Death of the Paper, Book and now .. Cable and TV as we know it

October 24, 2010 at 1:38 pm · Filed under Adoption, CPB, Change, Connected Enterprise, Content, Culture, Doc Searls, Google, HBO, KETC, Media, Netflix, PBS, Platforms, Public TV, TV, User Revolution, Video

Will newspapers all die? Maybe not. I am sure that, in some form, some Newspapers will live on. But for most of us – the Newspaper as a “Paper” for the masses is already dead. Will Paper Books die? Maybe not – I treasure my new Picture Book of my son’s wedding. There are few text filled books I will always treasure. But as a mass market object, books are already dead for many people as the sales of eBooks and Readers show.

The mass market distribution systems that supported newspapers and books will die soon as a result. For traditional papers and books only have to shrink by 15 – 25% to make the economic burden of running the presses and the system too much. Once these systems have gone they will be gone for ever. New systems are emerging.

I can already design and set my new book and have it printed and sent back to me – a market of one!

This is a new system quite separate from the old book distribution and publishing system. New “newspapers” such as Politico and Huffington are here. Some old ones such as the Guardian are moving to the new space. Twitter and Facebook fill in more news for me. My new “news paper” will be edited largely by me for me!

The same process is now going to affect TV. Most of the old infrastructure will die. New structure will emerge quickly. Some old structure will hybridize. The power will shift from them to me!

I have just enjoyed an Apple TV for a week with Netflix.  Now watching content via the web is easy. But the big attraction is not just that getting content online is easy. What I had not known about was how powerful the impact would be of how my habits of watching affects how Netflix adjusts its offering to me. In only a week, it has used its algorithm to begin to offer me content that I might never have noticed that I will almost certainly enjoy. What it is doing is “meaning making” of the almost infinite pool of content that is out there. This has put me in charge – I am now my own programmer. I am my own network CEO. I choose the time and I choose the content knowing that I will enjoy it. I also lose all the rubbish and all the ads.

I am constructing my own TV Network! This is the revolution that extends way beyond the web access issues. The web enables this personal customization for TV as wit will for books and news.

I am happy to pay a subscription for this. I don’t demand that this be free because it is great value for me. I will never go back to appointment TV – no matter who puts it on – a network, a cable company or public TV.

My bet is that within a year, the death of Appointment TV will be sure and a new system will be visible. Look at how TechCrunch see this right now!

• Google unveiled its Google TV platform less than 3 weeks ago. You can’t ignore Google. Hey, they just built a car that drives itself. But Thursday, in a battle that will likely become more frequent between old media and new, ABC, CBS and NBC blocked their programs fromGoogle TV. MTV, Fox and HBO are still available, but that could change. Still, one TechCrunch post declared “I’ve seen the future and it begins on my sofa with Google TV.”
• Steve Jobs bragged this week that Apple has already sold 250,000 new Apple TVs. The first Apple TV shipped in 2007. It had its fans but didn’t take off like the iPod or iPhone. The second generation of Apple TV’s launched just last month. MG Siegler really likes the device, but admitted it’s not yet the killer device in the living room. To get there, he said, would require tv network subscription packages.
• “Watch Instantly” is booming at Netflix. A shocking statistic came out this week. 20% of Internet traffic during peak times in the U.S. is coming from Netflix.
  For more on Netflix’s plans, see Sarah Lacy’s interview with CEO Reed Hastings.
• Hulu Plus will be coming to the Roku box in the fall.
  For some, the Roku box may be the first step towards eliminating cable.
• Boxee announced the new Boxee Box will ship next month, both if you pre-ordered fromAmazon or want to buy one in stores.
• Flurry reported Apple’s iOS Apps are responsible for the recent downward trend in TV ratings. The actual cause may be a bit broader.
• A TechCrunch post Friday suggested the future of TV is HTML5.

At the moment much power remains with the old powers. Netflix and Google are enduring tough negotiations with the producers of content. But why wouldn’t they take up this mantle of being the producer? Why can’t they do an HBO? Certainly today if I was a maker of documentary who cannot get space on conventional TV, I would approach Netflix and Google. Just as cable supplanted the networks, so those who provide access via the web will supplant cable and networks.

So what then for Public TV and the local Public TV stations?

If you are a producer it seems straightforward to me – you too have to approach those who shape access to the web – or add a service to the web yourself!

