Robert Paterson's Weblog

The Future of TV and Dumbo

Johnnie sparked my attention today with this sweet and telling post about how sometimes you need a bit of magic to give you the confidence to try something extraordinary.

I'm an enthusiastic participant in the whole "social object" conversation.  (Hugh crystallised it first here.)

I just want to add a caveat before we all get carried away, and talk about Dumbo.

In the film, Dumbo stops believing he can fly, but his only friend, Timothy Mouse, improvises to rescue him. Timothy plucks a feather from his hat and persuades Dumbo that with this magic feather , his powers will be restored. It works a charm, and Dumbo soars to glory. Later on, there's a turning point where Dumbo has to fly without the feather.

So the feather is not really magic, it just catalyses the magic. It might be convenient at times to put your faith in the feather but the deeper truth is more exciting.

So don't let all the talk about social objects make you think that marketing is all about the props. The props are great if they spark relationships, and they may look important as markers of relationships... but they're not the real magic.

The point that I would like to add is - Don't pay too much attention to the Crows

We have Time? - The Future of TV

There is an interesting debate going on at Dennis' Blog about whether the shift to online TV is being overhyped.

Dan Rayburn, executive VP for StreamingMedia.com, writes:

... I have over 60 season passes in TiVo. Going through all of them yesterday, more than 90% of the shows I watch are not available online anywhere. And the ones that are, like content from CBS and NBC, do not show up right after they are broadcast and typically take days if not longer to appear on the web. And in the case of something like 60 Minutes, one story alone is chopped up into 10 different video segments on their website and encoded at a pretty low bitrate. And sports, well forget that. No NFL games are available on-demand the next day online and while the MLB games are, it requires a subscription.  ¶  The demise of the TV is overrated and many in the industry keep saying the same thing as if they have to say it just to be cool. I keep hearing people in our space says things like "I don't even need a TV anymore, I'll just watch all my video online". ...

John Proffitt responds by saying:

Ah, but he doesn't watch TV! He watches video collected on his TiVo, and that TiVo is hooked to a cable or satellite service. Besides, the demise of traditional TV will not occur in one monolithic thump -- it will be a death by a thousand cuts. He's already participating in two technologies that are turning TV into something new, something different. Perhaps the real question is what constitutes TV anyway? When can we say that TV has transformed so much that it's no longer TV?

I think that John is right - Time shifting is a critical issue - not broadcast. The Tyranny of the schedule is being challenged. I also think that the lessons of the music industry will soon apply for TV.

In the music area, while it was technically difficult, only the geeks like my son downloaded. But the moment Apple made it easy and legal billions of download took place - regular folks like me were now downloading - my bet is that this will happen in 2008 2009 at the latest. Then the delivery system will have tipped.

How fast can this happen? Now there is  not much to see online - but recall in the early days of DVD's there were not many titles - how long did that last

Lastly "Follow the Money" the advertisers are already shifting to online. They are going online because all the best demographics are decisively moving there for news, comment, shopping - just getting connected. What kind of people are these? The curious and the interested?  Which is the fastest growing group? Seniors! Who watches public TV?

When the shift comes, recall small cars vs trucks in Detroit, it will be too late to move

You have to be Toyota and not GM. You have to have built a brand around the new.

Jay Kernis - A real Catch

On my first visit to NPR, Dana asked if it would be OK if a Mr Jay Kernis could join us. This was during my first hour at NPR and I knew no one and nothing about the culture or the business. In came this wonderful person - looking much as he does in this photo.

Sometimes you know in an instant that you have met someone special to you. This was such a moment for me.

In The Wire, the greatest complement that one policeman can call another is that he is "Pohleece". If there was such a term in media Jay is that.

Dear Jay all the very best in your new job.

A radio veteran is moving to television and taking a print job title: Jay Kernis, the senior vice president of programming for National Public Radio, is becoming the managing editor of CNN.

The cable news network will announce the move on Friday morning. Mr. Kernis will oversee content development out of New York for CNN, supervising the news planning, health, technology and environment, entertainment, and guest bookings units of the network’s newsgathering operation. He will report to Nancy Lane, the Atlanta-based senior vice president of editorial.

Mr. Kernis helped develop “Morning Edition” and “Weekend Edition” during his first stint at NPR. He moved to CBS in 1987 and produced “60 Minutes” and “CBS This Morning.” He returned to NPR in 2001 and guided the launches of “Day to Day,” “News & Notes” and “Tell Me More.” His decision to leave NPR was announced on Wednesday.

