Mads Kristensen Unfiltered

New dogs with new tricks needed

Mads Kristensen — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:17:33 +0000

It’s quite interesting how media people continue to talk about how a diversification in revenues and adding new revenue streams to the total is going to be what gets them out of the spot they’re in – and yet they seem so incabable to do anything serious about it.

Well, just maybe it has something to do with the people making the decisions. I mean; if you want to distance yourself from the past, make a lot of hard changes and venture into something completely new and foreign, why on earth would you expect people shaped by the very past you’re trying to escape to lead the way?

Media companies really need to get new people on board who not only understand media but in addition – and this is key – understand that the future should be seen as an opportunity to unlock incremental value, not a threat towards the existing that you cannot protect anyway.

But just try and tell media companies this. I dare you.

A diabolical question

Mads Kristensen — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:57:57 +0000

If news is still the number one driver for people to buy a newspaper, yet the media companies behind said papers cannot make ends meet, wouldn’t it be about time to cease print operations and dispense with the product altogther instead of throwing good money after bad?

Dispensing of newspapers isn’t the same as dispensing of journalism, mind you. Journalism will find ways – and indeed does – to exist in other shapes and forms.

Is it better to forget than just forgive?

Mads Kristensen — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:01:14 +0000

Should we develop systems that allow us to forget about our digital past? Which allow us to force a deletion from eternal memory of all the embarrassing things we more or less consciously share online?

Some scholars say that that is actually a very good idea, as there is a very valid argument that things you did and say ages ago shouldn’t be able to come back to haunt you out of context years and years later. However, eventhough I completely understand the rationale of the argument, I’m not so sure that would be the right approach.

The internet puts a large magnifying glass upon us of everything that we do and decide to make public to others. We, as individuals, still decide what we want to share and to a very large extend with whom. If we put it out there, chances are that we stand by it – be it today, tomorrow, next week, next month and years on end. Otherwise we shouldn’t be putting it out there in the first place.

If we apply ‘fire-and-forget’ technologies to the web, we risk losing some of the very basic stuff that allows the web to keep us accountable. We get to a situation where we can pretty much do whatever we want without the fear of later consequences. We will essentially be permitting total anarchy to reign, and I haven’t seen any examples of where pure anarchy has been an advantage to anyone, really.

Add to this that I personally don’t have an issue with discovering that there is more to a person than what meets the eye and the web is potentially an excellent place to harbour such history – keep track so to say. It only makes the individual more human, which in my book can never be a bad thing.

Do we really want perfection?

Mads Kristensen — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:02:40 +0000

It is a very interesting notion that technologies see the light of day that enables us to resemble the way things used to be rather than going towards a more picture-perfect view of society as such.

Maybe, after all there is some truth in the old saying that there is more into something than what meets the eye? That we essentially need it a bit rough at the edges in order to connect emotionally to something – in order to spur our sense of belonging and get our brains into gear?

The thought is extremely interesting. Because it asks the question about whether there really is a universal point towards always driving for ever more perfection, optimization and noise-free products and solutions? Or whether all it is essentially doing is strip us of some of the things we need to consider us self thinking, feeling and experiencing human beings.

Media just love them white swans

Mads Kristensen — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:03:01 +0000

I’ve started to read “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb ( I still wonder why it took me this long to get my hands on it), and immediately my first impression from the book is that this is the book every single media exec should sit down and read.

In our perceived customer demand driven everyday life, we spend so much time given people more of what we think they want. We heard white swans together, send them at people and think that it will awe our audience. What a surprise that it doesn’t; it has all been seen many times before. It doesn’t matter to them, and the perceived value is bordering on zero, which then again goes straight to the missing bottom lines of most media companies.

Instead media companies should be focusing on the black swan; the odd and extraordinary, the event that defines series of events. The events and happenings that is of true and perhaps even profound value to people. A value that transcends into dollars instead of pennies.

I seriously wonder why so many smart people at media companies insist on only serving the world as we think we know it is and don’t look beyond – or at least around the corner. Or just try it for crying out loud.