Information and media disrupted: implications for strategy

George Brock

Professor of Journalism

City University London

We learned to transfer

complex thoughts

We used words…

• The ‘infrastructure’ of this communication was print

• Then radio

• Then TV (+ cable and satellite)

• Then digital + world wide web

• At each stage, information power changed

• In communications, ‘progress’ disrupts

To understand disruption, look at the context

• Yes, technology makes changes

• But so do economics, law, education, social trends – even lighting (kerosene to candles)

• Journalism lives in an unstable space:

• The junction between business and democratic purpose

• Disruption is the norm

• Late 20th century was untypical

Social context

• Globalisation: benefits came quickly; resistance developed slowly

• ‘The elite enjoys global business; you don’t. I’m here to protect you.’

• Symptoms of political disruption in…

• Italy, USA, Britain, Austria, Spain, ? France

• Dilemmas of modernity– (1) Self-realisation vs collective discipline

– (2) Welfare states vs global capitalism

Journalism: 1976…2008

Disruption is…(1)

• Changes in time and space– Information in the ‘perpetual present’

– Velocity

– Quantity

– Geography compressed

– Measurements of work are not just adapted, but transformed

• You need people who can read the power changes which arise from these shifts

Disruption is…(2)

• New players arriving from unexpected directions:

– Journalism: Uber, LinkedIn, AirBnB, Red Bull

• Transformative change requires different thinking disciplines – eg anthropologists

• Assets become liabilities

• Your companies greatest asset is not its people…

Disruption is…(3)

• …its greatest asset is the connections betweenpeople

• May be unclear who your competitors are

• Your customers/readers/users/listeners are revelling in the opportunity to compare, switch and share.

• …recurrent waves of change

Disruption…(4)

• New entrants bring new sensibilities

• Barriers come down: time and space compressed

• Bundles come undone: not needed when information is liquid

• Get used to terror: (media): adblockers, viewability, ad fraud

• Not just new routes to market but new gatekeepers

Media

• 4 phases of change since 1990

• The web

• Smartphones

• Tablets

• Apps to apps + connected devices

• = The nature of the impact of content is undergoing regular change

Common mistakes

• Confusing longevity with relevance

• ‘Ming Vase syndrome’

• ‘More is better’

• The following are not business models:– You owe us your loyalty (Journalism version: ‘you

must read this: it’s your democratic duty’)

– Passionate loyal customers (if the number is too small)

– Being ‘digital first’

Rewriting communications

• Single largest change is the increase in the quantity of information

• Consequences:– Perceived value of individual pieces of information

falls

– Users skim more

– They have less need (not zero need) for information intermediaries and may go direct

– All organisations are media organisations

Adapt with agility

• One-to-many (traditional) publishing is now only one of many ways information travels

• The web (and particularly the mobile web) is more personal, intimate and less formal

• Impact and authority are altered (in a world in which the credibility of institutions and elites is being questioned, again)

• We reveal more in interactivity, yet are more naïve and worried about surrendering privacy

Value• Many publishing businesses became

operations outfits because their market didn’t change in late 20th century

• Digital requires the rethinking and redefining of value in a more rigorous way: in what precise ways can give value that

A) can’t be replicated by a rival

B) we can charge for on a continuing basis?

More mistakes

• It’s easy to terrify yourself into paralysis

• Don’t follow leaders who want to thrown everything out and start again (simply because that’s what they think everyone is doing)

• Prescription before diagnosis (ought to be the other way round)

• Only take things down to rebuild with a purpose, a clear strategic aim

• “It is the imagination, ultimately, and not mathematical calculation that creates media; it is the fresh perception of how to fit a potential machine into an actual way of life that really constitutes the act of ‘invention’.” Anthony Smith,

Goodbye Gutenberg, 1980

Quality of diagnosis

• What’s changed?

• For example: the internet did not kill newspapers

• What are we trying to do and why are we trying to do it?

• What value do we add - in a world in which anyone with a smartphone can summon information in any idle moment with their thumb?

Journalism dilemmas

• Facebook…Google

• ‘Black box’ issues + privacy

• ‘Bundles’ don’t work so well any more

• Maintaining the importance of words…

• …and the infrastructure of free speech

• Radical shifts of internal culture

Resistance to experiment

• Failure isn’t seen as useful• In experiment, failure is often educational and

illuminating• Today’s deadline and emergencies take

precedence over exploration of the future• Does process dominate your business? Is heresy

punished?• Ordered to “innovate” or “think outside the box”,

people (usually) freeze.• The “box” isn’t there any more

Measurement

• In the digital era, data matters (obviously)

• People must see success

• “Getting people to use intuition supported by data (and not just intuition) is a bigger change than it might appear. And humans want things to be complete and therefore stable. The hard message is that we’re continuously evolving: there’s no “complete” state.”

– Alceo Rapagna, Chief Digital Officer, RCS Group, Milan

Skills

• Adapting in a period of accelerated change is the business of knowing what to let go and what to keep.

• People who are attached either to destroying or preserving are not the most needed

• The most useful are the people who can see (and make happen) the blend of old and new

Skills (2)

• You cannot master the future before it arrives

• You can be ready for it in three ways:

–Be well informed about what is liable to happen

–Be open to the unexpected; hire people who are unafraid of change

–Be clear about what your unique value is

More here…