Social web strategist, speaker and blogger Stowe Boyd and
futurist, speaker & author Gerd Leonhard are delighted to present
this 60-minute, free webinar based on a white paper jointly developed by
Stowe Boyd and TheFuturesAgency entitled 'social TV and the second
screen'.
You can read more about here (and
download it via the link or directly, here )
"The overlap of social media and TV represents a huge opportunity
for those that truly understand and internalize, embrace and partake in
these changes, and that welcome this dawning networked, interdependent
and many-to-many society"
Stowe and Gerd will briefly present some select slides and updates
on the topic of the future of television (10-15 minutes each), followed
by a Q&A session with the participants.
The emphasis of this event is on allowing plenty of time for
questions and discussion; both via chat as well as via audio (upon
individual invitation only).
THIS EVENT IS LIMITED TO 100 PARTICIPANTS. Please sign up early and
be sure to show up at least 30 minute prior to the starting time to
avoid disappointment.
Stowe and Gerd are both members of The Futures Agency network and
often work together holding seminars and think-tank events for media and
technology companies, around the globe see
http://www.thefuturesagency.com/about
Find our more about Stowe Boyd
http://worktalk.ly/about_stowe/
https://twitter.com/stoweboyd/
http://www.thefuturesagency.com/stoweb
Find our more about Gerd Leonhard:
http://www.thefuturesagency.com/gerd
http://www.gerdfuturist.com
Blog: http://www.mediafuturist.com/
Mobile apps: http://road.ie/futurist
The Future of Business blog http://www.futureof.biz/
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/gleonhard
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gleonhard
More links: http://about.me/mediafuturist
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
This nice video just went up on my Youtube channel: my entire keynote speech (67 minutes) from the Future with High Speed Broadband Conference in Auckland, New Zealand on February 23, 2012. Topics: Transformational Technologies and Creating new demand for ICT services - The Future of Broadband and ICT -, in detail: the coming telemedia convergence, the future of content in a hyper-connected society, social networks are cable TV without the cable, why open standards are crucial, why and how data is the new oil, how Control is being replaced by engagement and involvement, why sustainability becomes even more important, the shift from egosystems versus ecosystems, the new drivers of Innovation. The slides are embedded below, as well.
A few days ago, I did a fairly lengthy and deep skype interview with Toronto-based Marie Germain from Branding 2.0 (see her Twitter channel here), touching on many issues including the future of commerce, selling, marketing and branding, so-called social media (I much prefer the term Social OS), current issues in technology and the Internet (such as SOPA - the deeply disturbing but nevertheless impending U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act), and media / content trends.
There are some quite juicy snippets in this interview, such as:
"In an truly digital society we probably don't need marketing as we know it"
"We are moving from a society, and an economy, based on EGOsystems to a society that is based on ECOsystems (i.e. INTERDEPENDENCE)"
"The old days of commerce were based on handcuffing consumers, now it's all about attraction, engagement and conversations (being a magnet rather than using handcuffs)"
This video uses an interesting format in that it is based on an audio track that was recorded on the phone, and superimposes some related images over it. Interesting. If you just want the audio track, here it is:
From the TribeRadio Youtube post: "World-renown futurist, Gerd Leonhard, in this interview speaks of the very serious challenges businesses and brands face; he offers solutions. On a more sombre note he exposes the ploys of controllers on internet freedom, SOPA to be clear. The Wall Street Journal acknowledges Gerd as one of the leading media futurists in the world. Powerful! Incisive! Gerd is simply delicious to the ears. Keynote Speaker, Founder of The Futures Agency, Advisor to top corporations and governments, author of five books, "The Future of Music", "Music 2.0", "The End of Control", "Friction is Fiction" and "The Future of Content". Gerd's background is in music; however, today he is a top game-changer, inspiring entrepreneurship and guiding us into a prodigious digital world. To reach the Host of Tribe Radio, Marie Germain: at her blog, http://Branding20.wordpress.com or her biz site, http://MarieGermain.com..."
Be sure to check out the other audio / video interviews on here channel as well, including Jeffrey Hayzlett ('Running the Gauntlet' book, former CMO of Kodak).
Kevin Kelly is a major influence on my work, and this video from Wired's Network conference is one of his best. Dive in and you'll see why. All of his books are worth reading, as well.
