[MUSIC] In every MOOC, we will be featuring some of the greatest thought leaders in social and digital marketing today. And I can't think of a better person to be our first speaker, than Judy Franks. Professor Franks is both a colleague of mine and a friend. Judy, what led you to write the book, Media: From Chaos to Clarity? >> Randy, that's a really interesting question. At the beginning of this millennium, marketers were asking me what in the world should I do about digital media and social media? It was almost as if the sky was falling. And when you looked at the headlines that were in the trade press, the media themselves were actually adding fuel to this fire. Because we would see headlines, that created a tension, but not necessarily any truth. So we would see things like, old media's going to be destroyed by new media. Or throw everything out that you know and start over again. And my favorite one was the media ecosystem has turned into chaos. And, so what wound up happening is I took a step back and thought, we need to do a better job of removing chaos and providing some clarity to what was really going on. Because I didn't think it was a doom and gloom situation at all. In fact when you think about what chaos means, chaos can either mean total disarray or it can mean necessary to thrive. It depends upon your point of view. Because when you look at chaos in nature, chaos is what helps us grow and become stronger. In fact, if we stay in equilibrium for too long, that's when we're in trouble. We come fat, slow, lazy and we'll wind up getting destroyed by something else. So in essence, what I wanted to do was create a simple explanation for what was going on in the media ecosystem and why marketers felt like they were being thrown into chaos. And quite simply, the media ecosystem was shifting from a Newtonian machine, where if you understood the role of each medium in the mix and you understood the laws of media effects, you could go about your business and develop a high value returning media plan. But what happened was that the machines started to break down, and all of a sudden we had a much more relative and flexible universal possibility. So in essence we're shifting from what I call Newton to Einstein, and if understand quiet simply those principles, that are driving the flexibility in the media ecosystem, we can actually thrive. >> Judy, you talk about the media moving from old school Newton thinking to the new truths. How has that changed your view of media? >> Well, in essence, I think there are five major forces that are taking place in the media ecosystem. And I like to call them five global truths that make sense of a messy media world. And I go into quite a bit of detail about each of these five forces in my book, and will be revisiting them in mook four. But let me give you some highlights on how the media system has changed. Under old school Newton thinking, the media were highly certain, and what I mean by that, is that each particular medium had a very specific function and utility with very limited overlap. Because of that, the second behavior under old school was that audiences were highly selective meaning that if they were heavy users of one medium, they tended to be lighter users of another. So it forced marketers to make choices. The third observation was that media was highly linear. And what I mean by that is, you could put content on a media platform and it would travel from point A to point B with limited disruption. Because of that, the medium themselves were products and they functioned based upon their technology and their functional distribution patterns. Which ultimately meant that when you look at the economics of the media business, the fifth key force under old scroll was that the media themselves could aggregate audiences because audiences would make choices. I'm going to watch television. Or I'm going spend time online. Not necessarily by content. Now this has dramatically shifted under the new five global true, so let's take a look at each one of those in general, the first being convergence. What we're seeing now is that media are coming together. They're really becoming strikingly similar, and when you think about it once you digitize content, media can go on any screen interface, and most media now come with a screen. So what would separate is now very much the same, which leads us to second global truth, which is Symbiosis. Audiences are no longer making either or choices, rather they're using median combination to create richer and more engaging experiences. Now perhaps the most interesting truth is one around circuits. Once you digitize content, what that means is if you have an engaged audience member, they can take content and literally displace it and send it along another media circuit. So in essence what's happened, is your audience has shifted from a recipient of marketing messaging to an accelerant, they're the most powerful media channel that we now have in this new media world. Which means that the media themselves can no longer function by shared technology and distribution strength. But rather media need to become brands, and they need to learn to brand management which is pretty fascinating, which ultimately then leads to a shift in media economics. Platforms and distribution no longer make money for media companies, but rather engaging content does. Because without engaging content, you can't inspire a consumer to share and accelerate that message. And that's ultimately what we wanna do. So the irony is,consumers are having a much easier time adapting to chaos and marketers are falling far behind. Because when you about a classic diffusion of innovation curve we're seeing that consumers are actually moving through new technologies before media companies can even figure out the business model around it. And then marketers think they're innovating, well I'm going to try this, but they are innovating at a time where their customers are already on to the next best thing. So we need to fix that problem. >> So why are marketers having so much trouble with this new media ecosystem? >> Well, Randy, that's a great question. I think that there are three issues that we have to address and that we will address throughout this mooc. >> Mm-hm. >> The first one being that many marketers still speak an analog language. So, they're still hung up in that Newtonian world. And what they're trying to do is apply analog thinking to new digital media. And a classic example is Facebook. Now that Facebook has mass, mass audiences on the platform, too many marketers are treating Facebook like a broadcaster. And they're applying the old rules of broadcast television to a very, very different platform. So again, what we have to do is we need to teach marketers a new language to help them adapt to this new media world. The second issue, frankly, is that media themselves are trapped in silos. So, while the first global truth is all about convergence, we still like to call magazines magazines, and television television, and you know computers the second screen, and mobile the third screen. And when the reality is, once you get into media brands, they leak out of these silos. And as marketers, we're not ready for that, which leads me ultimately to the third problem that we have. And this is a bit ironic, coming from a faculty member of Northwestern who teaches media. I think media receive way too much attention in this news story. Because frankly all media are, are conduit and tools that engaged audiences and communities use to accelerate content that is important and meaningful to them. >> Those are great insights. Thank you so much. >> Thanks, Randy. >> And Judy will be joining us in mook four to examine the media in more detail. Meanwhile, I want to encourage our participants to check out Media from Chaos to Clarity, which can be found in our social marketing library, and to follow Judy Frays on Twitter. Hopefully these powerful truths, the five global truths will help each of you navigate the messy media world. Thanks again Judy. >> Thanks for having me Randy. [MUSIC]
