In today’s Wall Street Journal, Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University, and author of a new book, “Uninhibited, Robust, Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century,” wrote an op-ed article calling for a new media-industry business model that relies on government funding. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575324782605510168.html
Mr. Bollinger says, “The proliferation of communications outlets has fractured the base of advertising and readers [of what he calls “the U.S. press”]. He proposes that without government funding, journalists in the United States will not be able to compete with news agencies around the world, such as XinHua News, CCTV, BBC, and Al Jazeera. Mr. Bollinger, a lawyer, points to the U.S court system and how the government provides defense attorneys to defendants as an example of how government can play a paternalistic, unbiased role in society–presumably similar to the other news agencies he mentioned. For example, XinHua removed the words “Falun Gong” from its vocabulary, not because it had the potential to organize into a powerful political coalition, but because exposing citizens of the People’s Republic of China to a dangerous cult was not good for them.
While Mr. Bollinger is on a roll, he might consider proposing government funding of churches. Many churches have undoubtedly seen reductions in tithing and donations, similar to the reductions traditional media companies have experienced in advertising revenues. After all, Mr. Bollinger could argue, many other countries have strong ties between church and state. How can churches in the United States compete with churches in those countries?
Apparently, Mr. Bollinger hasn’t recently read George Orwell’s 1984. He also apparently has not visited China recently where he would have had to report to the local police station upon his arrival and would have had to set up a virtual private network to an internet service provider outside of China just to get basic information. He apparently has not lived in Mexico where, at least when I lived there, the nightly news anchorman delivered government messages as if he were reporting factual news. Mr. Bollinger apparently would also point to the Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck shows as examples of unbiased journalism, whose balanced reporting would certainly improve with government funding from a politically agnostic organization such as the Federal Communications Commission in the Executive Branch.
There is no doubt that traditional media companies, “the U.S. press” as Mr. Bollinger calls them, have been greatly damaged. According to Vocus, Inc, 293 local newspapers went out of business in 2009, alone. Should we lament the disappearance of local newspapers and ask the U.S. Federal Government to bail them out? I tried subscribing to the local paper, more than once. Each time I was so underwhelmed, I cancelled the subscription. I used to also receive those huge, 3-inch thick documents, called the Yellow Pages and White Pages. Should we ask the government to bail out this grand tradition, also? After all, there are probably thousands of nursing homes full of people who wouldn’t know how to find a local plumber if the facilities maintenance staff went on vacation for the next decade.
Do people no longer need plumbers, simply because they don’t receive the Yellow Pages book? Do people no longer care about what is happening in the world because they no longer subscribe to their local newspaper? Did the demand for news all of a sudden disappear after approximately 240 years, since Benjamin Franklin first started publishing newspapers in the U.S? People still want and will pay for information. The thing that has changed is how they pay and how they receive it.
I can find a local plumber faster than I can find an old Yellow Pages book. I can find the current status of events such as the Gulf oil spill faster than I can say the words. I also subscribe to the hard-copy Wall Street Journal. I look forward to taking it out of my mailbox every day. A friend of mine, the author the book, Rethink, looks forward to taking his copy of the New York Times out of his mailbox every day. Why? These members of “the U.S. press” provide a variety of high-quality information, whether it is today’s reporting of a recent meeting of the Federal Reserve presidents, or of Portugal’s challenges reducing their 9.4% public debt to GDP, or of how clothing fashions get started. My wife, who chided me for subscribing to the local paper, recently insisted that I renew the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> subscription—she loves it!
Wake up Mr. Bollinger. This is 2010. The New Economy and The New Media are soooo last century. Tim Berners-Lee and Jeff Bezos are now as ancient and as much a part of our everyday lives as Gutenburg’s printing press. Mr. Bollinger, you’d be a bit more credible if there were some evidence that you were participating in “the new media.” Where is your “Follow Me on Twitter” icon on your Columbia University President’s Page? Where is your President’s Blog? If it exists, you need to improve your SEO. Where is your Facebook fanpage? I’m sure Columbia University is a fine institution of higher learning, but your school’s website looks like it was literally developed last century. My local school district’s website is far more modern—it’s built on Microsoft’s Sharepoint collaboration platform.
Change happens… Don’t get run over by it–get ahead of it!