But that leaves the local TV stations on the beach! It does but like a local book shop, the audience is going somewhere else for the mass content.

So what to do?

Here is Doc Searls’ advice in a recent interview with me at KETC:

I think that an answer is to build the “Local Cloud” – Host the new Forum or Agora or Market. Be the host of the new/old marketplace for sharing through video.

There is not yet a really well functioning local cloud yet for video. This is a huge hole, waiting to be filled. Look at all those who are learning to use video. They are driving to HQ video. Look at the new screens that offer up a much better experience.

Take a look at your new 1080p HD TV screen. You know what the best-looking source is for that? Your new 1080p camcorder. That’s because all the TV stations, and all the cable and satellite services, compress their video, often to the point where grass fields look plaid and detail is just wiggly lines. Camcorders compress video too, but not as much.

My point here is that more and more individuals and small groups are going to be in better and better positions to produce their own video, and won’t be satisfied seeing it compressed to ugliness on YouTube. They’ll want to produce their own movies, their own documentaries, their own creative work, outside the  industrial system that YouTube comprises.

If they want to mash this video up, edit it, do CGI, do the kind of rendering that serious video requires, they won’t have the means at home. And it’s often too hard to do it out in some remote cloud provided by the likes of Amazon (which doesn’t even provide that yet — at least not exactly). They’ll need low-latency fat connections to back-end servers and rendering farms.

Thus we have a big opportunity for KETC and other public TV institutions, to ally with local telco and cable companies, which in most cases have the space, the conditioned power, and the direct connections to the Net’s backbone.

How much time before the Tipping Point? My feeling is 2-3 years tops. In 2-3 years time all your best audience will have made the shift to the web. This may be 30- 40% of the total. There will still be a conventional audience but it cannot pay the bills. Just as when a newspaper or a book publisher loses its best readers, it cannot pay its bills either.

The pace is change is accelerating as each new phase builds on the previous one and adds new platform power to the web. Coming right on the heels of all of this – a new web based system of education and then right after that a new web based health system. All based on the same idea – of putting you in the driver’s seat!

Comments

How the revolution in Media will help the revolution in Education

October 18, 2010 at 8:18 am · Filed under Adoption, Barriers, Economics, KETC, NPR, Organizational Design, Public Media, Social Media, education

After many years of thinking and talking, here Sir Ken I think nails the problem and gets the direction for the right new path correct. Helped a lot by the guys at RSA.

So what can we do with this insight?

My experience in public radio and TV – which also is at a crossroads from one culture to another – is that we must not underestimate the power of the entrenched culture. Most people inside pub radio/TV and in education are so invested in the old that they can only fight an alternative.  This is not because they are bad or stupid – it is because they are human and their identity is the system as it is. So to change it means that they have no place. So they cannot go to the new.

If you long for a better education system – you are also worried about how to breakthrough all these barriers. You don’t know how to change the system. I think that we can look at what is happening in media and find a way.

So where is the change happening in media that we might use to help us in education. As I write them I can see how these factors apply to education - can’t you?

• The long term effects of the poor economy is pressing the system
  • The school system is under huge funding pressure too
  • In higher ed – the degree also costs too much now and drives loans that canot be repaid
  • Kids will seek out new ways – they have to
  • In the next 10 years the pressure to find a new way for the money will become unbearable – thus creating the same kind of context for change that we see in media

• There are organizations like Craigslist that are killing the economics of the old and forcing economic pressure – the old way leads to economic starvation and sets a context for change
  • There are new online schools such as the Khan Academy that offer kids a wonderful alternative to school
  • Great Schools like MIT have put a lot of superlative content online
  • Kids are voting with their feet - better content will be available online for next to free as with Craigslist and personals that will ad to the economic pressure

• The web has a bunch of new tools such as Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, iTunes, Apple TV etc that are empowering new sources and new ways of finding, producing and using content
  • Same for Ed - iTunes, YouTube are already there
  • Why take Math with Miss Jones when you can get the world’s best math teachers on your time at your pace?
  • Parents will buy into this too

• There are entirely new organizations – Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Politico – Greenfield that go through no transition but start with the new model – they are forcing competitive pressure
• There are a few old leaders who get it and have enough critical mass inside to go for it now – The Guardian in the UK and NPR – they are forcing change on their system
  • Athabaska and Phoenix come to mind in higher ed – they are moving to the mainstream
  • Soon there will be Grade Schools that have the same features

• There are  few local small organizations that have the leadership to go for it too and are making enough progress to show the rest - KETC is the one I know the best.

