On March 1, 2010, I am starting with what I think is becoming an increasingly viable opportunity on the Net: online seminars, conferences, workshops, meetings and training sessions. I have done a few similar things (for various clients) in the past, using all kinds of platforms, and I believe the time is right to take the next steps, on my own turf, and... yes, indeed, even charge a few $ for it. You've had the Free / Feels Like Free, you've seen the Freemiums... so: I am wondering if you are ready for this idea.
If you have met me in 'meatspace' or are otherwise 'connected with me', or have been a reader of this blog for a while, you'll know that I have been publishing free slideshows, blog posts (and full-length feeds), PDFs, videos and essays for over 7 years.
Now I would like to investigate if maybe the next level above and beyond all that free content (and maybe to complement my 50+ paid speaking gigs and on-location think-tanks per year) could be to charge a small amount of money to make myself and some select colleagues available to a limited number of people that won't have to travel 1000s of miles to 'be there', using a fully interactive, online platform that allows for screen-sharing, chat, video and audio. After a lot of research I decided to try the DimDim web conferencing platform because of its ease of use and great features; in addition, I was dismayed by the fact that you apparently can't even sign up for Cisco's Webex service, online if you live outside the U.S.; to top that off, so far no-one has even bothered to get back to me via their contact form. Another time, then.
For this first session (and hopefully regularly) I am delighted to be joined by Alan Moore, Author (Communities Dominate Brands, with Tomi Ahonen), Blogger and fellow Keynote Speaker, for our very first no-entirely-free online seminar on March 1, 2010, at 1pm EST (NY) / 10 am PST (California), 6pm GMT (London), 7pm CET (Berlin) etc (you can figure out the timezones from here;).
"Alan Moore is the founder of the Engagement Communication Consultancy SMLXL. He is the author of several books including, Communities Dominate
Brands: Business and Marketing Challenges for the 21st Century. He is recognized as a great distiller of complex arguments
into their most salient points, who can take concepts from many sources
and find the previously hidden relationship between them. He is currently working on his next project: No Straight Lines: An advanced living course for the networked society. As a well known writer, thinker and public speaker Alan has addressed, radio, television, and conference audiences globally. Reviews of his books and his articles have been published in many respected magazines, journals and newspapers..."
I have worked with Alan several times and he just totally rocks; it will be a real treat to have him co-present on this seminar. Alan and me will both present for about 30 minutes followed by a discussion with the participants (which, for now, are capped at 100).
We will charge $50 USD per person for this 90-minute event. If this experiment works out we will be offering more online seminars, together, individually, and with other great presenters from our various networks, as well. So go ahead... make our day!
Thriving commercially in social media and the networked society: An interactive seminar with Gerd Leonhard and Alan Moore (sign up page on Eventbrite)
The terms social media and social networking are terms we frequently fling around, and think about every single day, accompanied by the word “digital”. The digitalness of our world has been picked over in minute detail. One cannot deny that it is, networked digital communication tools that has brought significant social, cultural and commercial disruptive change to all our lives.
We are in a period of transition, our world of business, media, and communications is evolving from the straight-lines of an industrial era to the more complex and networked world that mimics nature. Any transitory process brings with it complications. In this instance, for many people and organizations they feel they are outsiders, struggling to make sense of a seemingly anarchic world. They become concussed observers to this new world that surrounds them. The problem is that this interactive networked world isn’t about vertical silos, traditional notions of product and service creation, mass-production and mass media and marketing. It is about the massive flows of people, who are connecting, collaborating, organizing and creating in a manner that has nothing to do with a linear approach too much at all.
For over 150 years our economies, culture and society have been shaped by a straight-line logic producing considerable economic success. However, in the dawn of the Networked-Society, a straight-line logic of stuff done and creating wealth becomes a barrier to progress. Why? Because, the change wrought by the networked- society is structural – challenging how markets and organizations have co-evolved over the last 150 years.
So, as we de-couple from the ‘Straight Lines’ of our industrialised world – which framed all aspects of our lives – we do need a new logic to understand this new one. It must be a logic which provides a framework for how we relate to each other, how we communicate, how we create more effective and flexible organisations and how we create wealth. Because we are still faced with the same challenges: how do we find our customers, how do we make our customers sticky, how can we increase trade with our customers and serve those customers whilst at the same time, reducing the cost to serve?
Regardless of whether you are in retailing, the automotive industry, FMCG, music etc., this seminar can help you understand how to commercially thrive in the networked society. This interactive seminar is based upon our combined and extensive experience of working with many companies in helping them make the transition from a linear mass media model to a networked one. We will provide via case histories, practical guidance of how to thrive commercially in the networked society.