Jeffrey Hayzlett, former CMO of Kodak, Talks Tough on Business on The Actuation Zone Radio Show, hosted by Brett Clay
Jeffrey Hayzlett, celebrity judge on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice TV show, and author of the best-selling book, The Mirror Test, recently appeared on The Actuation Zone radio show, hosted by Brett Clay, author of the award-winning book, Selling Change. In the interview, Hayzlett asks the tough business questions and suggests the changes that executives and business owners need to be making, right now, to grow their businesses.
In an in-depth interview with Brett Clay, Jeffrey Hayzlett, business best-selling author — 800 CEO Read, Inc. Magazine, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal — talks about the changes he’s seeing in the marketing and business worlds, including the change from “broadcasting to narrowcasting,” the role of social media in marketing, and much more.
“To succeed in business in the 21st century, salespeople and executives must not only adapt to change, they must lead change,” says host Brett Clay. “I want to hear from people like Jeffrey Hayzlett who are making it happen instead of reacting as it happens to them.”
Jeffrey Hayzlett is a master of driving change and creating opportunity. “If there ever were a candidate for a company to be rendered irrelevant by change, it would be Kodak,” says Clay. “Yet, Kodak has not only survived, it has thrived. Jeff was there when it happened and played an instrumental role in Kodak’s evolution.”
In The Actuation Zone interview Hayzlett also shares the key concepts that have driven his book to be a best-seller, including asking tough business questions, the four E’s of customer relations in social media, the power of ones and zeros, and the powerful ‘118 rule’. He says, “Business owners, executives, marketers, and salespeople must be able to communicate their value in 118 seconds.” Hayzlett describes why and how in the interview.
Clay and Hayzlett also discuss how to make big changes and the concept of ‘conditions of satisfaction’. Hayzlett says, “Conditions of satisfaction is one of the most valuable concepts I’ve ever learned in life.”
Finally, Hayzlett suggests three changes people can make, right now, to grow their businesses. “It doesn’t matter whether you have 2, 27, or 27,000 people in your company,” says Hayzlett. “You need to make these changes, now, to survive and grow your business.”
To hear Jeffrey Hayzlett’s interview with Brett Clay, go to http://ActuationZone.com.
About The Actuation Zone Radio Show
Host, Brett Clay, author of the award-winning book Selling Change, named the Best Business Book of 2010 by the Independent Publisher Book Awards, discusses business trends and today’s hot issues with thought-leaders—authors, analysts, scholars, journalists, and practitioners—who are not just adapting, but are creating and harvesting new opportunities by leading change. The Actuation Zone helps you put change into motion to achieve your goals.
For more information about the show, visit www.ActuationZone.com.
About Jeffrey Hayzlett
Hailed a “Celebrity CMO” by Forbes Magazine and famous for his outspoken appearances on numerous television networks, Jeffrey Hayzlett is widely recognized as one of the most influential marketers of our time. As the former Chief Marketing Officer of the iconic Eastman Kodak Company, Hayzlett has been responsible for the company’s worldwide marketing operations including the design and execution of all marketing strategies, branding and corporate communications. With Hayzlett at the helm of Kodak’s marketing and business development initiatives, the company experienced record growth, unveiled revolutionary new products and has established a global brand as a leader in cutting-edge research and product development.
Brett Clay, author of the award-winning book Selling Change, recently attended Book Expo America 2010 in New York City, where he observed the waves of change pouring through the publishing industry. “Goodbye Gutenberg. Hello Tim Berners-Lee and Jeff Bezos. The book publishing industry, as we used to know it, will soon die. It will be replaced by the experience industry,” declares Brett Clay.
(Vocus/PRWEB ) June 22, 2010 — Brett Clay, author of Selling Change, recently attended Book Expo America 2010 in New York City, which was buzzing about the uncertain future of the book-publishing industry. One speaker, Richard Nash, proclaimed “The copyright is dead!” He reasoned that with one million books now being published per year there is essentially an infinite supply of content among a finite demand, due to humans’ limited ability to consume content. Therefore, applying simple supply-and-demand theory, the price of books, and hence the value of copyrights, would go to zero. It would seem that printing and shipping one million different new titles onto store shelves every year only to be purchased at a price of zero, would be neither practical, nor economical. So, how will those free books get on the shelves and who will pay for them?