So what to do?

Don’t think about changing the whole system!!!!! It’s too big and powerful.

Instead take advantage of these powerful forces.

If you are a learner – Explore the new world of resources – do not feel trapped in school as it is or feel that you have to wait – enough change is here for you to take full advantage now

If you are a parent – see the whole picture for you child – help line them up into that is now available that is more fitted to them and at a cost you can all afford. Vote with your feet.

If you are a school board - Learn how to make the shift from the old to the new – Do a KETC – pick a school with the right leadership and try the new in ONE place – learn from this – use this test bed to expose others to the new from their peers.

If you are a teacher – Learn how to be the new – participate in the new world – be a citizen teacher – offer content or coaching – learn how to be an entrepreneurial teacher who can hang up their shingle on the web or locally. Be the math coach or the history coach in your place or globally!

If you are a social entrepreneur - Build the new a place together so that you are the convener of the a place where kids can be together and yet be part of the a larger universe of resources that fits them!

It’s coming folks – the forces in play are too great to stop it. BUT you have to be a player now if you want to benefit.

Comments

NPR shows how Social Media brings a new “audience” to established media

September 30, 2010 at 2:56 pm · Filed under Adoption, Andy Carvin, KETC, Measurement, Media, NPR, New Realities, Public Radio, Public TV

One of the Holy Grails of the Public Radio system when I worked there back in 2005/6 was to attract a younger audience. At the time – even though the context of my involvement was the web – the CW on the solution was to add more younger programming – Hence Bryant Park. Of course this failed as what station manager was going to give up the BlockBuster Morning Edition to have an alternative that the mainstream would not like. The CBC has gone full on to find a younger audience by changing the POV of its programs. I wonder how they are doing? They have largely driven me away.

But the guys at NPR are smart and they learn. They went full on into the use of Social Media. New data out shows that their drive into social media – Twitter in particular – has given them what they wanted a new and younger and larger “audience” that have been attracted to NPR’s programming – not because of a content shift but because they made it easier for a younger audience to connect to content on their terms! The secret was in the flexibility of the new connection NOT the content.

In a survey of more than 10,000 respondents, NPR found that its Twitter followers are younger, more connected to the social web, and more likely to access content through digital platforms such as NPR’s website, podcasts, mobile apps and more.

NPR has more than one Twitter account; its survey found that most respondents followed between two and five NPR accounts, including topical account, show-specific accounts and on-air staff accounts.

The data on age is hardly surprising. The median age of an NPR Twitter follower is 35 — around 15 years younger than the average NPR radio listener. This lines up with data we recently found about other traditional news media; the average Facebook user reading and “liking” content on a news website is two decades younger than the average print newspaper subscriber.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the future of news media lies in successful integration of social media to get the attention (and click-throughs) of a younger generation — a generation whose news needs are vastly different than those of the generations that preceded it. (My emphasis)

Of NPR’s Twitter followers, the majority (67%) still do listen to NPR on the radio. But the other ways they access NPR’s content are indicative of a growing trend:

Of survey respondents, 59% said they use NPR.org, 39% listen to NPR’s podcasts, around half use an NPR mobile app and 28% say they access NPR via Facebook. All told, 77% of NPR’s Twitter followers said they get all or most of their news online.

And Twitter followers are more likely to expect breaking news, too, likely because of the real-time nature of the medium.

At KETC we found the same thing when we ran out project to help people find a safer more trustworthy route to help in the Mortgage Crisis. KETC helped many people who never watch our programming and who never will. They got connected to KETC because they found what they needed on the web. It was how we connected that was the key.

When NPR hosted the New Realities Project back in 2006/6 – the intent was to imagine our value in 2009 and beyond. We did this. Most saw that one of the things we had to do was to do a Burger King and offer our content up “Your Way”

The guys even wrote a song – but while some – mainly at NPR really got this – of course as we know today about adoption – most did not and have not and still hope that all of this will go away.

Want a larger and more committed “audience” – let them find you “Their Way” – Integrate the web into what you do fully.

