffic that small media gets. Get together with others who have very popular sites, burn it into their minds that small media has been getting mega-traffic since the advent of broadband internet. Stress that the idea isn’t that much different than Myspace, Facebook and youtube, that if you build a service (or show) that people like, they will come to it. It may take multiple popular small media sites to equal what youtube or others have done, but it isn’t like there aren’t plenty of them.
Basically, take all of the traffic data that you guys have from the last 5 years (or however long they have been around) add it up, and compare that to the big sites like google and yahoo and etc.
I’m sure they know, but remind them that every hit equals money in the bank and with as many as you guys get daily, even if it is a “fad” (which we may know it isn’t) it should be easy to convince them that it will be a profitable fad.
April 23, 2008 at 11:54 am
If it were me, I’d liken the current state of web based media production to passing out free samples at costco. If it’s good, people will be interested in buying more later, but you can’t charge for the tiny things that you’re handing out to begin with.
Compelling content is its own best advertisement, and the easier it is for other people to share at least some of it with their friends, the easier it is to include it in conversation and the more valuable it becomes.
For example, Firefly is awesome in part because I can get it on DVD and see what my friends are talking about. Conversely, as much as I loved Sifl and Olly, MTV won’t release the original 2 seasons on DVD so nobody knows what I’m talking about when I say that something is, “cresent fresh.”
April 23, 2008 at 11:54 am
( The Ninja to CEOs )”…School is in session!”
Use fans.askaninja.com projected 100 feet high. Create a user account live, right in front of them. Make a big deal about copying and pasting an embed code from YouTube. Show them the back end Google uses to connect the actual media file that was embedded to fans.askaninja.com.
When complete pull out the big guns and flash some Ask A Ninja unique page view numbers.
April 23, 2008 at 11:56 am
Whatever you pitch make sure you point out how most 1930′s – 40′s “Hollywood Types” thought TV was a waste of time, a passing fad and could never compete with the big screen. DOH!
If that don’t scare them into action nothing will.
April 23, 2008 at 11:58 am
What I would do more than say is show them in an exciting way how these new microbloging tools and other web 2.0 tools can be used to promote their products and services. The bottom line is you make a good presentation of current hot trends. Then pitch a few general ideas of how to exploit those web 2.0 services and finally show real numbers of people who use them. Big wigs need real numbers to work with. They take those numbers and can use them to analyze the revenue they can generate by reaching that audience with their product. It would be good if you could get a demographical breakdown by service as well that way they can understand the potential marketing base.
April 23, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Tell them to get into this space before their competitors do and they get a katana through the neck.
April 23, 2008 at 12:05 pm
IMO the picture has to be painted in five minutes or less. Make the hook as nice and shiny as it can be so that their questions come quickly. Better to spend time addressing specific areas of concern/lack of understanding they may have versus possibly wasting time on what you may assume they want/need to know. If the questions don’t come quick have a backup worm for that hook ready as no bites likely means no interest.
TC
Dawgfan (Twitter)
April 23, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Kent,
I like may of the ideas presented. Perhaps you should also consider talking about how much company time is wasted with employees goofing off with technology. Do what we (sometimes when we have good freethinking administrators) do in schools- use the technology to promote WORK!
Example- students create study guides set to their fav. music and load them onto their IPods. Similarly thingslike Diigo, Facebook, ning, and Twitter can be used for company collaboration and productivity.
Play + work = happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy as well as creative forward thinking.
April 23, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Hey, Kent:
I like Tim’s comment and TC’s first comment. But if this is a European audience, remember that the rest of the world is not as PC-focused as we are in the (backwards) U.S. of A. They’ve been using their cell phones to do cool stuff much longer than we have.
April 23, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Some random streams that might inspire you:
Look to the past to predict the future.
0) The Internet itself was a “fad”
1) Email was on a Data General or Dec Vax “closed” system. Now it is open and ubiquitous internally and externally.
2) The first Mac was considered a cute toy
3) Instant Messaging – chat rooms, cybersex (AOL online) IM is now used as a corporate communications tool. (for cybersex?)