Enter the ebook. ‘Printing’ a book in electronic form is simply a matter of posting a download link on a website, so users can view it on one of many devices, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iPad, and Barnes and Noble’s Nook. Ebooks solve the printing and shipping-cost problems, but they don’t solve the revenue problem of prices going from an average of, say, $15 down to $0. They also don’t solve the problem of readers being overwhelmed by content that couldn’t be consumed in thousands of lifetimes. Brett Clay, CEO of Change Leadership Group, anticipates the following emerging trends and changes in the book publishing industry.
Ninety-Nine Cent Title Tracks
Books will likely evolve like music albums. Albums used to contain a hit-single track and another dozen tracks to fill out the album. Albums sold for around $15. Then, iTunes enabled consumers to buy just the hit-single track for $0.99. Books are similar. Many people just want the condensed highlights and prefer not to wade through 200 pages of verbiage written simply to fill out the book. How soon will 20 to 50-page ebooks priced at $0.99 be the norm?
Subscriptions
Another model will be subscriptions whereby readers gain access to entire collections of books for a monthly recurring cost. Home movie watchers are now accustomed to the model pioneered by Netflix. Consumers pay a fixed monthly fee, currently $8.99, to view as many movies as they like. Public libraries, according to a panel discussion at Book Expo America 2010, are starting to offer access to their collections of ebooks, as well. Library patrons need only their library card to log on to the library’s website and check-out all the ebooks they can read.
Book Reviews
With one million books published every year, the question becomes, which ones to read? Enter the new occupation of the professional book reader. Book consumers will need to rely on recommendations from websites that not only aggregate reader book reviews, but, also employ professional readers who have well-informed perspectives and apply consistent criteria. In addition, publishing awards, such as the Independent Publisher Book Awards, which sort through thousands of books each year, will become valuable filters of high-quality content.
Enhanced Content
In several years, the number of ebooks sold is expected to exceed the number of printed books sold. “The instant this crossover occurs will be the instant text-based ebooks become undifferentiated commodities—simply pages of letters arranged in different order,” says Brett Clay. But, technology will also enable opportunities for premium-priced content. Electronic books with multimedia content and interactive content, collectively called ‘enhanced content’, will deliver amazing user experiences and value, blurring the lines between books, movies, music, games, and elearning. Imagine cookbooks that not only list recipes, but tell and show the reader how to cook them.
Eastman Kodak provides a case study of what could happen to publishers. In an upcoming segment of The Actuation Zone radio show, Brett Clay talked with Jeffrey Hayzlett, the former chief marketing officer of Kodak. Not only did Jeffrey Hayzlett participate in Kodak’s evolution, but he is also participating in the publishing evolution as an author. His recently published book, The Mirror Test, has become a Wall Street Journal best seller.
Jeffrey Hayzlett told Brett Clay, “Kodak used to deliver film. Now, we deliver bits. But film and bits are just the vehicles. What Kodak has always delivered is the experience—the Kodak Moment. The value is in the experience. Film is free. Bits are free. And books will be free. But, people will always pay for the experience. As the technology for delivering the Kodak Moment evolved, we evolved with it. But, we never forgot that our real product was the Kodak Moment. Similarly, today’s authors and publishers need to evolve with the technology—and never forget they are in the experience business.”
“The book is dead! Long live the experience!” says Brett Clay.
About the Author
Brett Clay is the author of the award-winning book, Selling Change, named the best business book of 2010 by the Independent Publisher Book Awards. A veteran of two decades in international sales and marketing management, he is the founder and CEO of the innovative Change Leadership Group, a sales training and marketing consulting and leadership development firm that helps companies harness the power of change to create high value and grow their businesses.
For more information about the book, Selling Change, or Brett Clay, visit www.SellingChange.com.
Change Creates Opportunity
Today, I was on Larry Whitler’s radio show on WOCA-AM in Ocala, Florida. Larry was talking about all of the change that has happened, and continues to happen, in the radio industry. He said many years ago music was on AM. Then, FM came along and took away music, threatening the survival of AM radio stations. So, AM had to reinvent itself as talk-radio. Today, talk-radio listeners are moving from AM to the Internet. So, talk-radio shows must change, again, by embracing podcasting and social media. I mentioned that change brings opportunity—in this case for a local AM radio station to expand its audience to the national, and even global, audience on the Internet. This is a perfect example of the power of being a change leader, instead of a change follower. By embracing change and leading it, you can grow your business more than you might have imagined.