Comments (4)

Bill Gates on Adoption in K-12 and Education

August 16, 2010 at 1:53 pm · Filed under Adoption, Gaping Void, Hugh McLeod, Innovation, KETC, Management Theory, Organizational Design, Public Media, Public TV, Robert Scoble, Seth Godin, University, education

Few people are as passionate about Education than BG. Here he is talking about what he has learned by a lot of experiments.

• That K-12 is best as an immersive system with long days – best 6 days a week and in the summer as well. The best charter schools know this and practice it.  Having had all my school like this myself – my sample of 1 agrees with this.
• This means that for K-12 Place is key – like going to Boot Camp. But there is a real role here for online in that it expands the scope of the place
• BG feels (2.50) however that shifting the formal system to either of these ideas – more immersive and more online – can never happen – the cultural barriers are too high
• On the College and university front, he points out that here the issue is access. The main barrier to access is “Place” that drives direct cost and prohibits the student from having any flexibility.
• Here he anticipates big movement driven by the economics. Place drives costs of up to $250,000 for a BA. He thinks that the target is to reduce this not to $20,000 but to $2,000

I think this is entirely possible. But what established university will have the guts to do this? Will they all end up like the newspapers? Hanging on for dear life?

I think that most will rather die than change. As many of us are finding in the front lines of change – it is impossible to underestimate the power of the establishment.

But I think that maybe a few established universities might go the whole way. I think that those who do will win the most. There is something very important about having an establishment organization or person as part of a revolution. Martin Luther had his Prince who defended him from both the Pope and the Emperor. In newspapers it may be the Guardian. In public TV it may be KETC. (Here is KETC Immigration page where they are putting the Public Into Public TV).

I think of my university here on PEI – What if UPEI had another 25,000 online students? here is a snip of a larger idea like this that I wrote 5 years ago:

Come to PEI for the summer and meet the other students and then go onto take an online Master’s degree in the Natural Economy. The Master in the Natural Economy (MINE) is a master’s degree course that engages the learner as many of the ideas and practices of the new ways of organizing and acting as possible. It embodies the ideas of our new time. It draws on hundreds of “Gurus” that live all over the world that bring their own story and experience to bear. Students, who nearly all are employed, develop their own path of study within the context of the course intention.

The school initially emerged out of one course, Marketing as a Conversation inspired by Cluetrain and by the ongoing thinking and blogging of by people like Seth Godin, Hugh McLeod, Johnnie Moore and Jennifer Rice. Their marketing revolution was the first breach of the old system that took hold.

There are a number of paths that students can take but all the work is founded in the ideas of how real relationships and real networks work. Paul Hawken is Dean Emeritus and the current Dean of the School in Natural Economy is George Dafermos who’s early writing on the use of Open Source, as an organizational model, has been so influential. Robert Scoble is the Visiting Guru this year and will be on PEI this summer offering workshops in Voice and Culture. He replaces Dave Pollard who will be sorely missed.

Students spend a month in the summer here on PEI where their task is to get to know each other and to decide on their focus for study. They then return home and form groups that are facilitated by the gurus. The full Masters degree costs only $7,000 and has of course no other costs. There are now 17,000 students in the system that is 4 times the size of UPEI, conventional undergraduate school.

MINE Graduates are in extreme demand as organizations struggle to understand the shift that they have to undergo. The traditional business schools have had great difficulty in moving this fast because they have such an investment in the old. Similarly, the major consulting firms have all but collapsed, as they too could not reframe their costs and their competence.

In their place have emerged networks of “Gurus” like the Hughtrain Alliance that are recognized as the key talent that shook the marketing world. These networks have a very different model and become partners of the host organization. They are not report writing organizations with expensive offices and extreme hierarchies but are much more like coaches of a team. Most of the students of the Natural Economy work and most of their study is in the context of solving their real challenges.

In effect, consulting has become an extension of the education process.

As with Luther – the big change will happen on the edge where the “field” is weakest. A small undergraduate university, like UPEI or back in the day Wittenberg, is less gripped by the power of the prevailing culture and can see the gains that might accrue to them.

Comments (4)

And you think that you have a tough job?

February 14, 2010 at 4:45 pm · Filed under KETC, NPR

We all know that we should cooperate and collaborate more. We all know that the world is moving to a more open and 2.0 culture.

But if you work of the Department of Defense – you not only know this but you have Directive 501 in front of you that demands this.

