Wednesday, December 30, 2009
From a post-WIMP Perspective: What Happens When Post-Mass Market Goes to Market? Bob Garfield's insightful video, and more...
I realize that working for the public good has prevented me from developing a thirst for marketing competitiveness. I don't have a greedy bone in my body. The only reason that I've developed a slight interest in advertising and marketing over the past few years is my interest in technology and how our society has been transformed by recent changes. Everyone has a cell phone, everyone wants an iPhone, everyone expects that technology will help us to meet our social, political, financial, health, education, environmental, and humanitarian needs, right?
What is happening to our "mainstream" cornerstones?
By mainstream, I mean traditional newspapers, magazines, network television, cable, and brochure-like websites. All of a sudden, reporters are running to take graduate classes in multi-media journalism, a domain previously "owned" by network TV 10-15 years ago. Newspapers and magazines are now web-based, your favorite radio and television program have their own websites, and just about every one is on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.
The Web is easily accessed, ubiquitous, running on SmartPhones and iPhones, netbooks, and now, e-readers, right from your pocket, purse, or bag.
Ten years ago, if you had a job coding for a tech company, there wasn't an expectation that you'd have to hone your writing skills to maintain a blog, and learn how to produce short video clips to promote your work and the work of your company. If you preferred NOT to be open and social, it was fine! Now, you are probably just holding on. Maybe.
What inspired this post is a video of a presentation by Bob Garfield, an ad critic and essayist for Advertising Age. a magazine I interact with online. He is the co-host of NPR's On the Media program, and has a lot of insight regarding advertising trends and so forth. He is also hilarious. If you are viewing this in a family setting, know that Mr. Garfield uses a few "bad" words and quite a number of data and financial statistics to make his point. No traditional media institution is untouched.
An eye opener. Worth every 34+ minute!
The Chaos Scenario from Greg Stielstra on Vimeo.
"Bob Garfield...forcasts the disintegration of mass advertising structures that have worked in perfect symbiosis for 400 years and prescribes "listenomics" as the way for brands to thrive in the digital, post-advertising age. He warns that all formerly top-down institutions cannot dictate to consumers with advertising through mass media as before, but must use digital tools to forge relationships with them--no longer seeing people as piggy banks, or eyeballs, or votes, but as genuine stakeholders in their enterprise. Amid the ruins of mass media,the choice for business is stark: listen or perish. Learn more at thechaosscenario.net."
(For those of you following the postWIMP discussion, you might be interested in looking at the post on the chaos scenario.net blog: The Problem with Acronyms. What a coincidence!)
Bob Garfield's insights were forshadowed by the "Prosumer" video from a couple of years ago:
Google and Yahoo are getting it, and demonstrate foresight by providing free wi-fi service in urban environments. Below is a short video clip of Dana Spiegel, the NYCwireless Executive Director, about Yahoo's sponsorship of free Wi-Fi in Times Square in New York City:
And here is a spin from Microsoft:
Windows Mobile 7 User Interface
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