The future of media and the relevance of Content

James Woudhuysen opened the Content, Customers & Communities in the Media Landscape conference, held at London’s Digital Catapult Centre, Dec 2014.

Summary:  James asks the audience to consider what content creators need to be thinking about in order for the newness of the internet and mobile technology to take off in truly ground-breaking directions. Deep thinking about content will mean challenging social as well as technical barriers. The current culture of ‘good enough’ and risk aversion should be challenged and replaced with an emphasis towards people and making a real difference to people’s lives. High ambition and the desire for great content is the only sure way that content creators will capture the newness of the medium.

*************

As a forecaster, James draws on his extensive knowledge of developments in innovation and design to appraise current web and mobile content development. Content creators need to be aware of the context and culture that they are operating in, and James outlines some of the numerous barriers that have emerged to hamper the development of good content creation:

• The single biggest challenge is the current aversion to risk taking. ‘Safety first’ is resulting in the acceptance that ‘minimum disruption’ should be the norm, and ‘good enough’ rather than ‘great’ content the ambition;
• Along with this, there are a host of new buzz-words attesting to the idea that we are witnessing true novelty – ‘smart’, ‘disruption’, ‘omni-channel’, ‘tech-savvy millenials’;
• A number of concepts or myths are also being pedalled that potentially overwhelm our ability to see clearly – real life is turned upside down when people become secondary to the network and the ‘internet of things’; the notion that the customer is king curtails the greater imagination of those whose expertise can take us beyond the current limited trend; Artificial Intelligence and complacent claims of what technology can currently do, distracts from effort on the significant technical barriers blocking more fundamental change;
• A further problem, particularly pronounced in Europe and America, is the sclerotic level of Research and Development funding – a high percentage of GDP is squirrelled away in banks rather than being invested in long term, ground-breaking projects.

James asks his audience to reflect upon and challenge the current barriers he raises and turn their attention to thinking about people; the context in which they live and work, how they spend their recreational time, what real world challenges each context provides and what would make a real difference to people in these different aspects of their lives. In the home, for example, heating, cooking and cleaning are inescapable activities – what does this mean for integration and application development… and how does limited space impact on computer design, space and location within a property. Demography, and our success in living longer, should make new forms of healthcare and mobility a priority. International collaboration challenges the way we now need to meet, talk, discuss and visualise data. It also demands that we find ways to make our human qualities, such as emotions and expression, central to new methods of communication.

To conclude, James asks content creators to champion the need for free expression and to trust those that consume their content thus affording them the intelligence to discriminate and to discern… and to run with and use the content as they wish.  And in summary, James asserts that risk-taking, ambition, trust in people and ‘great’ content should be our guides.