B. PURPOSE:
1.    This Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) establishes in part the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) guidelines called for in Section 1.3(b)(9)(B) of EO 12333, as amended, addresses mandates in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to strengthen the sharing, integration, and management of information within the Intelligence Community (IC), and establishes policies for: (1) discovery; and (2) dissemination or retrieval of intelligence and intelligence-related information collected or analysis produced by the IC.
2.    The overall objectives of this policy are to:
a.    Foster an enduring culture of responsible sharing and collaboration within an integrated IC;
b.    Provide an improved capacity to warn of and disrupt threats to the United States (U.S.) homeland, and U.S. persons and interests; and
c.    Provide more accurate, timely, and insightful analysis to inform decision making by the President, senior military commanders, national security advisers, and other executive branch officials.

But it’s one thing to know that you have to change the habits of a life time. It’s one thing to be told that you have to do this or else. It is another to make the change.

So how do you do this? For it is not as if the people involved don’t want to do this. We all know that we should not smoke and that smoking is bad for us. Or to lose weight etc. But we also all know that changing the habits of a lifetime is the hardest work of all.

The Research and Development Branch of DOD hired Level 5, a consultant to help them start. (I have no involvement other than interest in this assignment or Level 5). Kurt Lane from Level 5 and I have been chatting about the work.

Here are the results of their work – in essence that that system is now talking to itself and there is agreement to move ahead. No small thing really

That’s not much you might think. But there are over 200,000 people in the branch. Without a broad conversation, nothing will have a chance.

How would I know? Ask yourself, what media organization is making the most progress in moving to a 2.0 world? Few indeed but one stands out, NPR. NPR spent nearly 9 months in a massive system wide conversation with itself back in 2005/6. More than 200 of the 800 NPR staff were involved and nearly 1,000 people in the system. The “New Realities” project was all about having a family conversation. A new terminology was developed and whether acted upon or not – some people really got it. After a 2 year germination, NPR has burst out.

So in the world of media, only one organization took the trouble to set up the cultural ground work. Only one has moved so far. Not really science but still worth thinking about.

For in the DOD as in all organizations, the issues that really confront us are cultural. Many start out by thinking that this is all about technology. But it is culture that drives the technology.

Now DOD do have a unique IT environment. You have a firewall right but not like the top level DOD Firewall. Nothing gets through that!!!!

But even to think about how to cross that road, the culture has to be moved. For even top down directives like 501 don’t work against a fully embodied culture. I am not being critical – it’s just how it is.

My advice to Kurt and the gang at Level 5 is to look at what has happened in Public radio and now TV.

The Conversation – opens up the possibility of a shift. But then it is all about leadership in the old fashioned way.

The most progress that we made in New Realities was with the NPR Board. Many of them played an active and a major role in the assignment – leading meetings and groups. They were part of the process not just the readers of the report. This was their work.

They chose a new President who had all the attributes of a change agent and she has driven change with their support. They are so close now.

In TV, the process has been a bit different but stemmed from the same process. One of the leaders of the system who had also played a big role, was appointed the CEO of one of the largest public TV stations, KETC.

In 4 years, Jack Galmiche has taken KETC to the brink of proving out a sustainable 2.0 culture and operational model.

If this is a model – then it is to start broad as broad as you can with the conversation – then find the champion/leaders and help them take a more narrow and harder driving approach.

NPR and KETC show us that it is easier to prove it and to show it than to persuade all to move broadly. Once the new is embodied, than the debate goes away. The rest are left with a clear choice. Adopt what works or die.

Then you can do what the new BBC Director of Global News told his staff:

Peter Horrocks assumed the position of director of BBC Global News last week, and he’s not wasting time with niceties. The self-proclaimed technology enthusiast is telling journalists to get with the social media program or get out.

The new director told the Guardian, “This isn’t just a kind of fad… I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary.”

But the ground work has to be done first.

I think that when we look back, we will see that this kind of intervention is the hardest work of all. For change will not come from making the rational case – the typical consulting approach. It will not come from supporting the Big Guy – the other approach. Change will come from “infecting” the organization with the ideas and in getting behind the new virus. All very subtle and not how things are done in consulting 1.0.

I look forward to hearing what Level 5 and DOD do. After all, how do they do affects us all.

Comments (25)