Valley PR Blog

Yesterday the world changed…now it’s your turn

By Len Gutman on March 15th, 2010 In Marketing

Are you ready for the digital age? Well, if you’re not too bad because it’s already here.

A business acquaintance recently loaned me the book Futuretainment. The author, Mike Walsh, is a leading authority on the digital future and CEO of the innovation research agency Tomorrow. The book is a beautiful hardcover with short bursts of words surrounded by extraordinary visuals (sort of like the digital age, huh?). It’s an easy read — I finished it in a few hours — but it leaves a lasting impression.

In a nutshell, the book is about the end of traditional media but not in a woe is us newspapers are dead sort of way. Rather, it is chock full of wonderful explanations and tidbits of information that makes the reader excited about what’s next. The thesis, if you will, is that the future is about how we connect with information and that the “how” is consumer driven not pushed by corporate media entities.

Walsh writes that his book is about what’s next. True to form, he takes the reader on a journey from where we are now to where we’ll be in the not too distant future — and in some cases where countries outside the U.S. have already gotten to before us.

I can’t do justice to this book in a simple blog post. Suffice it to say not a chapter went by without leaving me with a nugget worthy of quoting. Here are some gems:

• Audience Networks are human based; rather than relying on satellites or transmitter towers, consumers access content via links with other consumers.
• All of our devices — our mobile phones, cameras, toys and media players — will become increasingly aware of where we are. Soon geographical location, rather than broadcast schedules, will trigger entertainment experiences.
• The pulse of the digital revolution is change.
• In the future, entertainment platforms will have a memory. Whether we are watching a movie or reading an eBook — our devices will record and learn from our actions, allowing us to easily shift our media consumption to whatever screens are available to us at the time.
• The future of entertainment is not advertising — the future of advertising is entertainment.

Great book full of insight. I’m wondering though…when will it be available in eBook format?

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