RCR Wireless has collected some good snippets from my talk at the Mobile Marketing Association Forum in Sao Paulo, yesterday (download the 15MB high.res pdf here):
"Futurist and author Gerd Leonhard explained during a keynote address today at the Mobile Marketing Association Forum in São Paulo that customer trust was vital. “If we don’t trust Google, Twitter, Facebook, we leave them and they will die,” Leonard said. However, the key pillar to a solid strategy of mobile marketing is a focus on content. “Advertising is becoming content, marketing is curation, mobile is empowerment, brands are publishers, marketers become storytellers and consumers are participants,” explained Leonhard.
The future passes through the end of “mass-anything” and marketing has been dramatically impacted by the increased role of technology. “There is no difference between online and offline. Disconnected screens will be the exception, they will disappear,” said Leonhard. With all devices connected, network traffic will explode. All of this will culminate in changing how companies approach their mobile strategy. The point is how they will interact with customers. “If you want to succeed you have to give them control, as much as you can. Customers will love you,” Leonhard said, adding that empowerment, participation and engagement are the key points..."
See the Twitter buzz from the event, during my talk
I am delighted to be involved with PressPausePlay, a movie about digital creativity, funded and promoted by Ericsson, featuring people such as Hank Shocklee, Seth Godin, ZeFrank, Sean Parker, Larry Lessig and Mike Mesnick. And it's finally out and available! Here is what it's all about:
"The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world's most influential creators of the digital era"
From the blog: "we have had so many people ask "Where can we see your film?" and this week we are very happy to say our digital distribution has begun! PressPausePlay is now available online in many countries around the world, with more coming soon. You can now find PressPausePlay on iTunes US, iTunes Canada and iTunes UK. You can also purchase PressPausePlay on Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Vudu.com, CinemaNow.com, Xbox, and Playstation. Or put us on your Netflix cue where we will be coming soon..."
This video summarizes the key messages of my 2009 book "Friction is fiction" (free PDF). The bottom line is that in a networked and digital society we can no longer merely rely on FRICTION i.e. planned hurdles and carefully placed obstactles to enforce payments or otherwise get paid for something. Most traditional friction points - whether in media / content, communications / marketing or business and commerce - can now be easily bypassed (see free music streaming vs itunes, Youtube / Netflix vs cable-tv, whatsapp vs sms etc), and this trend will only accelerate. IMHO I think it will suit us better to get used to it now, i.e. we may want to lessen our dependence on friction and increase our efforts to monetize based on radical user empowerment. Think Zappos not Barnes & Noble. Be sure to watch this related video recorded at TedXWarwick on the same topic.
Here is another episode from a series of videos I made with my friend and fellow futurist Ross Dawson, in Sydney, last month. Read his entire post here, and check out Ross's video channel here. And be sure to visit GerdTube:)
Via Ross's post: "Here are a few of the points we make in the video: * Many executives want to know whether and why they need to open up their business models and customer interactions * Open systems are faster, more viral, have more innovation, and are more fun to work in * Apple is the only prominent example of a closed system that is working well * There is a long and gradual trend to open systems, but progress is rarely linear and it hasn’t shifted as fast as we may have expected * Platforms and open source have been significant wins for open systems * There is a battle between ecosystems – you want to be open within the space but compete with other ecosystems * Android within the platform is open – arguably too open – yet it competes with other mobile platforms it in fact so has boundaries * Being too open can make things slower to progress, for example with quality assurance issues * The development of a highly interconnected world creates more need for open systems * APIs have provided a huge boost to the Internet economy * Google’s early move to expose APIs to many of its products provided the impetus for this to become standard practice across the net * A key issue is the pace at which commercial organizations should open out their models * Facebook has become more open over time due to customer pressure, however now that Google+ has provided a ready way to export personal profiles that changes the competitive landscape in social networks
This is a brand-new and very nicely produced video - a big thank-you to Google Australia for making it available so quickly. If you are in the travel business, do make sure to watch this video, and check out the other speakers and their presentations, as well. Enjoy, RT, Google + this :)))
I just ran across this video of my 2010 talk at USI (Paris) and I think it's still quite relevant, so check it out, below. The topic of my talk and presentation is TeleMedia, one of my most popular memes and speaking topics - see the links below. From the USI event page:
"Fast and powerful mobile internet devices, social media, real-time search and location-based services are bringing major changes to how we communicate, connect, interact, share, consume, buy and sell, and learn. The disruption has only just started. Telecoms are poised to move up the food-chain, into content, services and experiences, while TV is quickly and totally converging with the web, and mobile devices will become the way most people will experience the Internet. Soon, data is the new oil, and 'the cloud' is the oil-well.
