A Matter Of Trust
From my speech at #SXSW this week:
There are enormous benefits for everyone - users AND corporations - in undertaking radical change, now. There are even larger existential threats - for Media and our society - if we do not.
The winner-takes-all battles now waged by Big Media and Tech are antiquated holdovers from a bygone era. For some time these skirmishes greatly advantaged the trillion dollar tech stars. But in the User-Centric Era, they are cutting against even the biggest and shiniest platforms, preventing the entire ecosystem from getting the crucial treatment it so very badly needs to cure the cancer that is killing it.
The garden walls we’ve erected around our content and data have not only broken up the user experience – they have broken our world.
Just as in previous eras of boom and bust, our runaway greed and epic misjudgment of its implications have brought our planet to the brink its own destruction. The zero-sum game we’ve been playing has demolished the trust our citizens have in our Media. And this erosion of faith has resulted in the rise of dangerous absolutists who would use the Media itself to annihilate the institutions we’ve relied on to keep our people safe, and to bring democracy to an ignominious end.
If you think this is simply my opinion, then you do not read history. We have seen this story before, and the last time, the plot got very, very dark before we were able to turn the lights back on. This time, I fear, unless we make radical change now, there won’t be a light at the end of the tunnel.
The kind of sweeping transformation we must pursue to cure the cancer inside Media is not easy. I do not mean to make it seem it would be. But as arduous as these changes would be, they are that much more crucial – for the survival of the Media itself, but also to the security of the world we live in. The stakes ARE that high. So, of course the transformation should be that hard.
I recently had to go through that kind of radical transformation to take on the cancer inside me. It was hard and painful. I’ve lost two feet of intestines and have a brand new bellybutton. And those are just the physical changes.
But, given the choice between going through that pain and surviving, or not taking on that challenge and NOT surviving, I am pretty sure I made the right choice.
I hope the Media Industrial Complex has the fortitude to make the hard choices it needs to, to survive - and to thrive - in the User-Centric Era. That’s why I spend so much time trying to give an accurate diagnosis and point to potential cures.
Get my full prognosis for Media- and for me! - here:
https://lnkd.in/eY6Un4Uv
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