Lessons in Personal Communication

Welcome to day 5 (last day) of my DELAYED REACTION to the Monaco Media Forum (AKA giving myself some time to think) . This post is about a very immediate/intimate form of communication. Personal communication. How one speaks, what one says…

I don’t go to too many conferences.

I try to pick the ones that are high-level (both in terms of attendees and subject matter — i.e.  not too much detail about, say, search engine marketing or this or that or blah blah blah). This year I went to Milken Global in L.A. and Monaco Media Forum.  Another year I tried TED. Of course some of these are expensive — but I look at them as continuing education. And that’s worth a certain investment each year.

I go in part for the content. I go in part for the networking.

I ALSO go for something more subtle… I go for a very personal lesson in personal communication.

I really enjoy watching how people who operate at a certain level communicate. And I learn from them just as they must have learned from others.

For example, at Milken, I liked getting a really direct sense of how Arnold Schwarzenegger thought on the spot and answered questions — others too, but he still pops to mind after several months. Sure I was in a room watching with a couple thousand people (Monaco was much smaller) but there is something to the directness of seeing somebody live that I find helpful/educational.

I’d say two people at Monaco I gained a great deal from — in the above sense — couldn’t have been more different from one another: James Murdoch and Esther Dyson.

Murdoch was really quite brilliant. He came off in a kind of unassuming way… yet his language was some of the most active I have heard. For example, he talked about “the pace” of his businesses. With a few, unusual choices of words, he added a new dimension (to do with velocity) to a conversation about business decisions. I will certainly bring this tone into my conversations with my team and customers. He also seemed extremely centered and focused on what HE wanted to get across.. regardless of the agenda of his interviewer or questioners in the audience. He had a small notebook and he seemed to be ticking off points as he made them. Notebook or not, I liked how, one way or another, he was going to drive the conversation.

Dyson’s personal communications power comes from WHAT she says — which is very different to what most people say, even in a gathering of really smart thinkers and leaders. She’s (fearlessly) more out there… and clearly more “herself” than most. And people respond to that. I got to see her: as a panelist, as a moderator, as a very active questioner from the audience, and as somebody I chatted with in the hallway. She has a very business-oriented approach to her thinking (she is, after all, an active investor) but she has a curiosity that is somehow more socially oriented. And she expresses her curiosity and opinions. Her words kind of tweek a gathering… and give it some real texture. The lesson is — and this is not always an easy one to internalize — don’t be afraid to communicate AS YOURSELF.

Happy weekend.. it’s a long one here in Spain.

Adios.. over and out.

Peaceful Moment Away From Information and People

It’s Day 4 of my I-Gave-Myself-Time-To-Digest-It reflections on Monaco Media Forum.

OK. Here is one of my truly favorite moments from Monaco. It was jam-packed-wall-to-wall with goodness. But sometimes I needed a break. Click the photo if you want to see more over at Flickr.

Behind me the conference. In front of me, beyond the trees, the Mediterranean.

One Generation’s Halo Effect Is Another’s … Or Disrupt Yourself Before Some 18 Year Old Does it For You

It’s Day 3 of “Monaco Media Forum — The-Delayed-But-Not-Too-Delayed Reaction.”  It’s a generation thing. And one day my generation will have to yield too.

I was struck in Monaco when adman-oligarch Maurice Lévy of Publicis Groupe said he has yet to find a new digital media that gives his clients the “halo” effect of being associated with media like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.

Another generation's halo effect. Photo credit Jeremy Burgin.

t was unclear to me whether he was referring to a halo he achieves by getting his clients covered in these pubs (Publicis owns PR firms) or buying his clients ad space in them. Either way…

Consider this homegrown research (it’s a busy day today.. so no time to go searching out refs to actual research that validates this.. but it exists): My kids (7 and 11) give young, disruptive media brands a very different “halo profile” (should I TM that?) than older people do. They don’t give more credence to Disney than they do to YouTube. They’d actually rather go to dinner with a YouTube star than a Disney Channel star. Certain YouTube stars mean more to them than Miley Cyrus. And I’m deliberately not putting “stars” in quotes… YouTube stars are stars.

YouTube is an example of a disruptive media in the true Christensenian sense (“typically cheaper, simpler-to-use versions of existing products that target low-end or entirely new customers”).

And some companies that provide halo effect today are too blinded by it to see the disruptive halos of tomorrow.

And those darn disruptive companies — as they begin to feel their power, they start to move in. In fact, just last week, YouTube put a lot of effort into “hollywoodizing” (you could say “halo-izing”) itself and it’s stars… check out this page for an archive of their YouTube Live event.

Their branding is interesting. In a smart bit of positioning they put stars like Fred and Akon on equal footing. They’re borrowing from Akon for Fred. And they’re borrowing from Fred for Akon. And they’re borrowing from both for themselves. Feel the glow.

A screen grab from YouTube Live. Akon and Fred are giving equal billing.

The Name is Murdoch, James Murdoch

It’s day 2 of Monaco Media Forum week at everythingcommunicat.es. I’m sharing the parts I found most interesting — now that I’ve had some time to let them sink in a bit.