The traditional EGOsystems are becoming ECOsystems and the big Networks must now deal with 'The Networked'. Where is the future going, where are the biggest opportunities (and for whom, and where), and how can we start to adapt to the future, today? Futurist Gerd Leonhard will present the key trends and foresights as well as the most likely scenarios in technology, media / content, communications and advertising, for the next 3 years..." You download the PDF with my slides here, btw.
The video covers just about all angles of the music industry and provides a great overview of everything that's wrong (and could be righted, I guess) in digital music, and Michael sure has all the right answers to some pretty tough questions. In fact, for most of it, I couldn't have said it better myself:). Check it out. Michael and me do have a few things in common, as far as the message goes, I guess...
Update: my new book "The Future of Content" was just released on the Kindle
I want to start 2011 in a renewed spirit of generosity and sharing, so here are the complete PDFs of my last 3 books, for free; provided under a Creative Commons,non-commercial, share-alike, attribution license (see below). If you still want to buy the dead-tree versions of these books (or donate something for the free PDFs - yes, that's an option, too;), you can visit my Lulu Store, or go to Amazon.com, or check out my 'Paying for Gerd' page. You can also return the favor by blogging or tweeting of Facebook-liking my stuff. Thanks, and enjoy, and have a great 2011.
Pay with a tweet: Music 2.0
Pay with a tweet: Friction is Fiction
Update: my free videos (50+ keynotes and presentations) are here, the iTunes podcast feed is here (just subscribe to download all videos to your iPod / iPad / iPhone, or computers), and my free slideshows (90+) are here, on Slideshare :)
Here is some context via Zawya.com: "Gerd Leonhard Predicts a Radically Different Future for the Media and Content Industries: "In the content industries, we are going from selling copies, whether physical or digital such as books and CDs, to selling access, such as bundled music offerings where music is included in internet access. This is painful if you made money selling paper or plastic, but it is as inevitable as the switch from horse-drawn carriage to the railroad. And there is lots of new money to be made in selling access to the content-clouds," said Leonhard. "Without a doubt, data is the new oil. Over 4 billion connected users willgenerate zetabytes of data, every single day, by commenting, rating, tagging, forwarding, uploading and sharing content. Every marketer, every brand, every telco and every mobile operator will want to get to this data, and be allowed to use it," he said. "The consumer will be more powerful than ever before, and - just like oil - many difficult situations will arise from the use, such as the discovery, the mining, and the refining of data. In any case, data will emerge as the most important asset of the next decade."
I am delighted to be able to share this brand-new translation with all my friends, tweeps and colleagues that speak Portuguese. The essay was kindly translated by Paula Neves, Analista de Marketing Digital at Approach (Brazil); be sure to visit her blog or Linkedin profile.
Gerd Leonhard: Conteúdo 2.0: ‘proteção’ está no modelo de negócio e não na tecnologia (pensamentos sobre o futuro da venda de conteúdo).
Abastecido pelas agitações na indústria da música e, finalmente, com a transformação muito rápida dos livros para o formato digital, há bastante debate em torno do fato das pessoas compartilharem habitualmente isto é, redistribuírem conteúdo digital sem que os usuários paguem por isso. Como se pode monetizar o conteúdo se a cópia é gratuita? Essa pergunta é uma questão chave em todos os sentidos, seja com a música, com livros digitais, noticiários, editoração, TV ou filmes. Há o medo, claro, de que a partir do momento que um item digital foi comprado por uma pessoa, ele pode ser facilmente encaminhado para qualquer um se estiver num formato aberto, assim reduzindo significantemente a possibilidade de que outra pessoa pague dinheiro real por ele também (claro que o mesmo também é verídico para conteúdo digital supostamente trancado ou protegido – só demora um pouco mais). Não ter mais controle sobre a distribuição = não ter mais dinheiro. Certo?
Apesar do simples fato da GDD (Gestão de Direitos Digitais, ou Digital Rights Management em inglês) já ter se mostrado desastrosa no mundo da música digital (e agora já é praticamente o passado), medidas técnicas de proteção ainda vêm sendo investigadas como um método plausível de se garantir o pagamento, especialmente no efervescente setor dos eBooks. Isso me preocupa muito porque medidas técnicas de proteção são caras, atrapalham ou previnem a adoção em massa, encurtam ou matam o compartilhamento social, o que derrota o marketing usuário-usuário, normalmente limitam drasticamente o uso honesto, e são geralmente inúteis no combate aos piratas reais, isto é, os que têm intenções maldosas e criminosas de roubar conteúdo e vendê-lo para outros.