The social networks will find their way into the corporate world… Human Resources – etc…
The masses will continue to use and adopt this media.
>>Other track<<
Internet Advert has traditionally been about pay per click”, Conversion rates, and “Click to buy”.
What is up and coming, but still ‘young’ is to carry the “Branding” form of advertising to the internet. Small Media is a perfect place to start.
…taking the traditional ‘Paid Placement” model from movies and TV shows, redirect some of those advert and marketing dollars into small media as is the trend…. etc….
CONCLUSION:
They could invest millions in developing similar platforms for internal use, or redirect marketing and advert $$ on the small media creators which will in turn facilitate the enablers of the technology to continue to develop the applications, that in turn, the corporations will be able to adopt internally for their employees, therefore reducing turnover, attracting top caliber prospective employees, etc.
Other comment:
As the world goes forward, we are finding less and less time to sit down and take 60 minutes to watch a cool TV show that has 20 minutes of commercials.
As a busy executive, though, I still enjoy drama (CSI), Drama/Comedy (Eli Stone) etc.. but I often miss the shows and don’t have time to go back and watch them (or care that much to do so).
However, I am online more than I am not. To be able to take a 3 to 5 minute break and watch something like the Ask a Ninja comedy clip that has one sponsor (that does not compete with 20 minutes of commercials) is like a breath of fresh air! I crack up (laugh hard). Tell someone else they need to watch this episode (viral marketing) and move on with my day. And since the small media bit is “short” I will most likely watch it again, several times, therefore getting hit with that one or two key advertisers…
OK…now I have to get back to work…wait…just got a twitter, and a YouTube email, and an RFP…what to do…
April 23, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I think I would find a correlation between small media and the word processor or some other tool of democratization and show how CEOs have benefited from previous revolutions and project how they might be able to benefit from this one.
Last night I had drinks with a music producer who has produced over 150 albums for many artist that you have heard of and he was telling me about the music industry when he started producing back in the 1960′s at the age of 16. The stories he told about that time made me think of our online video community now and about the time of Ernest Hemingway’s A Movable Feast in the 1920′s.
The revolutions of the 20′s and 60′s changed the way people used their artistic voice to write books and write music that had passion and that passion changed those market places to the benefit of corporations.
Once corporations got involved and tried to replicate the passion of the artists with the skill of trained craftsmen the “soul” of the artist’s message was lost and the mediums took dives.
As online video creators we now have the opportunity to spill our passion to a global audience with no one standing in our way and it’s all thanks to the tools that corporations and individuals have created to use on this thing we call the Internet.
You can ignore it. You can pretend that it is just a fad but as I sit on the couch of my living room and pound out these words using technologies that CEO’s approved and sent to market I know that my words will reach 100′s of people maybe 1000′s and my words will effect people in a way that will bring about change. Maybe these words will inspire some new online video that will lead to something new, something exciting, something passionate and something meaningful…and I’m not talking about a new episode of French Maid TV. I’m talking about something artistic and truly meaningful.
As an artist I’ve been sitting on my hands waiting, waiting for all the tools to be in place to be able to create and make a living off my art. For me French Maid TV has just been a test in spectacle but now I feel we are at the point that we can tell stories online and monetize them.
I think the new stories that we produce will lead us to new formats and new creative ways of telling stories that use technologies like Twitter, IM, SMS and Video Chat to entertain in ways not possible on traditional TV or DVD.
We are now entering a new age of emotionally engaging interactive entertainment and the CEO’s will have much from which to benefit.
April 23, 2008 at 12:28 pm
In three words: “Google loves blogs”
In more words: customers are more likely to find you if you are updating frequently, and in ways they find convenient.
April 23, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Hey:
This sounds quite a bit like our audience, high level “brand managers” who have slowly come around to the notion that they have to take this stuff seriously. The term they always hover over is brand engagement. Since they’re not worried about monetizing a social app, they want to know how to get people to really wallow in their brand. For me the question is, well, how brave are you? How much control can you give up? You can create a strategy from there.
