I was recently interviewed by Anna Lundqvist who is a student at Hyper Island. Here are the other people who were interviewed by Anna and her project team:
- Lynda Relph-Knight, DesignWeek
- Zeh Fernando, Firstborn
- Graham Wood, JWT, London
- Erik Kessels, Kessleskramer
- Zeke Tastas, Naked, Stockholm
- Efrain Foglia, University of Vic
- Ida Grönblom & Fabian Berglund, W+K, London
You can check out the result.
And below are my answers to the questions:
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What interactive, digital and motion trends are affecting or will affect the media industry of tomorrow?
* Bytesize, means more but shorter video and motion content.
* More interaction, like in the US election – connected to other communication chanels like Facebook and Twitter.
* Non-linear, multi-story content (the consumer navigates).
* The line between publisher/creator and consumer gets blurry.
As a content creator of the future you should design environments, character options and many possible storylines. Not all stories will be this way but an increasing number of them. Also I believe the campaign thinking will need to die, it will be about ongoing stories and conversations, not campaign sites and one time projects.
What are the media industries in demanded needs for competences right now?
I’m not sure. But I think people who are multitalented but with extra deep knowledge in a certain field like 3D, video or audio have an advantage.
What sought after competences will the media industry look for in the future?
I’m not sure. But they need more entrepreneurial people who dare to push the envelope and are both creative and analytical.
What future challenges are the media industry facing and how can they deal with them?
The media industry, as do all other content industries, need to adapt to change rather than tryi to prevent it. For instance nobody knows if paying for content is dead forever or if somebody will solve that puzzle in a way that satisfies both consumers and content creators.
For instance, In the future file sharing will be like air – accessible to all people and it will be taken for granted. The Pirate Bay will be looked upon in a new light and in the history books of tomorrow they will be the heroes that saved the music and movie industry from a certain doom.
The amount of non-commercial and user generated content will increase. These people create content because they love to do it, not because they are payed to do so. That content competes in a way with commercial content.
What are the biggest three influcences on media in the next 2-5 years?
* File sharing
* The blurring of the line between consumers and creators
* Mobility and the way we consume digital content
How will digital technology change the way people use media in the future?
There is already a (partly illegal) growing subculture of file sharers, mashup artists and digital grassroots media that are showing what mainstream media (both digital and analog) should be doing. It becomes less interesting who “owns” the intellectual property and who created the orginal, it’s all about mashing up and reusing content to make it more interesting. Creators need to embrace the fact that people will rip, mix and burn their content if they like it, or even dislike it.
How can we exploit, adapt and lead the changes in the above?
These changes are far beyond the reach of professionals or brands to change, it must be the other way around. Content creators need to adapt to the environment and not buy into the myth that they can achieve long term and substantial change. But success awaits those who are quick to register changes in the environment and to adapt to them (classic evolution theory really). So digital creators who manage to do this can create interesting projects in the future and find new ways to both engage people and to build successful business cases at the same time.
What is missing from the world of media that we could provide?
The media world is lacking fantasy and inspiration. It evolves to slowly and needs a reboot and a “rethink”. It needs people with no respect for status quo or doing business as it has always been done. Progress is to slow and needs to pick up speed.
The media industry also needs more people with different insights and background than the traditional talent that media companies recruit from the “top schools” and same socio economic background as the people who already occupy the most positions at media companies and agencies. They need more people with an entrepreneurial mindset, it shoud always be about finding the right solutions for the right problems rather than perfecting the way to fill criteria in a brief made by clients who don’t always understand their own needs or sometimes even the needs and wants of the people they are trying to serve.
One last thing the media industry needs, is less talkers and more doers. Especially in the “world of social media” where everybody is an “expert” because they blog about web 2.0. Nobody knows the answers but those who dare to try will eventually win.
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What do you think?
//Tomas
