The Future of Media Videos

The future of media is in danger of becoming THE Agenda at the moment for various reasons – the biggest being that ultimately changes here effect virtually every other industry in one way or another. Probably for the 4th time… I think… I checked my inbox this morning to be greeted with another ‘have you seen this film – it’s scary!’ email. So I thought I should probably try and calm everyone down. If you haven’t seen them, here are three of the most circulated:

EPIC (certainly is in its assumptions)

Prometeus – The Media Revolution

The Day of the Long Tail

I am not about to waste time knocking these elaborate conclusions or the content creators – we should all engage with the future in my opinion. But, here are three things to remember the next time one of these comes knocking at the door.

1) Don’t be scared, fear is the weapon of ideological (not objective) futures.

2) Technology (and its ownership) does not make the future – people do.

3) The main trend you are witnessing is the use of videos as promotional vehicles.

Predicting the future

I have been procrastinating over a question asked by the wonderful Meredith Etherington-Smith, which she put to me some time ago.

Why? Because it is a very good question and it really hits the sweet spot right in the middle of this Industry:

Hi – Fascinating idea being a Futurist. What is the difference between predicting the future and predicting trends which are – if predicted far forward enough- predicting the shape and the content of the future?.

The nub of this issue is what is a trend? And what is the future?

My first response, which avoids both of these questions, is a futurist should be able to predict trends before they happen and that is the difference between a trend spotter and a futurist.

To attempt to clarify the first two questions, here is a start for now: Trends are not uniform and the distinction between drivers and outputs is important. Often change will produce outputs which counter the original trend. For example ‘the aging population’ is a longterm demographic driver, but the trend of the ‘new young’ – ‘Age is relative and I am as old as I feel’ – goes directly against this dynamic.

So yes, in a way, the future is a composite of all the trends that are out there, but the linearity of this is not given, it is very dangerous to read from A to B using trends.

I am going to have to leave it there for now because, to be honest, there’s a life’s work in this.

Thanks Meredith, a brilliant question and a fascinating area to talk about.