Frankly, I think your story is one of the best examples of how compelling advertising can inspire viewers to mad levels of activity. If, and only if, a brand is able to trust the ninja to deliver their message consistent with the character. Certain amount of guts.
Another example that has gotten the attention of bigger brands is Current TV’s user generated ad program, or VCAM. Current has created an environment that filmmakers seem to thrive in, and where advertisers – L’Oreal, Toyota, T-Mobile – are having a good experience. Advertisers post fairly detailed RFPs, and let filmmakers (many of whom are amateurs and students) post ads that get critiqued and voted on by the community. If the ad gets on air, the filmmakers make money, etc. But either way, the brand interpretation is out there for the world to see. The stuff is really good, and the advertisers I talked with are out of their minds at the “level of engagement.” I can only imagine that it’s pennies on the dollar for what they’d typically spend on that kind of creative. Some of the ads have been created by teenagers – and none look like an ad agency trying to look cool. Wouldn’t take long to show an audience.
Sometimes just differentiation will do the trick. Budweiser can’t do much user generated stuff – their product is lethal at certain doses and illegal at certain ages; but they’ve gotten way brave with just content, by spicing up the online versions of their beloved 30 second spots. (In the youtube version of their “Dude!” ad, the dude walks in on his roommate having sex. That ought to hold the Zeitgeist crowd.)
Another good example is the Obama campaign. No candidate in modern history has been braver about distributing tools of expression to potential constituents. Wil.ia.m was great. Obama girl… well, you gotta have guts to play in the interwebs.
Blah blah. Bottom line, if anyone can talk about brand engagement without sounding like an utter tool, it’s you. If you need anything offline, hollah.
April 23, 2008 at 12:29 pm
* So my question is this, what would you say (or do) to this audience that would hasten the future of small media?
Nobody in that room doubts that the “next network” (think Fox in the late 80s) will come from the Internet. They all want to be that “next network.” Convince them that the “next network” is small media delivered online. Appeal to the greed. Speak their language.
* What big idea would you posit to get these very high level people to open up their checkbooks and start spending more in this space?
Simply point out that the “next network” is already identifying the talent and the big ticket winners (think “Simpons” with the Fox analogy) are getting the attention. Get in too late, and you’ll have no chance at being one of these winners. Appeal to the greed.
There is only 1 Amazon.
There is only 1 Google.
There is only 1 Microsoft.
There is only 1 Simpons, American Idol, …
Ninja …
* How do you convince them it’s not a fad?
They honestly know it isn’t. They’ve read the numbers. They just don’t want to admit it, in fear that admitting it will make it more real. You know, the whole “speak a lie enough and it becomes the truth” bit.
The “next network” is the Internet – and the competition isn’t NBC, CBS, ABC – it’s us. But they can still play in our sandbox …
They just need to play in our sandbox.
Paul
April 23, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I saw you at the New Media Expo last October and all I remember is, that you were good and entertaining. But I cannot remember anything else (and I didn’t party the night before). That’s sad.
So I think you need to give the audience something to take home. Something they can (re)use. I wouldn’t tell them that the miss out on so many things, and that they don’t know about this and that etc.
You are an author, a storyteller. Tell them a story that they will tell others when they have their meetings and business lunches. This starts an offline viral campaign and you spread the word. Make this your message, this is social media.
April 23, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I’d start by stealing a bit from Larry Lessig’s TED talk. I’d point to pre-mass media culture and talk about local culture and how people have always been creative. Then talk about mass media and the excitement and celebrity and more importantly fandom that it produced. Then talk about how internet is step 3 or 3 in this chain, where these same creative people no longer have the old media cost barrier to express their creativity with others who share the same interests.
Continuing this, I’d shift to how internet allows people to connect closer to each other in the author-consumer relationship (point out Jonathan Coulton’s fan base, on TWiT episode #133, he talks about this), but they still need help finding those people, and only enterprise helps make that possible: from people who fund the work to people who create systems to surface the work (Digg, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Make the sponsor-benefactor time-travel comparison. Talk about how corporations are individual (even in the legal sense) and how brands represent a trusted person, then ask what happens when technology can make that individual *an actual individual,* or two, or 50.