Não somente conteúdo – Contexto! A meu ver, o pensamento de que a distribuição de conteúdo tem de ser controlada para que haja qualquer forma razoável de pagamento é fundamentalmente equivocado por causa dessa percepção não-tão-futurista: numa economia aberta e enredada (nota: estou falando sobre hoje e não amanhã!) editores de conteúdo têm de oferecer seus bens de uma forma que não mais considere a distribuição como o fator central. Não deve-se vender (somente) o conteúdo (ou seja, meros 0s e 1s) e sim também o contexto, os valores agregados, os vários outros itens em torno do conteúdo. Venda o que não pode ser copiado.
A tendência irrefutável é que a janela de oportunidade de se ‘vender cópias’ (isto é, iTunes, música digital, Kindle, etc) está rapidamente fechando, pelo menos na maior parte dos países desenvolvidos. A próxima oportunidade, e já muito presente, está na venda do acesso e serviços de valor agregado, e no fornecimento de experiências ligadas ao conteúdo.
A partir do momento que abarcarmos que os usuários – as pessoas dantes conhecidas como consumidores – não podem ser reduzidas a meros ‘compradores de cópias’, poderemos investigar como eles gostariam de pagar por todo o resto também. Por exemplo, ao comprar um eBook os usuários não deveriam pagar meramente pela autorização da distribuição, ou seja, a cópia legítima das palavras, e sim também poderiam ganhar acesso a comentários altamente especializados, amigos e colegas que possam ler esse livro, avaliações, explicações, apresentações de slides, imagens, links, vídeos, referências cruzadas, conexões diretas com o autor ou o editor e assim por diante. Sim: conectar com fãs + motivos para comprar (como o Mike Masnich do Techdirt já resumiu sucintamente diversas vezes)....
"This guest post was written by media futurist Gerd Leonhard. Named "one of the leading Media Futurists in the World" by The Wall Street Journal, Gerd works as a futurist in the media, telecom, technology and communication industries. He is also an author, blogger, keynote speaker and strategist and is the CEO of TheFuturesAgency and a visiting professor at the Fundacao Dom Cabral in Sao Paulo / Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
With the explosive growth of the Internet, mobile devices and social networking, a connected world is indeed a very different world. Just witness the meteoric rise of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and the demise of the recorded music industry as we knew it. I would go so far as to argue the only reason advertising in its pre-Web 2.0 form (a global business worth approx. $400 billion per year) ever existed was simply because we were not yet truly connected as today's mobile, social and real-time Internet did not yet exist.
Now that it exists, most of us will no longer tolerate interruptions, meaningless pitches, garish popups, Las Vegas-style skyscraper ads or junk email. We are looking for truly personalized offers, real meaning, solid relevance, timeliness, and yes, transparency and truthfulness. In other words, we will be looking for merit and values that are geared 100% towards us, not to everybody else, or someone else. Think micro-sprinkler systems, not fire hoses; droplets of expression, not spigots of noise exploding off empowered consumers (many of which in fact loath that very term).
Clearly, if brands and their marketers, ads and messages do not provide real value (remember: only time is a truly scarce value now), we will quickly lock them out of our lives and put them on the 'infinitely ignored' list. One might therefore argue that advertising is indeed becoming content (contvertising, anyone?), since relevant and desired, opted-in and followed content is usually quite valuable to us as we spend time on it, while irrelevant messages that encourage us to purchase items we don't even need are just noise. And the Internet has been so fabulously great at increasing the noise level that the time has come to turn that noise into meaning, to take the firehose of data and turn it into a clever sprinkler system.
The key question for marketers, as ever, is: how can you cut the noise, how can you be relevant, be truly wanted, make a better match, and benefit from meaningful connections? How can you turn the act of selling into content, into engagement, into mutual appreciation? Is that even possible? This is where we get to the enormous value of Data.
According to an April 2010 Wired.com post and a related IDC study, the total universe of information available to us already amounts to 800.000 petabytes of data. If you stored all of this data on DVDs the stack would reach from the Earth to the moon and back! By 2020 the digital universe will total 35 zettabytes, or 44 times more than in 2009, keeping in mind that an estimated 75% of all data is already generated by the users themselves.