Update: 10:30 a.m.: “This is a spectacular opportunity,” Mr. Kernis says in a press release. “CNN has extraordinary reach, nationally and around the world. I’m excited because I know that CNN is a place that’s open to experimenting and taking chances. I have had the pleasure of meeting many of the smart, interesting and focused journalists. I’m delighted to be joining their team and to help further CNN’s deep and rich coverage of the news.” (NYT)

Social business and business social? The dog that did not bark!

One of my favourite Sherlock Holmes stories is "The Dog that did not bark". SH solved the crime by noting that the dog did not bark - in spite of all the evidence of there being a break in - it had to have been an inside job.

Mark Earls has reminded me of the brilliant paper by Henry Mintzberg et al called Beyond Selfishness - Link Here - His insight is that many business leaders are missing the point - they are not listening for the dogs who don't bark but are transfixed by the obvious.

By only thinking of the simple view of profit they miss the underpinning of true value. By worrying about day traders, they miss who is really attached - the customer and their staff. So they miss the value that can arise from really meeting their customers needs and the value of unleashing their employees power. They miss the impact of what they really do on how their business affects the wider world.

This Mintzberg's plea for business leaders - find a more holistic understanding of value.

I would like to add to this today. NGO leaders are as distracted by the wrong evidence as their business peers. They approach their constituency with arrogance about what is "Good" for them and they take their money, in Canada, largely from the Government without considering the price of being dependent.

The price of taking your money form Government?

A man sits down in his seat on a plane. Next to him is a well dressed young woman with a very large diamond on her wedding finger. He can't take his eyes of the diamond - it is huge. Finally he has to say something. "That's the biggest diamond I have ever seen!" he gushes.

"Yes" she replies. It's 8 carats".

"Does it have a name - I mean all the really great diamonds have a name don't they?"

"Yes - It's the Klopman Diamond"

"Now all famous diamonds have a curse - does the Klopman Diamond have a curse?"

"Yes - it does" she says.

"So what's the curse?" he asks.

"Mr Klopman!"

Mr Klopman = Government Money. Government money distorts NGOs the same way that the quarterly earnings pressure distorts many business leaders. As in business it takes an exceptional leader to get above this trap.

Arrogance about the needs of the "customer" is a vice that both business and NGO's share too. Maybe NGO's have this one even worse. So many NGO's that I have known are really just providing a good living for their staff.

I think that the way out of the trap for the NGO leader is the same as the way out of the Wall Street Trap for the business leader.

Non profits and for profits that humbly seek to understand and meet the real needs of those they serve can build a system that will sustain them all.

For profit companies have to have legitimate support from their community. So too do NGO's.

In the tight times to come, NGO's that rely only on Mr Klopman will pay the price. Companies that fail to create real value for their real constituencies will also fail.

So follow Holmes advice - look beyond the obvious support of traders and bureaucrats who don't care and look to who really does care - your customers and your staff.

PEI - Poor Education Results - Is it the schools???

Between 30 and 58% of Grade III kids on PEI are below where they should be. Think about this for a minute. We have a system that has a "failure rate" of between 30 and 58% and there is no crisis merely a disappointment.

But is this a school problem? The point of this post is to say "Only Partly" - The real problem is somewhere else. Our greatest risk is that we are not looking at the root of the problem and so may never be able to fix this.

The real root of the problem occurs before our children arrive in school.

Sorry about the chart but I cannot show what I want to show in any other way. On PEI we have recently had the results of a province wide test of Children in Grade III released. It is not a pretty picture. The column on the far right is the percentage of children who are not up to grade.

For more than 2 years, it has been clear on PEI that our kids and hence our future of our society are at risk. For what society can make it through what is coming - global warming, the energy crisis, the end of our current model for farming and fishing - unless it has a vibrant and capable population? The "system" are of course embarrassed and are committed to trying harder.

Everyone is looking at the schools. I think that we have to look somewhere else as well.

Please look at the first column. This is percentage of kids who are in family situations where the parents/parent is really struggling to cope with being a competent parent.

Do you see what I see?

More than 30% of our new born babies on PEI are born into an environment where it is likely that they will not get the attention and the relationships that they need to set them off on a social and a learning trajectory that will help them not only do well in school but in life.

How a child experiences the world in the first few years of life wires them for life. A 150 word difference in comprehension aged 2 sets the initial conditions that determine whether a child will do well in school or not. By grade 9, the 300 word kids are at a second year of university level and the 150 word kids are stuck at grade 5. Over a lifetime, the gap widens.

