Quick, what do Donald Trump, Crossfit, and FanExpo have in common?
No, it’s not a rugged devotion to protein, cool outfits, weird hair or comic book villains – although any of these would have been a good guess.
Actually, it’s that all of these have benefited, in a digital age, from the rise of tribes.
Once, when discussing our changing habits online, Mark Zuckerberg told his colleagues, “a squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.”
Continue reading “When a squirrel dies: The rapid decline of local news”
The music industry has been feeling the curse of digital communication technologies as a result of music streaming services such as Spotify (or even YouTube, which is a popular way of accessing music, with or without video). Streaming services pay very little – fractions of pennies, in fact, back to the musician when songs are played. And this year, the closure of HMV has shown us that there is no longer a market for physical recorded music. In fact, even the purchase of individual songs on iTunes has become less relevant as a result of streaming. In my private sector consulting work, I often coach independent musicians about how they might survive, and even thrive in a world where they cannot make money from their original product, and I think we can draw inspiration from this in the most unlikely of places: Tough Mudder – a fitness brand that is optimized for the digital age.
Continue reading “Never Gonna Give You Up: Creating a Musical Experience in a Digital Age”
It’s become such a regular turn of phrase, we don’t even think twice about using it:
Do you see it?
Continue reading “Words Matter, Or Let’s Stop Naturalizing Tech Development”