New Media 2012: Where are we going?

Whidbey Island's Fusionspark Media hosted a seminar this Saturday, September 20 titled "New Media 2012: Where are we going?". The event, hosted in Langley's historic Clyde Theater, served up a panel of 10 speakers who fired off in shotgun format with 5 minute presentations with two breakout Q&A sessions. Their intent?

"Whether you are a content creator or just a curious consumer, this is your chance to hear dispatches from the frontlines of New Media."

Although there were a number of interesting points of conversation, I will be sharing my basic walk-away points.

The presentation began with a fascinating conversation about future projections in human sustainability by Robert Gilman, Founder of the Context Institute, who discussed the population growth by 2045 and the needs for sustainability in the "succession of species." He noted these main distinctions in this period of development:

• efficiency will become key as complexity increases
  
• re-usability becomes a necessity as scarcity of resource increases
• the emphasis will be on diversity with many niches
• collaboration will become paramount to successful sustainment

Joe Pulizzi, Author of "Get Content, Get Customers" presented on the directional shift in marketing from brand to content. His main points:

• Companies must focus on a content strategy in order to maintain relevance
  
• Content must be valuable, relevant, and consistent

Tom Kennedy, former Director of Multimedia at the Washington Post (now consultant) made a significant point in the scarcity of time. He focused on the presenting of media in forms that are consistent with time and context. I really enjoyed one of his breakdowns which showed general media use throughout the day:

• Commute - podcast, radio, video
• Work - email tweets, sms
• Lunch - Websites
• Evening - websites, video, sms

Alexis Gerard, Founder of Future Image Report discussed the development of media capture devices, focusing on pic and video. He had an excellent graphic showing the correlation of skill/time/cost to the effectiveness and general adoption of media with the general population. Essentially, as the skill level, time to produce and cost to produce become smaller, the adoption by the general population increases. For example, pictures used to require chemicals, lots of time and lots of costs to produce. Now they can be created quickly and for free with no skill at all. All of this to say - if you want your media to be adopted by the masses, make it easy, make it fast, and make it cheap.

Russell Sparkman, founder of Fusionspark Media spoke on how they were using video and content collaboration (with other sites) to provide educational and promotional solutions for the Florida Key's (one of their clients). They found a remarkable increase in traffic with the addition of video and other multimedia based content on their clients' websites.

Brent Friendman, Partner in Electric Farm Entertainment discussed how they were using what he called "Fractal" marketing to disseminate their story and content in a number of different social media fronts. His main contention: an effective story must be told on a number of different fronts. Moreover, the content must build and be dependent on the other media fronts, rather than simply reproducing the same thing in each spot.

For example, Brent showed how they were working with a gaming client to "fractal" their story into a few different media. On MTV.com they were sharing episode clips. On facebook they had created a 'backstory' on one of the main game characters, etc.

I thought this was a fantastic methodology for utilizing the available and distinct media forms to create and build on brand, story, and to grow a user base.

Marcia Hofmann, Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave a very informative and useful discussion on "Terms of Use", IP, and Copyright surrounding all of the popular and different forms of social media, including facebook, twitter, and youtube (well, I caught her later to ask about youtube).

Joseph M. Tringali, General Manager 5th Cell Media, discussed trends in gaming and the increase of users and importance in consideration of gaming for communication and promotion of content, branding, and message.

John du Pre Gauntt, Author, Consultant & Technologist discussed cloud computing and its impact into the future abilities of media growth and increasingly powerful solutions, noting the benefit of scalable solutions that cloud computing provides. He also made some very interesting points regarding the new economics of the future, changing from a supply chain model (like Microsoft) to a demand chain model (like Google). He used an interesting illustration: an individual taking all the orders of people entering a restaurant and the value of that "demand" to the chefs and restaurant, the "supply."

George Henny, Co-CEO of Whidbey Telecom and Fibercloud discussed the growth and demand of network and internet solutions and showed how they were working to expand solutions to provide the means for these media to reach the island population and user base.

In closing, I walked away re-energized to better target my audience on a number of different media, with a much more clear and efficient strategy of content, brand, and message. I would highly recommend the seminary (should they continue in it's format) to individuals who desire to rethink and creatively engage their utilization of today's quickly changing media.

The seminar was well worth the commute north and the ferry ride. And I must confess the scenary of Langley could easily be considered a further value add to the actual event.