Big moves at Fairfax: The global extinction of newspapers moves closer

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Today’s ‘Fairfax of the Future’ announcement from Australia’s second largest newspaper publisher Fairfax is massive news in Australia, and very significant in a global media context.

It has been a busy media day for me, so far doing interviews for SBS World News and ABC24 News as well as a number of radio stations, due to my earlier predictions of the extinction of newspapers. My Newspaper Extinction Timeline was launched in October 2010, at the time getting mainstream media coverage in over 30 countries and being seen by well over 1 million readers within one week.

Newspaper_Timeline_front.gif
Click on image to download full framework

Recently I have been reconsidering some of the forecast extinction dates for a number of countries, notably after my recent European speaking tour. Fairfax’s announcements today significantly shift forward the likely loss of news-on-paper as a significant media format, and in fact make 2022 seem an exceedingly optimistic timespan for newspapers to survive in Australia.
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Open innovation is now a fundamental capability for nations and regions

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I have just participated via Skype in a BBC Creative Collisions debate in Northern Ireland, centered around how the media landscape is changing, and the implications of the rise of open innovation.

Some of the comments from the locals involved in the debate were that while there is ample talent and innovation in Northern Ireland, there is not the same attitude to collaboration and information sharing that there is for example in Hollywood or Silicon Valley.

I emphasized that while collaboration within Northern Ireland will be critical for competing on a global stage, it will also be essential to be able to draw on global capabilities. The skills of vision, project management, production, and more can be at the summit – or part – of a global distributed team. Small nations and regions in particular must have a mentality, not of lauding their own world-beating talent, but of being able to marshall capabilities across borders.

There are fundamental attitudes that are required to do this well, but also skills and capabilities, embedded into specific organizations and also the broader business ecosystem. Nations and regions that do not excel at open innovation will find challenging times ahead.

Will offices still exist in the future?

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I’m currently doing a five-city speaking tour for Canon, speaking about the future of workspace. In my keynote I talk about the driving forces of change in work and organizations, the changing nature of the workspace, and the leadership required to create the next phase of work.

Until recently there were two major workspaces for knowledge work: offices and field work. Communication technologies, economic shifts, and changing corporate attitudes have enabled the rapid rise of home workers. In addition, co-working facilities or what I call the cloud workplace are becoming prominent in providing many of advantages to workers of office work without requiring commuting into a central office.

When we think about the future of workspace, given the massive shift to distributed work, the question arises of whether centralized office will still have a reason to exist in the future.
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Australia takes the wrong path on Twitter advertising disclosure

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On Saturday I was interviewed on ABC24 about the news that Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) had said that it is acceptable for celebrities to do paid promotions on Twitter without disclosing their affiliation. This followed the announcement on ABC’s MediaWatch program that celebrity chef Matt Moran, among others, had accepted payment from South Australia’s Tourism Board for tweets.

I was asked why there was any difference with the “cash for comments” furor from 1999 when radio personalities were charged and fined for making on-air endorsements without disclosing payments made by the companies concerned.

There is of course no essential difference. Twitter is media. As attention shifts from traditional channels such as TV, radio, and newspapers to social media, naturally advertisers want to shift their presence to the emerging channels. That is absolutely fine. If advertisers want to use social media to get their messages across, that’s OK – users have many ways to deal with that. However there are clear regulations and norms on advertising in traditional media, where commercials are clearly delineated.

The US Federal Trade Commission has provided detailed endorsement guides, specifically revised to include social media, “because truth in advertising is important in all media – including blogs and social networking sites”.
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Why crowds are an extension of our capabilities

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Marshall McLuhan very often provides an instructive reference point for how we understand our changing world. As I wrote in my Chapter 1 of Living Networks:

The brilliant visionary Marshall McLuhan accurately described the media as an extension of our senses. Your eyes can see what’s happening in your immediate vicinity, your ears can hear what people are saying in the same room as you, but with television and radio as an adjunct to your senses, you can see and hear anywhere around the world. All of the cameras and microphones of the world’s media are an extension of your eyes and ears, and journalists are your personal emissaries to report on their findings and impressions.

In my keynote on The Future of Crowds at TheNextWeb conference shown below I built on this perspective to suggest that:

“Crowds are an extension of our capabilities”

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We have a choice whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about the future

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Below is a brief interview I did when I spoke at TheNextWeb conference in Amsterdam recently.

Some of the points I cover:
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8 crowd insights from 8 crowdsourcing workshops

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[This post first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website]

Over the last two weeks I have delivered 8 keynotes or workshops on crowdsourcing across Western Europe. Most of them have been highly interactive sessions, bringing out new ideas or highlighting common issues or concerns. Part of the intent has been to gather input from many participants on what to cover in

There is much to share. For now, I will quickly review the events I’ve run so far and highlight just one insight that was prominent in the questions or discussions from each event. Many of themes mentioned were in fact echoed across several events. I will write soon in more detail about a number of these topics.

– Ketchum Pleon Amsterdam client presentation
Insight 1: Know when to use open calls and managed crowds.
A question that frequently arises when you discuss crowdsourcing is how to manage the sheer quantity of input you can get. Of course the best approach depends on what type of crowdsourcing you are doing, but the first answer is in the filtering mechanisms that you use, which enable the most valuable input to become visible. However another approach is to use a closed crowd, where participants are selected by quality or profile. In this case you can take a ‘managed crowd’ approach in which a more individualized approach optimizes outcomes. While many definitions of crowdsourcing refer to an ‘open call’, in fact in many siutations restricting the pool of contributors will lead to better results.
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Video of TheNextWeb keynote on The Future of Crowds

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TheNextWeb produced a good quality video of my keynote at TheNextWeb Conference 2012, shown below.

It doesn’t show all of my full motion graphics presentation, though it frequently cuts to show segments of the visuals through my keynote. I will create and share a full video of my motion graphics presentation along with the audio of me speaking, however as I’m travelling it may take a little while to complete.

Here is a brief overview of the structure of the presentation:
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Why Andrew Keen is fundamentally wrong about crowds

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Internet dystopian Andrew Keen, author most recently of Digital Vertigo, has just spoken at TheNextWeb Summit and Conference. 

He and his arguments are intensely annoying because his case is blindly and obtusely one-sided, though it is useful to have his voice to provide a counterpoint to digital utopianism. 

Part of his argument is that we are giving away too much of our identity and personal data. That is absolutely valid, and it is good that people are reminded to think carefully about what they share online.

However Andrew conflates oversharing with the shift to crowds, going so far as to suggest that there is no value in crowds. Yesterday in specific response to my prior Summit presentation on The Future of Crowds Andrew said that all innovation, all new ideas of value, come from brilliant individuals. 
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Future of Crowdsourcing workshop at Crowdsourcing Summit in Cologne

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On April 28, immediately after my keynote at TheNextWeb conference in Amsterdam, I will travel to Cologne to run a workshop on the Future of Crowdsourcing. Unfortunately I will miss what looks like an excellent Crowdsourcing Summit on April 27 as I will be speaking in Amsterdam that day.

I’ve made a short video to introduce some of what we’ll be covering in the Future of Crowdsourcing workshop.


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