German magazine Screen.TV recently asked 7 prominent media figures for their views on the future of TV:
“What will you watch on television in ten years, and what do you imagine your TV will look like?”
Here are our responses – links are translated by Google from the German:
– Jane Barratt, President, Young & Rubicam
– Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
– Chuck Deckeris, CEO, Mediacom
– Chuck Porter, CEO Crispin, Porter & Bogusky
– Samir Husni, “Mr. Magazine“
– Ross Dawson, Futurist (this link to the German version as the original English is below)
– Eric Day, Director Brand Strategy, Microsoft Advertising
Here is my contribution in the original English:
The future of television is really the future of video, in which moving images from existing broadcast and cable TV merge with thousands of new channels, all intermingling across a plethora of devices. The power of television and great programming has been evident for decades, and is becoming even more pronounced as we shift into an all-embracing media economy.
At the same time an extraordinary growth of video content, ranging in quality from the abysmal to the transcendent, will add to create a potent mix for users.
In the home space we will have screens in most rooms, with our main media space generating a fully immersive experience that includes 3D without glasses and the ability to act out our own roles in TV programming. When we are out of the home, video glasses will sometimes be used to create a full screen experience, with rollable screens allowing pocketable devices to generate a rich video view.
While much television and video content will be time-shifted, the best video content distributors (remember this is a post-channel world) will build communities of viewers around live programming. Much of the future of television, and especially its revenue models, will revolve around community.
See my post yesterday on The Future of TV is community for more details on the last point.
Video highlights of Regional TV Marketing conference
By Ross DawsonLast week I wrote that The Future of TV is community, reflecting on the content in my keynote from the ‘Commercial Break’ conference run by Regional TV Marketing conference held in Byron Bay a few weeks ago.
I have just found the videos released from the event – below is an 8 minute highlights video of the conference including from my opening keynote.
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What TV will be like in 10 years: 7 opinions from media leaders
By Ross DawsonGerman magazine Screen.TV recently asked 7 prominent media figures for their views on the future of TV:
“What will you watch on television in ten years, and what do you imagine your TV will look like?”
Here are our responses – links are translated by Google from the German:
– Jane Barratt, President, Young & Rubicam
– Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
– Chuck Deckeris, CEO, Mediacom
– Chuck Porter, CEO Crispin, Porter & Bogusky
– Samir Husni, “Mr. Magazine“
– Ross Dawson, Futurist (this link to the German version as the original English is below)
– Eric Day, Director Brand Strategy, Microsoft Advertising
Here is my contribution in the original English:
The future of television is really the future of video, in which moving images from existing broadcast and cable TV merge with thousands of new channels, all intermingling across a plethora of devices. The power of television and great programming has been evident for decades, and is becoming even more pronounced as we shift into an all-embracing media economy.
At the same time an extraordinary growth of video content, ranging in quality from the abysmal to the transcendent, will add to create a potent mix for users.
In the home space we will have screens in most rooms, with our main media space generating a fully immersive experience that includes 3D without glasses and the ability to act out our own roles in TV programming. When we are out of the home, video glasses will sometimes be used to create a full screen experience, with rollable screens allowing pocketable devices to generate a rich video view.
While much television and video content will be time-shifted, the best video content distributors (remember this is a post-channel world) will build communities of viewers around live programming. Much of the future of television, and especially its revenue models, will revolve around community.
See my post yesterday on The Future of TV is community for more details on the last point.
Australian government releases Government 2.0 Primer
By Ross DawsonThe Australian government is gaining momentum in its Government 2.0 initiatives, marked today by the launch by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) of a handy Government 2.0 Primer.
The Report of the Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce was submitted in December 2009. Although the Taskforce chairman Nicholas Gruen had earlier noted that Australian Government 2.0 initiatives were significantly behind countries such as the US and UK, the report and the government response impressed Gartner sufficiently to say “if the Aussies walk the talk, they have a very good chance to be the real leaders in the Gov 2.0 / Open Government race.”
Since then, the Declaration of Open Government by the Finance Minister (with comments enabled!) has pushed the ante up.
The primer is exactly what it says, a compact guide to Government 2.0 for neophytes, in the spirit of Gov 2 released early to be subsequently refined.
Source: Department of Finance and Deregulation
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The Future of TV is community: linking social media with big screens
By Ross DawsonA few weeks ago I gave the opening keynote at the annual conference of the Regional TV Marketing association, held in Byron Bay, Australia, on the topic of Creating the Future of Media.
As I started preparing my keynote I realized that many of my usual messages about media fragmentation and re-aggregation weren’t the most relevant to this audience, and certainly not what they wanted to hear. As I spent time looking into and considering regional televsion, the more I realized that this is an extraordinarily promising media sector.
The first thing to consider is the power of big budget video production and big screens.
“Television” is close to a legacy concept, in a similar way to how “newspapers” are becoming news-on-paper and then simply news over multiple channels. However even while broadcast and cable TV erode and we shift to a world of multi-channel video, big productions and big screens will remain compelling.