James Murdoch — Chairman and Chief Exec for Europe and Asia of News Corp. — was actually pretty inspiring to watch.

It seems he’s not one to gently stir around his media a bit.. he likes it SHAKEN. And since he oversees almost EVERY kind of media imaginable, it was interesting to hear his perspective.

Shaken. (photo credit Beadmobile)

Murdoch, spoke eloquently (he was interviewed  by Rich Greenfield, co-head of Pali Capital’s media and cable systems equities research) of NO LONGER DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN OLD AND NEW MEDIA.

Murdoch isn’t the only one to express this idea. Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC described it in his own (Murdoch might say “subsidized”) way.

It is a good sign that people are starting to think like this — and make decisions based on this thinking.

As an example, Murdoch spoke of a strategic decision he made while running BritishSkyBroadcasting to get as many PVRs (Tivo-like devices) in the hands of customers EVEN THOUGH it would negatively impact their own advertising business.

Why? Because it made the television viewing experience better for customers. And they sell a TV experience. He actually spoke a lot of the customer experience… and improving it as much as possible.

To hear him talk, News Corp. seems pretty OK with itself when it comes to shaking up their analog and digital businesses into one integrated media business.

News’ MySpace is an interesting example. They have something like a 16% share of the online display ad business vs. Facebook’s 1% (eMarketer, Nov. 2008). And MySpace has fewer users and less buzz amongst the so-called “technorati”. I think this has everything to do with MySpace being part of, well, a media company. News Corp. is filled with people who know how to actually sell an ad. And then they do things like buy huge social media joints and the technologists who build them.

That said, of course, Facebook is trying…(please see this post from last week and this really interesting piece by Brad Stone in today’s NY Times) and they might actually create a totally new form of advertising that even News doesn’t yet see.

But I suspect the Murdochs’ openness will bring this thinking into News as well.

If you’re interested, here is Murdoch’s interview.

Seeking a New Kind of Genius … Mashing Up the “Ultimate Insider” and the “Ultimate Outsider”

A couple of weeks ago I attended one of the most interesting conferences on media (media writ large, not the narrow ad-agency definition) that I have attended in some time. I have written a bit about it since (just poke around the blog).. but I wanted to devote a week of blogging to it now that I have had some time to digest. So… welcome to Day One of “Monaco Media Forum Week” at everythingcommunicat.es — a highly-subjective kind of Cliffs Notes.

One of my favorite panels featured two people. One was billed as the “ultimate insider” — Maurice Lévy of ad agency conglomorate Publicis Groupe. The other was billed as the “ultimate outsider” — Niklas Zennström of Kazaa, Skype, and now Joost — and his venture firm Atomico. The two were interviewed by Financial Times editor Lionel Barber.

The twain shall meet!

After setting up the insider-outsider schtick, Barber said: “Mr.  Zennström, as we know, has helped to destroy the music industry, the telecoms industry and he is now trying to destroy the network television industry… and Maurice and I are here to…”

Almost without missing a beat, Lévy said “stop him.”

Barber finished: “you said that without my lips moving.”

(BTW.. I’m not sure Barber is quite as old-school as he made himself out to be in this exchange. The FT’s digital coverage is some of the most solid (and least breathless and hyperbolic) that I have read.)

I was interested in what Lévy and Zennström had to say, of course, but actually more interested in what they didn’t say — what you might call the “negative space” of the panel.

I really wanted to know what each secretly wants to know about the other — what he feels the other has that he does not — even if this is totally subconscious.

Each of the two is clearly brilliant in his own way. Levy speaks of the sensual.. of feelings that communications can evoke. Zennström speaks of platforms.

Zennström’s platforms, of course, carry very sensual, emotional material. Kazaa carried songs, Joost carries video, Skype carries voice and video data and, as such, is the new way to “reach out and touch someone.”

And Lévy knows a thing or two about platforms. His emotional/sensual communications have been pushed over platforms — like TV networks — and made consumers on the other end laugh, cry and buy. Plus.. he actually started at Publicis as an IT guy!

But still…

Communications, branding, advertising and media today needs leaders who are, in effect, mashups of these two guys. People who are A NEW KIND IF GENIUS– a genius that understands both platforms and emotional content.

This hasn’t been the case for a while. Platforms (like TV networks) became so established that the underlying technology became basically irrelevant to content creators. And that made sense.

But  we are in too crazy a time right now characterized by emergent platforms/technologies.. each different.. each with very (or subtly) different characteristics. … a time where the platform cannot be separated from what is carried on it.

As emergent forms of media settle down and achieve scale, there will again be a time for people who understand one half really well. For now though… we need people who know both.

If you wish.. the panel is here:

“The Study of the Web That Should Have Been Conducted of Television in the 1940s”

The general sessions at the Monaco Media Forum are being shot and posted to YouTube and this one — yesterday’s keynote by Jeff Cole, Director of the USC Annenberg School’s Center for the Digital Future — is absolutely worth showing here in it’s entirety. If you care at ALL about how to communicate with people today, grab a coffee, turn off the world for 30 minutes and watch. Cole shares insights from the center’s eight-year study on media usage. They have been tracking 2,000 people in each of 30 countries. This is by far the clearest overview on this subject that I have come across in some time.