Finally, I’d point out that people take their fun seriously, and to Tim’s point, show all the specialized magazines out there. Then compare this to online communities and forums that match the subject. (Maybe there are subscription to member counts to compare for the largest of them. Upcoming would be a good example.) The most passionate and most vocal of these interests are those who want to connect the most to it. Small media becomes the conduit. (Pure Pwnage’s live performances is a good example of that as well. Maybe even PAX, being a conference that spawed solely from a web comic.) Chris Leavins’ has an excellent wrap-up video about going from stage to internet show to stage on his blog, which brings up some good analogies to theater — the hypothetical extension would be “what happens when community theater’s community is all of internet? who directs? who performs? what gets produced?” (Point out Alvin Ailey and Roundabout; everyone starts small, you just have to go far back enough.)
Show and play the media cited above throughout.
April 24, 2008 at 7:52 am
how to make money, that you can make money, successful business strategies for making money with the stuff you do…bottom line issues…so they realize this isn’t just a bunch of artists goofing off, that it’s a real business
April 24, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Please, please communicate to them that new media success needn’t be expensive but it does take time. Even “viral” hits are usually the product of a lot of trial and error.
As a bona fide Internet star, you can explain that building a service and/or growing an audience online doesn’t happen overnight.
April 24, 2008 at 5:32 pm
that the rules of communication have changed: there are so many messages that even the most wired people have to walk away – when people walk away, don’t you want them to be carrying ‘you’ in their minds? don’t you want them to feel related? don’t you want them to sense that your product/service/message is a missing part of their life? don’t you want them to trust you?
would you rather start relationships with 6million people who see your message as part of the noise, or 600 people who care deeply and spread the word within their circle of friends and colleagues?
thanks for the post and the comments – all great food for thought.
April 24, 2008 at 6:40 pm
[...] Here’s what Kent asked to help prepare for an upcoming presentation to major corporate ‘C’ level folks: …what would you say (or do) to this audience that would hasten the future of small media? What big idea would you posit to get these very high level people to open up their checkbooks and start spending more in this space? How do you convince them it’s not a fad?… [...]
April 24, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Analytics….I met with some business types, gave them the pitch, explained the long tail, then showed them the cool map in Google Analytics of all the little dots all over the world that viewed my site. They loved that part, looking at the data which in turn they see ROI.
If that does not work have Ninja work them over.
break a leg
April 25, 2008 at 8:49 am
Love the comments so far. Good luck on your talk, Kent.
One thing missing: how can media (and any business related to it) continue to exist in a world where all media (text, audio, video, etc.) can be easily duplicate and shared all over the world, almost instantaneously?
The answer is to make media free, but the CEO asks, “where’s the profit in that?”
Media is marketing… marketing for something else that cannot be duplicated as easily.
Increasing personal authority and celebrity (bloggers), creating large fanbase to leverage for stratified access (live events, NIN CD releases, etc.). I’m sure there’s a lot of other things that fit into the “cannot be duplicated” category.
The free thing might be beating a dead horse thanks to the recent Wired article, but I think it’s important to flesh out for top-level execs that may still cling to traditional business models.
April 26, 2008 at 7:53 am
I’ve always found that demos speak louder and clearer than speeches…
Why not found out, “live” who is actually live-blogging or twittering the conference and show that to the CEO’s? There has to be someone there who’s into it.
Show them that lots of small content (both in scope and length of media) needs to be created from a variety of sources to fill a variety of niches.
They also need to “open source” some of the content and encourage interactivity of the entertainment – that is allow fanfic on the official site, mashups, etc…to exploit every aspect of that niche.
And then do that to the next niche…and so on.
November 20, 2008 at 2:57 am
What are you doing about the environment?
What do you think about slavery & poverty in the 3rd world.
What do you think about the possibility that the US government is controlled by private business lobbies?
Do you think the education system is totally outdated?
Why don’t your employees work via iphone?
What happens when all the work is automated by software and robots? Will you have a job?
If you call big shots, tackle the big issues.