This makes total sense when you think about it: forwarding a link, rating a site, commenting on a blog, twittering, sharing bookmarks, allowing cookies on your computer, sharing your location, logging into websites, liking something on Facebook -- everywhere we go, everything we do, every move we make around the Net (and soon, elsewhere, as well) -- creates click-trails, leaves digital breadcrumbs, produces data exhaust, and creates what I like to call meta-content, i.e. content around content.
Now, just imagine faster mobile Internet access at a much lower cost (or even free, courtesy of Google and O3B); much cheaper, yet more powerful and smart, mobile devices, connected devices that are not phones or computers but things, objects and products; BRIC+Africa coming online at a furious pace; and computing shifting from tethered computers and mouse clicking to tablets, touch-screens and finger-sweeping, and from downloading to cloud-tapping, which without a doubt will generate seriously more data than ever before, and at an increasing faster rate. The mind boggles (and possibly recoils) over the possibilities and over the huge challenges that these changes will pose, as well. But no matter what one's concerns may be, I think we can safely state that data is indeed the new oil, a metaphor that originated not with me but most likely with the ANA's Michael Palmer and Clive Humby.
Whoever gets to sift through this data, slice and dice it, move it around, make it useful, clear its legal and fair use, and just make sense of it all, is probably going to be more powerful than Shell, Exxon or Mobil have ever been (BigG and BigF emerge as distinct options here). This will, of course, require very careful and sensitive fine-tuning, with utmost attention to giving full control to the user, period. Regulation will be required but should, in my view, not be hastened; however, something that we must certainly come to grips with is that privacy will become something that we must act on to get back, rather than attain or retain by mere default. Those shiny new and very powerful tools of sharing and self-publishing do require that we accept and handle new responsibilities, as well - now that all of us can easily and constantly connect, we also need to learn new limits, new do's and don'ts - and the purveyors of this new power need to help us rather than merely seduce us.
The bottom line is that the data that all of us are increasingly generating and constantly spreading as most of us are switching to an always-on mode, will be at the core of all future success in marketing, branding and advertising -- and for that alone it's roughly worth $1 trillion, already (counting advertising spend, marketing and communication budgets, data-mining etc).
In a truly connected world, i.e. within the next few years, marketers will need constant and deep access to that data, in all its various forms and levels of permissions, because without this data their efforts will be utterly useless to the people formerly known as consumers ( today's users, followers, friends and participants). If the future TV does not know a fair bit about who we are, where we are, what we have watched, for how long, who we have shared shows with, what we have commented on, how we rate things; or if - worst case - we decide to just pay a bit more and keep our click-trails and our data off the grid (yes: Think The Matrix), then the marketers' job will become a lot harder, if not impossible. Matches can't be made, relationships can't be forced, brands can't be followed, connections are interrupted. Yelling is dead, and engagement needs permission - a tough but extremely rewarding challenge.
Getting too little or bad data -- or not understanding it-- will literally mean running out of gas in the middle of the desert. Therefore, the mission is to keep it all fueled up. And just like oil, there will be a myriad of issues (hopefully, not wars) that will arise with the responsible and fair practices of drilling, pumping, shipping, refining and dispensing of data. But without a doubt these issues will be solved in due course because this Data-Oil is very potent and because the responsible use of it will light up so many households that sufficient incentive for problem-solving exists. Telecom companies and mobile operators will want in on this game, as well - after all, it's their networks that make this all work (for now).
My prediction is that we will see a huge influx of companies dealing with the various aspects of data drilling, shipping, refining and remixing, and that the next Exxon or Mobil may well be a data-slicing company. Agencies, marketers and brands need to embrace the challenges and experiment: Get into the new Data-Oil ecosystem. "
Posted in Strategy on November 8, 2010 DDB BlogStrategyNovember 8, 2010
Keynote Speaker, Think-Tank Leader, Futurist, Author & Strategist, Idea Curator, some say Iconoclast | Heretic, CEO TheFuturesAgency, Visiting Prof FDC Brazil, Green Futurist
With the explosive growth of the Internet, mobile devices and social networking, a connected world is indeed a very different world. Just witness the meteoric rise of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and the demise of the recorded music industry as we knew it. I would go so far as to argue the only reason advertising in its pre-Web 2.0 form (a global business worth approx. $400 billion per year) ever existed was simply because we were not yet truly connected as today's mobile, social and real-time Internet did not yet exist. 
DDB BlogStrategyNovember 8, 2010 
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