The Times They Are a-Changin'

Something is up. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to wrap my head around this one, but there is something going on. I know most of us can feel it too. And I'm not talking about something like the Matrix but something has definitely shifted. The Times They Are a-Changin'.

Last week, Pierre Karl Péladeau, the Quebecor CEO, goes before a crowd of the Montréal Web community to discuss his web strategy. Quite the PR and vision pitch I must say. I will not comment on my perspective of his vision of any other horizon strategy that QCOR is engaging in, but I must insist on the boldness of this action. I did not attend myself, first of all, but went through the 22 pages of his transcript. PKP has stuck the stake in the ground in front of everyone in quite the public speech, bringing up the "web 2.0" word 15 times. Mentioning the impact of User Generated Content as well as taking a stance on social networks, open platforms and the repartitioning of the media business models is something that surprised me. I have attended many pitches where buzz-word-mania is played liberally. I die a little bit every time someone mentions web 2.0, but alas, I have got used to it. But to hammer down the nail at this extent, PKP is making quite the statement. Weaving "collaborative spaces" and "citizen journalism" into corp-speak is a very risqué strategy for the CEO of a major media comglomerate. Again, I will not reflect on the quality of the statement, and instead chose to focus on the weight of this speech. "Collective intelligence", a building block of the wikinomics is usually a word that hides deep in the geek-topia of the planosphere (thanks Vlad). Not only has PKP apparently internalized the values of the new web reality, but he's very vocal about them and proving a point by taking the stance.

So yeah, something is happening there.

Something is definitely happening in the blogosphere too. I had a lot of fun over the week-end catching up with an avalanche of posts on the AMM blog regarding the debate of duplicate content between blogs. This horse has been beaten to a pulp and I will also choose not to engage in this discussion, but the form of the discussion is fascinating. Bloggers arguing with other bloggers about blogging and blog orthodoxy. A similar debate is taking place at the macro level blogosphere regarding the preffered location of blog comments. Some bloggers would argue that while distribution via RSS feeds should facilitate user engagement, comments, therefore the ultimate value reinforcement for bloggers should belong to the blogger site. Other argue that comments belong where ever the user has intercepted the content, therefore claiming the content-centric comment view as the correct one. Wow. quite the debate guys. I will not take a stance on this, but my obvious vote goes to the obvious user driven experience. The blogosphere is alive and well. Such bio-diversity is really impressive, what an tribal ecosystem we have! It's truly motivating to see how much of a critical mass this pixel world has taken lately.

At the same time something is happening in the business world. Companies are still scrambling to "do stuff" online and at the same time confusion reigns over how-what-how-much. I hear a lot of " Age of Dialogue" lately, when in fact I see a lot of Age of Noise that now translates to online clutter. John Maeda speaks of the industry of profiteering behind the gold rush, providing gear and apparel to frontiersmen and making fortunes. This regardless whether they strike gold or not there is a vast industry of tool and platform providers to outfit your pixel gold rush. I see a lot of dust settling and people asking questions though. "Why is this metric so low, why is this metric so high, is this all that you can do, why are you constantly trying to sell me stuff."

The age of transparency is clearly not yet here, but an ever pressing pressure towards value based and belief based consumption is challenging black-box companies. Some will adapt to this psychographic predisposition of this generation. Other will not a continue their own way. Some brands will wither into oblivion, others will connect with emotional engagement.

There is something happening in every arena of communication. This shift is not technological, it doesnt have anything to do with acronym rich keynote marketing decks. This shift is behavioural. This shift is human. The web 2.0 infatuation with " now users can do this...." is fatally skewed. I have always communicated and now I can do it faster/easily/better online. Products that facilitate human behaviour will work. Simple. One of the cornerstones of this shift is digital media literacy. We have now passed the threshold of usage and penetration. Once a portal-initiated medium, then on to search, and now social networks, we come to a teenage hood of the web; and realize it really wasn't about the tool and the gimmicks and technology but about the user. Duh!

And what about value. The killer word that keeps media agencies, publishers and advertisers up at night? How do we create sustainable value for our users while sustaining an efficient content developing operation and provide advertising value to media buyers. This is really the killer word because I cannot say anyone has figuredit out yet. Ok maybe Google has. But everyone else is still scrambling in their own teenage hood wondering what they're gonna do when the digital native generation kicks in. There is something going on and everyday that goes by it gets even more so.

I will write about what I can pick up under my radar in this blog. I also invite anyone else to participate in this. I have the humility to say that our science/craft/art is blessed with the potential of "collaborative wisdom", and while I might share this same vision, I don't have all the asnwers. This shift is happening even if I don't write about it, and will keep persisting and evolving. This is a proverbial line in the sand. The etymology of line in the sand is implicit to drawing a barrier through which no one shall cross. I draw this line in the sand as a snapshot of where we are right now in the media/digital media/communication landscape. These have become critical building blocks to human behaviour and the scope is much larger than critiquing old versus new media. Any respectful professional will accept the notion of ingredient platforms, so this will not be a venue to discuss print versus pixel, or the like.

This is a line in the sand to discriminate opportunistic profiteering from true value.