Is a Rose by Any Other Name Still a Rose?
Here’s another point that came up in our discussion. Larry made the suggestion that one needs to be cognizant of both the past and current situations when making a change. He gave an example that radio commercials have a label such as “CART 1234”. So, when he needs to play the commercial for, say, the local auto dealer, he plays “CART 1234”. He said, “Do you know why commercials have that label? That used to be the way we identified the tape cartridge! Of course, we don’t have cartridges anymore, but we still use the label.” This raises a great point. Psychologists say that before we can make a change, we must emotionally let go of the status quote and let it die in our minds. Then, we will be able to embrace the birth of the new situation. But, in this case, people in the radio industry made the changes easier to accept–by holding on to a certain vision of the present while changing the underlying mechanism. Essentially, they changed without having to experience the emotional death of the status quo.
That is a very powerful concept! You don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water when making a change. Hold on to your baby, which can be a metaphor for your ideals, the value you provide to customers, etc—and then simply change the bath water. As Jim Blasingame says, you can be in love with what you do, just not how you do it.
Three Action Ideas
Here are four quick ideas on how you can apply this concept to be a more effective change leader:
- Retain key symbols: When painting the vision of the new situation, retain key symbols of the present. This will enable your client to see the situation, not as a radical departure toward a strange, unknown destination, but rather, as the same—just better.
- Use “Current-Plus”: Consider giving the project or change idea a name that is “Current-Plus”. For example, let’s say you sell accounting systems and your client refers to their system as “ACS”, which stands for “Acme accounting system”. Then, you could call the proposed system, “ACS Plus”.
- Hold on to cherished values: Identify the values that your client holds dear—and then encourage your client to hold on to them. Comfort your client by reassuring him/her the change does not threaten what s/he values most. Rather, it enhances your client’s ability to retain them.
- Change creates opportunities: Identify the opportunities that are created by making the change and paint a vivid picture of those opportunities for your client. For example, by embracing the Internet, local AM talk-radio shows can expand far beyond their existing local audience.
So, is a rose by any other name still a rose? In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet Capulet, uses this line to say that Romeo Montague is still the Romeo she loves, even if his name is “Montague”. As change leaders, we can encourage our clients to hold on to their “rose” at the same time that we encourage them to accept a tulip as their new “rose”. They can change—without changing!
Video Blog
This morning I was on a radio show and the host asked me, “What do you mean by change?”
She said, “Everyone talks about change these days. Are you saying the world is changing? Are you saying I have to change as a salesperson? Are you saying my customers have to change?”
The answers are “Yes”, “Yes”, and “Yes”. Read more
New Year’s Resolution—Be a Change Agent!
My resolution for this year—for this decade—is to be a change agent.
To to this, I will review the six attitudes of a change leader, everyday, and take one action that day to improve my change temperament.
The Six Attitudes of a Change Leader:
In the introduction to Selling Change, I cite the trend away from vertical integration as one of the forces changing the business landscape. I also coined the term “The Great Reboot of 2009″ to refer to the trend of companies overhauling their businesses, setting them on entirely new courses.
Reading recent business headlines, it is clear that companies, and even industries, will be undergoing significant changes for years to come. However, the data is mixed regarding a discernible trend toward vertical or virtual integration.
Vertical Integration
Examples of Vertical Integration
Vertical integration is the notion of companies acquiring key suppliers and customers in order to control the entire supply chain in an industry segment. Due to the ailing financial health of many companies, entire industries are rapidly consolidating into a few companies (see “More Companies Prone to Go Vertical“, Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2009). Read more
I recently ran across a couple of comments about “secrets” of success.
One is from Mark Sanborn’s blog (best selling author of The Fred Factor).
Another is from Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling.
By the way, if you are one of the few people that don’t own both of these books, I highly recommend you add them to your library.
There Are No Secrets
Both authors note there is no such thing as a “secret” to success. In fact, thanks to Google, Microsoft, and other search engines, as well as communities such as Wikipedia, there is really no such thing as a secret, period. The word “secret” might as well be removed from the next version of…let’s see, what is the most important dictionary these days?…Dictionary.com. Read more