At MIDEM 2010, one of the leading music industry events held in Cannes, annually, I gave a talk about how other content industries (apart from music) are using the Internet to monetize. The video is about 14 minutes long, and goes with the slide-show, below, and addresses these examples:
I am delighted to have been invited to hold a keynote at the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA) prestigious World Congress in New York City, on April 26-28, 2010.
Here is what I will talk about (Tues, April 27, 9am): The Future of News, Publishing, and Media: How to Monetize Content In the Next 3 Years. "The challenge of how to monetize content in a digitally networked and always-on world is growing more severe by the minute, driven by constant advances in technology, smarter devices and faster connectivity, as well as by drastic changes in consumer behavior, worldwide. Can those analog dollars be converted to a much larger number of digital quarters and dimes? Where will those next-generation revenue streams come from, and how can you fast-track them? Can and should copies be controlled, online, and if not, how do you “compete with free”? How can “selling access to copies” be turned into real money, not just page-views and social media buzz? What is the role of advertising, mobile device makers, the ISPs, telecoms and mobile network operators, and how will publishers position themselves in this new “telemedia” ecosystem?" Hope to see you there!
Today, I am delighted to announce a very special event on "The Future of Books & Publishing in a connected World", on March 19th, in London. I have teamed up with Clive Rich (Rich Futures / Olswang) and Dominic Pride (the SoundHorizon) to jointly present a powerful, conclusive and inspiring program (8.30 am to 12 noon), geared towards Senior Executives, strategists and decision makers from all sectors of the book publishing industry, including the creatives, i.e. the authors / writers and their agents and representatives.
The Future of Books will present C-Level publishing executives with the real (and so far unspoken) learnings from the music industry, a business which has been in transition since the days of Napster 1.0 and the first MP3 players. The speakers will present their views on what book publishers need to understand, believe and do, to take advantage of this dramatic shift from selling copies of printed books to selling access to a digital book (or both). Clive, Dominic and me will be making one presentation each, centering around several key questions: 1) what can and should really be learned from the music industry as far as adopting web-native business models is concerned? What really happened during the last decade in digital music, and why, and how could book publishers avoid a very similar situation? Is protection in technology or is it in the business model? 2) What are those 'immediate-future' business models for what we like to call Books 2.0, what exactly are the most likely new revenue streams and how can those real "New Generatives" be nurtured? 3) What needs to change so that a win-win-win future for publishers, authors and consumers can be constructed and realized?
In addition, we will try and address questions such as:
Dominic Pride: Founder and Principal Consultant, The Sound Horizon. Dominic founded The Sound
Horizon in 2009 to serve the growing number of companies wishing to create and maintain digital
strategies, successfully manage innovation and create new service concepts. Key clients for The Sound
Horizon include Nokia Media & Games and City Showcase. Prior to The Sound Horizon, Dominic was
Product Marketing Director for Shazam, where he spearheaded the company’s expansion into branded,
application-based services on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows and Nokia platforms, and helped to
position the company as one of the planet’s prime music discovery brands. At Orange / France Telecom
Group, he drove the international market development of mobile and convergent music services and
played a key role in DRM-free music.
» www.thesoundhorizon.com
» www.twitter.com/thesoundhorizon
Clive Rich: Principal, Rich Futures and Consultant to Olswang. At Olswang, Clive works closely with
the Firm's music and new media practices. Clive has a 25 year history of excellence in the Music
business as a lawyer, Board Director and Strategic Director. At Sony BMG Music UK Clive created and
ran the “Futures Division”, responsible for all Sony BMG’s new and developing business - including its
digital music business, TV programming and brand partnerships. This included developing the business
interests of Syco, SonyBMG's TV joint venture with Simon Cowell. Prior to that he held senior business
affairs positions with BMG, and chaired PPL and the BPI Rights Committee. Through Rich Futures he has
since provided business affairs services to, among others, the Royal Opera House, MySpace, SanDisk and
the UK Government’s Technology Strategy Board. He also assists in the business development of a
number of emerging digital media companies in which he is a shareholder.
» www.richfutures.co.uk
Olswang London is generously hosting this event; registration is free-of-charge but invitation-only, and limited to senior execs from the book publishing business. If you are interested in participating please contact me directly (and soon - space is limited).
Prior to the event, check out the Books2.0 Twitterfall, and peruse the related #books20 hashtag tweets. Download the event flyer.
When: Friday 19 March 8.30am - 12.00pm
Where: Olswang LLP, 90 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6XX (click here for a map)
Below is our 'official' video trailer for this event, with all 3 speakers commenting on what we will talk about. A conversation with Dominic Pride and myself can be viewed below, as well. More videos are available on our Youtube channel.
