Media & Marketing Security & Privacy
Today terrorism is sadly becoming an ongoing challenge. Even as people and communities suffer, brands are also newly challenged. One of the London terrorists wore a jersey from football team Arsenal, which was widely noted in coverage. If we are now in an era of constant conflict, what can companies do to mitigate the risks? More
Media & Marketing Opinion The Internet
The Attention Economy is becoming the Emotion Economy. Average screen time in the U.S. is almost 11 hours per day. Now tech companies are adding visual and other elements to insert emotion into communication. And virtual reality may take it even further. I only hope it will make us feel good. More
Analytics & Data Media & Marketing Techonomy Events
More than 60 years ago, Peter Drucker implored businesses to focus on marketing as THE core competency. Now marketing technology is making that wisdom all the more relevant. Soon ads will be delivered on platforms like Facebook and synchronized with TV ad campaigns, with both evaluated together to measure their contribution to sales that day. Businesses that win will make marketing skills and people the center of their companies. More
Arts & Culture Media & Marketing Society
Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture & design and director of R&D at The Museum of Modern Art, is a passionate advocate for the importance of design in society and business. Techonomy’s David Kirkpatrick conducted this extensive interview with her over lunch in New York. More
There's huge controversy in India over Facebook's "Free Basics" Internet plan, part of the global Internet.org initiative the company has been spearheading. Facebook's aim, it says, is to get more people onto the Internet, since being online is essential for participation in any modern economy. In India, however, the project is encountering fierce resistance from elites who say it violates "net neutrality." But do all the critics--mostly upper-class and affluent Indian pundits, professors and anti-corporate activists--have a better way to get many millions of less-privileged Indians onto the Internet? More
Yes we are in the digital age and fashion hasn’t been excluded from this shift. With Apple watches, Google glasses, Fitbits, and all sorts of other wearables of dubious fashionability, along with new digital printing technologies and an overarching awareness that the world is changing, the show and gala are likely to be wild. More
Energy & Green Tech Media & Marketing Society
The climate movement has gained what may be the ultimate celebrity spokesperson in Pope Francis. Marketers should take heed: the Pope has the ear of Millennials and other consumers who are willing to change their behavior and their purchasing to make a difference. More
Experts across the political spectrum profess to be mystified by the skyrocketing Trump campaign. Politico recently published a piece with predictions from 16 of them about how the straw-topped candidate's efforts will end. One who sounded on target was Mary Matalin, the longstanding Republican strategist, who professed her admiration for Trump's "authenticity." That's part of what I think has thrust this reality show into the forefront of American politics. More
When we were asked to participate in Omidyar’s “Future of Media in India” event, David Kirkpatrick and I both questioned what we could add on a topic that was pretty far from our own experience. In hindsight, we knew more than we gave ourselves credit for. The India market, it turns out, is not much different than that of the US, maybe just a couple of years behind. Publishers and journalists are eager to transition from print to digital, they are trying to figure out how to reach their readers in a mobile-first world, and they are struggling to find a sustainable business model to support their efforts. More
Women are everywhere. No surprise, right? They do, after all, make up 50 percent of the world’s population. Yet, everywhere we look, women are a topic of conversation. Michelle Obama’s outfit choices on a recent tour of Japan are proclaimed to break down female stereotypes. Sweaty, jiggling, and fabulous women exercising on our screens chant “This girl can.” A woman’s mob killing in Afghanistan sparks a global #JusticeForFarkhunda movement. The banning of "India’s Daughter," a documentary about the gang rape in Delhi, raises hackles across the globe. Meanwhile, Ellen Pao's lawsuit against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins sheds light on sexism in Silicon Valley, even if she lost. More
General Electric Senior Vice President Beth Comstock stopped by Techonomy's office recently to talk about corporate innovation. Besides overseeing all GE's sales and marketing activities, she's responsible for growth and market innovation. She rose through corporate communications to become GE's CMO, then ran sales and digital for NBC Universal before her current job. When we asked about her light bulb experiences, we didn't know that shortly after our meeting CEO Jeff Immelt would give her an additional job leading GE's $3 billion lighting business. We started by asking how someone with a marketing background got so interested in innovation. More
Analytics & Data Media & Marketing
For decades, data has promised to revolutionize business, allowing marketers to become more customer-centric, develop more personal campaigns, and create more efficient processes. In the early 1990s, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers predicted the impact of data and the Internet, outlining the end of mass marketing and the dawning of a “one-to-one” age. But this glorious future remains a fantasy. Instead, companies spend less time than ever interacting directly with customers. Rather than offering an easy means of communicating with customers, data has encouraged us to chase quick wins and marginal gains in revenue. More
Impact investment funds, initially created by foundations like Rockefeller, Gates, and the Omidyar Network, seek to convert money destined for pure philanthropy to more strategic and business-driven investments. The returns on these investments are more measurable than those on philanthropy. Even while aiming to achieve financial gains, they support solutions for some of the world’s most pressing challenges around sustainable agriculture, affordable housing, accessible healthcare, literacy, employment, clean energy, and financial inclusion. More
Media & Marketing Techonomy Events
Building a brand in today’s hyper-connected, consumer-driven era means two things. First,more than ever before, brands need to own their POV and stay focused. Second, your company has the ability to rise, commute, work, dine, drink and go to bed with your customer; never before has this intimacy been possible. What you do with that relationship determines success or failure. In this presentation at our Sept. 16 Techonomy Detroit conference, Constance DeCherney, head of the iCrossing Collaboratory, looks at some examples to see what it takes. More
What do you do as a manager when the conventional means of motivating your sales team—competitions, prizes, inspirational speeches—fall flat? How can you leverage technology to help rally and focus your team around company initiatives, product launches, and winning new business? LevelEleven CEO Bob Marsh set out to tackle these questions when he was at his former job as head of sales operations at consumer engagement platform HelloWorld. Before long, what began as an in-house project evolved into a promising product. “After about six months, we had signed up a dozen paying customers, including the Detroit Pistons and Comcast, so we knew we were on to something,” says Marsh. More
When we have important “life administration” decisions to make—getting a loan or a new health insurance plan—we often turn to people we know and trust. A Detroit startup called Stik is asking, “What if businesses could use the Internet to better harness the power of recommendations and benefit from the emerging ‘reputation economy?’” Stik’s end-to-end solution helps businesses grow through referrals, and lets consumers discover businesses they can trust using a new form of social advertising. More
I'm not sure why Amazon is the one who wants to own Twitch, but it must be part of the merchant's desire to broaden more fully into online media and become a real network of entertainment and content. This elucidating review of a Twitch viewing experience from Re/code underscores several things: the uniqueness of the platform's interface and viewing experience, the immaturity of many of its users, and the power of the brand among those testosterone-fueled boys and young men. It could be a dicey property for a would-be decorous part of the global media landscape to manage, but Bezos thought it was worth a billion dollars, so anybody who wants to know where media is going needs to be alert to it. More
The latest arms race in professional sports is taking place not on the field, but above it. Spurred in equal parts by technological advancement, swelling coffers, and growing competition from at-home screens that bring better-than-being-there experiences into living rooms without all the challenge (and expense) of attending a game in-person, professional and collegiate teams are racing to install bigger, brighter, sharper displays that make old-school videoboards look pedestrian by comparison. “We see the living room as our biggest competitor. Our job is to help the venue manager with fresh content,” said Al Kurtenbach, co-founder and chairman of Daktronics, one of the premier display makers in the world. More
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