This chart from Ofcom’s communication survey shows how big screens are becoming increasingly important, most of all to young people.
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How do you make talent shine in a world of distributed work?
By Ross DawsonI caught up for a beer with old friend Tom Stewart, currently Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer at Booz & Co, when he was in Sydney recently. We chatted about interesting topics such as business cycles, talent, and where media is going.
Afterwards Tom wrote a great article titled Why There’s No Such Thing as a Talent War reflecting on some of our conversation and his other meetings in Australia, where attracting and retaining talent is top of mind for many corporate executives.
I had told Tom my thoughts on the global talent economy: in a world in which knowledge workers can work anywhere, the most talented can pick and choose choose who they work for – on projects or sometimes in long-term employment.
Critically, the work choices the most talented make are rarely about money, but more often about how interesting the projects are, who they will work with, and how enjoyable it is working with their client.
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Future Minds: the map of how screen culture is changing how we think
By Ross DawsonMy colleague Richard Watson, building on the success of his book Future Files, has now launched Future Minds, which explores how screen culture is changing the way we think today, and how it will shape our future.
When I read the Contents and Overture to Future Minds, my first thought was that Richard and I should organize a public debate. In contrast to Richard’s tone of caution I think there are immense opportunities in having our brains shaped by digital culture (though certainly also things to be wary of).
Here is the map that Richard has created to acccompany the book. I saw early drafts of this as long as a year ago, so this has definitely not been cribbed from other recent maps with a similar look and feel.
Click on map to view as full-size pdf
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Twitter network analysis of events – what’s possible?
By Ross DawsonI recently connected with Daniel Knox (@djkn0x) on Twitter – which is where it seems most of my connections are happening these days. Among other interesting entrepreneurial activities Daniel is playing with a new venture that does analysis of Twitter activity around events.
To show me Daniel created a visual network analysis of the Twitter activity around Future of Crowdsourcing Summit (#foc10) that we ran a few weeks ago in Sydney and San Francisco.
Here is the explanation of the diagram that Daniel gave me:
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Corporate blogging: not easy but a powerful way to connect with customers and stakeholders
By Ross DawsonThe current issue of Australia Post’s Priority magazine has a feature section on ‘Blogging… Friend or Foe’, comprising four brief articles offering different perspectives from a lawyer, an academic, a digital strategist, and myself as ‘business advisor/ futurist’.
Here’s my piece:
Recent data shows Australians spend more time engaging with social media than any other nation. And yet few Australian companies have tapped the power of blogging and social media.
Back in 2002, I started my own business blog – Trends in the Living Networks – and, at the time, it was evident to me that these new platforms for communication could change the way that companies engaged with their customers, business partners and investors.
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Conversation with Tom Stewart: intellectual capital, new reporting, finance and strategy
By Ross DawsonI first met Tom Stewart in 1998 when I was involved in bringing him to Australia to speak about intellectual capital to the local business and finance community. We became friends and we kept in touch while he moved on from his role at Fortune magazine to become editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review, and then to become Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer at Booz & Co.
Tom came to Sydney a few weeks ago to do the keynote at the CPA Congress, and I was asked by the CPA Australia magazine In the Black to speak to Tom for the magazine. Here is the article.
In Conversation: Value Judgement
Tom Stewart discusses the new imperatives in corporate finance with Ross Dawson
Tom Stewart, keynote speaker at CPA Australia’s Congress in October, has a challenge for financial executives. “You are the executive in charge of knowing value,” he says. However, as he rightly points out, only part of an organisation’s value is captured in financial accounting.
The field of ‘intellectual capital’ proclaims that for many companies the most valuable productive assets are intangibles such as knowledge and business processes, and these need to be measured and managed better. The idea is far from new. Indeed, Tom Stewart was there from the outset, when his 1991 ‘Brain Power’ cover story for Fortune magazine first introduced the issue to a broad business audience.
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The issues at the heart of the ‘Murdoch-Jobs’ iPad-only venture
By Ross DawsonThe world is abuzz with discussion of the imminent launch of an iPad-only “newspaper” called The Daily, which according to The Guardian boasts the involvement of Apple and Steve Jobs himself, with New York Times and Womens Wear Daily (not usually known for its media coverage but clearly getting some solid info here) providing further details such as a newsroom staff of around 100, pricing of 99 cents a week, and an “optimistic, populist” editorial stance.
These are the key issues I think need to be considered in this venture.
The supposed special relationship with Apple and Steve Jobs.
A number have described this as a ‘Murdoch-Jobs’ venture. I would be amazed if there is any substantive involvement from Steve Jobs, and surprised if Apple’s support is substantial. Womens Wear Daily reports that Jobs has had several conversations with Murdoch about this. Big deal. Of course it would be a topic of conversation if they have met or spoken recently, and that doesn’t mean there is any contribution from Jobs. It also says that Jobs may appear onstage with Murdoch to launch the app. That’s certainly more than most app developers get, but it that doesn’t mean Jobs is involved in the app itself. He is supporting something that can help sell more iPads.
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