I am delighted to have been asked to contribute to this year's Guardian Changing Media Summit in London, on March 18, 2010. I will be chiming in twice: a) a panel discussion on "What does the future sound like? Understanding and reacting to the creative and commercial transformation of the music industry" (12.10 pm) and b) the closing keynote roundtable on The Future of Media. This should be fun;) Download the program: PDF Programme CMS 2010-january
"From the most dynamic and prescient futurologists and the hardest of hard-nosed commercial suits, to the creative's creatives and the world's leading media strategists, the CMS programme has been meticulously designed to ensure you get a uniquely broad and invaluable insight into the business critical issues that define the digital age."
Visit the Guardian CMS Twitter Feed
I am collaborating with the nice people from the NBS agency on February 24th, in Sao Paulo / Brazil, see the details below. If you want to attend please contact me for more details - but hurry;)
**update: you can also meet me at the Mobile Monday Sao Paulo event on February 22nd.
Below
is the PDF from the presentation I just did at Midem 2010
in Cannes / France (Sunday January 24, 2010, 5.30 pm). My MidemNet blog
posts are here, and my presentation "Compensation not Control"
from MIDEM 2009 is here. Please click through to the Slideshare
site to download the PDF if desired. The video is now available, here,
as well. Download: Content
2.0 Gerd Leonhard at MidemNet 2010 Public PDF 15MB
This is the PDF from my presentation at MidemNet 2010: Download Gerd MidemNet Academy new generatives for Music Public 25.1 MB PDF
Please note: this is slightly different from what I actually presented this morning - please stay tuned for the audio and video versions of this talk, via the MidemNet blog and Twitter.
At the FAM 2009 event in Barcelona, I was asked to fill-in for Jeremy Silver (Featured Artists Coalition, UK) and debate the current French HADOPI and "Creation et Internet" initiatives with former Minister of Culture Yacques Toubon (France).
Wikipedia quite correctly describes Mr. Toubon as a 'right-wing politician'. He recently resurfaced as one of the authors of the much-debated French report on "Creation et Internet", of which BigMoney blogger Frederick Filoux says: "The selected authors of the report titled “Création et Internet” (available here) are Patrick Zelnik, a music producer; Jacques Toubon, a 69-year-old former all-purpose minister (including Culture Minister from 1993-95); and Guillaume Cerutti, the CEO of Sotheby’s France. Not exactly digital front-runners. As a music producer, Zelnik has brilliantly missed the digital train; Toubon has seen more mice in government offices than on his desk, and Cerutti is running an auction house where sales are concluded with a hammer blow, not a touch-pad click..."
In any case, you can imagine that we had some fun at this occasion; check out the picture below;). Hopefully, we will get a video of this discussion, soon, as well.
Related: a blog post and event review (in Spanish)
Related: my video from MIDEM 2009 "Compensation not Control"
Image credit: FAM 2009 - thanks for sharing this shot with me
If you are interested in attending please contact me (eMail, Twitter); they have very few places left. It's a free event but reserved for senior executives in the TMT sectors.
The New Year Revolution - Event January 2010We would like to invite you to The New Year Revolution: an insight into what's on the horizon in the technology, media and telecoms sector in 2010 (and beyond!)
We are delighted to welcome Gerd Leonhard, TMT futurist as our keynote speaker.
Gerd is renowned for his presentations and think-tank appearances, which are hard-hitting and provocative yet inspiring and motivational. His clients include Nokia, Google, Sony-BMG, Siemens, ITV, the BBC, The Financial Times and many others.
Following Gerd's keynote there will be a session bringing you up to date on important law changes for 2010.
Date: Wednesday 13 January 2010
Time: Registration, breakfast and networking at 8.30am. Seminar 9.00am to 11.00am, including time for questions. There will be more time to network when the seminar has concluded.
Venue: Berwin Leighton Paisner Adelaide House, London Bridge, London EC4R 9HA.
via www.blplaw.com
Today, Jeff Pulver's 140 Character conference in London presented a whole new challenge to me: make a presentation on "The Future of Content" with less than 140 characters i.e. in true twitter style (at least as far as the headlines and bullets are concerned), and deliver it in 10 minutes. At least, that is the challenge I prescribed to myself - and those are usually the hardest. Talk about a tall mission: here are those 140 characters - see if you can make any sense of it. My own, personal favorite: the music is 404 (page not found). And GWHTLC (glad we had this little chat;)
I just spend 2 very interesting days with the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialog people in Paris, for the new Paris Accord negotiations. I held a very short (yes...I can do that, too) presentation on the Future of Content - here is the PDF, below. Please feel free to reuse under the usual creative commons license (non-commercial, attribution). Download 6.5 MB PDF: New Content Logic Gerd Leonhard TACD
Keynote Speaker, Think-Tank Leader, Futurist, Author & Strategist, Idea Curator, some say Iconoclast | Heretic, CEO TheFuturesAgency, Visiting Prof FDC Brazil, Green Futurist
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