By grade III, the time of the PEI testing, it is too late. The gap can never be closed. The percentages of kids who cannot make the grade will now only get worse and by the end of their time at high school only about 30% of the kids will be able to make it as citizens in the world that we now live in. A 70% wastage of our most precious resource.

Obviously there is work to do in our schools. But any "system" that has over 30% of those who set the Initial Conditions in such rough shape as ours cannot be healthy and cannot develop to its potential. The key to success in grade 13 is what happens before the kids arrive in grade I.

100 years ago, we decided as a society that we had to offer all our children an education. At the time, families were still functioning and starting at 6 worked. It worked because most of the kids arrived at school having grown up in an environment that worked. Not all but Most. Now many parents really struggle and have no support from either a spouse or form an extended family. They themselves have often had a tough time as a kid.

If we are to have any hope as a society, we are going to have to recognize that the first 6 years of a child's life are when their destiny is set.

By 6, we are hardwired to be the person that we will be. Not only how we learn, but how we behave, how we eat, how we feel about ourselves. The person we will be - from the hard working, sensitive, aware, competent and reliable to the acting out, addictive, systemically unhealthy, prone to crime and dysfunction - has largely been set by 6.

As those 100 years ago decided to act collectively to support kids after the age of 6, we will have to act to do something about kids from before birth to 6.

Nothing of what I say is new or news. What may be different now is that the data now tells us that all our fears are valid and that merely trying harder is not enough.

So here is the challenge. Do we all sit quietly and hope for the best? Or do we start to think about what is really going on? Can we get together to consider what we can do to ensure that most of our kids arrive in school not only ready to learn but ready to be fully competent citizens?

Here is the challenge for government. What is your plan? You had better have one. Trying harder or is not a plan. A plan that has any chance of success has to face the facts of the leverage of the Early Years.

PS - the follow on will show you the effects of not dealing with this

 

Financial Markets - Too Complex to "Manage"

Societe Generale just won an award for risk management in its derivatives area - Now they have taken a $7 billion dollar hit there. CIBC's Chairman sensed there was a problem with CIBC's exposure to subprime - but it took weeks to tease it out.

Most people are aghast at the scale of the damage done to banks and wonder how the control systems could have been so poor. Was it just greed?

I don't think so. I think we are past a threshold of complexity where bank management can comprehend and control risk.

After more than 20 years in a dealing room - I learned one thing. No matter what controls you have, in the end you have to rely on the people. It is always possible to game the system for a while - especially if you are clever and there are few stupid people who have large books on the desk.

My sense is that the leverage implicit in derivatives and the ability to postpone a reckoning makes it possible for the rogue to have the power of taking down the bank. In a simpler world you could mark to market and see where you were and you could look at the long term history of spreads and get a sense of your position. (Traders do not bet whether markets go up or down only punters do that, they like Casino owners bet on spreads that are more predictable)

As derivatives add layer upon layer, the complexity scales in a non linear fashion. Not only can the rogue hide his shit - but the book itself cannot be comprehended.

For me a lesson for all of this would be for the Fed to pull a brains trust together and examine this issue of complexity - is there a way to pull back to a level where it can be understood and hence controlled?

CHANCES - What we do

When many think of CHANCES, they have images of kids in daycare, parents in classes.

This is all true but it is only the surface. This short slide/video show looks beyond the obvious to what is really at stake.

Our children's future is largely settled before they go to school.

Your Cottage Vacation on PEI - Hopetoun

Here is a short video that I hope will show you what our "Barn" is like. It's a great place to get away from it all. We are in the middle of the country but only 8 minutes from Charlottetown and 25 minutes from the best beaches on the Island. Golf is just around the corner.

But what is most special is getting away from the hurly burly of modern life.

The Mortage Crisis Explained Very Simply

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Some people have the ability to be very clear about complex things. This is a diamond like explanation of how we got into the subrpime mess. Thanks to Maureen McCabe in Columbus who found this at Teri's site who is linked to the author Dan Green whose site is here.

Dan is a real find - there is a lot of great material that helps make sense of what is going on in a clear and straightforward manner. You would never find this in a newspaper and rarely on the site of an agent. Dan is remarkable.

Rob - Cassandra or Dalai Lama?

Mike, a good friend and loyal reader is staying with me right now. He told me that my unrelenting gloom about the state of the world was getting him down.

Not only is this getting Mike down but me too! So I have decided to look to his holiness the Dalai Lama for guidance. In spite of many hardships, betrayal and prosecution - he offers the world the face of humour and hope.

Not a bad model.